“The tux is perfect,” another associate told him. “You were an easy fit.” He looked at Tucker. “You, on the other hand, were a challenge.” Tuck was six foot three and over two hundred pounds, with massive shoulders. “You can take it off,” he said to Levi. “I’ll get it bagged up for you.”
Levi bolted into the spacious changing room and began to disrobe. This had already taken more than an hour.
He handed the garments out to the sales associate who took them. Levi emerged in dress pants and shirt and tapped his fingers on the counter as the guy took his time hanging the tux in a garment bag.
“You all look fabulous,” the sales guy told them. “It’s going to be a beautiful wedding.”
“I’m going for a manicure after this,” Jacob said.
Levi gave him a look. “A manicure?”
“Tara wants my hands to look good. The photographer is gonna take pictures of our hands with our rings on.”
“Tell her to stop stepping on your dick,” Luke advised him.
“I’m afraid to talk to her. She’s wound super tight right now.”
Christ, was this all worth it? Levi shook his head. Finally he was done. He grabbed the garment bag. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow night,” he said. “Six o’clock, right?”
“Right. First the rehearsal, then dinner right after.”
“Great.”
He legged it out of the shop just off Michigan Avenue, nearly sprinting the ten blocks to the office in the heat. He had a meeting at one thirty he didn’t want to be late for.
He kept thinking about the story Sloane had told him about her mom. And how she’d had to take over looking after her brother and sister. That was a lot for a fourteen-year-old kid. That was the age Colin was, who was slouching around saying, “There’s this girl…” and walking dogs to make a little money. He imagined Sloane as a fourteen-year-old, all serious and responsible. Imagined her moving to a new school where she knew no one at that age. She’d probably needed a mom then, but she was the one looking after everyone else. Probably devastated and hurt by her mom’s disappearance. Whether something had happened to her or she’d chosen to leave her family—which really fucking sucked—whatever the reason, having your mother desert you would be pretty painful. And giving up a dog—fuck! That really sucked.
Thinking about it gave him a weird ache in his gut.
He carried his garment bag into the building, sweating like a cold beer bottle in the sun, and headed to his office. Crap, he was about to be late.
He ran into Sloane coming down the hall, on her way to a meeting room. Man, just seeing her made him happy. She looked, as usual, gorgeous, wearing a sleeveless blue dress and a pair of strappy sandals.
She eyed the bag. “Shopping?”
“No. This is my tux for the wedding. Had to have a last fitting and pick it up today.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice near her ear. “You’ll get to see me wearing it on Saturday.”
“I’m so excited,” she said in a dry voice.
“And you get to take it off me on Saturday.” He winked as he continued down the hall while she walked the other way, enjoying her little huff of shocked laughter.
He was the last one to arrive at the meeting, although he was only two minutes late, and for once nobody busted his balls about it. He slid into a chair as Mason started talking to the communications guys from Wolfgang Black Brewery, one of Verhoeven’s new craft breweries, about some of the ideas they’d been working on.
Levi quickly took in their doubtful expressions.
“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “That’s not what our competitors are doing.”
“Well, sure,” Mason said. “That’s the idea. You want to stand out from the competition.”
As the discussion moved along, Levi felt uncomfortable with some of the comments Jeff and Rudy made about Verhoeven. Criticizing their “big beer” mentality. He and Mason exchanged glances.
“Maybe we could combine those two ideas,” Jeff said.
Fuck, if Levi had a dollar for every time he’d heard that, he’d be retired and living on the Riviera. Okay, slight exaggeration, but still. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he and Scott explained why that wouldn’t work.
Levi started asking questions. When he wasn’t sure why the client was rejecting everything, he found a sense of curiosity usually helped. He eventually teased out of them a better feel for what they were looking for, but by the time the