Chapter 2
“Tell me this is a joke.” Levi Rourke ran a hand through his already disheveled hair.
His father held his arms up as if to say, “Ta-da!” and spun slowly, noting the drop cloths covering the furniture and the thin, see-through tarps not at all concealing a couple walls stripped down to the studs.
“Son…” Denny Rourke paused and crossed his arms. “I am a pest-control specialist by trade. Termites are nothing to joke about. I’m sure you can rent a room at the inn. That’s where your brother and Emma are staying.”
Levi sighed. He was happy Matteo and Emma were back together after all these years, but the last place Levi wanted to live indefinitely was an inn.
“Come on,” his father said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You don’t want to live with your old man and his girl anyway, do ya?”
Levi swallowed. He was happy for his father too. Somewhere deep down he knew he was. But despite having lost his mom almost a decade ago, it still hurt to see his dad move on, even if logically he knew it was ridiculous to feel that way.
Levi cleared his throat. “No,” he admitted.
“I suppose I don’t. It was only going to be a week or two, anyway.
Until I find something permanent. I can’t do the inn, Dad.
I’ve got everything I own in my truck out there…
” Levi pointed absently toward the front of the house.
“I need to sort it all out.” He needed to sort his life out.
He glanced around his childhood home that was quite literally in ruins and tried to reason with himself that he could live like this for a few days. The fumes weren’t that bad.
To prove it to himself, Levi lowered his dust mask, inhaled a deep breath, and immediately began to cough.
“Shit,” he muttered, sliding the mask back over his mouth and nose. “I don’t suppose you have a laptop available for me to check on current Summertown real estate? Pretty sure mine is buried somewhere in my car.”
Despite the mask on his father’s face, Levi could tell the older man was sighing by the droop of his shoulders.
“Come on over to Tilly’s. I’ve got the whole Sunday paper spread out on the kitchen table.
We’ll flip right to the real estate section and find you what you need.
” Denny Rourke squeezed his son’s shoulder again.
“I know you weren’t planning to come back home, but I’m still glad you’re here, Son. ”
If his father was smiling along with his comment, he wasn’t doing it with his eyes.
Sure, the guy might be happy Levi was home, but everyone knew—meaning every resident in Summertown along with anyone else who followed the world of college sports—that Levi wasn’t simply back for a prolonged visit.
He’d been suspended from his position as head football coach for at least a year, and thanks to legal fees and zero income, he needed a job and a place to crash.
Thanks to his buddy who was now enjoying his honeymoon, Levi had the job taken care of.
But he’d stupidly thought he could just crash at home until something better came along.
He followed his father out of the currently fumigating and partially gutted house and across the lawn to the home next door, pulling his mask off as soon as he hit the fresh summer air.
Mrs. Higginson’s home. His father’s girlfriend’s home.
Tilly, the name Matteo had warned he’d better use to greet her since they were no longer children who referred to people of their parents’ generation as if they were all classroom teachers at Summertown Elementary.
Before he had a chance to try out the name under his breath, the screen door flew open, and out flew the petite and spritely woman, arms spread wide.
“Levi! You’re home! This is a wonderful surprise!”
He let out a nervous laugh because they all knew him showing up was no surprise.
The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, but that didn’t keep her from throwing her arms around him and enveloping him in a surprisingly strong bear hug.
“Mrs. Higginson!” They were the only words he could produce in the moment.
She pushed herself back and playfully swatted him across the arm.
“Oh, come on now. Your father and I have been together for a little over a year now. You can call me Tilly.”
Levi’s eyes widened.
Over a year now? He’d been gone long enough for his father to not only start dating their neighbor but to have already celebrated an anniversary?
“Wow,” was all he could muster. “Guess I’ve missed a lot. I’m, uh, sorry I wasn’t able to come home after last summer’s tornado to help clean up.” He cleared his throat. “Or for your back surgery, Dad.”
His father waved him off. “You’re a busy man.”
“Aww,” Tilly added, lightly swatting him again. “You can’t help being the world-famous football coach. Your father always talks about you being in such high demand. Says rival universities are always trying to poach you.”
“Till…” Denny Rourke called from over Levi’s shoulder, a note of caution in his tone.
Tilly’s smile fell, which meant she’d caught on immediately.
“Right,” she continued, answering an unasked question.
“Shame what happened at that playoff game. We all have slumps, right? Life can’t be one big, ole winning streak.
” She winced and glanced back at Levi’s father, obviously looking for an assist. Levi couldn’t blame her.
He hadn’t exactly told his father the whole story, but the man had surely seen enough of the fallout on TV to get the gist.
The referee made a bad call. Levi called him on the bad call. The ref growled something only Levi could hear, and Levi decked him.
Surprise! He was back in Summertown after a football coaching career that kept on climbing, reaching for the summit, until his harness snapped and Levi hit the ground with an unceremonious thud.
No, life was not one big winning streak. Levi had known that since he was in college. The game had been the one place, though, where everything felt right. Until now.
He sighed and let his father and Tilly lead him into the house where he’d peruse the real estate section of the newspaper like it was 1995.
As soon as he stepped foot in the kitchen, though, Levi saw Denny Rourke’s boxer briefs along with Mrs. Higginson’s bras and panties hanging over a wooden drying rack—right beside the kitchen table.
“You know what?” Levi began. “It’s a nice day. It’s been a while since I’ve been home. I think I’m just gonna walk around town and—uh—see what I see. People still use For Rent signs, right? There’s gotta be something.”
After a beat of silence, Denny and Tilly burst into laughter.
“Oh, Den!” Tilly managed while wheezing for breath. “I was so excited to see Levi that I forgot to clean up!”
Levi slapped a hand over his eyes. It didn’t matter that he was a grown man in his thirties or that he was no stranger to a woman’s undergarments.
He’d never be mature enough to handle this.
Even if it was only laundry. But the laundry alluded to other things, and he was not in the right headspace to imagine… other things.
Oh god. Trying not to imagine other things only made him imagine other things.
He spun on his heel, eyes still covered, and felt his way back toward the door.
“Come on, Son!” his father called after him, still laughing. “You don’t have to leave!”
“I’ll call you later after I find a place!” Levi called back, dropping his hand a fraction of a second too late so that his face greeted the front doorframe with a smack.
“Shit!” he hissed, but kept moving even as the spot beneath his right eye began to throb. He thought he heard his father or Tilly ask if he was okay, but he didn’t wait to make sure.
To use a sports metaphor other than football, the termites were definitely strike one, and his father and his girlfriend’s mixed unmentionables were strike two.
He’d venture to guess that a doorframe to the face counted as strike three, which meant he’d been in town for less than an hour so far and had already struck out.
It was time to turn this game around.
***
He felt like an asshole for what he was about to do, but Levi had no choice.
So he pulled out his phone as he began walking toward town past trimmed topiaries and other lawn art that included hubcaps painted to look like daisies or calla lilies.
He did a double take when he caught sight of a whole bunch of hubcaps painted and fashioned to look like a topiary of a teacup poodle.
For the second year in a row, Summertown had been the victor in the Twin Town Garden Fest, besting their rival, Middlebrook, with their combination of living and inanimate gardens.
If it went to voicemail, he would not leave a message. But if someone happened to pick up…
“Five-Oh-One! What is up, my friend? Didn’t I just see you?” His buddy Tommy Crawford chuckled on the other end.
Despite his state of affairs, Levi always laughed at Tommy’s nickname for him.
“Why are you answering your phone on your honeymoon?” Levi asked.
“Why are you calling me while I’m on my honeymoon?” Tommy countered. “By the way, we’re in a freaking cabana right now. Someone comes by every twenty minutes to check if we need more drinks. I don’t think I’m ever coming home.”
Levi groaned. “I’m sorry to bother you. I really am, but…I’m desperate. I mean, I’m heading to town now to see if anyone’s got an apartment to rent, but I just have this feeling based on the shit hour I’ve had back in town that I’m going to be shit out of luck once I get to the square.”
“I’ll be off in a second, Babe,” he heard Tommy say, his voice slightly further away. “I’ll head outside so you don’t need to listen to us, but it’s the Bat Signal, and I have no choice but to answer.”
Levi wondered if this was enough of an emergency to interrupt Tommy and Juliana before they’d barely had a chance to get out of town, but it was too late now. The damage was already done.
“Right,” Tommy continued, addressing Levi now. “Where were we?”