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Probably just bats smacking into the glass, I think, even though I’ve never heard of that happening before. Or bugs or something. I did have the light on.
Finally, I’m perched on the edge of my bed. I take a deep breath. I grab the curtain.
And I look out the window.
Levi Loveless is standing on the ground below, looking up at me, tossing a pebble up and down in his hand.
My pulse keeps racing for entirely different reasons, and I slide the window open.
“Are you throwing rocks at my window?” I hiss, because my parents are asleep across the hall. Just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean I want to wake them up and explain the situation.
“They’re small,” Levi says from below.
“My parents are asleep.”
“I thought you were grown,” he teases.
“Is that why you’re throwing rocks at my window instead of texting me like a normal person?” I whisper. “I know you’ve got a phone, Levi.”
He’s laughing as he pulls his phone from his pocket and flips it open.
I still can’t believe the man has a flip phone.
Levi: Come downstairs.
Me: Who is this?“It’s me,” he says, his voice hushed, still laughing. “Please?”
I bite my lip, trying not to laugh out loud as I put my phone in my pocket.
I like this side of Levi. It’s a side I’ve only ever seen glimpses of before in the past two weeks — sweet, slightly goofy, teasing and funny, different from the serious, quiet man I thought he was. It’s a strange revelation, but a good one, even if I wish I liked it less.
“One minute,” I tell him, and pull back from the window.
I shut it. I pull the curtains closed.
I wonder what I’m doing and why on earth Levi has shown up beneath my bedroom window at twelve-thirty in the morning. I wish that the sight of him down there had made me feel differently, that I was indifferent and vaguely curious instead of suddenly buzzing and feeling like I’m being lifted aloft by several large birds.
I tiptoe down the stairs and through the living room, still wondering. I haven’t heard from him at all since we ate pizza in the back of his truck two nights ago, and I wish that didn’t bother me. I wish I thought less about him sitting there, as night fell, laughing and showing me his cell phone or telling me that he’s an alien.
I wish I thought less about him, period.
When I get outside, Levi’s leaning against his truck, his shoulder-length hair out of its usual knot.
I’m not sure I remember seeing him with his hair down before. He looks different. Relaxed. Like himself.
“I named the dog,” he says as I walk up to him.
I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but that wasn’t it.
“You do know that the last time a man came to my window, I called my brother to get rid of him,” I say. “I’m sure he told you about that.”
“He certainly did,” Levi said. “And if I were in my right mind it might have deterred me.”
“You’re in your wrong mind, then?” I ask, tilting my head slightly, keeping my voice down.
He glances at my still-lit window, then looks back at me.
“You didn’t ask what I named the dog,” he says.
“What did you name the dog?”
“Hedwig.”
“Huh,” I say slowly, considering the name. “Hedwig? Like that, with the W sound and not the V?”
“The V sounded too harsh. I know it’s correct, but it doesn’t sound right. Not for her.”
We lock eyes. There are no streetlights here and there’s not much of a moon, so it’s nearly dark and I can only see the highlights of Levi: the ripples of his hair, the line of his nose, the curve of his cheekbones.
He’s beautiful. It’s a word that doesn’t get applied very often to six-foot-something lumberjack types, but it should be because it’s true. Levi’s beautiful in the moonlight and it makes my heart trip over itself, the soles of my feet tingle.
“Did you come here at twelve-thirty in the morning to tell me you named your dog?” I ask.
Levi smiles, holds out one hand. I step forward and take it, his skin warm and he enfolds my fingers in his.
“No,” he says. “I came here to say that I think you should come back to my place for a nightcap.”
My heart twists, flutters. We’re now standing toe to toe and I’m looking up at him, my hand in his.
I wonder, sincerely, if I’m dreaming. I decide that if I am, I’d prefer to stay asleep.
“At half-past twelve?”
“It’s night, isn’t it?”
I want to. I want to say yes. I want to let Levi take me home and kiss me again and probably do other stuff, because even though it’s old-fashioned, I know what someone says when they mean nightcap.
Instead, I say nothing, my voice stuck in my throat.
