Page 1 of Heartbreak Hero

April…

The club was crowded, and Levi Huxley pushed his way through a group of people blocking the bar.

It was Friday night in downtown San Francisco, and just about every young adult in the city was out and about. If not in this club, then surely in the others lining the next several blocks.

It was like finding Sara in a fucking haystack.

He’d been at two other clubs in the past few hours. More thumping music than he ever wanted to experience again.

Levi stepped closer to the bar; it was three deep in people, so he was going to be there a while. Not that he would order any alcohol, but he wouldn’t mind a sparkling water.

A woman bumped into him, and he steadied her with a hand to her elbow. She paused and glanced up. Her eyes widened and she gave him a winning smile.

Levi withdrew his hand and turned back to the bar. Seeming to get the hint that he wasn’t interested, the woman slid through the crowd.

He wasn’t a party person nor a people person; he knew it, and everyone who knew him knew it. But he had promised Lily and Max that he would do everything in his power to find Sara and try and coax her to come home.

It wasn’t only her friends who wanted Sara home, but her family as well.

Levi didn’t understand their pain.

He wasn’t in contact with his own family very much. They might have been blood, but they had judged and found him wanting. He didn’t go home very often, and when he did, things were strained.

It didn’t matter. He felt closer to Max, William, and Shane than he did to his younger brothers. William’s wife, Michelle, and Max’s girlfriend, Lily, were like his sisters. They doted on him and he let them. In hindsight, that probably did make him a people person.

Levi stepped back to let the man ahead of him walk by carrying drinks. Moving back into place, Levi searched the room. There were numerous dark-haired and blond-haired women, but Levi was only interested in one particular brunette.

This club might be a bust, but he didn’t think so.

Three of the last known pings on Sara’s cell phone had been at this club and two others down the street.

Then two weeks ago, Sara’s phone stopped sending a signal. Lily hadn’t heard from Sara in that period and was worried sick.

Levi would bet money he’d get lucky one night and find Sara here or there.

“What’ll you have?”

“Seltzer water,” Levi told the perky-looking bartender. She snapped him a quick smile and placed a glass on the bar before filling it to the brim.

“Fifteen,” she said.

Levi gave her twenty. “Keep the change.”

The music picked up the beat and pulsed through the club.

They were having a retro night with music from back in the 90s up to 2010, or so the sign at the door had boasted.

Who Let the Dogs Out by Baha Men was blasting overhead.

The year that song came out, he had been in the Army and the guys had played it on repeat in the barracks.

He was halfway finished with his water before he found a spot on a slightly raised platform that ran around the hard wooden floor of gyrating bodies. From his vantage point, he could see most of the club and all of the dancers.

It would be just his luck if Sara showed up at one of the other clubs.

You and Me by Lighthouse started up next, and most of the dancers slowed to the grinding beat.

That was when Levi saw Sara.

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