America’s Geekheart

by Grant, Pippa

  In a world revolving around looking good, he fits in well.

  We couldn’t be more polar opposites if we tried.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m not in danger of succumbing to his charms.

  So it’s time to remember who my parents are. Find some of that face to give the world. And tuck my heart in tight.

  Because I’m not letting that world break me again.

  No matter how amazing it feels to know that I’m a small, direct part of the reason the Fireballs are once again showing thousands of people how Persephone’s doing over at the zoo.

  That’s what I’m doing this for.

  To save the giraffes.

  Eighteen

  Beck

  We linger in the box after the game to let the stands clear out. We were supposed to leave before the seventh inning, but the game was close, and Sarah was really into it once we both got cleaned up and the Fireballs’ defense stepped up.

  Add in a two-run homer from my buddy Cooper Rock, and it looked like we could pull it off.

  “We should’ve left an hour ago,” she says, frowning.

  “You were having fun.”

  She turns those dark eyes on me, and they’re not full of laughter like they were when she shoved my face in the funnel cake—the guys are going to love her—but they’re not mad either.

  Just pensive.

  “Better photo shots, I suppose,” she says.

  I shrug. “Maybe.”

  The plan is for me to take her home, then we’re going our separate way for two days.

  Let the pictures from tonight trickle out, let suspense build, both of us reply we’re just accidental friends, her parents issue statements from their publicists asking for privacy, and then we’ll get together again Thursday for dinner at a comedy club in the warehouse district downtown and let it slip that she’s accompanying me to a Friends of the Zoo black-tie fundraiser dinner that Charlie literally pulled together for the organization this morning because she’s magic, and because I told her if we were going to do a fundraiser, it had to be for Sarah’s favorite pet project.

  But this plan of taking Sarah home feels wrong. Or maybe I just don’t want to let her go yet.

  “When do you have to be at work tomorrow?” I ask her.

  “Eight or nine. But I’ll probably go in early to get work done before everyone else is there. It was…interesting today.”

  I swing my chair around and study her while the two bodyguards check out the situation in the hall. “Lots of gossip?”

  “It’s human nature. But most of my coworkers were polite about it. Although I think some of them think I’m stuck-up now because I don’t socialize much at the office and apparently it’s because I’m better than everyone else since my parents are stars.” She frowns, and I hate that frown.

  That frown says that it’s inevitable, and she doesn’t like it, but it is what it is.

  “I don’t like not trusting people to not gossip about me,” she says quietly. “It’s the whole reason I never told anyone here who my parents are. Mackenzie’s known me longest. She’s been my best friend since before I knew any of my coworkers. If anyone should be offended, she should, but she’s just rolling with it. The people at work, though…”

  I nudge her. “Says you have good taste about who you let in your circle. There’s a reason my best friends are all from home.”

  “One of my closest high school friends was the reason the owl thing happened. And I didn’t know it until later, but one of my other supposed friends kept telling the paparazzi when we went to the movies or out for semi-private gaming nights, which was how pictures of me leaving the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to my heel or spilling soda all over myself or sitting with popcorn stuck in my hair always seemed to find their way to the gossip pages.”

  “Aw, fuck, Sarah. That sucks.”

  She shakes her head, eyes pensive and not looking at me, as though she’s reliving it in her head. “The stories always got more out of control than they thought it would, but the owl story especially. If it had just been the pictures—well, it’s not like I hadn’t lived with that my whole life, you know? But when the gossip rags came calling…she was the one they quoted with all the rumors about what I liked to do in my spare time.”

  “You want me to send my mom to your office to give them all what-for? She’s got this speech that would make a saint feel guilty, and they’ll be bringing you fresh chocolate chip cookies and homemade ice cream for weeks.”

  She turns a smile on me, and I swear the entire ballpark gets brighter, and the sun set an hour ago. “Like you said, another few months, and nobody will even remember this happened.”

  I will.

  I will most definitely always remember this happened. “Gonna be late by the time I get you home. You want, I can put you up in one of my spare bedrooms. Just a few blocks over.”

  “Sleeping with you is not part of this agreement.”

  “Spare bedroom. Hell, you can have a whole apartment. I own the building and keep the floor below mine open for my team, because it’s easier than making hotel arrangements all the time.”

  “You own the whole building?”

  “Guy told me it was a smart investment once.”

  “A random guy. A random guy told you to buy a—how many stories tall is that thing?”

  “Forty-six. And he wasn’t random. He was a guy my parents did a lot of work for back in the day.”

  She’s doing the fish, which could be a dance move if people put their arms into swimming the way they put their mouths and eyeballs into gaping.

  But this is why I’m in fashion and not choreography.

  A guy’s gotta have some weaknesses.

  “I was diversifying,” I tell her. “And I got it for a steal, since it needed heavy renovations through the whole building.”

  “Which your parents did,” she guesses.

  “Well, yeah. Nepotism’s important.”

  She shakes her head, clearly caught between wanting to smile and roll her eyes. “I’m trying to picture my parents helping to get me a film role, and it’s not working.”

  “That’s just because Hollywood’s been lame lately with the real science movies.”

  Her nose wrinkles. “Yeah, that’s all the geeks in Hollywood are good for, isn’t it?”

  “All clear, Mr. Ryder,” the beefier bodyguard says, saving me from having to dig my whole leg out of my mouth once more. “Let’s go.”

  We clap our hats and sunglasses back on, and we follow him while the second guard brings up the rear.

  The walkways are mostly deserted except for staff, who are cleaning or nudging along the last of the slow-pokes. All’s fine until we get almost to the valet stand at the executive parking garage.

  I can see my car waiting right up front on the street, but there’s a crowd of reporters between us.

  “Serendipity! Serendipity!”

  “Are you really dating?”

  “Over here! Smile over here!”

  Sarah grabs my hand while the two bodyguards hustle us through.

  “Is this a publicity stunt?”

  “Did you know each other before the tweet heard ’round the world?”

  “Are you sleeping together?”

  “How long have you been dating?”

  She squeezes tighter, and holy shit, she could probably crush a raw egg with her bare hands.

  “Ignore them,” I murmur.

  “Been doing this a lot longer than you, Ryder,” she replies, her lips tipped up, and I grin at her.

  I can’t help it.

  Her hand might be yelling Save me! Save me!, but her mouth has it covered.

  “Yeah?” I murmur back in her ear. “Want to toss them a bone?”

  Her lips twitch higher.

  She really does have gorgeous lips. Plump and soft.

  “No bones,” she tells me. “But nice try on an excuse to kiss me again.”

  “Just because I offered you a guest room
doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be welcome in mine. Never let it be said I’m not a gentleman first, when I’m not making an ass of myself.”

  We reach my car, and I pull open the passenger door for her before the valet can fight the crowd around the car. He’s barely holding his own at the driver’s door.

  When I get around to his side, I slip him a few benjamins and climb in too.

  Sarah’s slouching so low in her seat, I think her ribs might have melted into her hips. “The game was fun. That, not so much.”

  “Should’ve tossed them a bone.”

  She pulls her sunglasses off and glances at me, and before I realize what she’s up to, she hits the button to roll the window down. “You want a real rare sight, go check out the giraffes,” she calls. “Underwear models are a dime a dozen.” She blows a kiss and hits the button again, sinking back into her seat once more as a loud, shuddery breath slips out of her mouth.

  I squeeze her knee. “Feel better?”

  “I feel like I ran a marathon between the corner and this seat. Where’d the bodyguards go?”

  I check the mirror. “Right behind us.”

  It’s hard to rev an engine in an electric car, so I hit the horn in a happy pattern—tappity-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap—and then inch the car forward until the reporters back off and give me space to go without running over anyone.

  “Thank you,” I tell her quietly.

  I don’t know what else to say.

  The very fact that we got mobbed with questions about if we’re dating instead of what an asshole I am suggests this is working exactly like my team and I want it to. But making Sarah face the reporters after just a couple of the stories she told me tonight makes me feel lower than dirt.

  “Every time I start to think I could handle a little more attention on my blog and social media feeds, I realize I’m wrong,” she says. “I don’t know how you live like this.”

  “It’s not always that bad.”

  “And sometimes it’s worse.”

  True enough. Especially back in our Bro Code days.

  “You like ice cream?” I ask her suddenly. Because she looks utterly defeated, and I have a desperate need to perk her up.

  “Seriously?”

  “Always makes me smile. Look like you could use some of that.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ve had a sister almost my entire life. I’m fine doesn’t work on me.”

  “My siblings were all ferrets or armadillos or potbellied pigs.”

  “So we basically had the same childhood.”

  No laugh.

  She’s getting ice cream.

  I turn left when I should go right, and she sends me the suspicious eyeball of contemplation.

  And by contemplation, I mean she might be contemplating searching my car for a taser to use on me.

  “Cookies, cake, ice cream, crème brûlée, banana pudding, or dog biscuits?” I ask.

  “Dog biscuits?”

  “I would’ve picked the ice cream, but if that’s what you want…”

  “You really want dessert?” The color’s coming back to her cheeks, the light to her eyes, and I want to hunt down her former best friends and slather them with honey and leave them next to an anthill for a few days for putting this much distrust into Sarah’s nature.

  “Hell, yeah, I want dessert. I can’t take you home to your parents looking like you got attacked by feral cats in heat singing bad Broadway tunes. Dessert cures everything.”

  I grin at her.

  She doesn’t grin back.

  Huh. My charms must be wearing off.

  “Or I can take you home,” I say sheepishly.

  “You know University City?”

  “Nope. Books aren’t my thing.”

  “Whatever. You probably snuck over there when you were sixteen to sit in the library with reading glasses on to pick up the older chicks.”

  Huh. She didn’t exactly nail it, but close enough. “That was Tripp. He always went for the more intellectual types.”

  “Me too. Head down Veterans Parkway toward CVU’s amphitheater.”

  “Wait, you were trolling the college libraries for guys when you were sixteen?”

  “Yes. I wanted one of those hot studs at UCLA to talk physics to me.”

  “Aw, look at you, catching on and schooling me. Wait. Mackenzie said you grew up in Oregon.”

  When she doesn’t answer, I sneak a glance at her.

  She’s gone splotchy again. “What, you’ve never put on a disguise, faked an accent, and told people you were Italian?”

  “Well, yeah, that’s a normal Tuesday for me. But she’s your best friend.”

  “I didn’t know she was going to be my best friend when I told her I grew up in Oregon. And I like Oregon. We went to the coast there once for vacation when Mom was getting ready to shoot in Seattle, and nobody bothered us, and we hiked all over everywhere, and you could see the stars all the way out to the edge of the galaxy at night, I swear you could.”

  “Good wine,” I say.

  “I was in grade school.”

  “Probably still good back then.”

  She lapses into silence, and I realize she’s staring at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Is it an act, or are you really like this all the time?”

  I grin while I turn onto the ramp to Veterans Parkway. “Can’t tell you all my secrets, Ms. Dempsey. That’d ruin all this beautiful magic.”

  “Hm.”

  She’s quiet the rest of the drive, directing me down the dark winding streets of the campus until we stop at a strip mall about two blocks from CVU’s library. An open sign glows red at a shop between a dry cleaner and a drug store.

  “Kefta?” I couldn’t stop a smile if my life depended on it. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “You want dessert or not? I’m in the mood for chebakia.”

  “Oh, hell, yeah.”

  The parking lot isn’t deserted, but it’s not full either. Good sign.

  The bodyguards walk us in. We lost the paps a while ago, but this is an unscheduled stop, so who knows who’s waiting inside?

  As soon as the glass door shuts behind us with a jingle of bells, my mouth waters. I smell cinnamon and cumin and lamb, and something sweet too. It’s a typical strip mall restaurant—small entryway with a cash register on a glass counter and a dark wood hostess stand—but the lights are dim around the corner, and I follow Sarah as she peeks her head around.

  Several low round tables. Rich red cushions on the matching low benches with the tables separated by shoulder-height, dark paneled walls. Paintings of high-walled medinas, the coast in Casablanca or Rabat, and the Atlas mountains hang on the deep red walls.

  A woman in a hijab notices us and hustles over. “I’m sorry, we’re—Sarah!”

  Her accent is heavy and her smile is bright.

  Sarah slips easily into French and says something so quickly that I can’t catch it.

  Not that I speak French.

  But I’ve picked up a thing or two here and there. Can’t travel the world and be a total dumbass, despite what I might play on Twitter.

  The woman laughs and replies, also in French, and the only words I’m catching are welcome, delicious, and dragonfire.

  I probably got that last one wrong.

  But then, considering we just came from the ballpark, maybe not.

  “No, no, you come and sit,” the woman finally says. Her dark eyes dance over me. “But not him. He’s fired.”

  Sarah cracks up. “He should be, shouldn’t he?”

  “Utter disgrace, to speak to you so.”

  “He’s trying to make amends.”

  “Wearing that?” the woman asks with another sweeping glance over my jeans and Fireballs jersey.

  “He’s never had mint tea the right way.”

  Ah, shit, now my stomach’s growling.

  “Ah, fine, fine, he can come too. But no baboon business.”

  “Thank you,
Fatima.”

  “Thank you,” I agree.

  Fatima shushes me. “You get the leftovers.”

  Sarah purses her lips, but she can’t hide her smile. “That seems fair,” she says.

  I nod. “Very generous.”

  And when she tilts her head back with a short laugh, I feel like I won the game.

  Nineteen

  Sarah

  Because Beck apparently can’t drive on a full stomach—and he’s very full of mint tea and chebakia and Moroccan shortbread cookies—I get to drive his Tesla.

  And, yes, it’s really sweet, and I am definitely making him take Mackenzie for a ride before our contract is over.

  He grunts his way through climbing out of his seat when we get back to my house. The bodyguards pull in right behind us. Three beaters are parked across the street.

  Awesome.

  I let us in through the front door, and an alarm instantly erupts and wails. My dad leaps off the couch. “Freeze, asshole,” he growls.

  “Dad! Shut it off!”

  Meda darts through the living room and dives behind the TV stand, knocking over my Captain Mal Funko Pop! figurine. Cupcake barrels in from the kitchen, confused as hell and running into the furniture, and oh, jeez, Mom put her unicorn eye mask on the pig.

  Cupcake’s flying blind.

  The security guys shove Beck to the ground, then the shorter one leaps up to grab the motion detector my dad’s whacking against my carved walnut buffet, but it keeps wailing.

  “Judson?” Mom hollers. She comes sprinting down the stairs in a short pink bathrobe, her matching unicorn eye mask high on her forehead just as the noise finally stops. “Judson, are you smoking bacon in the evaporator again?”

  We all stare at her.

  She blinks once, twice, then turns around and goes back upstairs without another word.

  “Say something about my wife talking in her sleep,” Dad growls at Beck, who’s slowly rolling to his feet while clutching his stomach. “Go on. Make my day.”

  “Those unicorn slippers are the bomb,” Beck replies. “Are the flashy lights aftermarket? Or did they come like that?”

  We all look at Dad’s feet, and dread slithers up my spine, because Dad does not like to have his footwear mocked.