America’s Geekheart

by Grant, Pippa

  She grabs her phone and types out a message—undoubtedly telling my team I fucked up and we’ll talk again tomorrow at our regularly scheduled time, because that’s what she does, and I probably need to give her a raise again this week—and I head for the kitchenette in the small office area. The rest of the floor is apartments.

  “You like Moroccan?” I call. “Sarah showed me this place over in University City. We could order couscous. Or kefta. Or kebabs. Or all of it. With four gallons of mint tea. And cookies. Definitely cookies.”

  She follows me and leans into the doorway, head still down over her phone. “You can’t eat this away, Beck. You still have a shoot in three weeks.”

  “And nothing to do in the meantime except work out and play video games.” Everything’s on hold. Everything. The designs I was supposed to look at this week are delayed. All my meetings—outside the crisis meetings with my team—are canceled. My only job is to not fuck up more and keep publicly wooing Sarah.

  Maybe privately wooing Sarah.

  I wanted to kiss her so badly last night, and I still don’t know if it was a good idea or a bad idea, but it’s what I wanted.

  Charlie doesn’t smile. “You ever seriously consider selling out and retiring?”

  I told her I was going to last year, after Ellie’s accident. She didn’t take me seriously, but she also made sure everything on my schedule got delayed or canceled, and she’s kept me booked less full so I could be home more.

  “Why?” I ask her. “You want to slow down?” She sees her family less than I see mine, but she’s never complained about it.

  “I don’t do slow, Ryder. You know that.”

  “Good, because even if I did sell out and retire, I’d still need you running my life, you know. Who else would make me get out of bed and remind me to brush my teeth in the morning?”

  “Your mother, Ryder. Your mother.”

  I laugh at the image of my mom trying to get me up in the morning. She’d dump ice water on my head without hesitation, a tidbit I won’t be sharing with Charlie, or she might try the same next time we’re traveling.

  She’s smiling too, because she doesn’t actually set my alarms or remind me to brush my teeth.

  Usually.

  “You should sign up for a dating app,” I tell her, even though I think I would have to sell my businesses if I didn’t have Charlie to keep me organized. “Meet someone. Go see the world through love’s eyes.”

  “Rather see the world by myself, thank you very much. The pictures from the game last night are everywhere, and they’re reporting both that Sarah totally denied you a kiss and that she started a food fight that was probably foreplay to what you did in the bedroom. The pictures are perfect. Lots of the two of you laughing. Especially her. Plus, the media likes that she’s playing hard to get, and that you keep trying.”

  “Nice avoidance.”

  “You’d rather talk about why you were late after the game last night and came in looking like you just found an all-you-can-eat steak and cupcake buffet?”

  “No.”

  She smirks. “Didn’t think so. Tripp Wilson’s waiting for you upstairs.”

  “So that’s a no to Moroccan?”

  “One of everything. University City. I’m on it. But you’re going to have to spend an extra two hours on the treadmill.”

  I hate the treadmill. “I can order in.”

  “Nope. Can’t talk and drive. Your diva ass is getting me out of a telecon with Brass and the Dinglehoppers to discuss your incompetence at attending telecons.”

  “Brass?”

  “Bruce the Ass.”

  “Let’s get through smoothing out my dumbass tweet, and then I’ll talk to Bruce about why he’s losing his mind. Two weeks. Tops. And if he’s still insane, he’ll be gone.”

  “I’m using your card to pay for lunch for everyone in the restaurant.”

  “Send some couscous to Sarah’s office while you’re at it.”

  “That would be filed under duh.”

  “You’re an empress among assistants.”

  “I know. Don’t eat your arm off while you’re waiting for food. You need it to sign papers so we can get rid of Bruce.”

  She heads for the elevator while I take the stairs to the penthouse, where I find an old friend waiting for me.

  And he’s not alone.

  “James! Hey, bud. Give it up.” I hold out a fist to Tripp’s three-year-old, who eyeballs me with rightful suspicion. He’s in preschooler-size jeans with bright green pajama shorts over them, and at least two shirts, because I can see a yellow collar under his bright orange Captain Beanbag shirt.

  He’s also sporting a purple cape.

  All of my buddies have the cutest kids.

  “He’s on Twitter and he knows you’re a disaster,” Tripp tells me. “You’re gonna have to give him something more than a fist bump to win him over.”

  He’s holding his daughter, who’s just over a year old and clearly didn’t dress herself this morning, because there’s no way she could’ve put that dress on herself.

  I don’t think.

  Plus, if I were barely a year old and allowed to dress myself, I’d be naked. So I guess I’m assuming she’s probably the same.

  “Everybody screws up time to time,” I say.

  Tripp gives me a wry grin. “Yeah. Just time to time.”

  “You like playing ping-pong?” I ask James.

  “You gosh to pway twuck but it fall in da fountain,” he replies solemnly.

  Tripp ruffles his hair. “The truck dried. We left it at home.”

  “I’ve got trucks,” I tell him. “Well, cars, but they have wheels and you can make them go vroom.”

  Tripp shakes his head at me, eyes widening. “Dude, he will tear those things apart.”

  “What? They’re just things. C’mon, James. Let’s go check out my rides.”

  I get him set up playing with a couple of the model sports cars I keep on a high shelf in the game room while I play peek-a-boo with Emma, who finally decides I’m cool enough to drool on for a while. Her blond hair’s on top of her head Cindy Lou Who style, and she’s chewing on her fingers when she dives for me to hold her.

  Tripp sags into the couch facing the TV. “Thanks. She’s getting heavy.”

  “Need to work out more.”

  “You carry her for two hours and then say that again.” He’s sporting bags under his eyes, and he only shaved the right half his face, but he’s still managing a smile.

  “Holding up okay?” I don’t know shit about being a single parent, or about grieving someone close to you, but I know it’s work. A fuck-ton of hard work.

  “I’m effing tired.”

  “You need a nanny.”

  He shakes his head. “Just overnight. It’ll pass. She’ll eventually sleep a full six hours at a time. She’s just…adjusting.”

  They all were. Tripp losing his wife to the flu over the winter is one more reason my schedule keeps getting lighter. No place like home, especially when people need you. Though I’m frustrated as hell at basically being grounded right now, at least I’m here.

  “What’s the story with your new girlfriend?” he asks before I can push any harder. “Levi bet me ten grand you’re falling for her, so this better be a publicity stunt.”

  “You guys are assholes,” I tell him.

  He clears his throat and looks at James.

  “Ah. Right. Sorry. You’re crashmoles.”

  He’s known me too long to think I’m funny, and he stretches his legs out while he studies me. “Davis says you’re quitting.”

  “Why the fugglenuggets would he say that?”

  “C’mon, man. Ellie’s accident. Your schedule. A self-sabotaging tweet, followed by a PR stunt…”

  I bounce Emma on my knee and make funny faces at her. “Your daddy’s talking funny.”

  “So Davis is right and Levi owes me some cash.”

  “You remember that foundation I told you we were working
on? The one with Vaughn Crawford?”

  “Sports programs for kids?”

  “We were supposed to announce it next week.”

  He winces. “Ah.”

  “Yeah. Need to clean up my mistake so Vaughn doesn’t bail, and I need to keep making money to fund all my favorite projects. It wasn’t self-sabotage. I love my job. I was just a dumb-dumb head who hit the wrong button on my Twitter app and got a little too full of myself to assume mistweets couldn’t happen to me. Happens when you’re fabulous and haven’t slept in three days.”

  He sucks in a grin as he shakes his head.

  I get that a lot.

  “Miss sleep that much, do you?” he asks. “Want to hear about a teething toddler with diarrhea?”

  Emma smiles at me. Her stomach gurgles.

  “She’s in an industrial-size diaper, right?”

  “Baby roulette, dude. You want to hold her, you take the consequences.”

  I eyeball the blond-haired, round-cheeked cutie.

  She smiles so big that drool drips down her fingers and arms, and she pumps her chubby legs.

  The elevator dings, and I rise.

  Because odds are good that’s my mom. She’s been dropping by once or twice a day—usually with food, because she loves me—and she’s a master at baby diapers.

  Another ominous sound comes from Emma’s midsection. She screws up her lips and mouth, and oh, fuck, here we go.

  I rush toward the kitchen and the penthouse entrance, and as soon as I see a body, I shove Emma toward it. “Hey. Baby?”

  A single blink too late, I realize my mistake.

  That’s not my mom.

  Or my sister.

  Or even Charlie, who would probably turn around and take my credit card back to the store, because Emma does, indeed, have an intestinal disorder, and she lets it all go as soon as Sarah latches onto her.

  It’s a long, slow-drawn-out letting go, and that’s not an industrial-strength diaper, but that is definitely sheer and utter horror on Sarah’s face while she silently asks me what in the holy hell I’ve done now.

  Fuck.

  I just handed my fake girlfriend a baby poop bomb.

  And it went off.

  All.

  Over.

  Her.

  “Oh, fungusbubbles,” I croak out.

  And if that look on her face is any indication, those will be the last words I ever utter.

  Twenty-One

  Sarah

  So far today, I’ve learned many, many things.

  I’ve learned that it’s hard to concentrate at work with people talking about me shoving Beck’s face in a funnel cake and wanting to know if they can get his autograph, and also I guess I never would’ve picked you as his type.

  I’ve learned my parents will drop by my office just to see your desk, sweetheart and that my father takes an obscene amount of joy in prepping for roles in public if it’ll embarrass me.

  And now I’ve learned that Beck is king when it comes to winning wars.

  “Are you shi—” I start, but he clamps a hand over my mouth.

  “Virgin ears,” he hisses, and then his nose crinkles, and then I inhale and find out why, and—

  “Oh my god, what is that smell?”

  We’re not alone.

  Past the kitchen, there’s a toddler—preschooler?—running a model car up and down the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the park and the mountains while watching all of us with very serious blue eyes, and there’s also an adult male rolling on the ground laughing his ass off.

  “I—you—here—we should—”

  For once, Beck’s apparently at a loss for words.

  Even made-up nonsense.

  “I thought you were my mom,” he finally blurts.

  The guy on the floor laughs harder.

  “Do I look like your mother?”

  Beck’s ears go pink. “No, I just—I wasn’t expecting you, and—not that you’re not welcome. You’re welcome. Anytime. Day or night. I—we should put her in the sink.”

  The guy on the floor rolls to his hands and knees and makes an effort to stand up.

  “She’s Tripp’s,” Beck adds with a head jerk at his other guest. “Really cute. Most of the time.”

  His hands hang in mid-air like he’s afraid to take the dirty squirming toddler from me, but feels like he should, but isn’t sure where to grab on her soiled yellow dress.

  Because the stuff shot everywhere.

  Down her legs. Up her armholes. Up her neck.

  Her sweet baby smile comes with a squeal, and she pumps her legs, which sends the stuff dripping all over my shoes.

  I love these shoes.

  Loved.

  They’re my fearless shoes. Boots, really—the only thing I’ll do fashionably. Low heel, leather, in theory washable, but does leather absorb smells?

  Also, I can’t actually work up a really good mad here, because the baby—toddler? I’ve never spent much time around kids—is freaking adorable with all those big grins.

  Beck gestures awkwardly to the kitchen.

  I hold the baby out while she smiles and squeals and flails her arms and legs and leaves a trail of baby goodness from the foyer to the kitchen sink, where Tripp finally meets us.

  He’s wiping his eyes.

  “Smooth, man. Smooth,” he says to Beck before taking over with the gooped-up child. “Tripp Wilson. Pleasure to meet you,” he says to me.

  “Likewise. Although I do try to dress up better when I’m meeting new people.”

  Beck winces, totally missing the joke that I don’t actually dress up for anyone. “I’ll, ah, call Charlie. She’ll get you some…” He trails off and gestures to my clothes.

  “Fashion sense?” I deadpan.

  “Fu—uddlesticks, that’s a custom order T-shirt, isn’t it?”

  We all look down at my Einstein shirt, including the baby, who blows a juicy raspberry that sprays us all with spit.

  “I may not have taste, but I have consistency,” I say.

  “You have awesome taste,” Beck assures me.

  The elevator dings again. “Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?” a woman calls.

  “I told you I thought you were my mother,” he mutters. “Also, brace yourself. And I’m sorry.”

  Tripp chokes on another laugh as he strips the baby.

  “Oh, good, you’re all—oh my. Is this Sarah?” A brown-haired, blue-eyed woman stops on the other side of the island and utterly lights up with joy. “Oh, it’s so good to meet you! Ellie’s been telling me all about your bees and your mission to save the giraffes. And you work for Plantwell? We have so much respect for Gary and Jonathan.”

  She smothers me in a hug before any of us can get out a syllable.

  “Um,” I say, because I’ve never really done the meet the parents thing, and do his parents know, or are they totally in the dark?

  “Mrs. Ryder, you might want to ease up on squishing Emma’s work of art there,” Tripp says.

  She pulls back, looks down, and laughs.

  Laughs.

  “I haven’t had baby poop on me in years. I remember the first time Beck had a blow-out.”

  “Mom—” he starts.

  “Shush, I want to hear this,” I say.

  “He was eight months old, and he was so blocked up—”

  “Mom—”

  “I definitely want to hear this too,” Tripp agrees.

  Emma squeals as he starts hitting her with the sprayer.

  I mean showering her. Not actually hitting her.

  “—So blocked up that when he finally exploded in the car, we were finding bits of it on the ceiling weeks later.”

  “Adorable,” I say.

  “Guess you’re lucky Emma got you and not Beck, because otherwise, we never would’ve gotten that story out of her,” Tripp tells me, and I decide he’s good people.

  “Oh, you.” Mrs. Ryder gives him a one-armed hug and boops Emma on the nose. “Is your tummy upset, noodle-poo?”

/>   “I might have a T-shirt and sweats that’ll fit you,” Beck says to me while Tripp and Mrs. Ryder discuss Emma’s intestinal issues.

  I can’t exactly go back to work in a T-shirt and sweats, but I can’t drive home and change like this either. Nor do I want to go home, or back to work, which is why I’m here. “Great. Thanks.”

  “Right this way.”

  He takes me to a bedroom that’s too bright and clean for it to be his.

  I think.

  I guess it could be his. It’s bright and cheery enough. But I didn’t peg him for the flowery comforter, impressionist-style paintings, pillowcases with his own mug, cardboard cutout of himself with a thumb tucked into his briefs type.

  It’s far more likely he has a Pac-Man comforter and at least three Game Boys at his bedside table.

  Plus pictures of his family.

  I’ll bet he has pictures of his family everywhere.

  “I was trying to not lose at baby roulette,” he confesses, lifting that long, long arm to scratch his neck. “But I wouldn’t have handed her off if I’d realized it was you.”

  “Just to your mother?” I ask.

  He opens his mouth, then blushes.

  Again.

  “I’m a real shit to the women in my life, aren’t I?”

  “Mm.”

  “I would’ve handed her to my dad too. He just doesn’t usually drop by to fuss like Mom does.”

  “Mm.”

  “Oh. Hey. I didn’t even ask what was up. Everything okay?”

  It takes me a half-second to remember why I thought coming over here was a good idea. And the fact that despite the baby poop, I’m feeling weirdly happy.

  It’s the residual Beck Ryder glow. Has to be. Like I’m soaking up his happy vibes.

  “Too much gossip at work,” I tell him. “And my boss was uncomfortable with the photographers staking out the building.”

  He winces. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault. I mean, not entirely. My parents thought it was visit your daughter at work day. I think they’re still there signing autographs.”

  His wince is getting wince-ier. “Will that be awkward?”

  “Do you go to your parents’ business and sign autographs?”