America’s Geekheart

by Grant, Pippa

  I cringe, waiting for him to say different. Because that’s what I am.

  I don’t wholly fit into the geek community, but I don’t fully fit into my parents’—and also his—lifestyle either.

  “Special,” he finishes quietly.

  Warmth spreads through my chest, out to my fingertips, and I put my ice cream down so it doesn’t melt, even though I’m familiar enough with thermodynamics to know that it’s impossible for my skin to heat enough to instantly melt an entire bowl of ice cream through the ceramic.

  “Everyone’s special,” I say quietly.

  “But you’re Sarah special. That’s specialer.”

  I laugh softly. “Specialer?”

  “It’s my word. I like it. I’m keeping it. Can I see you after our two weeks are up? I meant it. I hate the contract. I just want to date you.”

  “Why?” I catch sight of my goofball grin in the mirror, and instead of blushing, I grin bigger.

  “Because I like you. Like you like you.

  “Why?” I press.

  Not because I don’t like him like him too, but because the lifestyle he comes with isn’t one that’s ever appreciated my brand of specialness before, and I had eighteen years of living it before I finally escaped to find where I thought I fit.

  “Because you have excellent taste in movies and TV shows, your friends love you enough to threaten me with things that’ll send me to therapy for years, and you didn’t have to ask to know that fried onions are the best extra topping ever invented for a hamburger. You know how to use a taser, you keep bees to try to save the world, and the only thing you want from me is for me to step up to the plate and do my duty as a citizen of the Earth to help save it. Also, you haven’t asked me for free underwear, or if I’ll sign your boobs—though I totally would for you, because I’m shameless and I’ll take any excuse to touch you—or if I’ll get you hooked up with free tickets to Levi’s concerts or Cash’s movie premieres. And also because you have high enough standards to demand that I deliver a double orgasm in the bedroom. Nobody ever wants me to be better. They just want me to be naked. You’re…real. And unimpressed. And it makes me want to impress you.”

  “What happens when that novelty wears off?”

  “You’re too fascinating to ever not be fascinating. Aaaaannnd I’m the dumbass who just said that really lame sentence. Sorry.”

  I smile at my melting ice cream. “No, you’re actually really sweet and adorable.”

  “And sexy and hot and you want to strip me out of my teddy bear robe.”

  “You are not wearing a teddy bear robe.”

  My phone gives me a text alert, and I pull it away from my ear to glance at it.

  Sure enough, that’s a picture of Beck. In a fluffy white robe with brown teddy bears all over it.

  I bust out laughing. “Is that your normal evening wear?”

  “I wasn’t watching what I grabbed when I saw you were calling. Tripp’s kids gave it to me for Christmas. James was on a bear kick. And now we know it’s good luck for the Fireballs, so I’ll have to wear it every time they play a game.”

  “Do you have any idea how attractive it is that you love your family as much as you do?”

  “Not a clue. You’re going to have to spell it out for me. Use lots of complimentary words. My ego needs a boost.”

  “HOME RUN! OH MY GOD, SARAH, HE HIT A HOME RUN!”

  “Hold on,” I tell Beck, and I put him on hold while I play my toilet flushing app. “That’s great,” I call back to Mackenzie.

  “Stay! Stay in the bathroom!” she shrieks back. “And whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”

  Beck’s chuckling when I lift the phone back to my ear. “We have to keep talking, don’t we?”

  “Yep.”

  “Awesome. What’s her email address? I’m sending her season tickets tomorrow.”

  I blink.

  Then blink again, because my eyes are getting hot. “You know most guys would say flowers, right?”

  “I know I sent you some earlier, but the truth is, I hate sending flowers. You grow them, they’re happy and all connected to their roots and eating and drinking and basking in the sunshine—or a grow lamp, I guess—but then you cut them, send them to someone, and they die well before their time. Season tickets are the gift that keeps on giving. Until October, anyway. Or until she decides going in person is bad luck. Shit. What if she decides going in person is bad luck? Then I’ll have ruined baseball for her.”

  “She won’t decide it’s bad luck to be there in person,” I tell him. “She’s more likely to decide her seats are wrong, but she won’t say that, because she’s more polite than she is superstitious. But you do know you don’t have to do this, right?”

  “Sarah?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’d really like to be kissing you right now.”

  “AAAHHH!!! A DOUBLE!” Mackenzie yells. “DARREN GREENE JUST HIT A DOUBLE!”

  I swallow hard. “Did you see that?” I whisper.

  “Yep.” His voice is softer, but also deeper. “Sounds like we need to keep talking about kissing.”

  “My best friend is totally setting us up.”

  “She clearly has awesome taste in men. And since it means I get to keep talking to you about how delicious your lips are, I’ll take this little gift from the universe and go with it. And your lips are delicious.”

  “It was the onion rings.”

  He chuckles softly. “No, Sarah. It’s you.”

  “You weren’t half-bad,” I tell him, even though the truth is that he was amazing. I know what actually dating dating Beck would mean for my future—and my relative privacy—but that part of me terrified of having my life torn apart is doing the talking for me again. I clear my throat and try again. “I mean, you were at least seventy percent of the way to giving me an orgasm just from kissing me.”

  “If we were alone, I’d kiss you from head to toe, and I’d learn all your favorite spots, and I’d pretend like I didn’t know what you meant when you told me to go lower, or harder, or faster, just so I could build all the anticipation until I finally hit all your magic buttons,” he says, his voice low and husky and making my skin tingle all over.

  I toe the bathroom door shut and sink to the floor with my back to it so no one can walk in. “What else?” I whisper, even though the doors are paper thin and my parents and best friend are still on the other side.

  “I’d strip you out of your socks and blow on your toes,” he whispers, and it shouldn’t be a turn-on, but my toes squirm and I get a straight jolt of lust between my thighs.

  “And then I’d caress your ankles and lick a trail up your calf and test to see if your knees are ticklish before spreading your legs and having dessert.”

  Holy honeybees. My knees drop open, and I reach under my shirt to rub at one aching nipple. “You think you’re any good with dessert?”

  “I’m terrible. I’m going to need hours and hours of practice.”

  I’m going to need some serious private time with my fingers in a minute here. I pinch my nipple, and a hot arrow of pleasure rockets from my breast to my lady bits. “Hours?”

  “Hours. With my face between your legs.”

  I whimper.

  Because what are words again?

  “Dammit, I’m doing this wrong. I was supposed to talk about how much I want to kiss that mouth again first.”

  “Not…wrong,” I manage.

  I can hear him smiling. “Sarah Dempsey, are you turned on?”

  My head drops back, my eyes squeeze shut, and my hand drifts lower. “Just…little.”

  “Oh. Only a little? I’m hard as a cast iron frying pan.”

  And now I’m picturing him with an erection straining his black boxers, and there’s an overexcited buzz happening in my pussy. My pussy is the yapping chihuahua of pussies right now, wagging its tail and calculating a plan to ride across town with my head hanging out the window so I can attack his boner.

  I whi
mper.

  “I’m doing this wrong,” he says. “You want me to stop?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. So you would want me to kiss those lips again. And strip you down to your bare skin. And suck on your earlobes.”

  I hate having my earlobes touched, but offering them as tribute if that’s what Beck wants to suck on sounds utterly divine. Especially if I got to hang on to his broad shoulders and bury my face in his hot skin and taste the very essence of him. “What…about…you?”

  “There’s not a single inch of my entire body that wouldn’t be completely turned on if you were touching me.”

  I smile. It’s a breathy smile, and I want to rub my clit so bad.

  “I really want to kiss you again,” he whispers. “And I want to peel you out of your clothes and worship your body and learn what you like and taste you and stroke you and love you until you can’t remember a time when you were unhappy about anything.”

  I suck in a shuddery breath, my skin alternating between flaming hot and icy cold. “I don’t think you actually need lessons in anything.”

  “Don’t rob me of my fantasies here. Any of them. Not the ones in my bedroom. Or my hot tub. Or on my patio. On a picnic blanket surrounded by fried chicken and biscuits and peach cobbler.”

  I laugh softly while I rub my jeans over my clit. “Strawberry shortcake.”

  “Donuts.” He groans softly. “Banana pudding donuts.”

  I picture him using a donut as a cock ring, and I’m suddenly so turned on that my panties are dripping, but I’m also laughing.

  It’s a weird mix, but I like it. “Cream cheese Danish,” I say.

  “Fuck, Sarah, warn a man.” He blows out an audible breath, and I wonder if he’s honestly as turned on as I am. His ragged breath suggests he might be.

  “Okay. Control. Okay,” he rasps. “Pepperoni pizza.”

  “Mint tea and gazelle cookies.”

  “If I were next to you, I’d be slamming into you so hard right now, neither one of us would be able to walk tomorrow.”

  It’s not his words.

  It’s the way his voice has gone completely hoarse and shaky, like he’s a man on the verge of losing control.

  “Are you touching yourself?” I whisper.

  “Do you want me to?” Gritted. Harsh. Like he’s not in control.

  “Yes.”

  “I wish you were touching me.”

  “I wish you were touching me too.”

  “Where?”

  “My nipples are very sensitive.”

  “Sarah,” he groans.

  The bathroom door suddenly jolts against my back. “Sarah! SARAH! The booty dance! TELL BECK WE NEED THE BOOTY DANCE!”

  The game.

  Shit. Dammit. Hell.

  I leap up, my legs wobbly, my nipples pebbled so hard they’ve probably turned inside out, my head light, my heart pounding. “No! No booty dance!” I shriek.

  “Sarah?” Beck’s voice is pained, half-moan, half despair.

  And then there’s silence. For half a second before Mackenzie pops the door and peers in at me with one eyeball.

  One very wide blue eyeball.

  “Oh my god,” she whispers.

  I make some motions with my hands that I hope mean go away and do not tell my parents and I might hate you right now but I’ll still love you tomorrow.

  “I mean, if that’s what it takes for them to win, I guess you’re going to be really fucking satisfied by October. Good for you, girlfriend. But can you text me that video?”

  “No!”

  “Okay, okay. Sheesh. Just asking.” She pulls the door shut again. “No, Judson, she’s taking a bath. Leave her alone. She gets all shrieky when people see her naked.”

  “Did you use the bath salts we sent for Valentine’s Day?” my mom calls.

  I drop my head to the bathroom door, suddenly missing orgasms more than I have at any time in the past year.

  “I owe you something better than chocolates for this, don’t I?” Beck says in my ear, making me jump.

  “You totally got off, didn’t you?”

  “You like waffles? Or omelets? I make a killer waffle-omelet sandwich. I could come make you breakfast in the morning. Or right now.”

  “It’s fine. I have a vibrator.”

  “Fucking hell, I’m going to be thinking about that all night.”

  I wince. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m going to enjoy the hell out of these fantasies.”

  “You’re adding funnel cakes and barbecue to them, aren’t you?”

  “Sarah Dempsey, I’m going to talk you into marrying me one day.”

  I laugh.

  He doesn’t.

  Probably because he’s salivating over the idea of me masturbating while surrounded by food.

  “You sure you have plans tomorrow night? We could head out to my place in Shipwreck. I’ve got a telescope out there.”

  My heart squeezes behind my still tingling nipples. “Maybe next weekend?”

  “Done. You’re on my calendar. No backing out now.”

  “Did you just text Charlie?”

  “Nope. I put it on my calendar all by myself. Right next to eat at that Indian place down the street. But I can move that.”

  “Wait. Which Indian place? The one with the garlic naan that you can smell baking halfway through Reynolds Park?”

  “Is there any other Indian place in this city?”

  “Technically, yes.”

  “It’s a date. Indian, then Shipwreck. And banana pudding donuts.”

  “OH MY GOD, WE WON! WE WON IN EXTRA INNINGS! WE WON WE WON WE WON!”

  I smile at the white wooden door and Mackenzie’s shrieks in the living room. “Thanks for being the Fireballs’ good luck charm again,” I say softly.

  “Anytime. Especially if it gives me an excuse to talk to you.”

  The belly flutters join the warmth in my heart and the frustration in my lady bits.

  This feels real.

  And fun.

  And easy.

  I just hope it can last.

  Thirty

  Beck

  I’m so hyped up Friday morning, I can’t even concentrate on Donkey Kong. I keep hearing Sarah’s ragged breath and soft gasps, that need in her voice, and I don’t even want second breakfast.

  I want to go find her.

  But I’m stuck in meetings with my team that I can’t get out of by frying another motherboard, especially since my coffee this morning is from a local shop down the street that uses cinnamon sticks as stir sticks and it’s delicious and I’d have to go get a different cup of coffee to dump on my computer if I don’t want to cry while I’m doing it.

  Plus, Bruce has decided that Operation: Fix Beck’s Reputation has gone so well that we need to jump on getting Vaughn signed up for doing a business partnership around socks.

  Yes, socks.

  “It’s an easy market,” he insists. “Who else is doing designer socks? And we could pull the girl into it. Those shots of you looking at her while she’s making that donkey face with the penis shoulder are exactly the sort of thing that would sell if you were sitting on a couch together, showing off your socks.”

  “Donkey face with the penis shoulder?”

  Charlie slides me her phone, and I look down to see Sarah laughing so hard her mouth’s open and her eyes are squeezed shut, and somehow her braid’s hanging over her shoulder but looks fuzzy enough that okay, yeah, if you have a dirty mind, it could possibly look like a penis, but Christ, you really have to twist it.

  “She looks like she’s having fun,” I say.

  “Whatever.”

  “Not whatever,” I growl, and I don’t give two shits that I’m currently contemplating asking Judson if we can hire some of those Euranians to go toss flaming poop bombs on Bruce’s front step, because I’m not doing a business partnership over socks. “Her name is Sarah—”

  “Serendipity, technically,” Hestia says.

  “H
er name is Sarah,” Charlie says. “And I’m violently opposed to the idea of trying to bring profit into this partnership with Vaughn. It’s for kids, not for growing already overinflated bank accounts.”

  “Vehemently,” Hestia corrects.

  “No, violently.”

  “Honey, you’re just the assistant,” Bruce says.

  “She’s a fucking genius, and you’re getting on my nerves,” I growl.

  Huh.

  I get why Judson’s doing it.

  It feels really fucking good to growl when you’re pissed.

  Everyone goes silent. It’s four talking heads on my video screen, all gaping at me.

  Except Charlie.

  She’s glaring at my computer screen like she’s squishing Bruce’s head with her mind.

  “We’re not asking Vaughn to go into socks with me,” I tell Bruce. “Next.”

  There’s another hour of mind-numbing business discussions about some small-time partnerships that I have with a rising celebrity chef, an Instagrammer, and a tea company—my team was pissed about that one, but dude, sometimes a guy on the road needs a solid cup of chamomile, and Snore-Tea fucking rocks—and by the time we hang up, I don’t want food, or to go take a run, or to go hang out at my parents’ house and see who’s around from the neighborhood.

  I want to see Sarah.

  Her phone goes to voicemail.

  I send a text, but that doesn’t even show as read.

  “No,” Charlie says when I grab my keys.

  “I’m going out to get a burger.”

  “You’re going out to drive past Sarah’s house and her office.”

  “And to get a burger.” Two burgers. Or five. I don’t actually know what her favorite toppings are, because I’m pretty fucking certain she ordered that burger last night for me, and while she ate it, that doesn’t mean it was her favorite.

  I need to figure out what her favorite burger is.

  And what she likes on her pizza.

  And if she eats whipped cream straight out of the can.

  Fuck, I’m getting a boner again.

  “She’s visiting a client site today,” Charlie informs me. “Doing her actual job. And I might not make it another week before Bruce drives me to quit, but you can be damn certain I’ll be suing you for hostile work conditions if I quit.”