America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(100)

It’s late, and we’re all gathered around the firepit in my backyard, celebrating everything.

Ellie and Wyatt being happy. Sarah and I burning that contract we signed. The foundation launching solidly.

Sarah being Emma’s favorite human being in the entire world right now, since apparently baby poop bonds people.

Levi’s latest album going double platinum.

Cash’s latest movie topping the box office.

Charlie’s promotion to Chief Operations Officer for all of RYDE and my subsidiary lines.

Sunny—who’s not here, though Sarah video called her earlier—taking like a duck to water at RYDE and running like mad with new ideas, new models, and new opportunities.

Like going into cougar fashion.

She calls it mature fashion, but those marketing ideas she’s blowing Vicki and Hestia away with are way more cougar than mature.

Sarah’s mortified, of course, but I’ve assured her I’ll only let the most respectful younger men be in commercials with her mom. Charlie’s encouraging it all. Judson, naturally, wants to slice my balls off, but he’s wrapping his apocalyptic cowboy baseball player movie, and apparently he’s lined up for a romantic comedy role next, so my manhood might be in less danger soon.

“S’more?” I ask Sarah, pulling a perfectly toasted marshmallow off the fire and sliding it onto a waiting graham cracker before it falls off the stick.

“You should—” she starts, but before she can finish, Cash dives across her and Emma and snatches it from me.

“Aaaah, yeah. Dude. I haven’t had a Beck Ryder s’more in years.”

“That’s for my girlfriend, asshole. Give it back.”

He shoves the whole thing in his mouth and moans. “Ee oos ee oos,” he says, which I easily translate to she snoozes, she loses.

“She’s holding a baby.”

“That’s not right, man,” Cooper says.

“We need to take care of him for you, Miss Sarah?” Darren asks.

“Beck can make another s’more,” she replies with that amused smile that I love so much. “The first three would’ve been for him anyway.”

“The first one is always for you.”

She leans over and kisses me on the cheek, and I get a whiff of sleepy baby, and yeah.

We’re totally doing that.

We’re gonna make babies someday. And I’ll quit everything to stay home and rock the fuck out of being a dad while Sarah saves the world. Whenever she’s ready.

“I love you,” I whisper.

She smiles again, this time like she knows what I’m thinking, and I get another kiss that’s interrupted by a squeal of terror. “Oh my god, it’s…it’s…AAAAAHHHH!”

“You should’ve warned her,” Sarah whispers against my lips.

“You don’t taste like s’mores yet. I need to fix this,” I reply.

“Is that the catatonic one?” Darren mutters to Cooper behind us.

“Yep. And this dude still needs to be taken care of for stealing Sarah’s s’more.”

Cash leaps up and races around behind everyone sitting at the fire, crashing between Charlie and Hank, who are giving each other the silent treatment, which is pretty hilarious if you ask me.

“Y’all are the best kind of nuts,” Vaughn tells us all.

And somewhere off in the distance behind the house, someone sneezes a very loud, very feminine sneeze.

“Motherfucker,” I mutter while most everyone around us groans.

“Get a room,” Davis yells.

“We didn’t need to hear that,” Tripp agrees.

“Bless you,” my mom calls. Awkwardly. While sharing a look with my dad.

Oh, fuck.

I gape at them. “Seriously?”

Sarah snort-laughs so hard she’s in danger of waking Emma.

She did a week-long series on weird side effects of sex last week, and yeah, she included the not-so-mythical sneezegasm. And Ellie and Wyatt have disappeared. And everyone reads Sarah’s blog.

Also, yes, I did go back to my hypnotherapist, and I’m just fine now.

Most of the time.

But more to the point, most of the guys know about the sneezegasm problem. So we all know what’s going on back there in the woods.

Which I’m choosing to ignore, since I have my own plans for lots of orgasm time this weekend.

“I love your laugh,” I tell Sarah, because I do, and I don’t even care that she’s laughing at me, so long as she’s laughing.

“I love you,” she replies.

“You really hanging up your underwear, Ryder?” Vaughn calls across the fire.

“If it keeps me home with this brilliant, beautiful lady more,” I reply. And I am. I’m slowly handing over control to everyone else, because I do want to be home more.

And I don’t know everything the future holds, but I know that between Tripp’s plans for all of us to pool our resources to save the Fireballs, and my own itch that I’ve been getting since talking to Sarah more about science and the world, that itch to maybe try college, and who knows, maybe med school after that—well, one way or another, I’ll be more than that retired underwear model who plays video games all day.

His teeth flash in a grin. “Good on you, man. Just don’t propose by tweet. Who knows who you’d actually pop the question to.”