America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(25)

Yes.

My parents’ girl pig is horny.

This isn’t unusual.

“You don’t have to just take it,” I tell Meda.

She mrowls at me and stares up at me like I’ve betrayed her.

I pull her across the floor by the scruff to get her out from under Cupcake, who snuffles her disappointment at being denied a new girlfriend.

“Do you like cats?” I ask Beck, because he’s the only one in my kitchen actually looking at me, and I don’t know if it’s because he’s figured out who my parents are, or if it’s because he knows anything about me before I became Sarah Dempsey, or if it’s because he was just staring at my ass.

My ass that I got from my father’s stocky side of the family.

Not the slender but gracefully curved ass of my mother’s side.

Actually, I think I got both of their asses. There’s no shortage of booty here.

“Cats are awesome,” Beck tells me as he takes Meda and holds her like a football. “Like dogs or kids, except smaller and cleaner. Who’s a good kitty?”

He scratches her under the chin, and she gives me another look while she purrs audibly, her blue eye telling me this is how to treat your queen, her amber eye calling me a sell-out, the combination clearly broadcasting if you loved me, you’d scratch me like this all day every day too.

“You’ve been friends for eight years?” my mom’s saying to Mackenzie. “Do you do those role-playing games too?”

“Mom, I don’t do live-action RPGs anymore,” I say quickly. “Mackenzie’s a trash engineer. We met in school.”

“Senior year,” she agrees, her blue eyes still unnaturally wide. “She was the only other girl dressed up like Zoe at the Browncoat night at the campus theater.”

“You went as Zoe?” Beck asks me. He glances down my body, and a slow grin spreads across his lips. “With the tight pants and everything?”

“She was smokin’ hot,” Mackenzie says.

“I can see it,” he says with a nod.

“Stop looking at my daughter,” Dad growls.

“What’s a Browncoat?” Mom asks.

“It’s what fans of the TV show Firefly call ourselves,” Beck tells her. He gestures to my Firefly Babies print on the kitchen wall. “Still so fucking cool. Where’d you get that?”

“Internet.” The internet. It’s a blessing and a curse.

“Holes in the screens,” my dad mutters as he passes by the kitchen windows. “Drafty. Room for a spy cam.”

“He’s studying up for his next role,” Mom whispers to me, which I’d already figured out, because he’s using his Bat-Dad voice, which only comes out when he’s prepping for a badass role. “We’re not allowed to talk about it yet.”

Beck’s still petting Meda, who’s now purring loudly enough to rattle the drafty windows.

And I want to climb up into my bed and go to sleep and wake up tomorrow to go to work like the last three days haven’t happened.

There’s not supposed to be chaos in my house.

There’s supposed to be peace and calm and videogames and occasional crazy baseball superstitions and sometimes Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dr. Who marathons, but not chaos.

And not my best friend finding out who my parents are. Not this way, anyway.

Or Beck Ryder playing the unlikely hero who distracted her with questions about the best way to make cheese fries as soon as she realized what I’d been hiding from her for the last eight years, though the distraction only lasted so long before she was back to gaping at my mom.

It’s only a matter of time before she figures out I broke up with Trent last year because while the sex was amazing, I didn’t want him meeting my parents.

“Where are you going, sweetheart?” Mom asks. “You’re not sneaking out the window, are you?”

“Headache,” I tell her.

It’s not a lie.

“Oh, here. I have some herbal supplements that’ll perk you up in no time.”

“Don’t do drugs,” my dad growls at me.

Mom’s shaking out her massive Prada bag all over the kitchen table.

Mackenzie’s eyes are going rounder at the number of supplement bottles tumbling out.

“Let’s see…not the Valerian root or the kava…oh, here. Here’s some magnesium. And lavender. Lavender will help you relax.”

“Mom, I don’t need supplements.”

“It’s all natural,” Dad says as he prowls to the back door. “Better than drugs. Just a deadbolt? Just a deadbolt?”

I need to get out of here.

“Actually, I was going to take her out for milkshakes,” Beck announces.

“Yes,” I agree, even though the fries are in the oven with the bacon right now and there’s no way I’m leaving Mackenzie here alone with my parents and Cupcake, because that would be mean. “Me and Mackenzie. Because it’s too hard to stay here and watch the Fireballs get creamed.”

“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful!” Mom claps her hands and grabs a hairbrush from amidst the piles of herbal supplement bottles. “Here, just let me do your hair quick, and I think I have the perfect shade of lipstick for you in my overnight bag.”