America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(28)

“They’re going to ask,” I point out. Sympathetically. With my hands over the family jewels, because I’m not always the sexy, charmingly lovable idiot I play on the runway and on shoots. Sometimes I have self-preservation skills. “You need an easy comeback to a hard question, I’m your guy. But I can’t help if you don’t let me.”

I wait while she fights her own breath, those dark chocolate eyes boring into me like her senior prom was my fault.

After this many years in the business, the gossip rags are all easy to ignore. I’m always going broke or being abducted by aliens or partying at geriatric strip clubs and having a love child with Bigfoot’s baby. You get used to it.

You accept it’s part of the package.

But Sarah didn’t ask for famous parents. Or to grow up under the microscope. I doubt she would’ve changed her name and moved all the way across the country if the Hagrid thing at her senior prom hadn’t happened. And until I fucked up and dragged her back into the spotlight, she’d found her way out of the gossip rags and the general constancy of being torn down for being unique in the Hollywood world that values the appearance of perfection above all else.

“Control the story,” I remind her. “You control the story, you take away their power.”

She blinks and looks away, then marches to my Donkey Kong game.

I follow and hit the button to start a game.

Honey. That’s the sweet smell she’s carrying with her.

Honey.

The game starts, and she exhales a shuddery breath while she takes Donkey Kong up the first level.

“Morocco,” she says quietly. “I went to Morocco after…after high school.”

“Marrakech?” I ask.

“Everywhere. Rabat, Fez, Casablanca, Marrakech. I took a bus over the mountains to the Sahara. I camped. I rode camels. I read. I perfected my French. I met the most amazing people and I ate pastries every day.”

Fuck, now my mouth’s watering again. I’ve been to Morocco a few times, but always on shoots where I had to look like a fucking million bucks. No pastries or cookies for me. The crew would go to a bakery and come back with a plain black coffee for me and piles of candy crack and cookies and honey-coated goodies that I couldn’t touch, because fuck if I’m gonna let them airbrush me. “Are they as good as they look?”

“I think my ass can still attest to how good they were. And the mint tea basically changed my life.”

“You had it with sugar?”

“You didn’t?”

“That’s it. I’m going back.” The next time I have a few weeks between shoots, anyway. Getting back in shape is always a pain in the ass.

I hear Tucker shriek the magic word—pizza!—and my stomach tries to climb out of my body to get to all the cheesy, doughy deliciousness, that I’m eating because stress burns extra calories.

And also because the mini-shoot I was supposed to do at a shelter in New York was canceled this week, which means I do have a couple weeks to be a little more flexible with my diet.

Sarah pauses between levels to glance at my abdomen. “You should see a doctor about that noise.”

“Nah. Just a bakery. And a hamburger joint. And this guy I know who makes a strawberry malt that’ll—oh, shit. Sorry.” I wipe the drool and grin at her.

And her are you for real? eye wrinkle turns into a smile.

A wide, uninhibited, you’re a big dork smile that makes her dark eyes sing and shows off those pearly whites and pops out a dimple in her left cheek. “You might want to rethink some of your life choices.”

I don’t know a single fucking man in the world who couldn’t smile back at that gorgeous shining face. “Eh. Has its perks.”

Her smile fades as quickly as it came, and swear on my first modeling contract, the room gets dark and chilly.

“I saw a therapist for a while when I came back for college,” she tells the game. “We talked about not letting one moment in high school ruin my life forever, but it still makes me almost throw up to think about letting reporters shred my life choices all over again. Especially because it wasn’t the first time. I was seven the first time I made a tabloid, and my parents made so few missteps, I was the easy target in our little family. I like my life now. It’s quiet and I have a job I love and nobody cares who my parents are or where I grew up, and I built a following all on my own of people who care about the world the same way I do.”

“You’ll get it back,” I promise her.

“No, I won’t. My boss already texted me to ask if I want to take tomorrow off so I don’t bring the circus to work. And the office gossip is asking what you smell like, and my team lead texted to find out what my favorite donuts are for our Monday morning status meeting. They forgot my name on the May office birthday cake, but now they want to know what my favorite donuts are.”

“Maybe—”

“No, they don’t feel guilty for forgetting my birthday, because I didn’t tell them, because then they’d ask if any of my family got me anything, and I don’t want to talk about my parents sending me the Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle Lego set this year because they remembered how much I begged for the sets in high school. And my mom will probably say it’s because her psychic told her to, because Madame Susan knew I needed a warning that prom would come back to bite me in the ass.”