America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(3)

It made sense to tell her about my science and conservation website.

Whatever.

There are probably thousands of Ryders in Copper Valley.

“You know what pisses me off the most, Meda?” I say to my cat.

She meows back from her perch in the windowsill, giving me a piece of her mind while I nod along. She’s half-Siamese, half tabby—I think—and all sass and attitude to make up for not fitting squarely into a box, and we get along very well.

“Exactly. I finally had a following of people who love science and geeking out over planetary discoveries and new recycling technologies, and there he goes, turning my entire existence into a circus about my uterus instead of about saving the planet.”

I don’t have to log on to my social media accounts—or my website stats—to know what it looks like. It’s the same as every digital public lynching.

Everyone assumes they know the whole story. They post their opinions about it on the internet, then start with the name-calling—on both sides—and post things they’d never say to your face, and eventually someone will find my address and I’ll have to go into hiding.

Again.

Dammit dammit dammit.

Not that I didn’t enjoy my gap year, but I like my life now.

I throw my sunglasses onto the upcycled coffee table in my eclectic living room and follow it with my hat, which lands squarely inside the massive box of Avengers bobbleheads that Mom sent last week and that I haven’t yet dragged to the basement.

No time like today, because when I have to leave, those can stay behind. Not because I don’t appreciate them—I think the Golden Thor is in that box, and hello, golden hottie, but please don’t tell anyone I said that—but because I anticipate needing to make a fast escape with just the essentials.

I like my house.

And it’s a big damn pain to change your name on the down-low. Maybe I should skip that step and move to Fiji this time.

“I know, I know, I’m being melodramatic,” I say to Meda, even though I’m pretty sure I’m not. It’s hard to tell when you know you don’t always have a firm grasp on normal. “But I promise I won’t leave you behind.”

She meows at me again, staring at me with one blue eye and one amber eye, hops off her cat bed perch in the front window, and sashays into the kitchen, where she’s undoubtedly expecting dinner.

Four hours early.

I trail behind her, because she was five pounds of fur and bone when I brought her home from the shelter, and she can eat anytime she wants.

But as soon as I step into the kitchen, the hairs on the back of my arms stand up.

Someone’s in my backyard.

Inside my privacy fence.

Next to my wooden beehives.

He’s slinking toward the house in sunglasses, a ball cap pulled low, and a sweatshirt.

In June.

And if he thinks he’s going to get anything out of me, he can think again.

I slip my taser out of my grandma’s cookie jar and drop to my hands and knees to crawl over the plain beige linoleum to the back door, then lift my head just high enough to peer through the pane glass window above the doorknob.

He’s coming this way.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Meda meows again.

The stranger’s head swings my way—the creep is making sure he’s not being watched—and I duck down.

But only until there’s a knock on the door.

And then it’s all action.

I leap up, twist the doorknob, and I yell, “Think again, asshole!”

My heart’s pounding so hard it’s shaking my nipples. My voice is thick and high because holy fuck I’m staring down an intruder, and I don’t think, I just point and squeeze.

I can’t see his eyes, but I see his lips part under the dark scruff around his mouth and over his jawline. His body jerks once, twice, and then he’s down.

Sack of potatoes down.

“Oh my god, Beck, I’m going to kill you,” a woman shrieks as she dashes through my back gate.

I point the taser at her. “Back!” I yell a split second before recognition kicks in.

I know her.

I know her really well, but my brain is operating on oh my god, the paparazzi found me and I cannot place this woman, and if she has one of those spy cameras in one of her buttonholes, my picture will be on every gossip tabloid in six hours and my mother will be horrified that I didn’t comb my hair today.

She stumbles to a stop and lifts her hands, wincing as she seems to favor one leg over the other. “Sarah. I’m so sorry. I tried to stop him. He thought you’d appreciate the apology in person more than over Twitter.”

She winces again, and I know this woman.

I do.

“Who are you?”

She blinks once, then relaxes. “I’m Ellie. Your neighbor?”

My neighbor.

Shit shit shit.

I look down at the sack of potatoes with ridiculously long arms and ridiculously long legs splayed out on my small patio.

Then back up at her.

“You let the underwear ape in my yard,” I say.

Her lips part, and a slow grin starts across her pretty features. My mother would adore her, because without makeup, she’s pretty, but with makeup—and the haircut, and the clothes that fit right, and the style sense—she’s really effing gorgeous.