America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(33)

“Then you’re due.” He pulls me toward the door and claps my dad on the shoulder on our way past. “Don’t wait up.”

Dad makes a noise between a hiss and a growl, and Beck practically pulls me over the covered porch and toward the car.

I try to ignore the four beaters that don’t belong parked in the shade of the oaks along the street, because I know there are photographers inside just waiting to get a picture, and I also know they can’t hurt me with the three black sedans holding bodyguards also on the street, but my pulse is still in panic attack zones when Beck opens the passenger door for me. Once I’m closed inside, having safely arrived without tripping, my clothes randomly getting sucked off by an unnatural wind, or a bird pooping on me, I suck in a deep breath.

It’s just walking to a car.

They can’t twist walking to a car. And even if they do, I know the truth, and they can’t hurt me.

Beck climbs in the driver’s seat and starts the quiet engine.

And here we are.

On a date that’s not a date.

Alone.

With no buffer in the car to distract from the fact that we basically have nothing in common except that we both know his sister, we both know famous people, and that he pretty much turned my world sideways with a mis-aimed tweet.

He hits the radio.

The soft sounds of “America’s Sweetheart,” the Bro Code song that launched their career, fills the interior.

Yes, yes, fine.

I know Bro Code songs.

But only a few, and only because my first college roommate was in love with them, and also because all the radio stations in Copper Valley play them all the time still.

“Whoops,” he says with a grin that says this wasn’t a whoops at all. He hits a button, and the music switches to a pop song I don’t recognize. “Better.”

“Reliving the glory days?” I ask him.

He grins wider. “I took Tucker for a spin earlier. Introduced him to the classics. How was work?”

“How was work?” I repeat, because it’s such a normal, mundane question while I’m sitting in a car that’s probably worth more than my house, with a former boy band heartthrob who makes a killing putting his name on other people’s underwear.

Again, like the pair I’m wearing today.

Seriously, him getting into women’s underwear was brilliant.

Dammit.

That came out wrong.

I meant it’s really comfortable underwear.

“My parents run an environmental engineering firm,” he reminds me while we head out of the neighborhood, his fingers drumming on the white wheel, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m ruminating about our underwear. “I know a thing or two about water-saving toilets and solar panels and the energy clapback of windal speed.”

“The—what?”

“Energy clapback of windal speed. Technical term,” he says. “You didn’t learn that one in school?”

“That’s not a thing.”

He grins adorably.

“You’re physically incapable of being serious, aren’t you?” I ask.

“Everybody loves the class clown.”

“Except the teacher.”

“Are you the teacher?”

“No way. I hate people. I just like information.”

He coasts to a halt at a stop sign and pauses to glance at me. “I hate people too. They’re so people-ish. All those arms and legs and noses… The noses are definitely the worst.”

Once more, he’s managed to surprise a laugh out of me.

“People are awesome,” he informs me. “They’re complicated. Everyone has something they worry about. Everyone has someone they love. Everyone’s been through some kind of tragedy. But they still go out to baseball games and smile or head over to the theater and cry. The world’s full of good people doing their best, and we all fuck up time to time, but nobody’s really evil.”

I don’t actually hate people, but I do prefer to have a few tight friends to letting the entire world know my business. Also— “Nobody?”

“Okay, yeah, photographers who sneak through people’s bushes and scum who dox people online are evil with no redeeming qualities. And don’t get me started on trolls who call people fat and send dick pics. They all get anal herpes and their mothers call them ugly though, so there’s that.”

“You’re the reason Bro Code broke up, aren’t you? The other guys couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Yep,” he replies with yet another grin, this one totally shameless and not a bit insulted. “But really it was because they knew they’d never be this awesome. So how many frog habitats did you save today?”

I jerk my head sideways at him. “How did you know about the frogs?”

“At the windmill site? Ellie told me.”

“Did she tell you which flowers bees like too?”

He smiles, but the oddest thing happens.

He blushes too. “Yep. Everything I learned about how to treat a smart lady, I learned from my sister.”

He’s fed me plenty of stories the last two days, but this is one I don’t believe.

Not even a little.

Because the blush is giving him away.

I peer closer at his tan cheeks, to make sure it’s not a trick of the light, and oh my god.