America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(36)

I slink back in my own chair, feeling like an idiot.

Of course she doesn’t want to kiss me.

I turned her life upside down. I outed her identity. And I’m sucking her back into the spotlight to clear my name.

She’s not in this for anything other than the giraffes.

And I have to sit here pretending I’m totally into her for the whole game, because it’s a photo opportunity for the tabloids.

That she doesn’t even want to be at.

And it’s not actually all pretend.

Not for me. I’m feeling things.

I just don’t know if I can trust those things.

“Yeah,” I say. She’s squirming. I want to squirm, but I know better. “I’ve tossed the first pitch a few times.”

I easily roll into my favorite first pitch story—the one about me missing home plate and beaning the Fireballs’ dragon mascot—and I get my head back in the game.

This is about saving my reputation, my foundation, and my business.

It’s not about hooking up with the woman I’m supposed to be pretending to fall in love with.

No matter how much more I’m liking her every minute.





Seventeen





Sarah



It’s just for show.

This whole game and date are just for show.

Beck Ryder wasn’t kissing me because he likes me. He thought I was playing the part, and I flinched, which probably ruined whatever look he was going for, but I’m not an actress.

I’m just me.

“Do you like funnel cake?” I ask when an awkward silence falls between us, because if I’ve learned anything about Beck in the last two days, it’s that he’s always starving.

“Oh, hells to the yeah,” he replies, a full boyish grin taking ten years off his face.

Not that he looks old. He’s…what? Thirty-two? Thirty-three?

Definitely old enough to not get excited like a puppy over funnel cake, yet here we are.

With him all but wagging his tail at the idea of fried dough and sugar.

He’s adorable. And with those sexy bedroom eyes—it’s a lethal combination.

He turns to the bodyguards.

“No funnel cake sold in the ballpark, Mr. Ryder,” the first one says.

“Can get a really good hot dog though,” the second one offers. “Or a hamburger or some pretzels.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Not the same. You want a funnel cake, Sarah?”

“I can settle for a pretzel.”

“But do you want a funnel cake?”

Twenty minutes later, ballpark security delivers a box of food.

And when I say box, I don’t mean a little grocery store rotisserie chicken-size box.

I mean a giant box. One of those suckers that’ll hold twenty reams of paper and apparently enough grease to slick a pig.

“Ah, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” Beck says.

He starts pulling out take-out cartons and bags, and the scent of fried food fills the air.

There’s fried chicken. Waffle fries. Funnel cake. Okra. Peach cobbler.

“Hungry much?” I ask him.

“Starving,” he replies. “You want a wing? Drumstick? We have to share the funnel cake. The cameras are watching.”

The cameras.

The same cameras that were watching the night I had my first kiss, which was broadcast via all of the gossip rags when it got awkward with a strand of saliva going between his chin and my mouth because I thought he was going for a kiss and he thought we were going for a hug, and I decided to go all out, and my freshman class had a field day with making slobbery nicknames for me for weeks.

I blow out a slow breath and remind myself I’m not fourteen anymore, and that I’m in control of this story, while Beck lifts the lid on the funnel cake, holds it to his face, and sucks in a deep breath over it. “Heaven.”

“You really like food.”

He breathes in again, nose right up in the fried dough, and I don’t know what comes over me, but I tap the carton upward, and he jerks back with powdered sugar on his nose, surprise giving way to an evil, evil smile.

“So that’s how it’s going to be,” he says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply, but I’m battling my facial muscles to keep from grinning back, because even if this picture goes all over the tabloids, I won’t be the only one looking goofy. He not only has powdered sugar on his nose, but his cheeks are dusted, and his stubble and one dark eyebrow look like they just survived a concentrated attack of flurries.

And he’s smiling.

He’s smiling so big, so uninhibited, with those eyes dancing with utter joy, that I’m in danger of jumping on the joy train with him.

“You know how long it takes to wash powdered sugar out of your hair?” he asks as he draws his finger over the top of the funnel cake.

I’m pressing myself as far back in my seat as I can get, knowing what’s coming, and unable to stop smiling back at him. “That assumes I care enough to wash my hair regularly. Ask my mom. She’ll tell you. It’s once a month for me.”

“Come here, Sarah. We need matching makeup.”

“Oh, no. It’s not even until you’re wearing some ranch dressing too. I’m still wearing some sriracha that I spilled last week during a game. See?” I point blindly to my gray shirt while he leans closer, threatening me with a powdered sugar finger.