America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(39)

She squeezes tighter, and holy shit, she could probably crush a raw egg with her bare hands.

“Ignore them,” I murmur.

“Been doing this a lot longer than you, Ryder,” she replies, her lips tipped up, and I grin at her.

I can’t help it.

Her hand might be yelling Save me! Save me!, but her mouth has it covered.

“Yeah?” I murmur back in her ear. “Want to toss them a bone?”

Her lips twitch higher.

She really does have gorgeous lips. Plump and soft.

“No bones,” she tells me. “But nice try on an excuse to kiss me again.”

“Just because I offered you a guest room doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be welcome in mine. Never let it be said I’m not a gentleman first, when I’m not making an ass of myself.”

We reach my car, and I pull open the passenger door for her before the valet can fight the crowd around the car. He’s barely holding his own at the driver’s door.

When I get around to his side, I slip him a few benjamins and climb in too.

Sarah’s slouching so low in her seat, I think her ribs might have melted into her hips. “The game was fun. That, not so much.”

“Should’ve tossed them a bone.”

She pulls her sunglasses off and glances at me, and before I realize what she’s up to, she hits the button to roll the window down. “You want a real rare sight, go check out the giraffes,” she calls. “Underwear models are a dime a dozen.” She blows a kiss and hits the button again, sinking back into her seat once more as a loud, shuddery breath slips out of her mouth.

I squeeze her knee. “Feel better?”

“I feel like I ran a marathon between the corner and this seat. Where’d the bodyguards go?”

I check the mirror. “Right behind us.”

It’s hard to rev an engine in an electric car, so I hit the horn in a happy pattern—tappity-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap—and then inch the car forward until the reporters back off and give me space to go without running over anyone.

“Thank you,” I tell her quietly.

I don’t know what else to say.

The very fact that we got mobbed with questions about if we’re dating instead of what an asshole I am suggests this is working exactly like my team and I want it to. But making Sarah face the reporters after just a couple of the stories she told me tonight makes me feel lower than dirt.

“Every time I start to think I could handle a little more attention on my blog and social media feeds, I realize I’m wrong,” she says. “I don’t know how you live like this.”

“It’s not always that bad.”

“And sometimes it’s worse.”

True enough. Especially back in our Bro Code days.

“You like ice cream?” I ask her suddenly. Because she looks utterly defeated, and I have a desperate need to perk her up.

“Seriously?”

“Always makes me smile. Look like you could use some of that.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ve had a sister almost my entire life. I’m fine doesn’t work on me.”

“My siblings were all ferrets or armadillos or potbellied pigs.”

“So we basically had the same childhood.”

No laugh.

She’s getting ice cream.

I turn left when I should go right, and she sends me the suspicious eyeball of contemplation.

And by contemplation, I mean she might be contemplating searching my car for a taser to use on me.

“Cookies, cake, ice cream, crème br?lée, banana pudding, or dog biscuits?” I ask.

“Dog biscuits?”

“I would’ve picked the ice cream, but if that’s what you want…”

“You really want dessert?” The color’s coming back to her cheeks, the light to her eyes, and I want to hunt down her former best friends and slather them with honey and leave them next to an anthill for a few days for putting this much distrust into Sarah’s nature.

“Hell, yeah, I want dessert. I can’t take you home to your parents looking like you got attacked by feral cats in heat singing bad Broadway tunes. Dessert cures everything.”

I grin at her.

She doesn’t grin back.

Huh. My charms must be wearing off.

“Or I can take you home,” I say sheepishly.

“You know University City?”

“Nope. Books aren’t my thing.”

“Whatever. You probably snuck over there when you were sixteen to sit in the library with reading glasses on to pick up the older chicks.”

Huh. She didn’t exactly nail it, but close enough. “That was Tripp. He always went for the more intellectual types.”

“Me too. Head down Veterans Parkway toward CVU’s amphitheater.”

“Wait, you were trolling the college libraries for guys when you were sixteen?”

“Yes. I wanted one of those hot studs at UCLA to talk physics to me.”

“Aw, look at you, catching on and schooling me. Wait. Mackenzie said you grew up in Oregon.”

When she doesn’t answer, I sneak a glance at her.

She’s gone splotchy again. “What, you’ve never put on a disguise, faked an accent, and told people you were Italian?”