America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(40)

“Well, yeah, that’s a normal Tuesday for me. But she’s your best friend.”

“I didn’t know she was going to be my best friend when I told her I grew up in Oregon. And I like Oregon. We went to the coast there once for vacation when Mom was getting ready to shoot in Seattle, and nobody bothered us, and we hiked all over everywhere, and you could see the stars all the way out to the edge of the galaxy at night, I swear you could.”

“Good wine,” I say.

“I was in grade school.”

“Probably still good back then.”

She lapses into silence, and I realize she’s staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Is it an act, or are you really like this all the time?”

I grin while I turn onto the ramp to Veterans Parkway. “Can’t tell you all my secrets, Ms. Dempsey. That’d ruin all this beautiful magic.”

“Hm.”

She’s quiet the rest of the drive, directing me down the dark winding streets of the campus until we stop at a strip mall about two blocks from CVU’s library. An open sign glows red at a shop between a dry cleaner and a drug store.

“Kefta?” I couldn’t stop a smile if my life depended on it. “Is this what I think it is?”

“You want dessert or not? I’m in the mood for chebakia.”

“Oh, hell, yeah.”

The parking lot isn’t deserted, but it’s not full either. Good sign.

The bodyguards walk us in. We lost the paps a while ago, but this is an unscheduled stop, so who knows who’s waiting inside?

As soon as the glass door shuts behind us with a jingle of bells, my mouth waters. I smell cinnamon and cumin and lamb, and something sweet too. It’s a typical strip mall restaurant—small entryway with a cash register on a glass counter and a dark wood hostess stand—but the lights are dim around the corner, and I follow Sarah as she peeks her head around.

Several low round tables. Rich red cushions on the matching low benches with the tables separated by shoulder-height, dark paneled walls. Paintings of high-walled medinas, the coast in Casablanca or Rabat, and the Atlas mountains hang on the deep red walls.

A woman in a hijab notices us and hustles over. “I’m sorry, we’re—Sarah!”

Her accent is heavy and her smile is bright.

Sarah slips easily into French and says something so quickly that I can’t catch it.

Not that I speak French.

But I’ve picked up a thing or two here and there. Can’t travel the world and be a total dumbass, despite what I might play on Twitter.

The woman laughs and replies, also in French, and the only words I’m catching are welcome, delicious, and dragonfire.

I probably got that last one wrong.

But then, considering we just came from the ballpark, maybe not.

“No, no, you come and sit,” the woman finally says. Her dark eyes dance over me. “But not him. He’s fired.”

Sarah cracks up. “He should be, shouldn’t he?”

“Utter disgrace, to speak to you so.”

“He’s trying to make amends.”

“Wearing that?” the woman asks with another sweeping glance over my jeans and Fireballs jersey.

“He’s never had mint tea the right way.”

Ah, shit, now my stomach’s growling.

“Ah, fine, fine, he can come too. But no baboon business.”

“Thank you, Fatima.”

“Thank you,” I agree.

Fatima shushes me. “You get the leftovers.”

Sarah purses her lips, but she can’t hide her smile. “That seems fair,” she says.

I nod. “Very generous.”

And when she tilts her head back with a short laugh, I feel like I won the game.





Nineteen





Sarah



Because Beck apparently can’t drive on a full stomach—and he’s very full of mint tea and chebakia and Moroccan shortbread cookies—I get to drive his Tesla.

And, yes, it’s really sweet, and I am definitely making him take Mackenzie for a ride before our contract is over.

He grunts his way through climbing out of his seat when we get back to my house. The bodyguards pull in right behind us. Three beaters are parked across the street.

Awesome.

I let us in through the front door, and an alarm instantly erupts and wails. My dad leaps off the couch. “Freeze, asshole,” he growls.

“Dad! Shut it off!”

Meda darts through the living room and dives behind the TV stand, knocking over my Captain Mal Funko Pop! figurine. Cupcake barrels in from the kitchen, confused as hell and running into the furniture, and oh, jeez, Mom put her unicorn eye mask on the pig.

Cupcake’s flying blind.

The security guys shove Beck to the ground, then the shorter one leaps up to grab the motion detector my dad’s whacking against my carved walnut buffet, but it keeps wailing.

“Judson?” Mom hollers. She comes sprinting down the stairs in a short pink bathrobe, her matching unicorn eye mask high on her forehead just as the noise finally stops. “Judson, are you smoking bacon in the evaporator again?”

We all stare at her.

She blinks once, twice, then turns around and goes back upstairs without another word.