America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(43)

I’m going to kiss Beck Ryder.

Right—

“Coast is clear!” my dad bellows. The basement door hits the wall with a crash. “Go! Go now, before the Euranians come back!”

We leap apart as his footsteps thunder down the steps. Beck snags his shirt, and he’s still buttoning it when Dad reaches us.

I dive into digging through a box of comic books, because it’s the closest thing I have.

Dad looks between us. I don’t have to look up to know he’s threatening to murder Beck with his eyeballs.

“Were you compromising my daughter?” he growls.

“I was trying to figure out what the birthmark on his shoulder reminds me of,” I say desperately as I lift a comic. “I’m positive I’ve seen it in this—erm—Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic.”

“Whoa, holy shit, you have—ah, yeah. Birthmark. Buffy. Like one of the monsters or something,” Beck says.

I glance at him.

He’s ogling the box of Buffy comics I was just riffling through.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise. If he likes Firefly, it stands to reason that he likes Buffy too.

“You have three minutes to get your sorry ass out of my house,” Dad tells Beck.

“Dad. It’s my house.”

“I’ve commandeered it for the mission. And the mission is getting this nudist out of here. He has his own playbook. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

“It was an honor to take your daughter to a ball game, sir,” Beck says.

“You’re damn fucking right it was,” Dad growls.

Thank you, I mouth to Beck through a smile, because I don’t know what else to say.

He grins back, and the wings flying my heart into my breastbone slow their flutter. “I’ll call you later,” he says.

Like we’re teenagers who just got caught making out in the parents’ basement.

“You’ll call me first,” Dad growls.

“Gotta go,” Beck replies. “Before those Euranians get back.”

He flashes me a lopsided smile that seems to be equal parts amused and frustrated, and he slips up the steps.

“Dad,” I say.

He, too, grins at me, dark brown eyes twinkling merrily. “You should’ve dated more in high school,” he growls. “This is fun.”

My life, ladies and gentlemen.

This is my life.





Twenty





Beck



Tuesday morning, I’m in the middle of a virtual staff meeting on the floor below my penthouse and I’m losing my fucking mind.

“Crawford might be placated for now with all those pictures from last night and public opinion swaying back your way, but there’s no telling if he’ll stay that way for long,” my manager, Bruce, is saying from his over-decorated office in LA. “You need to get caught buying the frumpy girl flowers. And can you get her to brush her hair?”

“Her name,” I say distinctly, “is Sarah.”

“Right, right. What are her parents saying? You’ve met them, right? Judson fucking Clarke. If we could get him to vouch for you, all of this would go away.”

Charlie rolls her eyes. She and Bruce often butt heads, but it’s getting worse. “You want a man to speak up about another man making his daughter’s uterus into public fodder?”

“She’s right, Bruce.” Hestia, my PR team lead is also rolling her eyes. “Now, if we could get Sunny Darling to join us all on Ellen, that would help. Although, rumor has it she’s in need of rehab.”

“Sunny Darling does not need rehab.” I’m going to pull my hair out. Fistfuls of it. And toss it all over the fucking floor. These people were so competent last week. What the fuck is going on? “And I’m not going on Ellen. We’re sticking with the plan.”

“You’ve been uninvited from the World Music Awards.”

I look at Charlie, because have they been listening to a word either of us has said?

“Beck wasn’t going to the World Music Awards,” she tells the team. “He’s on vacation that week. A real vacation. Where he’s not tweeting. Or talking to people. Or doing anything else that’ll require any of us to work overtime, and he’s even going to do his own laundry and cooking.”

I nod in vehement agreement. I didn’t know I was taking a vacation that week, but I never turn down an opportunity to hang out at home and torment my sister and remind my mom how much she misses me while I’m gone.

Plus, there’s the Tucker factor now, and I still have other friends I haven’t caught up with in town.

“It still looks bad that you were uninvited from one more thing,” Hestia says. “They’ll spin it.”

“You know he’s going to look like a saint when we finally announce the FLY HYGH Foundation, so it won’t matter,” Charlie replies. “And we just threw together the mother of all black-tie dinners for Sarah’s favorite giraffe on Saturday night, and Vaughn’s tentatively on board to fly in for it too, so I don’t think anyone’s going to give two fucks if Beck doesn’t show up at an awards show two months from now that he already declined.”

“Do you really need me here?” I ask her.