America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(46)

He clears his throat and looks at James.

“Ah. Right. Sorry. You’re crashmoles.”

He’s known me too long to think I’m funny, and he stretches his legs out while he studies me. “Davis says you’re quitting.”

“Why the fugglenuggets would he say that?”

“C’mon, man. Ellie’s accident. Your schedule. A self-sabotaging tweet, followed by a PR stunt…”

I bounce Emma on my knee and make funny faces at her. “Your daddy’s talking funny.”

“So Davis is right and Levi owes me some cash.”

“You remember that foundation I told you we were working on? The one with Vaughn Crawford?”

“Sports programs for kids?”

“We were supposed to announce it next week.”

He winces. “Ah.”

“Yeah. Need to clean up my mistake so Vaughn doesn’t bail, and I need to keep making money to fund all my favorite projects. It wasn’t self-sabotage. I love my job. I was just a dumb-dumb head who hit the wrong button on my Twitter app and got a little too full of myself to assume mistweets couldn’t happen to me. Happens when you’re fabulous and haven’t slept in three days.”

He sucks in a grin as he shakes his head.

I get that a lot.

“Miss sleep that much, do you?” he asks. “Want to hear about a teething toddler with diarrhea?”

Emma smiles at me. Her stomach gurgles.

“She’s in an industrial-size diaper, right?”

“Baby roulette, dude. You want to hold her, you take the consequences.”

I eyeball the blond-haired, round-cheeked cutie.

She smiles so big that drool drips down her fingers and arms, and she pumps her chubby legs.

The elevator dings, and I rise.

Because odds are good that’s my mom. She’s been dropping by once or twice a day—usually with food, because she loves me—and she’s a master at baby diapers.

Another ominous sound comes from Emma’s midsection. She screws up her lips and mouth, and oh, fuck, here we go.

I rush toward the kitchen and the penthouse entrance, and as soon as I see a body, I shove Emma toward it. “Hey. Baby?”

A single blink too late, I realize my mistake.

That’s not my mom.

Or my sister.

Or even Charlie, who would probably turn around and take my credit card back to the store, because Emma does, indeed, have an intestinal disorder, and she lets it all go as soon as Sarah latches onto her.

It’s a long, slow-drawn-out letting go, and that’s not an industrial-strength diaper, but that is definitely sheer and utter horror on Sarah’s face while she silently asks me what in the holy hell I’ve done now.

Fuck.

I just handed my fake girlfriend a baby poop bomb.

And it went off.

All.

Over.

Her.

“Oh, fungusbubbles,” I croak out.

And if that look on her face is any indication, those will be the last words I ever utter.





Twenty-One





Sarah



So far today, I’ve learned many, many things.

I’ve learned that it’s hard to concentrate at work with people talking about me shoving Beck’s face in a funnel cake and wanting to know if they can get his autograph, and also I guess I never would’ve picked you as his type.

I’ve learned my parents will drop by my office just to see your desk, sweetheart and that my father takes an obscene amount of joy in prepping for roles in public if it’ll embarrass me.

And now I’ve learned that Beck is king when it comes to winning wars.

“Are you shi—” I start, but he clamps a hand over my mouth.

“Virgin ears,” he hisses, and then his nose crinkles, and then I inhale and find out why, and— “Oh my god, what is that smell?”

We’re not alone.

Past the kitchen, there’s a toddler—preschooler?—running a model car up and down the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the park and the mountains while watching all of us with very serious blue eyes, and there’s also an adult male rolling on the ground laughing his ass off.

“I—you—here—we should—”

For once, Beck’s apparently at a loss for words.

Even made-up nonsense.

“I thought you were my mom,” he finally blurts.

The guy on the floor laughs harder.

“Do I look like your mother?”

Beck’s ears go pink. “No, I just—I wasn’t expecting you, and—not that you’re not welcome. You’re welcome. Anytime. Day or night. I—we should put her in the sink.”

The guy on the floor rolls to his hands and knees and makes an effort to stand up.

“She’s Tripp’s,” Beck adds with a head jerk at his other guest. “Really cute. Most of the time.”

His hands hang in mid-air like he’s afraid to take the dirty squirming toddler from me, but feels like he should, but isn’t sure where to grab on her soiled yellow dress.

Because the stuff shot everywhere.

Down her legs. Up her armholes. Up her neck.

Her sweet baby smile comes with a squeal, and she pumps her legs, which sends the stuff dripping all over my shoes.