America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(60)

“Supposed to?” he squeezes my knee.

“It’s Hollywood. Plot twist, right? Obviously, he wasn’t there. I called my mom, and she said she’d check in with him, so we went inside, and yeah, people were staring, but who wouldn’t? My friend Jasmine was dressed up like Hagrid. She was on stilts even, because she had skills and she’d also found a furry beard and wig to rival mine. We found a corner of the dance floor and we were all dancing and passing around her stuffed pet dragon when the owls arrived.”

I realize Mackenzie’s chewing her nails like she does during ballgames. “The owls wouldn’t have been so bad by themselves,” I tell her, “but it was all the panic that started as soon as they started zipping through the ballroom. People were falling all over each other, tripping, and then the paparazzi showed up right as I face-planted into Jasmine’s crotch and totally took her down, stilts and all, but not before an owl up on one of the chandeliers dropped a pellet into my cleavage.”

Beck swipes a hand over his mouth and shakes his head. “Jeez. And I thought getting booed off the stage at my senior homecoming dance was bad.”

“You did not.”

He holds up his hands and grins. “Swear on my underwear. Ask Levi and Cash. It’s what prompted us to start practicing. We were gonna horrify everyone even worse at prom, except…”

“Except you went viral on YouTube and got a recording contract, and I ended up changing my name and hiding in Morocco for a year.”

“Yeah.” His grin slips. “That sucks rotten eggs.”

“It’s what I get for dabbling in black magic.”

He cracks up, and now that it’s all out there, I’m kinda…free.

Not weightless, but lighter.

“I loved Morocco,” I tell him honestly. “The people were amazing. The food—”

“Delicious,” he finishes. “Hey, you promised me mint tea.”

“And you promised me you weren’t stuffing your briefs.”

He snorts with laughter and doubles over, and I go hot in the face.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “It was there.”

He holds out a fist, and I bump it. “Well played, black magic lady. Well played. You doing that black magic to get that meteor shower that’s coming next month?”

“Do you realize we’re sitting just a few thousand miles over a molten core of lava and flinging through the universe at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour? And not just around the sun. The sun is moving through the universe too, which means we’re basically hurtling through space in a controlled spiral of awesome. I mean, how does that even happen? And then we get to live in this little biodome where the most important thing on the internet today is going to be that I made a joke about the size of your package?”

We officially cannot post this video.

Fabulous.

Now I have to do it again.

But Beck’s still grinning. “Your blog isn’t just about saving the bees and the giraffes.”

“The entire planet is too fascinating to keep it to just endangered animals. But they’re getting the priority right now.”

“How’s our girl doing over at the zoo?”

“She’s completely and totally oblivious to all the attention, and she’s taking her sweet time about going into active labor.”

“You think she’ll have a boy or a girl?”

“Yes.” I woo-woo my fingers at him. “Unless my black magic trick to make her give birth to gorillas works.”

“If you get arrested for doing black magic and making Persephone give birth to a gorilla, can I have your—”

I clap my hand over his mouth before he can finish asking for my Serenity ship, but I’m laughing. “No. That’s top secret. Shush.”

“Bu ees oo,” he says.

“It’s time to say goodnight, Beck.”

He licks my hand, and I shriek and jerk it away with an astonished laugh. “You licked me.”

“Can’t sign off until we remind people to visit your blog and check out Persephone’s giraffe cam,” he points out. “Did my mom make you bacon again? I smell bacon.”

“You always smell bacon.”

He grins and looks at the camera. “Sometimes I smell hamburgers and pizza too. And that’s the Must Love Bees science blog. Go check it out.” He winks, and Charlie hits a button on the phone.

“And done,” she announces.

I drop my head between my knees. “And now we have to do it all over again so I don’t make a joke about your package.”

“Oh, no, that’s going up just as it is,” Charlie reports. “Because that was hilarious. And it’ll piss off Bruce and utterly enchant the rest of the world except for the trolls who’ll call you both names.”

“Bruce?” I ask.

Beck grimaces. “Not important. You worried about anything other than telling the world I have a little willy?”

“Oh my god.”

Mackenzie drops to the ground laughing so hard she’s crying.

“Great,” Beck says. “Post away. I gotta go warn Levi and Cash to get their Dick pics ready.”

“What?” Seriously, this time I really am putting my hands up to catch my eyeballs.