America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(62)

Through breakfast, morning snack, second morning snack, lunch, second lunch, afternoon snack, and pre-dinner snack. Davis goes back home. Levi leaves to fly to Seattle for his weekend concert. Tripp takes his kids for some playdate at a library or something, where he’ll undoubtedly have nannies throwing themselves all over him, and everyone else goes to work.

Even Charlie abandons me.

But Judson doesn’t.

He and Cupcake hang with me all day, and when things get weird after I beat him in foosball and he challenges me to a gym-off—dude, don’t be like me and ask what that is, or you’ll regret it—I call Hank, Cash’s brother, who runs a small website design company.

And by small, I mean he specializes in clients like me, Levi, and Cash, who have big website demands, and that he employs enough people to keep everything running twenty-four seven for his small clientele, even though he could easily expand to being one of the big dogs in Internetlandia.

But even he abandons me after getting all the info he needs from Sarah to upgrade and tweak her website.

She’s texting him, but not me.

Still, he was enough of a distraction that now Judson’s chilling on my couch, Cupcake sprawled across his lap, watching golf.

And by watching golf, I mean they’re both sleeping.

Wyatt comes to my rescue just before I’m ready to dive into first dinner. He and Ellie have been supervising movers all day, without the paparazzi watching them, because the reporters all flocked to Shipwreck when one of my bodyguards took my car and drove out that way with the other one in the backseat covered by a blanket.

Heh.

“Barbecue at the Rivers house,” Wyatt says. “C’mon. I’ll drive you. Ellie’s already there with Tucker, who’s telling stories about the things his Beck Ryder doll did at summer camp today.”

I look at Judson.

Then back at Wyatt, who rolls his eyes. “Dude. He’s practically your father-in-law. You can’t just leave him there sleeping.”

“Ain’t nobody sleeping, boy,” Judson growls with his eyes closed. “This is called meditating on how I’m gonna gut your friend like a fish when he breaks my daughter’s heart.”

“Man, you know all the good party tricks,” I say to him. “You like brisket and baked beans?”

“You got a hollow leg to fit it all in?” he replies.

“He’s half-cow,” Wyatt supplies. “Four stomachs. Science experiment gone wrong.”

“Should’ve gone for four dicks,” Judson says. “Might’ve been able to fill out your briefs. Keep it away from my daughter or die.”

“You meet the best people,” Wyatt tells me.

“It’s a gift.”

We all load up in Wyatt’s SUV, including Charlie, who hasn’t had a single meal with me today, but did apparently get a massage and a facial and is feeling extra helpful with suggesting different ways Judson could torture me if I hurt Sarah.

Dinner’s a fucking awesome feast, because Ms. Rivers is almost as good of a cook as my mom. I say almost because I still remember who gave birth to me.

And it’s utter perfection being back in the old neighborhood.

Old trees. Houses built in the seventies. Sidewalks. Basketball hoops on garages. That missing limb on the oak at Wyatt’s grandma’s old house that we accidentally took out with a bottle rocket that we may have overfueled. The weathered picnic table we used as our makeshift stage when we decided that it was stupid for Levi, Tripp, and all the Rivers kids to have been forced to take music lessons for all those years if we weren’t going to somehow be famous, even though Davis, who never studied music a day in his life, had the best voice of all of us.

And ribs and cornbread and coleslaw and baked beans, and I’m really wishing I did have four stomachs by the time I’m done with the banana pudding my mom brought over.

But as perfect as it is to finally be back—I’ve been trying to keep the reporters from following me over here, so I haven’t dropped by since getting back to town—it feels like something’s missing.

And it’s not because Ellie and Wyatt are all touchy-feely, or because Tripp’s kids are making me mourn the family I’ll probably never have—Sarah’s not the only person with trust issues—or because Levi and Cash and Davis aren’t here, or because I’m getting all the ribbing over the video this morning and Sarah’s suggestion that my schlong is actually a schuh, because it’s missing the long part.

And Charlie’s report that the video has shot speculation about us sky-high isn’t helping either. Nor is hearing that Vegas is taking bets on if Sarah’s pregnant.

I mean, yeah, I feel bad that her life is so public again when she didn’t want it to be, but it’s not even guilt eating at me.

I can’t put my finger on it until my phone lights up with the text I’ve been waiting for all day.

I might look like a girl Saturday night, but I can’t promise to be happy about it.

Yep.

That’s exactly what’s wrong.

I wish she was here to have fun with my family and extended neighborhood family too, instead of being off shopping for a dress that she doesn’t want to wear for an event that didn’t have to happen if I hadn’t been a dumbass.

To see her dad making Cupcake do tricks in her tutu and challenging Wyatt to an arm wrestling contest. To watch Hank and Waylon making bets over if June’s new boyfriend will stick around after this. To listen to the mothers all chattering about wedding plans and Ellie insisting her wedding will be a small affair, thank you very much.