America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(67)

“I—she could go another couple weeks, but it’s really exciting, isn’t it?”

“She is so pretty.”

“I love her tongue,” I say.

“We have the best cheese fries in Copper Valley,” the lady tells Sarah, completely ignoring me. “Bacon, scallions, and we don’t just use goopy orange cheese, though that’s totally delicious at the ballpark. We melt gouda, swiss, and cheddar together.”

My stomach grumbles.

“I’m really hungry tonight,” Sarah says. “Do you have hamburgers? Like half-pounders?”

“I can totally get you a half-pound burger. Bacon? Barbecue sauce? Fried egg?”

Sarah orders the mother of all burgers, with everything from avocado to bacon to provolone to fried onions on it, and I have to surreptitiously wipe the drool off the corner of my mouth.

What? I worked out today. On a fucking treadmill instead of out in the glorious summer day, but hey, I live in a time when I can run in a three-foot-by-two-foot space so I don’t have little old ladies spitting on me or other little old ladies asking me to kiss their dogs since those other old ladies actually believe I’m honestly sorry for the tweet heard ’round the world last week.

Not that I snuck out of my apartment this morning for a stroll to the Apple store and had any of that happen.

Really.

Don’t tell my team, okay?

Sarah finishes her order by asking for a large Cobb salad with extra bacon, sweet potato fries, onion rings, steamed broccoli, a sweet tea—just bring a jug, please, because I’m extra thirsty—and a Nutella almond malt.

I’ve never fallen in real love before—I mean, with a human, because I’ve fallen in love plenty with fried cheese sticks and a solid steak—but I’m growing more and more convinced that feeling after the taser incident wasn’t just residual voltage.

When the server finally dashes away, I angle closer to her, draping my arm around the back of her chair so I can whisper in her ear. “Can I kiss you? Right now? Because that was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’m having a really hard time keeping my hands to myself.”

She pretends to be puzzled, which makes her eyes sparkle and shine and yeah, definitely not residual voltage. “That sweet girl insulting your interpersonal skills and asking about Persephone?”

“You, ordering mounds and mounds of food. I’m having these fantasies about spreading it all over your body and feasting for hours.”

“If you’re not careful with all that dirty talk, we’re both going to regret what those photographers post to the world in about two minutes,” she breathes, her eyes going dark like yes, she wants me eating all over her.

And now I’m wondering what color her nipples are and if she’s the silk, lace, or cotton panties type, or if she’s in a thong, or boy shorts, and fuck, is it possible to be aroused in your stomach at the same time as you’re sporting a redwood, because everything’s pretty much revving engines right now.

“I don’t care about the photographers,” I tell her. “I’m so turned on right now.”

“Oh, because you think I’m going to share?”

Her lips are smiling and teasing, but her eyes are dark. So dark. Not just normal Sarah dark, but intense and deep and shadowed by her lowering lids, but still sparkling. The room’s dimly lit, but it’s glowing just for having her sitting in here.

“Name your price. Anything. You want my Frogger game? My car? A house in the mountains? A willing student with an eager tongue who really really wants to learn that double orgasm trick?”

“I think you’re cheating,” she whispers.

“I think you’re the world’s most perfect woman and I’m in serious trouble here.”

“It was really that sexy?”

“If I was lying, I’d say you were the alien queen of a distant planet come here to hypnotize all the men and steal pieces of our spleens to start a master race of sex slaves on your own planet.”

She cracks up even as she leans closer to me, her fingers coming to rest on my cheek. “How did you ever become a fashion mogul? That’s more cutthroat than Hollywood, and I swear you’re a thirteen-year-old boy in a man’s body. Which I’m completely okay with, by the way. I like you this happy and goofy.”

“How has no one ever noticed before how gorgeous your eyes are? They’re like pied piper eyes. You should have men following you like puppies everywhere you go just for opening those beautiful eyes every morning.”

“Looks aren’t everything.”

“But your eyes are. Your eyes are everything.”

Inches. Inches. I could be kissing her in mere inches. And I’m completely dead serious about everything I’m telling her.

She is hot and sexy. And her eyes—yeah, I could drown in those eyes. Happily.

“Lavoie. Lavoie, look. It’s the underwear guy.”

Sarah jerks back and looks up.

Two solid-looking familiar dudes are sizing me up. I know these guys.

“Ohmygod, Nick Murphy and Duncan Lavoie,” Sarah gasps.

Right.

Hockey players. The Thrusters.

They steal two chairs from the table on the other side of us and shove me out of the way to box her in. Murphy smiles at her and I want to punch his smarmy goalie face. Lavoie takes her hand and presses a kiss to the back of it, and I want to dunk his entire upper body in a toilet.