America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(77)

Even the losingest team in baseball.

Which means my buddy’s asking me if I can liquidate something.

Go into business with him. Probably all the guys. Reunite for a new cause.

And buy our hometown baseball team.

I gulp again, but in the midst of gulping, I can’t help a smile. “That would be so snickerdoodling awesome,” I mutter. My brain’s spinning in a way I don’t often make it spin, but shit. Owning our own baseball team?

Bringing the Fireballs back to glory?

He doesn’t smile back. “Snickerdoodling complicated and hard and risky.”

“You got numbers?”

He nods once while James darts over to shove the plane in my face. “Unka Beck! See it fwy?”

“Fly, little airplane,” I tell it. “Gaaahhh! Fly away from the meteorites!” I crinkle a page out of the magazine and toss it in the air, and James darts off, giggling.

Then I shoot a look at Tripp. “Email me.”

He snorts. “You mean email Charlie?”

I shake my head and toss James another meteorite to dodge. “Email me.”

“It’s a snickerdoodle-ton,” he says, so dead serious I have to wonder if he’s talking about even more than we’re all worth together.

“Yeah, and we’re five guys from a middle-class neighborhood in Virginia who ruled the snickerdoodling world for five or six years. Levi in?”

“I’m starting with the easy targets.”

That gets a laugh out of me, but it’s true.

I’m the easy target.

Davis might technically be the youngest of all of us, but I’m the kid. “This is nuts. Even I know that.”

But I’m not thinking about nuts.

I’m thinking about excuses to be home even more.

And the look on Sarah’s face if I told her I saved her best friend’s baseball team.

If I told her we’d be in the limelight less. Because who, outside of Copper Valley, really cares about the Fireballs?

And now I’m smiling again, adrenaline kicking in just like it did the night we all climbed onto a tour bus for the first leg of our very first tour.

“You have a crazy bone,” I say to Tripp, who was always the one watching our backs on tour, because yeah, he’s the dad of the group.

He thrusts his hands through his hair. “Sometimes, a guy needs a change.”

He just might be right.





Thirty-One





Sarah



Once in a blue moon, Mackenzie and I do paint night at a cute little art shop a few blocks from my house. When they announced one of their new painting options is a night scene of Duggan Field, she signed us up.

Pre-Beck, of course. Because we had to sync a paint night with a day game, because it wouldn’t do to be painting Duggan Field while missing a game.

But now it’s the two of us, plus my mom, Ellie, and Mrs. Ryder.

When the staff realized it was me coming, they asked Mackenzie if she’d rather reschedule or bring enough people to fill the shop ourselves, since they didn’t want me to be uncomfortable with being fawned over.

“I’m not a freaking celebrity,” I mutter to her while we start on our wine. I have two glasses—one red, one white—and a newly cleaned seat and brand-new brushes because apparently I’m still going to be the person of the hour tonight, which is ridiculous.

I’m just me.

“Yes, you are,” she mutters back. “And one day, when you take Beck up on his offer to let his video team help you set up a few vlogs about your favorite subjects, you’ll realize there are all kinds of stars, and you’re the kind you’re supposed to be.”

Ellie takes the seat on my other side with her wine and her paint tray. “If my mom asks how many babies you want, just tell her three, and she’ll be so overjoyed that she won’t ask you anything else the rest of the night,” she whispers.

“I heard that,” Mrs. Ryder says. “And I’d rather talk about your wedding, sweetheart.”

“I adore weddings,” Mom announces. “I’ve had seventeen of them.”

“Seventeen?” Mackenzie gasps.

“Sixteen were for roles,” I tell her.

“Oh. Right. Yeah. That makes sense.”

While Mackenzie asks Mom which was her favorite, I sneak a peek at my phone.

Beck texted, which gives me more of a thrill than I’m willing to admit out loud. Because I know what his unread text messages look like.

I just spun James so fast that he puked macaroni and cheese, and now Tripp says I’ve lost my babysitting privileges. This sucks. Flash me a picture of a cheeseburger to make me feel better? No, wait. Send me a picture of you EATING a cheeseburger to make me feel better.

I cast a quick glance around to make sure nobody’s paying attention, then snap a selfie of me lifting the glass of red wine to my lips.

Because my mother attacked me with eyeliner and that perfect shade of lipstick, I look a little like a surprised raccoon with purple lips, but if he’s still honestly attracted to me after this picture, then I’m definitely posting that blog I drafted this morning.

And I’m getting back on social media and diving in head first.

Once I send the text, his reply is almost instantaneous.