America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(97)

It’s worse.

Way. Way. Way. Fucking. Worse.





Forty





Sarah



I’m leaning over an open tackle box of eyeshadow colors when Beck bursts through the back door, sweeps his hot blue eyes over all of us, and then erupts in a rage.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he howls.

He crosses the patio—my yard is full, but not large, so it only takes him four steps, and he bends down and gets right in my mom’s face. “She. Is. Beautiful. Just. As. She. Is.”

I leap up in alarm and grab his arm. “Beck—”

“No. No. You don’t have to prove any single fucking thing to those losers who are jealous that they’re not as smart and dedicated and passionate and naturally gorgeous as you are.” He flips the whole makeup case over and glares at my mom again, then growls at my dad, who’s leaning out the back door and watching with narrowed eyes. “And you two. Didn’t you ever tell Sarah she’s perfect just the way she is? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

I gape at him, because Angry Beck is like the Incredible Hulk, if Hulk wore sky blue so well that it brought out his eyes perfectly and highlighted all that anger simmering on his cheekbones and had a week’s worth of binge-eating delicious food to fuel his rage.

And also if he were hell-bent on being my hero.

“I forbid you to wear that shit,” Beck declares.

I choke on my own spit. “You forbid me.”

My dad gapes.

My mom leans back in her lounge chair and gapes.

And Beck thrusts his fingers into his hair and attempts to pull it out. “Okay, look, I know I can’t forbid you to do anything, because I’m not a total moron, and I just fired an asshole for that tweet, which was a total lie, and also for being a dick to my assistant and so many other things I should’ve fired him for years ago, but damn it, Sarah, you don’t need that shit, and I’m going to hunt down every last fucking troll on Twitter and dunk their heads in dirty toilet water until they cry uncle and realize that there’s no fucking thing as one definition of beauty and that their souls make them the ugliest assholes in the history of assholes. I. Love. You. Just. The. Way. You. Are. Not with all that goop all over your face and in shoes that hurt you and wrapped in Lycra torture devices. And I’m not letting you go without a fight if you really did try to dump me this morning, even though I know that was my asshole manager being a dick, and I can’t think of more creative things to call him because I’m that pissed. But the point is, fuck anyone else who tries to make your self-worth tie to how you look.”

I wait while he paces over my short patio, because odds are good he’s not done.

But he doesn’t say anything else.

Nope.

He stops suddenly, and he looks at me.

Just looks at me.

At first with his nostrils flaring and the blue flame in his eyes threatening to singe his eyelashes off, but the tight lines around his mouth loosen, and his brows untangle, and he drops into the seat I just vacated and wraps his arms around my waist. “Please tell me they didn’t hurt your feelings, and please tell me you didn’t see that tweet, or if you did, that you didn’t believe it, because I swear, I will never forgive myself if they hurt you, and I’d really rather just be here with you than out avenging your honor all over the world for the next six years.”

“I know a good asylum for the insane,” my dad growls.

“Judson, hush, and come give poor Beckett a hug. He’s had a rough four minutes.”

“Can I talk?” I whisper to Beck.

“I love when you talk,” he says against my belly.

“Have you eaten today?”

“Four times.”

I stifle a smile and stroke his hair. “I think I’ve been around celebrities enough to know not to listen to anything I don’t hear out of the horse’s mouth,” I whisper to him.

His arms tighten around me. “I’m a very good horse,” he says into my stomach.

“A very good stallion,” I correct.

He huffs a laugh, and I keep stroking his hair, because it’s so thick and perfect and so easy to touch, and I missed him.

I might also be a little wobbly in the knees with relief, because while I did know that tweet was all PR baloney, I needed to hear it from him.

And I might’ve been hiding from the fear that he wouldn’t want me anymore when pulling me into his circle will always mean that we both have to deal with me being such an easy target on social media.

Except I don’t feel nearly as worthless and small right now as I did in high school when I’d make the tabloids. Because in the midst of the storm, there are still people talking about Persephone and her new baby. And about going to watch a meteor shower for the first time.

And about an old, old news article I shared about sand.

Yes, sand.

Because when sand is magnified, it’s not just little grains of nothing. It’s an entire universe of miniature shells that we all walk all over to get to the beach without realizing the beauty right under our feet.

Maybe we’re all tiny universes of miniature shells. And maybe I should be more like the sand and be fabulous just as I am, even if very few people will ever stop to look closely enough.

Like Beck has.