America’s Geekheart

by Grant, Pippa

  “Thank you.”

  I shrug modestly and intentionally misunderstand her. “Always happy to set a good example when it comes to taking a piss. I’m not always a fuck-up. You want some pizza?”

  She studies me for a second, then a small smile tips her lips up. “Careful, or you won’t fit into your tighty-whities next week.”

  “That’s why I’m branching out into tracksuits next.”

  She smiles, and once again, I smile back.

  Can’t help it.

  Smiles are contagious.

  Especially when I have to fight this hard to earn them.

  Fifteen

  Sarah

  As expected, Monday is a disaster at work.

  On a normal Monday, everyone’s grumpy and slow and they all pair off to talk to their normal Monday morning gossip buddies about the weekend, the Fireballs—or Thrusters in the winter—a concert or whatever they’re binging on Netflix or someone’s kids’ activities.

  This Monday, every last one of my twenty-seven coworkers stops at my desk at our small environmental engineering firm to ask me about Beck Ryder or my parents, because yes, the entire world knows now that I was born Serendipity Astrid Darling, geek daughter of one of Hollywood’s leading but aging power couples.

  Because I didn’t edit out the part of the video where I showed Beck my mole. And a paparazzi caught sight of my parents out to eat last night.

  And that’s before Beck sends a giant bouquet of purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans, which arrives at lunchtime.

  Coneflowers. Black-eyed Susans.

  Favorites of bees.

  And here I am, trying to stifle the flood threatening to leak out my eyeballs, because I didn’t expect this level of thoughtfulness, and I also don’t want to believe it was all Beck, because that’s dangerous.

  And not helpful for getting my work done today.

  Also, he probably really isn’t as good in bed as Trent was.

  Huh.

  I wonder if Trent’s seen the news.

  Sarah, honey, I don’t care who your parents are. They raised you. That’s good enough for me. I just want to meet them.

  He asked to see my parents, and I dumped him the next day.

  And I felt horrible for it.

  I really did.

  But we didn’t go to his apartment until after he got me hooked on his magic dick, and we didn’t pull up his iTunes account to watch movies together until a month later, but he literally had zero movies in his account that my dad hadn’t been in.

  You like Judson Clarke? Guy’s a fucking legend.

  The sex got not-so-great after that.

  For me, anyway.

  Which was a shame, because he was super talented.

  By mid-afternoon, I’m about to call it a day. I’m getting nothing done, and even my clients only want to talk about Beck and the tweet heard round the world and if I’ve actually forgiven him or if he’s paying me off.

  People are ruthless.

  Oh, honey, take the day off, my mom said last night when I dropped by their hotel on my way home to apologize for abandoning them and thank them for being here and to explain the situation, because my parents have been Hollywood royalty too long for them to believe that my soon-to-be budding romance with Beck Ryder is anything more than a publicity stunt.

  You didn’t sign anything without my lawyer looking at it, did you? my dad said. Okay, yes, growled. He’s really into whatever role this is. And your mother’s right. Take the day off. You have a trust fund for this exact reason.

  But I didn’t want to take the day off.

  I wanted normal.

  And going out in public and doing my normal routines is good practice for going out in public with Beck tonight for our first official fake date.

  Because I can’t stop the circus.

  All I can do is accept that I have to adjust to a new normal and make the most of it, and trust that this really will die down in another month or six.

  The end of the day can’t come fast enough, but it finally arrives, and I dart out of the building with my head down, because I don’t know who’s watching.

  Mackenzie meets me at my house. She’s got a hoodie over her blond hair, sunglasses that swallow her face, and she’s wearing a scarf wrapped around her mouth and nose. Yes, around the hoodie too. She’s hilarious.

  “Seriously?” I say when I open the door for her.

  She pulls off her gloves as soon as we’re inside, then rips off her button-down track pants and strips out of the scarf and hoodie. Her fine hair stands straight up like she’s touching a static electricity ball, and at least I know the weather won’t be unbearably humid tonight. “I’m currently unsure as to the level of attention I want just for being your best friend, but I wanted to support you before your date.”

  “They’ll run your license plate, and even if they didn’t, you drive the Fireball mobile.”

  We both look back at her Smart car, painted in Fireballs colors with the mascot on her hood.

  “Shit,” she mutters.

  “But they might think you’ve been burned in a horrible accident and that you had to have a face transplant,” my mom says as she sails in from the kitchen to drop cheek kisses on Mackenzie. “I always cover up when I want them to think I’ve had a little work done. Such an ego boost, finding out they think you’re less saggy and wrinkled when you’ve just been eating better and moisturizing regularly. Now, come come. We have canapes out in the kitchen, and I need your help convincing Serendipity to wear this lovely outfit I picked out for her this morning.”

  “I think Sarah looks cute just the way she is,” Mackenzie says.

  “She’s utterly adorable,” my mom agrees with a smile aimed my way. “But the paparazzi are ruthless and don’t appreciate creative fashion. We need to set the tone if this relationship has any chance of surviving.”

  “We’re just friends,” I remind my mom, because that’s the script for today. We’re just friends. And I might not be built for Hollywood, but I know how to deliver a line.

  I am Sunny Darling’s daughter. And despite having to fight for roles now, she’s won way more awards than Dad ever has.

  Mom smiles. “Mm-hmm.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m going to a baseball game, so I’m wearing a geek shirt. It’s for good luck.”

  “It’s totally good luck for Sarah to wear a geek shirt,” Mackenzie agrees.

  Mom sighs. “At least let me do something with your hair and makeup.”

  We compromise on a ponytail and lip gloss—though why a ponytail needs hairspray, I have no idea—and then I distract her with the suggestion that she do Mackenzie’s hair and makeup.

  I haven’t told my best friend all the details of what’s coming with Beck, because I signed a contract promising I wouldn’t, but it still makes me feel like a heel for lying to her again. I hope she’s suspicious.

  My parents know. Their lawyer did the final negotiations with his lawyer, with input from my parents.

  It’s for the best to have Mom and Dad involved.

  They’ve been there, done that, and seen about everything there is to see in Hollywood. They were the smokescreen I disappeared behind when I left for Morocco after high school graduation, and even though Mom insists on calling me Serendipity, they helped me legally change my name to escape the shadow of their spotlight.

  Beck arrives in a red Tesla Roadster an hour before the game.

  “Pansy-ass car,” my dad mutters as he peers through the blinds.

  “That is so sexy,” Mackenzie whispers to me. “Can you be friends with him long enough for me to get a ride?”

  “Sure.” I’m contractually obligated to stay friends with him for the next two weeks anyway.

  “You two are so adorable together,” she adds. “But if he even hints that your worth is directly tied to your uterus again, by all means, ruin his underwear modeling career.”

  She pauses, then lowers her voice even more. “I mean by cutting h
is balls off.”

  “Got that part,” I assure her.

  “I trained her to rip those balls off with her bare hands,” my dad growls from my recliner.

  “Oh my god,” Mackenzie gasps.

  “Dad, quit scaring my friends. You can practice your lines tomorrow.”

  “There won’t be a tomorrow if we don’t get our asses in the game.”

  Mackenzie goes from horrified to resigned in a heartbeat. “He’s practicing for a movie about the Fireballs, isn’t he?” she asks me.

  Beck knocks before I have to answer her, and I leap to reach the door first.

  My dad pulls one of those moves he learned in a kung fu movie ten years ago, though, and I end up toppling backwards over the armrest of the rocking chair, almost squashing Meda, who’s been camped out on the arm since Cupcake finally passed out cold on the AC vent in the kitchen.

  My legs flail, and I fling my arms out to catch myself as I start to roll sideways off the chair, ass in the air.

  Dad flings the door open. “Password,” he growls.

  “Your daughter is a kindhearted genius who deserves better than a dumbass like me?” Beck guesses.

  Mackenzie snickers.

  “My, he’s charming,” my mom breathes.

  I spin on the floor in time to catch Beck winking at my mother.

  She fans herself.

  Dad crosses his arms over his chest. “Quit flirting with my wife.”

  “Sorry, sir. Natural reaction to beauty.”

  I get myself back to my feet just in time for Cupcake to come barreling into the room.

  Meda yowls and takes off for the stairs to my bedroom. I dive for the pig before she can follow. “No, Cupcake! No stairs! Mom! Where’s her harness?”

  “You can’t stop true love, Serendipity.”

  “You can’t make my cat love your pig.” I’m wrestling with a pig on the floor, in my best Geeks do it in Binary T-shirt, trying to save my cat, who loves me most when I have fresh-cooked chicken or when she’s delivering a sacrifice or yesterday when I rescued her from the pig and let her hang out with Mackenzie’s bobbleheads for the afternoon.

  “Your cat was kneading my pig’s belly five minutes before you walked in the door,” Mom tells me. “She’s playing you.”

  “So…pulled pork for dinner. Good idea or bad idea?” Beck asks.

  Mom gasps.

  “Bad idea. Got it. Hamburgers good, Sarah? We’ll grab some at the park. Here. Let me get that pig for you.” He lifts Cupcake, who flails, but despite a grunt or two of his own as he tries to finagle the pig, he gets her in a solid hold and she quits squealing. “Aww, look at the sweet piggy. You want your daddy to take you for a walk, don’t you?”

  I snag Cupcake’s harness off the coatrack behind the door and slip it on her before Beck loses his grip. Once she’s leashed and on the ground, I hand the cord pointedly to my dad. “Pretend you’re auditioning for the role of a farmer and go distract all the paparazzi.”

  “I eat farmers for breakfast.”

  “Okay, Bat-Dad. Pretend you’re auditioning for a role as a bodyguard for the pig that will save the world. The fate of humanity rests on your shoulders.”

  “This game was more fun before you were old enough to date.” He’s still growling in his tough guy cowboy voice, but there’s a twinkle in his dark eyes when he takes the leash.

  Beck slings a long arm around my shoulder, which sends a delicious shiver that I ignore down my spine. “You ready to be good luck for the Fireballs?” he asks.

  “Luck hasn’t exactly been on my side lately,” I point out wryly.

  “Then you’re due.” He pulls me toward the door and claps my dad on the shoulder on our way past. “Don’t wait up.”

  Dad makes a noise between a hiss and a growl, and Beck practically pulls me over the covered porch and toward the car.

  I try to ignore the four beaters that don’t belong parked in the shade of the oaks along the street, because I know there are photographers inside just waiting to get a picture, and I also know they can’t hurt me with the three black sedans holding bodyguards also on the street, but my pulse is still in panic attack zones when Beck opens the passenger door for me. Once I’m closed inside, having safely arrived without tripping, my clothes randomly getting sucked off by an unnatural wind, or a bird pooping on me, I suck in a deep breath.

  It’s just walking to a car.

  They can’t twist walking to a car. And even if they do, I know the truth, and they can’t hurt me.

  Beck climbs in the driver’s seat and starts the quiet engine.

  And here we are.

  On a date that’s not a date.

  Alone.

  With no buffer in the car to distract from the fact that we basically have nothing in common except that we both know his sister, we both know famous people, and that he pretty much turned my world sideways with a mis-aimed tweet.

  He hits the radio.

  The soft sounds of “America’s Sweetheart,” the Bro Code song that launched their career, fills the interior.

  Yes, yes, fine.

  I know Bro Code songs.

  But only a few, and only because my first college roommate was in love with them, and also because all the radio stations in Copper Valley play them all the time still.

  “Whoops,” he says with a grin that says this wasn’t a whoops at all. He hits a button, and the music switches to a pop song I don’t recognize. “Better.”

  “Reliving the glory days?” I ask him.

  He grins wider. “I took Tucker for a spin earlier. Introduced him to the classics. How was work?”

  “How was work?” I repeat, because it’s such a normal, mundane question while I’m sitting in a car that’s probably worth more than my house, with a former boy band heartthrob who makes a killing putting his name on other people’s underwear.

  Again, like the pair I’m wearing today.

  Seriously, him getting into women’s underwear was brilliant.

  Dammit.

  That came out wrong.

  I meant it’s really comfortable underwear.

  “My parents run an environmental engineering firm,” he reminds me while we head out of the neighborhood, his fingers drumming on the white wheel, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m ruminating about our underwear. “I know a thing or two about water-saving toilets and solar panels and the energy clapback of windal speed.”

  “The—what?”

  “Energy clapback of windal speed. Technical term,” he says. “You didn’t learn that one in school?”

  “That’s not a thing.”

  He grins adorably.

  “You’re physically incapable of being serious, aren’t you?” I ask.

  “Everybody loves the class clown.”

  “Except the teacher.”

  “Are you the teacher?”

  “No way. I hate people. I just like information.”

  He coasts to a halt at a stop sign and pauses to glance at me. “I hate people too. They’re so people-ish. All those arms and legs and noses… The noses are definitely the worst.”

  Once more, he’s managed to surprise a laugh out of me.

  “People are awesome,” he informs me. “They’re complicated. Everyone has something they worry about. Everyone has someone they love. Everyone’s been through some kind of tragedy. But they still go out to baseball games and smile or head over to the theater and cry. The world’s full of good people doing their best, and we all fuck up time to time, but nobody’s really evil.”

  I don’t actually hate people, but I do prefer to have a few tight friends to letting the entire world know my business. Also— “Nobody?”

  “Okay, yeah, photographers who sneak through people’s bushes and scum who dox people online are evil with no redeeming qualities. And don’t get me started on trolls who call people fat and send dick pics. They all get anal herpes and their mothers call them ugly though, so there’s that.”

  “You’re
the reason Bro Code broke up, aren’t you? The other guys couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  “Yep,” he replies with yet another grin, this one totally shameless and not a bit insulted. “But really it was because they knew they’d never be this awesome. So how many frog habitats did you save today?”

  I jerk my head sideways at him. “How did you know about the frogs?”

  “At the windmill site? Ellie told me.”

  “Did she tell you which flowers bees like too?”

  He smiles, but the oddest thing happens.

  He blushes too. “Yep. Everything I learned about how to treat a smart lady, I learned from my sister.”

  He’s fed me plenty of stories the last two days, but this is one I don’t believe.

  Not even a little.

  Because the blush is giving him away.

  I peer closer at his tan cheeks, to make sure it’s not a trick of the light, and oh my god.

  He’s blushing harder now.

  Beck Ryder.

  Blushing.

  Over flowers.

  A warmth creeps into my belly, and my pulse amps up again. But for once, it’s not a terrified race in my veins.

  Nope.

  It’s something entirely different that I refuse to think about.

  Because this relationship is fake. And temporary.

  And only for the good of the giraffes.

  And that’s what I’m going to keep reminding myself.

  Sixteen

  Beck

  We make it to Duggan Field a few minutes before the first pitch, and with the help of the staff, we sneak in through the players’ entrance and reach our private box. Only a few people call me an asshole or ask Sarah what I’m paying her or why she doesn’t have better taste or more self-respect.

  The two serious personal security dudes on either side of us help.

  So does Sarah plastering on a brilliant smile instead of answering a single question, despite the tightening grip she has on my hand.

  We’re both in sunglasses and ballcaps, and she’s so tense I swear her hair and earlobes are extra stiff too by the time we get to the private box that was stupidly easy to reserve tonight.