America’s Geekheart

by Grant, Pippa

  After making sure I’m not going to accidentally kill her, Murphy and Lavoie leave us alone.

  But they sit close all through open mic night.

  Which is so-so, except for the ventriloquist, who’s fucking hilarious, and not just because Nick Murphy will kick my ass if I don’t think so and laugh in all the right places. That goat puppet she’s using reminds me of Wyatt. Totally straight-laced.

  Which I think makes me the cat puppet named Lucy, which is a little awkward, but I can deal with feeling a kinship with a cat puppet.

  Sarah shares all of her food with me, our chairs pressed tight together so I can loop one arm around her the whole night, because I’m having fingergasms just from touching her, and by the time the show’s over and every last amateur comedian and comedienne have had their turns, the photographers lurking across the room have gotten an endless supply of good shots of Sarah and me enjoying the show.

  And I’m pissed.

  Because she should be able to go out and enjoy a comedy club without knowing that her every move is being watched and scrutinized by the world.

  “We need to call this off,” I tell her when we’re back in my car, headed for my building. Security can sneak her out in an unmarked car from there.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I don’t like those assholes taking pictures of you.”

  She watches me as we pull into my parking garage and I take the hard left to head into my private underground garage behind the lift door that most people assume is for deliveries.

  “Maybe it’s not so bad,” she finally says as I’m parking. “I did some selective googling at work today. Donations to animal conservation projects are up twenty percent this week.”

  I want to be fucking up twenty percent. With her.

  But I’m also the moron who just told her we needed to call this off, and fuck, she probably thinks I mean all of us.

  “I could make two phone calls and get that tripled and you wouldn’t have to smile for another camera in your entire life.”

  “I like making a difference.” Her cheeks start to go splotchy, and I can’t help tracing the uneven edges of red in her cheeks. “I care,” she whispers. “People can see it. And that means more than Levi Wilson or Cash Rivers giving it lip service.”

  “I was going to blackmail one of the British princes and remind someone whose name I’m legally not allowed to mention that he owes me a favor, but I can call Levi and Cash too.”

  She lights up so fucking bright when she smiles.

  But I wasn’t actually joking.

  “My mom’s been asking me for years to go on vacation with her and Dad,” she tells me. “I’ve always had an excuse, but we all knew I just didn’t want to have my picture taken with them. Maybe now…we could try it. I’m not so afraid anymore.” She smiles hesitantly, like she feels silly for putting her parents off for so long. “Maybe you did me a favor by being an internet jackoff. And I’d never actually gotten to taser anyone before, so there’s that too.”

  Instead of answering, I release my seat belt and lunge across the seat to kiss her. I stroke her thick, silky hair and wish it wasn’t tied back, and she latches onto my wrists, but instead of pushing me away, she clings tight and angles her lips against mine and leans all the way in.

  This.

  This is what I’ve been searching for my entire life without even knowing I wanted it.

  This desperate hot need to not just kiss a woman, but to be kissed by her.

  To be everything she wants.

  To step up my game. Try harder. Be smarter. More gallant.

  More gallant?

  Shit. I’m turning into some kind of medieval knight for her.

  And I’m totally balls-to-the-wall on board with going all knightly on her ass if that’s what it takes.

  Especially when she parts her lips and lets me all the way in.

  Fucking. Heaven.

  Her hands trail down my forearms, she deepens the kiss, and I’m two seconds from blowing my load just because a woman’s gliding her tongue over mine.

  I might not be the world’s most experienced lover, but I don’t do premature anything.

  And I don’t think she’d kiss a guy just to kiss a guy.

  Especially not this guy.

  So I have a chance.

  A real chance.

  My hand is drifting down her shoulder toward her breast when my car horn blasts out of nowhere.

  And not just the horn.

  The whole damn alarm

  Sarah flings herself backward, her fingers going to her lips, eyes wide, and she fumbles for the door handle.

  I drop my phone between the seats trying to grab it to pull up my car app and deactivate the alarm, but as soon as Sarah leaps out of the car, I realize what’s going on.

  Charlie.

  Charlie’s phone is hooked to my car, and she just activated the alarm.

  And I’m positive it’s her, because she’s standing right there, in front of my car, phone in hand, and the alarm stops as soon as Sarah shuts her door.

  I glare at my assistant.

  Not in the contract, she mouths.

  I flip her off.

  She smirks.

  It’s a smirky, know-it-all, serves-you-right smirk. Possibly with a side of if you’re going to woo the woman, do it right, after you’re not contractually obligated to just act like you like her anymore, when she knows you’re really just into HER and not what she can do for your career.

  I drop my head to the steering wheel, because fuck.

  She’s right. Even with telling Sarah this isn’t about the contract, she has no guarantee. Which means she’s going on faith.

  Faith in me.

  I should probably be grateful there’s no emergency airbag deploy button on the app.

  I’m also revoking Charlie’s privileges to run my car app.

  “Ready to go home?” She’s asking Sarah as I finally pull myself out of the car.

  Sarah nods, face splotchy red, without looking at me.

  “You want to come over tomorrow and watch movies?” I hear myself ask.

  She glances at me and holds eye contact, but gets redder with each passing second. Shit.

  “I have plans, but thanks for the offer,” she says.

  Dammit dammit dammit. “Anytime. You’re fun.” You’re fun? What am I, twelve? I had all the right words earlier, and now I’m completely fucking this up.

  Charlie’s sucking her lips in. I know she’s stifling a smile, and I’m getting hot in the face too.

  One kiss.

  One single goodnight kiss.

  And my assistant goes and ruins it.

  I should fire her.

  Except she’s probably right.

  I shouldn’t be kissing women when it’s not clear if it’s for me or the stupid contract, because if I were Sarah, I’d be doubting every word I said about liking her for her.

  “I meant going out in public,” I say to her. “We should call off going out in public.”

  “Not gonna happen, Romeo,” Charlie says. “Or I’ll fire you.”

  Sarah flashes me a brief smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and I think I’ve just fucked up again, but I don’t know how, or why, or how to fix it. I just know I don’t want her to leave.

  And not because I don’t want to be alone.

  But because I want to be with her.

  “Can I call you?” I ask as Charlie ushers her toward the back door of the garage.

  This time, she stops and looks at me. She’s still blushing, but she finally lifts those gorgeous eyes to meet mine, and wham.

  “Yes,” she says with a shy smile.

  “Window’s closing to get you out before you’re going to be followed,” Charlie says, and Sarah and I both sigh.

  I’m about to tell her she can just stay when she ducks her head again and lets Charlie hustle her out the door.

  I slouch against my car.

  That was the best date I’ve ev
er had in my entire life.

  It was just a comedy club. With good food. Some photographers watching us. A near-miss with having a beer or seventeen spilled down my crotch.

  But I haven’t split a burger on a date since I was seventeen and couldn’t afford to get my date more. I haven’t let my fingers linger in the fry basket in the hopes that we’d accidentally touch in even longer. I haven’t wished the show would be over so we could be alone again, or been so simultaneously sad when we left because it meant I was that much closer to having to let her go home.

  And listening to her snort-laugh at some of the really bad jokes tonight—I don’t get why the internet as a whole isn’t tripping all over itself to talk about how gorgeous and funny and smart and kind she is.

  My phone dings. Text from Charlie.

  Go to bed, Beck. Business meetings all day tomorrow.

  I sigh and head for the elevator, where there’s ever-present security watching over my garage hidey-hole. “Not your usual type, Mr. Ryder,” the guy says.

  I scowl at him. “Damn fucking better.”

  His smirk slides off and he goes pink in the cheeks. “Yes, sir.”

  This world.

  I thought I was the fuck-up last weekend.

  But maybe the whole damn world has lost its mind.

  Twenty-Nine

  Sarah

  Charlie doesn’t mention the kiss as she accompanies me in a black Audi driven by a bodyguard on the drive home. Nor does she ask how the date went. Or even tell me stories about Beck or his family or his business.

  Nope.

  We chat about my bees. She’s thinking of getting a hive someday, whenever she’s finally ready to slow down and find home, since she’s seen enough of the world to know she can go anywhere she wants but she’s still narrowing down exactly where that is.

  And I pretend my lips aren’t still tingling from kissing Beck, and that I can stop myself from continuously reaching up to touch them to make sure they’re still the same lips they were pre-kiss.

  It’s not like it’s the first time he’s kissed me.

  But this one was more.

  And if we hadn’t been interrupted, I don’t think we would’ve stopped at kissing.

  When we pull up to my house, the lights are all on.

  My parents must still be here.

  And when the bodyguard walks me to my door and sees me inside, I realize they aren’t alone.

  Nope.

  Mackenzie’s here.

  And the Fireballs are tied at two in the bottom of the twelfth inning.

  “Sarah! Sarah, sit. Eat popcorn. You have to try the popcorn, because we cannot lose this game after we’ve fought this long to get here, and the popcorn is good luck. Wait. What’s that look? Why are you making that face? Did he try something? Do I need to go kick his ass?”

  My dad goes on alert instantly, his dark eyes raking over me like he has an internal mind reader app in his brain while he shoots to his feet. My mom, though, claps her hands. “Oh, sweetheart, I knew he was more than just a pretty face.”

  “Whatever. He’s just doing this to save his face,” Mackenzie says. “I mean, he seems like a nice enough guy, and if there wasn’t that whole fame factor, I’d be into letting him date you, provided he’s actually as nice as he seems, but you know Hollywood. No offense, Sunny and Judson. Did he touch your boobs? Do I need to call my friend Bubba-Shark to take care of things?”

  “Bubba-Shark?”

  “He’s this guy my dads know. I don’t like to talk about him because reasons, but desperate times, desperate measures. Did he show you his peepee?”

  “Strike out!” my mom cries.

  “What? He got the strike-out? Go, bullpen! I didn’t see that coming.”

  With Mackenzie distracted, Mom winks at me.

  Dad makes the Bat-Dad growl.

  And I realize I’m touching my lips again.

  I sink into the recliner, then bolt up again when Cupcake squeals indignantly beneath me. “Who put the pig in my chair?”

  “Ssh!” Mackenzie says. “She’s good luck. And I’m totally getting the rest of this story out of you as soon as we get this last out.”

  “Anybody else want ice cream?” I ask them all.

  “Right! Ice cream is good luck. Crap. Beck was good luck. Was it so bad that you can’t text him and ask him if he’ll do that butt wiggle he did last time we got a final out in an inning?”

  I don’t bother telling her that he won’t text back, because he has seven million and growing unread text messages, but instead, I step into the kitchen and do as she asks because I hope he does reply.

  And when he replies right away, I smile so big that I know my heart’s in serious danger.

  With or without my pants on? And do you need video?

  My brain whispers without, but my mom steps into the kitchen behind me and heads for the cabinets, making the bowls rattle loudly while she whispers, “Was it a good kiss?”

  “Yes,” I whisper back.

  She beams. “I had our PI look into him and his family, and your father and I officially approve.”

  “Mom. He’s doing this for the contract.” He’s not doing this for the contract, but I can’t stop the old habits from rearing their ugly heads. You like HER? You know she’s adopted, right? There’s no way that geek came from Sunny Darling’s loins. And she saves her ear wax to make statues with it.

  Apparently my issues run a little deeper than just that moment that the owls invaded prom.

  “Mm-hmm,” Mom murmurs. “You know that’s how your father and I met.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, his agent approached mine because he’d been caught in a compromising position with a rather scantily-clad woman who needed a ride in a certain part of LA, and they wanted my name attached to him to clean up his image.”

  “You said you met when you were an extra on the set of his first movie.”

  “Oh, no, dear, he had a trailer on the right side of that movie set, and I was barely allowed to even say my one line. By the time rumors were flying that he hired escorts, I’d started to make a name for myself, and Hollywood ate up the story that we’d been secretly dating for months. And now, we’ve been happily married ever since. Also, the poor girl he gave a ride to was an undercover detective who was so charmed by his manners and his ability to resist her come-on lines and offers of paid sex that she came to our wedding. Who do you think I called to look into our dear Mr. Ryder?”

  I plop the vanilla ice cream on the counter and go digging in my cabinets for sprinkles.

  Tonight definitely calls for sprinkles.

  “I like him,” I whisper, because I can’t make myself say it any louder.

  “The biggest rewards require the biggest risks.”

  “Isn’t that a line from one of your movies?”

  “Yes, but it’s still true.”

  And the exact opposite of me wishing that the things we love were the easiest things in the world.

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe I do need to fight for him. And stand up for him more when people call him an asshole, and quit hiding from social media and get out there and take a stand.

  Dad lumbers into the room, studying both of us through narrowed eyes. “Did that motherfucking asshole flash you?”

  My phone dings, and a text pops up with a video attached.

  A video of Beck’s ass, in black RYDE briefs, as he shakes and wiggles and flexes it in a very, very fine booty dance. I’m hypnotized by his back though. All that lean muscle, that long length, the dimples at the base of his spine, the birthmark, the width of his shoulders.

  How the hell does he eat like he does and still have a back made for back porn?

  “OH MY GOD, DID YOU SEE THAT PLAY?” Mackenzie yells. “Third out! Third out! Third out!”

  We all stare at my phone.

  Then the living room.

  “Shit,” Dad mutters.

  “Play that again, sweetheart,” Mom urges.

  Ma
ckenzie leaps into the kitchen, startling Meda, who shoots off into the living room from her hiding spot under the table and who will probably hide under my bed for the next week. “Did he do it? Did he do it?”

  Mom grabs my phone and shows her the video before I can stop her.

  “Yes! Tell him to stand by. Cooper’s up first at the top of the inning after the commercial break.”

  “Go on,” Dad growls at me. “Tell him we need our team to win.”

  Our team. My dad’s a tried and true Dodgers fan, but he’s adopted the Fireballs. “I’m making ice cream,” I inform him with a smile.

  Dad bumps me out of the way and grabs my spoon to take over ice cream duties. Mom shoves my phone back at me. I start to text Beck, but Mackenzie squeals again. “No! Don’t text him! You need to call him. This only works when you two are in the bathroom together, and since you’re not together, you have to be on the phone. It’s the next best thing.”

  “I—” I start, but she sneaks in and hits the call button at the top of my text message with him.

  And now I’m committed.

  Because it’s not like I can hang up and expect he won’t call me back.

  Not after that kiss.

  Holy shit, that kiss.

  And his I’ll call you.

  “Don’t you have to work tomorrow?” I ask her.

  “Sarah. The Fireballs might win their third game in eight days. Nobody’s gonna care if I fall asleep at my desk.”

  Beck answers before the first ring has even finished. “Hey. It worked, didn’t it? Tell Mackenzie I’ll do that every night if she’ll convert fully to Team Beck.”

  ‘Team Beck? What’s Team Beck?”

  “I’m totally on Team Beck so long as him dancing in his underwear results in the Fireballs winning,” Mackenzie says, like she’s on this phone call and not me.

  I take a heaping bowl of ice cream topped with uneven whipped cream and chocolate syrup and half a container of flower sprinkles from my dad, and I head for the bathroom. “The Fireballs are up,” I tell Beck.

  “I know. I’m watching on my tablet in the bathroom. Are you in the bathroom?”

  “Esh,” I answer around a mouthful of ice cream.

  “Ah, man, you’re eating something. Not popcorn. Popcorn’s too loud. I really didn’t want to stop kissing you. You’re just so—so—”