The copper valley bro co.., p.38
The Copper Valley Bro Code Series: Volume 1, page 38
“It’s for Sarah’s blog, Mom.”
“Oh! The science and bee blog. You have fantastic content. Beck, you should talk to Hank about having Sarah’s website optimized and her server upgraded though. The load times are a little slow with as much traffic as she’s getting.”
“Already on it, Mom.”
“Wait, what?” Sarah says. “Hank who? Yesterday’s Hank?”
“He’s a snickerdoodling genius,” Levi tells her.
“SNICKERDOODLE PENIS!” James hollers.
“I’m going to snickerdoodling kill you,” Tripp mutters to his brother.
And then the weirdest thing happens.
Sarah’s eyes go shiny and she ducks her head and pulls on my arm. Hard. “Can we please just go do this?” she mutters.
My stomach growls, but I ignore it. I know how to puppy-dog-eye my way to a whole honey puff pancake for myself later. But even if I didn’t, I’d still be trailing Sarah to the stairs.
“Hey,” I say as I descend behind her. “What’s wrong?”
She stops on the landing and glances up, but we’re alone.
“You have a really awesome family,” she says, clearly trying to keep in whatever’s bugging her.
“Did one of them say something? I’ll punch him for you. Just tell me which one.”
She shakes her head. “No. That’s exactly it. They’re so…nice. And you all know each other so well, and it’s all fun. All the time. Even though half of you are stalked by crazy photographers and gossips who want to say things bad about you, when you’re all together, you’re just…family.”
I’m missing something. “You have cousins you miss?”
“No. I have me, Mom, and Dad. That’s it. Just us. And I’ve been freaking hiding from Hollywood for over a decade, away from all cameras and gossips and everything that defines their life, and has since before I was born, where you—you live it every day, but you’re still happy. And all of them—and you know them well enough to let them into your place all hours of the day, and they don’t think twice about dropping by, and you’re family. A big, dysfunctional, hilarious, got-your-back, perfect family.”
I don’t quite get exactly why she’s on the verge of tears, but then, maybe I do.
Because that look on her face is exactly how I felt in those few hours when we thought we might lose Ellie. The way I felt when I got the call that Tripp had lost Jessie, and watching him go through all the arrangements once she was gone.
Like I’d finally seen how good I had it with the people I loved and who loved me, and in an instant, it could disappear.
“You’ve never been around big families?”
She shakes her head.
“You can have some of mine. I’ll share.”
That reluctant laugh bubbles out of her. “You are such a nut.”
“Thank you.”
“Seriously, how? How do you stay normal?”
I brush a lock of her hair back from her face, and fuck, it’s so soft. I’m getting on the internet as soon as we’re done with this video and googling double orgasm how-to. Swear to god, I am, even though I’m pretty sure I could manage on my own, because there are so many things I’d like to do to her and with her if she’d let me.
“Tell you a secret?” I murmur.
“I’m suddenly terrified,” she replies with a smile that doesn’t quite light those big brown eyes.
“I’m not actually normal.”
“I don’t think that’s a secret.”
“Yeah, but most people think I’m not normal because I’m fabulous. Truth is, I’m a big dork.”
“Again, I don’t think that’s a secret.”
“You wouldn’t have said that a week ago.”
Her lips part, but she sucks them back into her mouth with a frown.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “The trick is finding the people who can look past the fabulousness to the guy under all the fame. And I had them built in. Those guys? We grew up playing ball and sneaking off to movies and fighting over whose turn it was on the PlayStation. We didn’t call ourselves Bro Code because it was trendy. We did it because that’s how we all grew up. All of us from the neighborhood. We’re all brothers. And if you ask me my best friend in the entire universe, hands down, every time, I’m gonna tell you it’s Wyatt. He’s a military dude now. Makes crap pay and has to send half of it to an ex-wife. Did the most awkward interview I’ve ever seen for a local TV station a few months ago. He’s not built for this life. But he’s the first to call me out when my head’s getting too big, and the first to push my buttons, and the first to show up with a shovel when we need to bury a body. He’s as normal as they come. He’s one of my brothers. And he doesn’t give two shits what’s in my bank account, because he knew me back when I tried to ask a girl to prom by spelling out her name in toilet paper on her front lawn during a rainstorm.”
“Oh my god, Beck, only you,” she says with a shake of her head.
“Nobody else would believe that story.”
“Oh, I think they would.”
“That’s what my sister says too.”
“So now I’m like your sister.”
“No, you’re definitely something more.”
Her breath catches, and her eyes go wary again, and I realize I’ve backed her against the wall, my hands on her soft hips, and my face inches from hers.
“I’m in your bubble,” I say quietly.
But I don’t move.
And she doesn’t push me away.
“I didn’t notice,” she whispers.
“I’m that forgettable?”
“That comfortable.”
“I was going for magnetic and sexy, but I guess I can take comfortable. Better than smelly. Or revolting.”
“Beck?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and do something about being in my bubble before I let my trust issues take over again.”
It’s the smile that does me in. That sweet, amused, yes, you’ve talked me off my cliff smile that has me lowering my head and rubbing my lips against hers.
So fucking soft. And plump. And I smell honey.
Her fingers curl into my shirt, and I suckle her bottom lip while her eyes slide shut and a sweet, shuddery breath slips out.
Kissing her is like discovering a new flavor of ice cream. Sweet and perfect, but better. With a deeper flavor, a smoother finish, fresher everything.
She presses her chest against mine and parts her lips, her tongue making a tentative swipe, and fuck, I should’ve googled double orgasm last night instead of jacking off while fantasizing about her, because if I can’t live up to her expectations, I’m done.
Over.
Time to throw in the towel, accept that this is my life, exactly how it is, and I’ll never have anything more.
But I want to be good.
I want to be so fucking good for her. The best she’s ever had.
I shouldn’t. We have a contract. She hates publicity. I can’t escape it.
All of this is a bad idea.
I reluctantly pull back, even though I want to keep kissing her until I can’t breathe or think. “Better?” I whisper.
She drops her head to my shoulder, hiding her eyes, still gripping my shirt. “I need one more minute.”
“Take your time. I’m grounded until Saturday. And if you need more of the kissing, my lips are here all day.”
Her soft laugh is everything I need to know that we’re going to be okay.
And when she lets me wrap her in a hug, this doesn’t feel like a favor to an accidental friend.
It feels like so much more.
25
Sarah
I should not have kissed Beck.
Because now that I’ve kissed him, I can’t stop thinking about him. And thinking about him when he’s sitting right there next to me, on a very comfortable low-back red leather couch in one of the apartments under his penthouse, is making me want to kiss him again to see if it was a fluke, or if my heart would start to flutter and if my nipples would pucker and if I’d get that hard, irrepressible yearning in my lady bits.
“You’re sure you don’t want makeup?” Charlie asks me for the seventy-billionth time.
Beck sighs. “Charlie. Knock it off. She’s gorgeous just as she is.”
“I can see that, and you can see that, but the trolls of Internetlandia are assholes.”
“Put too much on, and I’m a whore,” I say. “Not enough, and I’m trying too hard to make a statement. I’m comfortable just like this. I don’t want to be gorgeous. I just want to be me. Okay? Let’s get it over with.”
“Let’s enjoy it,” Beck corrects. “You’re about to tell ten million gossips that they’re doing their job wrong.”
“I’m about to tell the world that I owl-bombed my high school prom to get myself labeled as a sexual deviant with a thing for deep-throating giant penises and dragon tails.”
“Ohmygod,” Mackenzie gasps.
I gape at her. “You didn’t google me when all I’d tell you was that my prom was awful and got taken wrong in the media?”
“No. Why would I do that? I don’t want to know Serendipity. You’re too awesome as Sarah.”
And now I’m going to cry. I gulp back an emotional land mine, and it sits in my gut like a cannonball that’s sprouting spikes. “You might not want to stay for this then.”
She snorts. “I took the day off work to be your good luck charm. Shut up and take my help. Especially since if you don’t, I’ll have to go be the drooling frozen mime in front of Cooper fucking Rock.”
She ends with a glare at Beck, like it’s his fault she’s obsessed with the Fireballs.
“One phone call and I could get the whole team over, if you’d rather,” he offers.
I shove him lightly when all the blood leaves her face and maybe her shoulders and arms and abdomen too. Her feet are probably swelling up like overinflated punching balloons and any second now she’s going to explode toes-first and save me from doing this video.
Okay, yes, I have problems.
Beck’s right.
I need to find a way to enjoy this.
Own the story.
“Mackenzie. They’re just people. It’s okay,” I tell her.
“Sarah. They are not just people. They’re…they’re…they’re gods.”
“Do not tell Cooper she said that,” Beck breathes to me.
“Kinda understood,” I breathe back.
“This is all fun and embarrassing for all involved,” Charlie interrupts, “but are we filming a video or are we taking a walk down Cooper Rock Lane?”
“I would so walk down that lane if I could breathe when I was in the same room as him,” Mackenzie sighs.
Charlie shoves a phone at her. “Let’s do this.”
I blow out a breath and shake my hands out.
“Hey.” Beck takes them both in his hand—seriously, the man has ape hands too, with these long fingers that are genetically unlikely to be real, but I’ve never heard of finger extensions, so since he’s not a robot, they must be real, and I suspect they can probably do some fairly marvelous things to my body—and he sets them on my lap, squeezing gently while his opposite thumb softly rubs my shoulder. “It’s just you and me talking to a weird square box that will take over the world one day, okay?”
I snort indelicately. Yes, that was kinda funny. And also possibly true.
But more because his touch is shooting strange awareness vibes all over my body. Not just between my legs and to my breasts, but also to my knees, which are tingling pleasantly, and to my ears, which are getting hot, and to my ribs, which seem to be melting into a happy matrix of cotton candy and butterflies.
“I don’t know if I’m in the right headspace for this,” I whisper to him. “I feel like the atomic structure of my bones is shifting from a calcium construct to powdered sugar.”
“Just follow my lead, okay?”
He smiles at me—not that goofball grin, and not the smolder, but a real, friendly I’ve got you, Sarah smile—and my racing hearts starts to slow.
“Ready?”
I lick my lips and nod.
His eyes drift to my mouth, and his pupils go big and round, hiding all that beautiful deep summer sky and now I really don’t care that my ribs might shatter with the barest jostle of the spun glass fibers, because holy crap, Beck Ryder is into me.
He’s not just playing.
He’s into me.
And if he were just a vapid, superficial underwear fashion model who only cared about his bottom line and creating a foundation to make himself look good or to get some kind of tax break, I could write him off in a heartbeat.
But this guy?
This guy loves his family, and food, and life, and he makes everything brighter.
I’m in so much trouble.
He shifts back on the couch and crosses one knee at the ankle, then smiles at Charlie, who’s watching behind a phone on a tripod. Mackenzie points to him, and he starts talking. “Hey, there, awesome people of the world. Beck Ryder here with my friend, Sarah, because I read her blog yesterday and now I’m obsessed with stars.”
“You can’t see the stars from the city,” I tell him like a complete and total know-it-all. “There’s too much ambient light.”
“You ever seen the stars in Hawaii?” he asks me.
He doesn’t have gel in his hair, and it’s flopping over adorably, like he just rolled out of bed, and oh, actually, he did just roll out of bed. But he showered, so he shouldn’t have such perfect bedhead that’s making me want to run my fingers through it.
“Yes,” I say quickly, realizing I’m staring and not answering the question. Which requires some truth on my behalf. “That’s where I saw the Milky Way for the first time. We used to go to Hawaii once or twice every winter when I was growing up.”
He’s watching me so closely, I can’t tell if it’s because he likes what he sees, or if it’s because he’s totally on in celebrity mode, waiting for a sign that we’re supposed to cut the video because I’ve gone completely dorktastic.
“Ah, when you were growing up.” There’s a teasing note in his voice, and the smile that goes with it seems to both relax and speed up my heart all at the same time.
That’s biologically impossible.
Clearly I’m dying.
“There are rumors flying all over the internet about who your parents are,” he says.
“The ones about me being adopted by a band of cheetahs and raised by wolves are all completely true.”
And now he’s smiling wider. With the eye crinkle. And the smolder which might not actually be a smolder, but more of a that’s my girl, which is even more dangerous.
“Raised with wolves is probably more accurate, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agree softly.
“How old were you the first time your parents got mobbed by the paparazzi?”
I frown. “I don’t know. I can’t ever remember a time when it wasn’t just normal to go anywhere in LA with them and have people screaming their names and taking our pictures.”
He grins and shakes his head.
“What?” I ask.
“Once, when I was…thirteen? Fourteen? Somewhere in there. Anyway, the guys and I—all the guys from the neighborhood—we all set our alarms for like two in the morning on a school night, and we climbed out our windows and met up to go move this giant dinosaur we picked up at a flea market so it was staring directly into the high school principal’s bedroom window.”
I gape at him. “What—but—how?”
“Ah, one of us was old enough to drive. Not really well with that trailer hooked to it—we used every cent any of us made mowing grass that summer, swear we did, because we had to buy the trailer too—but we did it. We got this giant—what’s the dinosaur with the long neck? The giraffe of the dinosaurs?”
“You’re making this all up.” I’m smiling as I’m calling him on his bullshit, because there’s no freaking way.
“I’m not,” he says. “What’s that dinosaur called? I can never remember it.”
“Brontosaurus?” I suggest. “Or a brachiosaurus?”
“Sure. Let’s go with one of those. Anyway, we did it. We got it all set up on the principal’s front lawn, positioned just right, and that sucker was heavy, took like eight of us to move it, and then we went back home and hid the trailer in the garage of this empty house a couple blocks away. Got to school that morning and everyone’s talking about the greatest prank ever pulled.”
“Oh my god, that was you!” Mackenzie gasps. “I remember that!”
Charlie shushes her quietly, but Beck points to her and winks. “Beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“It’s still there.”
“What? No way.” He squeezes my knee. “We’re taking a field trip. I’ll show you.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t believe me.” His eyes are twinkling, and I’m still smiling back so big I’m practically laughing.
“No, I mean, of all the pranks you could pull, why that one? It’s kinda…lame.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re jealous you didn’t think of it first.”
“If I’d done that, the tabloids would’ve said Sunny Darling’s daughter warped the space-time continuum and brought back real dinosaurs. Or that I concocted them out of DNA samples I stole out of a museum.”
“Exactly. We did it, and until, well, right now, when I have a feeling a few mothers are getting ready to kick our asses, nobody knew it was us. If you’d even had the thought, you probably would’ve been followed by the paparazzi for weeks with them just waiting for you to screw up. That had to suck.”
“It did,” I concede with a sigh. “You got away with putting a freaking dinosaur in your principal’s front yard, and the time I spritzed my hair with gel before combing all the knots out and then squirted myself in the eyeball with detangler spray when my mom’s stylist was trying to help fix it, they had to pay off the paparazzi to not run the pictures of me walking into school.”
“Damn, Sarah. That sucks.”
Control the story. Control the story. I shrug and take a page out of his book. “Seriously, what seventeen-year-old hasn’t had a bad hair day?”
