The Copper Valley Bro Code Series: Volume 1, page 28
“Hey. You want some of these fries? I can’t tell when your friend’s being serious about you selling your soul for bacon cheese fries, but I’m definitely not going to pass up a chance to prove I have culinary skills in addition to all these amazing good looks.”
Is he really the kindhearted slightly egotistical goofball he’s playing? Or is it an act? “If you find it in my kitchen, odds are good I enjoy eating it,” I say.
Not all smart-ass.
More teasing. Because honestly, it’s hard not to relax a little when he’s being a total goofball. The self-deprecation in his amazing good looks line was so thick, you could smear it on toast.
And it works, because he grins that bright smile that makes his deep blue eyes crinkle at the edges. “It’s not just for your cat?”
“I’m not interested in pretending to be your girlfriend,” I announce.
So maybe I don’t have all the teasing in me.
He ambles out, long arms loose despite being tucked into his jeans pockets.
Also, who wears jeans in this weather? It’s pushing eighty-five, but here he is fancy denim that fits his slender hips like they were built for him, which they probably were because of course he’ll be wearing his own line of clothes, and a mint green button-down that should make him as dangerous as a plastic Easter egg but instead is cut just right around his wide shoulders, tapering down his trim waist and hanging at mid-crotch, which is probably the length that clothing scientists determined was most likely to induce lust-comas among the general female population.
I have no idea how they determine such things, but I do know that his shirt ending mid-crotch is making me think about his crotch, which is a bad, bad idea.
And also the fact that I’m wearing RYDE underwear again makes this entire moment way more intimate than it should be.
He’s branded my underwear.
Literally.
He stops to lean against a post in my pergola, the sun shining on his dark hair, all his model fabulousness amplified with the quaint beauty in my small backyard, blue eyes deceptively unconcerned. There’s no way a guy like this isn’t worried about all the boycotts being announced for his various fashion lines.
“You seeing somebody?” he asks.
“Why does not wanting to pretend to be your girlfriend have to immediately be followed by the assumption that it’s because I’m seeing someone?”
“Who’s Trent?”
Oh. Right. “An ex. Physics professor downtown writing computer simulations about the Big Bang. He gave me the best orgasms of my life.” Oh, shit, shut up, Sarah.
And there it goes, right on cue. The smoldery grin and schmootzy charm. “Sarah Dempsey, are you throwing down?”
“That wasn’t a challenge.”
“No? Because that sounded like a challenge.”
“You know what? Maybe it would be if you weren’t here to ask me to play your girlfriend.” There’s entirely too much truth in that statement, because even knowing that this charming, self-deprecating, food-loving man is probably playing a role, he’s still freakishly hot and funny, and I’m still a red-blooded woman.
He opens his mouth, then rubs his hand over it while he looks away.
Not at all denying that he’s here to ask me to play his girlfriend.
“So you’ve been online today,” he says.
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
Those deep blue eyes swing back to study me, and yeah, I can see why this guy’s looks have made him a boatload of cash.
He plays the doofus well, but he can also focus very well when he has to. Like last night. On the video. And when he left.
“You know about Ellie’s accident?” he asks.
I shake my head, unsure where he’s going, because yes, I know she was in an accident, but I don’t know details. Not beyond the nuggets he gave me last night while we were making our video.
Wow, that didn’t sound right in my head.
I really wish I hadn’t grown up in Hollywood.
“Happened at Christmas,” he says, clearly missing what’s going on in my gray matter, thank god. “Year and a half ago. Crushed her left leg. Doctors didn’t think she’d walk again.”
“Oh. I—that’s awful. But I wouldn’t know by looking at her now.”
He grins wryly. “She doesn’t like to be underestimated. Clearly. Pretty sure she could fly if someone told her she couldn’t.”
“That’s technically physically impossible,” I point out.
“Dammit, Sarah, now she’s gonna have to prove you wrong.” His eyes twinkle, and it’s not some trick of a camera. But he sobers quickly with a glance next door at Ellie’s house. “I was home when we got the call, since it was the holidays. Scariest fucking days of my life. Didn’t know if she’d pull through and wake up. Then if she’d walk. And how much care she’d need. How she’d be emotionally and mentally. And I realized I’m home maybe three or four weeks a year. My parents are getting older. Ellie’s marrying my best friend. Making his kid officially my nephew. I don’t want to be gone so much. I don’t want to spend my Sundays running a PR machine when I fuck up. Family’s where it’s at, you know?”
I cringe, because I see my parents less than he sees his.
It’s not that I don’t love them.
It’s more that I don’t fit the ideal Hollywood image, and I never have.
Especially once I hit high school.
Add in all those little bits of my own taste of the level of scrutiny they live with and couldn’t always shield me from—yes, I was that Hollywood child people speculated about actually being my dad’s secret love child since there’s no way I had my mother’s beauty in me—and I haven’t actually been to their house in six or seven years.
We meet in obscure locations unlikely to have reporters lurking around when our schedules line up, and we talk on the phone or video chat a couple times a month.
“You have family?” he asks.
“It’s complicated,” I say. Lamely.
“But you’ve got Mackenzie,” he points out with a flirty grin.
“So you’re selling off your business?” I ask him, because deflection is key.
His eyes narrow. “What?”
“It’s how it works, right? You want to step back, so you have to get rid of some of your responsibilities. Unless you’re quitting modeling altogether, but you’re a package deal. You model your own stuff now. It’s not the Beck Ryder brand if some young whippersnapper comes in and tries to do your smolder for you. So you’re selling off to someone who has an up-and-coming superstar who can step into your shoes, but not if you ruin the brand first.”
“Somebody’s been doing her sleuthing.” He winks at me like it’s adorable that I care enough to look him up.
Except I didn’t look him up, because I’ve already seen a time or three how celebrities function in the fashion industry.
But now he thinks I’m totally into him.
If he weren’t famous—and gorgeous—and I wasn’t a giant geek who isn’t interested in the pretty boys who are almost always a disappointment, this could go somewhere. But he’s only here because he needs something. “I won’t be your PR stunt.”
He pushes off the post and comes to sit in the chair next to mine, legs spread wide so our knees are almost touching. I hold still, because I don’t want him to see my flinch.
“You don’t like public attention,” he says.
“Or lies,” I say, exactly like the hypocrite I am, because lying is exactly what I’ve been doing most of my adult life.
“Three phone calls, and I can get ten million more people watching Persephone and learning about the bees and the giraffes.”
I’d call bullshit, except I know a thing or seven about Bro Code, and I know Beck’s the least successful of the guys who stayed in the public limelight after the band broke up. It’s not that I wanted to follow Levi Wilson or Cash Rivers, but living in Copper Valley, where they all grew up, it’s impossible to not know about them.
Which means it’s almost impossible to not know that he’d call both of them and ask them to share the video feed of Persephone and talk about giraffes being endangered.
To their gazillionty fans.
They’ve already publicly stood up for him on their social media platforms, while somehow also apologizing to me on his behalf.
People fuck up, and Beck’s my brother from another mother who’s going to make this right for the poor girl he pulled into his shit was the gist of both of their messages.
“Is this bribery or blackmail?” I ask.
“I’m not selling,” he tells me, “but I am working on delegating what I can so I can be home more. Family is where it’s at. This foundation Charlie told you about last night? It’s something my entire family can be proud of. And it’ll help so many other families, give their kids a shot at playing sports, at being healthy, at having somewhere to go after school and during the summers. I don’t need more money. But making more money lets me help more families. So this isn’t bribery, or blackmail. It’s a guy who’d like to make a difference in the world asking for a favor that only you can give.”
“So it’s guilt.”
“The attention goes away after a while. In six months, nobody will even remember this.”
“Exactly. So you can wait six months and then launch your foundation.”
“It’s not that simple.” He leans forward, hands dangling between his knees, a plea lingering deep in his eyes. “This foundation isn’t just mine. I’m dragging Vaughn Crawford’s name through the mud too for being associated with me, and if I think I do good for the world, I’m nothing compared to him. This is a step up for me. And yeah, you can say I’m doing this to save face and keep selling clothes. You could. But if my businesses tank, if I walk away and let it all die, there are hundreds of people who’ll lose their jobs. Hundreds of families suffering. I don’t sew the clothes. Marketing is a hell of a lot more than me smiling for a camera. Hell, I don’t even design anything. I just put my mark on the things I like and would want to wear, and we buy the rights from the designers who couldn’t make a fraction of what they make if I didn’t put my mark on it. It’s not just about launching a foundation. It’s about saving hundreds of people’s jobs too.”
I sink back in my chair and pull my knees to my chest. “That’s really not fair.”
“We announce the foundation in less than two weeks. And if I don’t fix my image yesterday, Vaughn’s out, and the whole thing dies, because we need both of us in this to make it work. You’re my best shot. With the reaction to the video last night, you’re my only shot.”
I’m his only shot.
I open my mouth, but instead of a rational, well-thought-out argument why this is a terrible idea, I say, “Oh, shit.”
Because my back gate just opened.
And a potbellied pig in a tutu on a leash just stuck her head in.
No, we’re not in an alternate dimension.
Or the circus.
Nope.
That potbellied, tutu-ed pig means one thing.
My parents have arrived.
12
Beck
Sarah bolts to her feet so fast my brain gets whiplash. “What—” I start, but she grabs me by the arm and shrieks, “Inside!” so desperately that I don’t think, I just move.
Until—
“Serendipity! I knew it. I knew it! Judson, I told you she was keeping a big secret.”
“That you did, darlin’.”
The voices send chills down my back, and I turn, my jaw slipping as a couple with a tutu-ed pig on a leash shut the back gate behind them.
Sarah’s still pushing me toward the house.
Toward her taser.
“Oh, shit, Sarah, stop.” I dig my heels in, because there’s no fucking way I’m letting her taser Sunny Darling and Judson Clarke.
“Nope, nope, nope, no stopping, get out.” She’s holding my arm so tight her fingernails are slicing into my bicep, but I squat lower to make my center of gravity work for me and resist.
Fuck, she’s strong.
“They’re not dangerous,” I tell her.
I think.
I’ve never actually met them in person, but Cash did. Once. When he starred in that remake of Blazing Sun two years ago.
“Sweetheart, have no fear,” Sunny says, crossing the lawn with her willowy build, lavender pants, and flowing white ruffly shirt, the miniature pig trotting happily beside her, sniffing at the flowers. “I made a few calls, and I found you the best stylist in all of Virginia. Your debut will be glorious.”
“Mom. I’m not having a debut.”
Mom?
I look again.
And holy fuck.
Sarah has Judson Clarke’s eyes.
And Sunny Darling’s nose.
And somebody’s splotchy blush.
“We’re not doing this,” she says, and I don’t know if she’s talking to me or to Hollywood’s not-really-retired power couple.
“Holy shit,” I mutter.
“Shut up,” Sarah mutters back. “Tell anyone and I’ll make your life hell.”
“I called my friend Giselle, and she’s sure she can find you a Dr. Who dress if you want. Or one with fireflies on it. You can still be true to yourself, and you’re not compromising your morals by having your hair cut every once in a while. Oh, my, are these beehives? How California of you, sweetheart. Do the bees have names?”
“Cupcake, no!” Sarah finally releases her death grip on me to shoo the pig out of the flowers. “Mom, she’s going to get stung.”
Judson Clarke stops in front of me and sizes me up. I have a few inches on him, but I feel about three feet tall right now.
I told Judson Clarke’s daughter to shut up and go have some babies. But not with me.
On a public forum.
I’m fucking dead.
“You treating my little girl right?” he asks in a growly drawl that could go head to head with Clint Eastwood’s.
“Dad, we’re just acquaintances.” Sarah tugs at the pig’s collar, but it has motivation on its side, and I wonder if it’s forty pounds of solid stubborn muscle. “Knock it off.”
“You know I don’t like men looking at you wrong,” he growls. “Or talking to you wrong.”
Yep.
I’m a dead man.
“He came to apologize, and now he’s leaving,” Sarah says.
“I saw that video, little darlin’. He already apologized. So what’s he have to apologize for now?”
“I guess that depends on if he can keep his mouth shut,” she replies.
Serendipity.
Holy shit.
Sarah’s Serendipity Darling.
And the—the—oh, shit.
No wonder she doesn’t want to go on camera.
“And I’m nailing that gate shut,” she adds.
“I got a guy who can booby trap it for you,” I offer.
Judson Clarke narrows his eyes at me, and I swear I just heard him drawl, try it, punk.
Sunny Darling frowns. “You mean in a humane and environmentally friendly way, of course,” she says. “The environment is very important to Serendipity.”
Every time she says Serendipity, Sarah’s left eyeball twitches. She grunts and pulls harder on the pig while a few bees swarm around her head.
“Do you need help?” I ask her.
“I need vodka,” she grits out.
“Oh, sweetheart, it’s not that bad. Cupcake, come. Come this way, baby.” Sunny tugs on the leash, but the pig’s still straining to eat the flowers where the bees are buzzing increasingly agitatedly.
Judson Clarke is still eviscerating me with his deadly glare, and I’m having flashbacks to every one of his cowboy movies that I watched as a kid.
And how he had deadly aim.
And always won.
Because he was always the good guy.
Always.
The back door bangs open. “Sarah! Bathroom! Cooper Rock is—oh my god, Sunny Darling!”
She looks at me.
I look at Sarah.
Sarah Dempsey.
Serendipity Darling.
Who’s still struggling with a pig in a tutu in a desperate attempt to save her bees from being pork food or her pork’s snout from being bee target practice.
And I thought my life was weird.
Apparently I still need to get out more.
13
Sarah
So this is awkward.
There’s an underwear model who wants me to pretend to be his girlfriend making everyone cheesy bacon fries.
My father’s prowling about the house looking for bugs and taking audio notes for himself about increasing security, because that underwear model’s version of security couldn’t protect a mosquito in a swamp if we could get into your backyard with a tutu-ed pig on a leash.
My mother’s doting all over Mackenzie, who’s so tongue-tied she hasn’t even looked at the bloodbath of a baseball game on the TV in the living room, nor has she asked me to explain anything, which is making me feel like utter slime.
And Cupcake is trying to hump my cat, who’s just lying there under a kitchen chair and taking it like this is normal.
“Get off. Get off.” I tug the pig’s collar again.
She looks up at me, but she doesn’t stop trying to hump Meda.
Yes.
My parents’ girl pig is horny.
This isn’t unusual.
“You don’t have to just take it,” I tell Meda.
She mrowls at me and stares up at me like I’ve betrayed her.
I pull her across the floor by the scruff to get her out from under Cupcake, who snuffles her disappointment at being denied a new girlfriend.
“Do you like cats?” I ask Beck, because he’s the only one in my kitchen actually looking at me, and I don’t know if it’s because he’s figured out who my parents are, or if it’s because he knows anything about me before I became Sarah Dempsey, or if it’s because he was just staring at my ass.
