Yeah.
She’s right.
The FLY HYGH foundation isn’t just money to fund sports complexes and equipment and administrative fees. It’s also getting donations from Vaughn’s shoe line and my athletic gear line.
All might not be lost, but Vaughn’s one of the good dudes, and he deserves a better partner in this than a dumbass who insults all of womankind on Twitter.
It’s time to start groveling.
I push myself to sitting to grab my phone, and my gaze falls on the house next door.
Probably need to go apologize to Sarah the right way too.
When Ellie met me at my building in a getaway car just as I was running up, she filled me in on what happened while I was unplugged. So I took my phone off airplane mode and checked social media.
It’s ugly.
Not only am I getting eviscerated, but in the midst of all the support for @must_love_bees, she’s also being mocked and called names by people who think her handle is stupid, that there’s no honeybee crisis, that giraffes aren’t going extinct, that the earth is flat, that atomic particles are a myth, and suggesting she go kill herself for having an ugly profile picture, which is an artistic drawing of Saturn with the rings bent into shapes of wings and a honeybee tail on the end.
She didn’t ask to be famous.
And she didn’t ask for the crazies to come out.
I did that.
And I need to make it stop.
The question, though, is how.
Four
Sarah
There’s nothing better for stress relief than complete and utter denial with a side dish of crazy.
And I have crazy in spades right now.
The Fireballs are playing tonight, which means my very best friend in the entire universe has invaded my house to watch the game.
And when I say invaded, I truly mean invaded.
Mackenzie’s set up pumpkin spice candles—even though it’s June—to inspire thoughts of fall baseball. Her Fireballs banner is hanging from my living room curtain rod. She made me change into a Fireballs jersey—which wasn’t really a hardship—because they win more often when we both wear Cooper Rock jerseys. Unless we’re at the stadium, in which case they win more often if I’m wearing a geeky science T-shirt.
She’s also playing music on her phone that’s supposed to relax us both.
It’s some sort of new age techno with a beat that our pulses are supposed to sync to, so we can be the most excited Zen people in the world watching our home team lose a game.
Statistically speaking, we’re in for a bloodbath tonight, because we won last night, but I don’t point this out to Mackenzie, because she showed up approximately seven minutes after I tasered Beck Ryder and has been running my afternoon and distracting me from the internet ever since.
Now, I’m camped on the couch next to her with my laptop pulled up, ignoring the mailbox warnings that it’s about to overflow because of all the Twitter notifications, and I turn on the live cam feed of Persephone the Giraffe’s journey toward giving birth at the Copper Valley zoo.
I’ve been tweeting the feed since the zookeepers announced she was showing early signs of labor a week ago, and it’s fun to see that almost half a million people worldwide are watching with me.
“Our girl’s still pregnant?” Mackenzie asks as she settles next to me with her popcorn.
“She could theoretically go another month.”
“I wonder if her being pregnant is good or bad luck for the Fireballs?”
“Maybe she’ll give birth to next season’s good luck charm.”
Mackenzie’s my polar opposite. She’s blond-haired, blue-eyed, long-limbed, perky-boobed, well-dressed—even her jersey looks stylish, probably because her shorts fit right and aren’t stained, and she’s wearing it with jewelry—and she’s a trash engineer.
Which isn’t as different as it sounds from an environmental engineer, but on the surface, we’re night and day.
Especially since she’s only a trash engineer since she can’t get paid to be a professional Fireballs fan.
By the third inning, the Fireballs are down two to nothing, and it’s getting painful. Not as painful as thinking about how long it’ll be before I’m doxed and someone figures out who my parents are, but still painful. I tell Mackenzie I need to go tuck the bees in for the night, which is a total lie since they’re mostly self-sufficient this time of the year, but she doesn’t call me on it, so I slip out the back door to make sure nothing’s disturbed my hives.
It’s part hobby, part me trying to save the world.
All’s been quiet at my neighbor’s house since the taser incident.
Which I feel mildly bad about, because I didn’t really want to have to taser anyone, but who comes through a back gate to talk?
Ax murderers, rapists, and paparazzi. That’s who.
After I make sure the gate latch is closed and the bees have water, I head back inside. At first, I think Mackenzie’s listening to a commercial, but then I realize, no, she’s talking.
To a person.
Who’s also in my living room.
“Ow!” a male voice says.
“That’s for being a dick to my best friend,” Mackenzie announces. “Also, can I have your autograph? Ohmygod, I still have that first poster you did back when you modeled for Giovanni & Valentino before they split, and sometimes I—never mind. But seriously. Autograph. You owe me. And if you don’t owe me, you owe Sarah.”
“I know, that’s why—”
“And you better not be bad luck for the Fireballs.”
I step into the living room, and whoa.
Beck Ryder looks taller standing up.
I mean, duh, right? Naturally he’s taller standing up.
Also, when his eyeballs aren’t rolling in his head, they’re really striking. So blue. Like maybe all those billboards aren’t touched up.
He shifts his attention to me, starts to smile—eyes first, which is whoa—and then shrinks a little beside the gorgeous woman with him.
“I swear your sister let me in,” he says to me with a gesture toward Mackenzie. “I just want to apologize.”
She and I share a look.
Sister?
She doubles over laughing.
The ape’s girlfriend humors him with an exasperated smile.
“Do Mackenzie and I look like sisters?” I ask him.
His shoulders relax, and dude. The guy’s hands are in his jeans pockets—undoubtedly RYDE jeans, which are really freaking comfortable, which I won’t be mentioning to him—but his arms are long. I wasn’t really off in calling him an underwear ape with arms like that.
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “My sister and I don’t look alike at all.”
Is he for real? They could be twins—same eyes, same smile, same dark hair. “Only because she got the pretty genes.”
“Sarah,” Mackenzie hisses.
But the underwear ape barks out a laugh and winks at me. “You got that right.”
Mackenzie is swooning, but when I say I know Beck Ryder’s type—and how much I should never trust the charm—I don’t mean I read People and watch Secret Lives of the Stars on late night TV.