Page 68 of Busted Dreams

“Beck wants to meet us for lunch. Is that cool?”Real smooth, Astrid.

At first, I thought he would turn me down or offer to drop me off, but he didn’t. “Yeah, you know what, that’s fine. Tell him we’re heading to Suzzette’s.”

Relaying the message, I got a quick reply of a thumbs up and kiss face. Grinning stupidly, I dropped the phone back in my lap.

“Are you going to tell him?”

He didn’t need any other explanations, knowing I was talking about both the letter and the tattoos. Although the letter made the most immediate sense. “Yes. I will. We’re trying this new brother thing out, you know? Might as well start with the bad stuff. It will make the good times that much happier,” he said drily.

“That’s the way to look at the glass half-full.”

Beck beat us to Suzette’s, leaning against his car with a joker worthy smile on his face. As soon as Jonah parked, Beck started dancing over toward my side of the car. He whisked my door open after I unbuckled my seatbelt and plucked me from the seat.

“Pretty girl, you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. You know that, right?” he asked as he buried his head into my neck and swung me around so hard, my legs flew out behind me.

“Thanks, I think?” I laughed, trying to hold onto my bag with one hand and his neck with the other.

“Jonah, do you know what this girl’s done?” Beck dropped me down but kept me plastered to his body.

Coming to stand next to us, his gaze warmed on me for a brief moment before going back to Beck. “Not a clue, but I’m sure you’ll fill me in.”

Using hands on my shoulders to square me against him, Beck stared into my soul like he owned it. “That video I asked you to post first last night… Have you checked it?”

I hadn’t. It had been too personal. The video itself was hot and addicting, but knowing others were watching it—even though I was behind the camera—was a little weird. My anxiety started to rise thinking about it.

“No, but I’m guessing by your excitement I should?” I bounced on the ball of my feet as I stared up at him, his out of control energy rubbing off on me.

“Hell yeah!” Pulling out his own phone, he scrolled to the app and opened it, practically shoving the screen in my face. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I died.

Literally. Died.

Six million views. In less than twenty-four hours.

I couldn’t even comprehend what was going on right now. He clicked on the comments and slowly scrolled. My brain was still lagging, but I caught a couple.

“Do you reply? PLEASE?”

“Sir, stop making the butterflies go wild in my stomach.”

“Who is the mysterious ‘pretty girl’?! It’s hard watching people living my life.”

“You are killing it! Let’s collab!”

So many comments. And some from validated people. Holy hell on a cold day.

“Right? Right!” Beck’s pupils were so dilated, the sparkling black pools nearly took over his entire irises. Cupping my jaw, he slammed his mouth against mine in a quick hard kiss.

“I’m floored. And stunned. But ecstatic for you,” I managed to get out between his kisses.

“My inbox on here is overflowing with messages. I’ve spent most of the day getting rid of the spam and junk. But there’s a few that are promising. Here. Let’s go sit down, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Going into the restaurant and getting sat at a table was a blur. Beck had so much energy and emotion leaking that it was hard to focus on anything else. All I knew was that suddenly, I was seated next to Beck while he played with my hand on the table, tracing his fingers in and around mine. When the waitress came over, even she seemed dazzled by Beck, forgetting to take mine and Jonah’s drink order. She’d made it about three feet from the table before slapping her forehead and apologizing profusely.

Beck smirked.

“So there’s a couple of huge TikTok stars who want to do a collab video and post them. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds like an awesome opportunity. Then—”

I interrupted before he told us so many things that some fell through the cracks. Although knowing how important this was to him, I doubted he’d let us forget anything for too long.

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