by Pippa Grant
“Jaegs! Whaddup, sucka?” Klein grins at me and salutes me with his bottle. “Coach’s gonn’ kick our ashes t’morrow.”
Yep.
Probably will.
“Worth it,” I grunt.
It’s the party line. Gotta use it, or they’ll figure out there’s something wrong with me.
Rooster and his bunnies amble over. “You can buy energy drinks, but you can’t buy memories.” He thrusts his hips, wiggles his brows and then jerks his head toward the stairwell to the apartment I just vacated. “You boys wanna watch and see how it’s done, you know where to find us.”
Rooster Applebottom is the teammate we love to hate. All ego. All athlete.
The first to pay for everyone’s meal and leave a three-hundred percent tip, and the first to throw himself in front of a puck to deflect it before it gets to Murphy or Klein at the net.
Also the first to announce he has the biggest dick of us all.
Coach knew what he was doing when he asked for that guy to fill some very big skates that retired at the end of last year.
One of the women giggles. The other’s eyes flare wide and she bites her lip.
“Don’t you worry, darlin’,” Rooster whispers to her loudly enough for all of us to hear. “I’m actually lockin’ the door so they can’t hear us talkin’ about all them musicals you want to tell me about.”
He tips his cowboy hat to us. “Evenin’, gentlemen. I’ll be skating circles around you in practice in another few hours.”
I look at Klein as Rooster and his dates head to the door.
His mouth’s hanging open, head tipped back, while he snores.
“Screw this.” I steal his whiskey bottle—he’ll thank me at practice tomorrow—and carry it to Cassadee and Athena, who are now entertaining some guys from the team we spanked tonight. “Make sure Klein gets home, yeah?”
“Anything for you, Tyler.” Athena blows me a kiss.
Cassadee winks.
At least, I think I got them straight.
And I’m getting out of here.
We all have to be at practice tomorrow morning—check that, this morning, as it’s shortly after midnight—but I don’t want to go home.
I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to screw.
I want—
Dammit.
I want a bucket of greasy fried fish and chips, because it’s what my big brother used to take me to get every time he came home on leave from the Marines and got annoyed at being hen-pecked by the four sisters between us.
My car’s cold, thanks to the early November weather, and no, I’m not telling you what kind of car I drive, because yes, it very much feels like compensation tonight.
It gets me where I want to go.
That’s all that matters.
That, and getting my ass to Cod Pieces before they close for the night.
Could I stay at the bunny bar and get fried fish and chips?
Yes.
Will I?
No fucking way.
I’m still stewing in my own misery when the bright neon sign with the armored cod and the storefront that looks like a medieval castle comes into view at the edge of a strip mall four miles the wrong direction from my downtown condo. I roll the window down, letting in a blast of chilly air and the scent of fries.
Just in time.
I holler my order over the sound of my engine, then pull around to the window to get my fish.
Debate calling my brother in Miami.
It’s one AM. He and his wife recently celebrated their kid’s first birthday, and I think they’re working on baby number two.
If I call him in the middle of the night to bitch about how I can’t get it up, he’ll probably hang up on me, then tell our sisters.
And Mom.
She’s a professional comedienne with her own popular Netflix special. There’s no damn way I’m bothering West in the middle of the night for this.
I’ll talk to the fried fish and call it even.
Has as much personality as West had before he married Daisy.
The window swings open. “That’ll be fourteen seventy-three, please.”
My car lurches forward before I remember to put it in park, and I gape up at the woman staring down at me. “Muffy?”
My brain is playing tricks on me.
It has to be.
Because there’s no way the curvy, clumsy, smart-mouthed goddess who’s haunting my dick is standing there wearing a Cod Pieces polo and hat.
But she is.
And I swear to god, her long brown braids are recoiling in horror as her whole face twists, her lip curling, her left eye squeezing shut, before she snaps herself together. “For the hundredth time today, I have no idea who this Muffy person is. My name is Octavia Louisa Beaverhousen.”
Fuck me.
There are two of them? She looks exactly like Muffy. I’m not seeing things, and I’m not projecting just because I want my dick to work again and the bunnies made me think about screwing Muffy in the walk-in fridge at the bunny bar.
“Fourteen seventy-three, please.” She turns away as she holds out a hand, twitching her fingers like she’s waiting for cash or a card.
And that’s when I see the tattoo.
Rufus.
Her cat’s name. It’s on her wrist.
Octavia Louisa Beaverhousen, my ass. This is Muffy.
“What the hell are you doing working here?” I hiss.
“Sir, please watch your language. This is a respectable fish kingdom, not a locker room.”
I slap my credit card into her hand and briefly wonder if I’ll ever see it again. “Does Kami know you’re working here?” Kami, our first-string goaltender’s wife, is Muffy’s cousin. They’re both staples around the arena, though Kami’s an utter angel, and Muffy is a matchmaking goddess of doom.
A sexy matchmaking goddess of doom who can quote Dr. Who as easily as she can quote Schitt’s Creek, and who has the most gorgeous heart-shaped ass that I can’t get out of my brain, but that ship sailed back at the start of the season, and I don’t look back.
Don’t we? my junk asks.
Is it wrong to junk-punch yourself?
We don’t look back. My fascination with Muffy was merely because she resisted me for so long, rightfully so since we have mutual friends, and not because we’re interested.
We don’t get interested.
We do one-night stands with women we never have to see again, or who won’t care when we move on to the next woman.
Women like Athena and Cassadee, who like sex for fun.
“Your cod pieces will be right up.” Muffy flings my card back at me and slams the drive-thru window shut.
Screw this.
I whip my car around the corner, park, and hop out to stroll into the dining room, which usually has a fun Ren Faire vibe but tonight feels like a dungeon.
“Hi, sir, the dining room’s closed, but—holy shit. You’re Tyler Jaeger.”
I nod to the teenager mopping the floor, who’s probably actually college-aged, but he looks about thirteen, like all the college kids do these days, despite my own college years not being that long ago. “Just need to talk to Muffy.”
“Your fish is frying,” she calls from somewhere beyond the counter. “The dining room is closed. Go back and wait in your car.”
“What are you doing here?” I yell back.
“Working.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone needs a job, and every job is worthwhile. Please return to your car, sir.”
“Quit calling me sir.”
Fuck.
Did my dick twitch because she called me sir?
Or am I having a phantom hard-on?
I yank my waistband out and peer down at it, then remember I’m in a public restaurant, with a teenager mopping a floor behind me, and wonder if I actually drank something tonight and forgot.
I don’t think I drank anything. It’s November. I might sta
y out late at the bunny bar, but I eat and drink clean during the season, with few exceptions when I need a shot of Jack or a bundle of fish and chips.
Which means it’s the Muffy factor driving me utterly insane.
And my dick is soft and limp as ever.
“What the hell are you doing?” Muffy’s peering at me from around the fake stone column between the ordering counter and the kitchen, clearly horrified.
For the record, I did not whip my junk out. I gave myself a view of it, and no one else. “Taking you home,” I reply.
“Muffy. You know Tyler Jaeger?” the teenager asks.
“No,” she replies.
“If you need a job—” I start.
“I have a job. Clearly. It’s for research, not that it’s any of your business. And you will not speak of this to anyone, because whoever this Muffy person is doesn’t deserve you spreading rumors that I’m her. Your fish is almost ready, okay? And then you can leave. Immediately. Also, leave a nice tip for D’Angelo, since you’re getting footprints all over his clean floor. And if you ever, ever speak to anyone about seeing a woman you keep calling Muffy here, I’ll tell Nick Murphy you asked to see my boobies.”
D’Angelo laughs. “She’s so hilarious.”
Hilarious?
More like a walking disaster.
And if my junk wasn’t already malfunctioning, now it’s shrinking back into my body.
Telling Murphy, aka the Thrusters’ number one goalie, aka Muffy’s overprotective-to-a-fault cousin-in-law, that I asked to see her boobies?
Murphy is legendary for what he’s done to his sister’s ex-boyfriends.
He’s mellowed since he got married, and even more so since his son was born, but I don’t need to be the one to re-spark that wrath over something I said wrong to his wife’s cousin.
Also, Muffy still trying to pretend she’s not Muffy while threatening to have Nick disembowel me?
Classic Muffy.
See again, I’ve jacked off to thoughts of that smart, hilarious, nonsensical mouth more than once in the last year or so.
Back when I could still jack off.
“Is my fucking fish ready yet?”
“Don’t use foul language in front of the crew, please.”
She’s still half-hiding in the kitchen, and I’m not having this anymore. I march myself behind the counter, making D’Angelo mutter a reverent Whoa behind me, and Muffy squeak out a protest in front of me. “What are you doing?”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m none of your business.”
“Tell that to Murphy. What the hell are you doing working here?” I know she dropped out of medical school pretty far into it a few years ago. She runs her own matchmaking service, which isn’t all that great, but she does it. And she lives with her mom, who’s terrifying on a completely different level. “If you need a job—”
“I have a job, which you’re well aware of.”
The fish smells stronger back here, and my mouth is watering. I can see it frying, with a red digital timer counting down. My fish and chips are almost ready. “Then why are you here?”
She’s a manager.
She’s a damn manager. Her nametag says so. She didn’t pop in to Cod Pieces for research or whatever it was she said she was doing here. She’s been working here a while.
“Go away, Tyler. We need to serve your fish and close up for the night.”
“Bruh, yeah,” D’Angelo calls. “I got a test in the morning. But can I get a selfie?”
The fish fryer beeps, and Muffy turns to lift the basket, and fuck me, my backstabbing dick is twitching again.
I pull out my waistband.
Shit.
He did grow.
Like not even half an inch, but he grew. At this point, I recognize any change in his appearance.
Is it the fish?
Or is it Muffy?
Or is it Muffy making me fish?
Or do I need to get my head scanned because Athena and Cassadee were right and I might have a neurological disorder preventing me from popping a boner?
“Put your junk away! Oh my god, do your neurons even fire in your cerebrum? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Jesus. She’s hot when she uses big words to fling insults. “I’m not flashing my junk.”
“You’re looking at it!”
“I like it!”
“We all do, man.” D’Angelo pushes his mop cart around the corner and slaps me on the shoulder, then goes deer-in-the-headlights and shrinks back. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to touch you. Can I get a selfie? For real?”
Muffy shoves a bag at me. “Take the mother-forking selfie and go away so we can close up, please.”
“I’ll take care of it, Muff,” D’Angelo says.
He smells like fish when he loops an arm around me and leans in to snap a pic.
I feel fish grease settling all over my skin and hair and beard, and I shouldn’t have taken the bag the way I did, because instead of grabbing it by the top like a normal human, I let her set it in my palm and all of the just-fried fish and chips are still dripping oil through the brown paper.
I’ll probably have blisters tomorrow. Pretty sure she was supposed to put it in a thicker paper tray or something before she dropped it in the bag to prevent this.
Probably I shouldn’t poke a woman who’s clearly not having the best day of her life.
She works at Cod Pieces by night and runs a terrible matchmaking service called Muff Matchers during the day.
She’s probably had several not-the-best-days-of-her-life.
And yet I still wish I could go home and rub one out while thinking about her frying fish for me.
D’Angelo gets four selfies, pockets his phone, and then claps me on the shoulder again, except this time, he doesn’t let go.
Nope.
The guy hits a nerve in my neck that almost has my knees buckling as pain rips through me from scalp to ankles. “Sorry, bruh. Hate to do this to you, but it’s protocol. If you don’t leave, I gotta go ninja on your ass. Can’t have the boss-lady upset or she’ll make me clean the toilets. You know? Then I go home smelling like a dead fish with diarrhea, and you can’t get that smell out for days.”
My body is breaking. Knees? Jell-O. Thighs? Overcooked noodles. Hockey ass? Quivering in pain.
I’m a badass on the ice, and this hundred-and-twenty-pound teenager is about to take me out with a little pressure on a point in my neck that I didn’t even know I had. “You’re a ninja?” I gasp.
“It’s a hobby. You going?”
Dammit. “I’m going.”
He releases the trigger point, slaps my shoulder, and does a thing with the mop and bucket on wheels that puts him out of reach and would make me have to step in dirty mop water to get to him. “No hard feelings, man. Gotta guard my manager, you know? Kick ass on the ice next game. I’ll be rooting for you.”
No hard feelings.
Jesus.
Nothing’s hard anymore.
I should take my ass home, eat my fish and chips, and forget this ever happened.
Not so sure that’s gonna work for me though.
3
Muffy Periwinkle, aka a woman who has it all together, really, if “has it all together” means “she’s not dead yet.”
It’s not actually hyperventilating if you’re not choking on your oatmeal, right?
Asking for a friend.
Because I’m certainly not hyperventilating or choking on my oatmeal as I check my texts over breakfast.
Definitely not.
This is all fine. Totally fine.
“Muffy, you’ll never snag a man if you make those fish eyes and pretend you’re Rufus harking up a hairball every time you swallow a bite of oats, sweetheart,” my mother says.
She’s sitting across from me, dressed in a pink silk robe four sizes too big that’s gaping in a way that’s nearly showing off her nipples, which is pretty normal.
Normal’s good.
Except for the part where I still live with my mother, who has a Real Housewives of Las Vegas soul in a The Simpsons lifestyle, and she’s currently hosting an octogenarian criminal for breakfast while they plot out how best to introduce her to his great-nephew, who has a fetish for women of a certain age.
Pretty sure the average person wouldn’t consider that normal.
Also not normal?
A request from my med school BFF and silent business partner to go to her father’s funeral.
The average person might consider that normal. People die. People have friends. People go to funerals for friends. But the average person probably hasn’t been disappointing her silent business partner with a failure to turn a profit for three solid years.
Maybe I should change my business name. Who wants to hire a matchmaker who threatens to match your muff?
Although business is up the past few months. I’m possibly finally getting the hang of success, even if I side-eye my own methods sometimes and would absolutely deny them if anyone ever asked.
Won’t jinx it by thinking I might turn a profit this year.
Success on any level is new. I’m still getting used to it.
“Muffy?” Mom repeats. “Do you need the Heimlich?”
Related: Who names their child Muffy? And don’t start with But, honey, it’s short for Muffina.
That’s worse.
“I know the Heimlich!” our breakfast guest announces. “Learned it in the Army. Here, Hilda. Hold my cane. I got her.”
Before I can whimper out a protest that I’m not, in fact, in danger of suffocating on my oatmeal, our friend William has dashed out of his chair like he’s not eighty-three and is grabbing me by the boobs and pumping.
“I’m okay!” I gasp. “I’m okay!”
“You don’t look okay,” Mom says.
“Stomach ain’t supposed to feel like that either,” William says. “You got some lumps in it.”
Neither of us tells William my stomach isn’t lumpy.
I mean, it is, some, but he wouldn’t know, because that’s not where he’s currently pumping me.
Mom winks at me. “At least it’s some action,” she whispers loudly.