I Pucking Love You

by Pippa Grant

  “What’s this thing for Veda today?” Tyler asks.

  “It’s a, erm, celebration of accomplishments. With a big…reception…before the ceremony.”

  I get another what the fuck is wrong with you? look.

  Legit.

  I’m lying to the man about the fact that we’re on the way to a funeral, because I’m still afraid he’ll bail if I tell him the truth, and I’m not doing a very good job of it. Even I don’t believe me.

  I mean, I wouldn’t if I didn’t already know I was glossing over the most important details.

  So I do what any rational person in my position would do.

  I shove two powdered sugar Donettes in my mouth at once, which makes one of them stick like glue to the top of my mouth.

  I can’t answer a question if I’m giving myself a headache by trying to pry a donut off the roof of my mouth with my tongue.

  Tyler slides me another look.

  He sighs the same way I’ve heard people sigh when encountering me and my mother our entire lives.

  And then he cranks the radio up again.

  Probably for the best.

  Also?

  I’m pretty sure I owe him big time.

  10

  Tyler

  We’re two hours down the road and my dick and I are still debating what to say to Muffy about me leaving her unsatisfied at that party.

  I don’t want to talk about it.

  I want a chance to do it better. But he’s not cooperating. And the idea of staying overnight in a hotel with her isn’t helping. Especially when she’s made it clear she reserved two rooms.

  You and your broken dick are not welcome to play in my garden is the message, loud and clear.

  “Restroom!” she suddenly exclaims, pointing to a sign on the road as she snaps her head up from her phone, which she’s been working on nonstop since not telling me why she has to go to Richmond.

  “Seriously?” I mutter.

  “Yes!”

  There’s a hint of desperation in the word that has me cutting a glance at her. “Are you sick?”

  “No.”

  She’s sweating and squeaking one-word answers.

  “Okay. Okay. Restroom.”

  You don’t grow up road-tripping to various cities where your mom’s having a show without learning some people have bladders the size of a walnut. My dream used to be to go an entire six-hour road trip without stopping once.

  Scratch Muffy off the list of people I could take with me.

  But I also won’t be the guy who refuses to stop. Not like I have plans she’s keeping me from.

  I pull off the interstate and pick a gas station. As soon as I stop at the pump, she darts out of the car and dashes for the shop, almost trips on her heels, straightens, and makes it inside.

  If she’s sick, we’re turning around.

  Oh, shit.

  What if she’s carsick?

  Nope. No way. She was fine until five minutes ago. We even had a little debate between her playing on her phone and me dialing the radio sound back up about whether Calvin & Hobbes or The Far Side was the greatest comic strip ever written.

  Oh.

  Wait.

  She ate an entire bag of Donettes and has been staring at her phone half the trip.

  She might be carsick, but there’s probably a reason for it.

  “Hey, man, anyone ever tell you that you look like Tyler Jaeger?” a guy at the next pump says. Our cars are facing opposite directions, and I can see his back window, decorated with those stick figure families that tell you how many kids and dogs the guy has, except all of his stick figures are versions of Thrusty, my team’s rocket-powered bratwurst mascot.

  Nice.

  Still, I shake my head, playing it low-key because these days, I never know if people recognize me as a hockey player or as Daisy Carter-Kincaid’s most famous, most single in-law. Technically, my mom’s more famous than I am, but she’s not young, hot, and single.

  Also, please note: Being Daisy’s most famous in-law is akin to I went viral on social media once for a TikTok video of myself admiring the shape of a fried egg while high. Playing hockey isn’t on the same continent as Daisy’s level of fame. Possibly even in the same galaxy. “No. Who’s that?”

  “For real? Man, you look just like him.”

  “Must be a pretty great dude.”

  “Not really. Hockey player. Fourth line material, you know? He’s no Duncan Lavoie.”

  Ouch. “Don’t follow it.”

  “Seriously? Wow. The resemblance is uncanny. Take my word for it. You could pretend to be him and charge people for selfies.” He snort-chuckles. “Probably suit up for a game and do as good of a job too.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Muffy’s not out when I finish topping off the car—another old habit I picked up from Mom’s touring days when we almost ran out of gas a time or two—so I move it to a parking spot by the door and go inside looking for her. Not looking forward to busting into the women’s room to check on her, but turns out, I don’t have to.

  She’s in the candy aisle.

  “That whole bag of Donettes wasn’t enough?”

  Her entire body goes visibly stiff before she turns a glacier-melting scowl on me. “Some of us stress eat, okay, Mr. Fish-and-chips?”

  Did I stick my foot in my mouth? Because I feel like I definitely stuck my foot in my mouth. “Did you throw up?”

  And now she’s giving me the are you a shapeshifting worm who digs up my flowers for fun? look. “No.”

  “You looked sick.”

  “You look lovely today too, Tyler. Your beard really makes your neanderthal stick out.” She snatches a pack of gummy bears off a hook and marches past me.

  The guy who was at the next pump pauses at the end of the aisle, looks at me, then at Muffy, then back to me. “Holy hell. You are Tyler Jaeger. I didn’t mean what I said about that fourth line thing. I—”

  “Keep supporting the Thrusters, man.” I clap him on the back and step past him to follow Muffy, who’s snagging breath mints and two king-size candy bars from the racks under the checkout counter. “I got this.”

  “I can pay for my own junk food,” she mutters.

  This is exactly the problem, my dick tells me. You’re an idiot when it comes to Muffy.

  “Should’ve taken that shot in the second period last night,” the cashier tells me.

  “Shit happens.”

  Muffy pays for her stuff and marches out of the shop, with me trailing behind like a puppy. She stops short on the sidewalk outside, squints at the pump I used to fill up the Maserati, spots my car to her left, and keeps marching.

  It’s on the chilly side today—thank you, November weather—and she didn’t put her coat back on after wiggling out of it back in Copper Valley, so I have a very clear view of her curvy ass hugged tight in that black dress.

  Anything? I ask my dick.

  She’s just not into us, he replies with a yawn.

  And that’s why I’m here. To fix it. Figure out where I went wrong, what I can do better, and get back out there. So I climb into my car and start the engine while Muffy sits there clutching her bag of snacks.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” she says stiffly.

  “What friends do,” I grunt back.

  Friends.

  I’m friend-zoning myself.

  And the weird thing?

  Of all the women I’ve fooled around with, I probably like Muffy most. She’s funny. She’s unpredictable. She’s creative.

  So are most of the women I hook up with, if I’m being honest.

  But there’s something about Muffy that’s different too. In a good way. Fresh. Unexpected. Always something of a puzzle, which is basically irresistible to me. She has this air about her that says I care about people and want them to be happy, but I won’t let you close because you are not yet to be trusted.

  Somehow, I don’t think leaving her unsatisfied at the bunny bar is scoring m
e points on that last bit.

  The weird part is how much I care, and not because my dick has been broken ever since.

  Fine.

  Fine.

  We were friends. She’s a woman. I’m a man. And we were friends.

  We settle into silence, her clutching her candy but not eating it while she goes back to working on her phone, me driving and pretending I’m listening to the radio, and we hop back on the interstate.

  By the time we roll into Richmond, neither of us has said three more words to each other.

  But now that she’s looking away from whatever she was doing on her phone, taking in the scenery around us, her face is pasty and sweaty again, and I don’t know if it’s from all those Donettes that I would’ve given my left leg to eat with her, if it’s because staring at her phone makes her nauseous in the car, or if it’s because of whatever happened the last time she was here.

  Or maybe she’s coming down with an actual bug.

  “Take the next left.” She’s squeaking like a mouse as she studies the map on her phone, which I can see now.

  She was hiding the phone from me until we hit the outskirts of Richmond, which makes me wonder if she was playing Candy Crush and didn’t want me to know, or if she was working on top secret Muff Matchers business.

  “How much further?” I ask.

  “Six blocks.”

  Six blocks?

  I don’t see anything university-ish anywhere. I thought we’d be near the campus.

  Maybe it’s in six blocks.

  Or the hotel is.

  And maybe I’ve had three hours in the car with her to ask her what I could’ve done better when we hooked up, and I’ve been a complete and total chicken shit.

  That’s the whole reason I’m here.

  To find out what Mr. Disappointment in my jockey shorts and I need to do better so we can function as one again, but instead, I’ve managed to offend her over her choice of road trip food and she’s basically refusing to speak to me.

  We hit a stoplight three blocks down the street.

  Muffy’s breathing so heavily that the windows are fogging up.

  That’s not normal. “What the fuck happened the last time you were here?”

  “Nothing.”

  She’s lying. “Muffy—”

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “Look, if you just got one hotel room, I don’t care.”

  “No, that’s not—”

  A horn honks behind us, cutting her off. Light’s green. I lift a middle finger to the honker and take my time hitting the gas. “What happened?” I repeat.

  She looks down at her lap and scrubs hard at the white spots on her black dress, left over from her Donette binge. “I really don’t think anyone’s going to say anything about it, but if you hear weird stuff—well, one, remember it’s me, and two, sometimes people exaggerate, and three, if you could do that thing where you glare at someone like you’re planning on gnawing their leg bone for dessert, that would be great, and I’ll owe you free services at Muff Matchers, okay?”

  “I don’t want free services from Muff Matchers.”

  “Right.”

  Fuck. Again. “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m a terrible matchmaker. I know. I am getting better, but I get it. You need to see a track record longer than three matches to believe it. Well, four, but I don’t like to count the first one because it was so easy and they basically did it themselves.”

  “Muffy—”

  “You can find a parking spot anytime now. We’re close enough.”

  “The hotel doesn’t have a parking lot?”

  “We’re…not going to the hotel first. No time. The reception…thing is starting.”

  I pinch my lips together and remind myself I volunteered for this. What difference does it make if we go to the hotel first?

  None.

  If I were planning to camp out on the bed and binge watch SpongeBob SquarePants, which is always showing on hotel TVs, I would’ve stayed home.

  I’m not wiggling out of whatever it is I promised Muffy I’d come here for just because I haven’t gotten up the nerve to ask her if she can have a talk with my dick and promise it that it’s still worthy of performing.

  Street parking is full, and I don’t see any parking garages or parking lots immediately. We get stopped at another light where a dozen people all wearing black are waiting to cross the street. “What’s this reception for again?”

  She crinkles the bag in her lap. “Veda and her family and this…thing.”

  Two people dressed in all black walk past my car.

  Four more people in all black are strolling down the sidewalk across the street.

  There’s a funeral home two buildings behind us.

  My heart doubles down and I get a tinny taste in my mouth. “Oh, fuck, no.”

  Weddings and funerals.

  Weddings and funerals are the only two things you have to be at to support a friend.

  And maybe baptisms or bachelor parties, but Muffy’s definitely not taking me to a bachelor party. And there’s no way we’re here for a wedding.

  We’d have a gift.

  Even if it was a second-hand gift from Hilda, which is a terrifying thought.

  “You’re taking me to a funeral?” I spit out.

  “I didn’t think anyone would come with me if they knew why I was really here. And if you don’t want to go in, that’s fine. I’ll—I’ll go in by myself. I’ll man up, okay? I’ll get over myself and everything that’s put me into therapy for the past four years. Maybe I’ll find a few new clients.”

  The car is too small. The car’s too small, and my shirt’s too tight, and the tinny taste in my mouth is turning to cotton. I try to swallow while I find my tongue. “Your friend died?”

  “No! No. Veda didn’t die. Her dad did. And this really is a celebration. She only went to med school because he made her because he’s—he was the dean, and he wasn’t a very good father. So she’s free of him now, and she can do whatever she wants without judgment, but she still has to get through everyone telling her what an awesome person he was, plus, he was her dad, so there are complicated feelings. Listen, if there’s one thing I know, it’s shitty fathers, and one day, I’m gonna be asking Veda to do this exact same thing for me. If this were anywhere else but right here in Richmond with all the people I used to know at Blackwell, I’d be all over it solo. But it’s here, and—Tyler? Are you okay?”

  A funeral.

  She’s dragging me to a damn funeral.

  Nope.

  I am not okay.

  11

  Muffy

  So this is going well.

  I have a date who judges me for eating sugar and who looks like he might hyperventilate. The line to get into the funeral home for the viewing is six thousand people long. And I’ve already spotted three former classmates.

  Part of me wants to squeal, hug them, and ask how they’re doing, where they’re working, and what’s new, because I did like most of my classmates back in the day. Or at least, I didn’t dislike them. I just didn’t know them as well as I knew Veda.

  I liked them enough to want to ask how they’re doing. That says something.

  But I can’t.

  I’m that failure.

  And being here is making my pulse race and my mouth dry and it’s like I can see the auras of everyone who ever believed in me when I decided to go to med school, and they’re all telling me what a horrible disappointment I am.

  I push it all away and look at Tyler again.

  I’m wearing a hat with a black veil that my mom had in her closet, and so far, I don’t think anyone’s recognized me, but if he passes out, people are going to notice, and then they’ll want to know why I’m wearing a funeral hat when no one else is, and it’ll be obvious I’m super uncomfortable, and while I don’t think anyone actually thinks about me, ever, I can’t stand the thought that I’ll be whispered about once again.

&n
bsp; Or, worse, that he’ll be here, and someone will point me out to him, or someone will point him out to me.

  Not that anyone should know who he is.

  At least, I hope not. I didn’t even tell Veda. Ever. She still doesn’t know, which means no one should know.

  Still, it’s a lot.

  Possibly too much.

  “It’s fine if you want to go back and wait in the car,” I murmur to Tyler, even though the words make adrenaline spike so hard that I get a pounding in my temple that makes me wonder if I should see a doctor about a stroke.

  Lucky me. I’m surrounded by them.

  “You’re not going in there alone,” he mutters back.

  He doesn’t even know why I don’t want to be alone, but he’s sticking with me. Two points to Tyler.

  I forgive him for being judgmental about what I eat. And after growing up with a dad who’d constantly ask if I went up another size and a mom always dieting until she had gastric bypass surgery a few years ago and lives for that moment she steps on the scale every morning to see that it’s still working, yeah, I’m sensitive about what I eat.

  Also, eating an entire bag of Donettes probably wasn’t my wisest decision on a road trip.

  My stomach does actually hurt from that too right now. Not that that’s why I made Tyler stop for the bathroom.

  I made him stop because I had a mini-panic attack at getting so close to here.

  Definitely should not do that again.

  I reach for his hand and squeeze it, and a jolt travels up my arm and pings from my shoulder through my abdomen like it’s a pinball machine. “Thank you.”

  He squeezes my hand back. “You don’t even want to know what you’re gonna owe me.”

  Sex. He’s going to demand repayment in sex.

  And now I’m going to puke.

  I really am.

  Possibly because had I not eaten an entire bag of Donettes, and if we left the lights off, I’d be willing to try sex with him again tonight.

  Maybe.

  Is it appropriate to have sex while on an overnight trip for a funeral?

  “Are you okay?” he murmurs.