I Pucking Love You

by Pippa Grant

“Peachy.”

  “Liar.”

  “It’s a viewing for my friend’s father. Of course it’s uncomfortable. But we’ll get through it, and it’ll be fine.”

  “This is ridiculous. We’re both getting out of here.” He tugs on my arm, but I tug right back.

  Do not underestimate a woman with birthing hips, which is what my mother called them after my father started making comments about the time I hit puberty. It lowers my center of gravity and makes it harder for muscular jocks to move me.

  But apparently Donettes don’t give me the right kind of energy, because Tyler’s succeeding in tugging me when I know I should be able to resist.

  “I have to be here for Veda,” I hiss. “I promised.”

  “Then why are you meeting her here? Why didn’t you meet her someplace before now? Why aren’t we already inside?”

  “I didn’t know it would be so crowded.”

  “When’s the last time you even saw this friend? I’ve never heard of her before.”

  “A month ago, for lunch, which we do regularly, and you haven’t heard of her before because you and I aren’t besties and I don’t tell you everything.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut.

  What is it about frustrated men in suits that makes my nipples perk up?

  The line moves, and I shuffle with it.

  Tyler shuffles with me.

  “I thought you ghosted me,” I whisper.

  “What?”

  “After that…thing…we did at that club. I thought you ghosted me. I know I said I did it to you, but…that wasn’t my intention. Not at first. I thought you’d call me, but you didn’t. I know you don’t do relationships, but we were friends, Tyler. We were friends, and you didn’t call.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut again and doesn’t answer again.

  So that either means bad timing with telling him, or it means he did ghost me.

  Whatever.

  It’s not important.

  What’s important is being here for Veda.

  I pull out my phone and send her a text letting her know I’m here. Then I nudge Tyler like I didn’t just confess to being incredibly insecure.

  Again.

  “While we’re waiting, you should check on your brother-in-law.”

  He mutters something to himself.

  Pretty sure it’s about how he should’ve known better. Or that if I’m involved, of course this will be a disaster.

  “At least you don’t have to worry about any of my relatives asking when we’re getting married,” I whisper.

  “What about your friend?”

  “She knows me too well to think you’re anything other than a very kind person doing me a favor.”

  He stares me down.

  I squirm.

  I’ve seen Tyler Jaeger laugh. I’ve seen him smirk. I’ve seen him flirt. All of them with me, though the flirting, I’m positive, was merely a kindness and not an actual attraction, like the sex in the club’s fridge was a thing to do that was easy and convenient, and it didn’t mean anything.

  But until this moment, I haven’t actually understood why he’s such a great hockey player.

  Being on the receiving end of that intense, focused, no-nonsense glare is making me wish I were padded up for battle.

  Or possibly in a different state.

  This is even more intense than the glare he gave me in the car.

  “Why are you friends with people who don’t think you’re attractive enough to bring a real date to a funeral?”

  My phone buzzes. “Veda knows I don’t date. It has nothing to do with being attractive.”

  He folds his arms over his chest. “You don’t date, but you still spent time thinking I ghosted you? When every time we’ve ever seen each other, it was because you were on my turf? At the arena? Or at Chester Green’s? Or Nick’s house?”

  “Nick’s house is also Kami’s house. And who keeps track of turf? That’s ridiculous.”

  “And you never texted or called me either.”

  Clearly, we’re both to blame, and this is why misunderstandings suck. One of us needs to say sorry, then maybe the other one will say it too.

  Or maybe not.

  “Oh, look. Veda’s asking me to sneak her a margarita. This is why we’re here. C’mon. Let’s go find a liquor store.”

  I tug his elbow.

  He grunt-sighs the long-suffering grunt-sigh of a man frustrated with a woman, but he doesn’t argue, which is a relief.

  Not a relief?

  Running headfirst into someone cutting in line.

  The scents of licorice and pipe smoke fill my nose. Wool scratches my cheek. Dread fills me from the feet up like someone’s pouring concrete into my blood, and I freeze as my eyes connect with his.

  His weathered face twists into annoyance. “Watch where you’re—do I know—oh, fuck.”

  “Gerry,” the woman with him snaps. “Language. We’re at a funeral, for shit’s sake.”

  I can’t blink. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe.

  I’m back in a dark hotel room, trapped, half-naked, waiting, like I promised I’d be, except it’s not some rich douchebag from the football team coming to claim what he’s paid for.

  It’s my middle-aged rheumatology professor.

  My married middle-aged rheumatology professor.

  “Excuse us,” Dr. Richardson’s wife says. “Eyeballs, Gerald. Straight ahead.”

  The wall of wool disappears. The scent fades. And the whispers start.

  Or possibly they don’t, but I feel like I’m this giant blob covered in boils that everyone’s pointing at and trying to stay away from, lest my extreme discomfort cooties infect them too.

  My ears are burning. My lungs are coiling themselves into a ball. My eyes are so hot they’re melting. All the Donettes I ate threaten to make a reappearance.

  And then a hand settles on my shoulder. “Muffy?”

  Tyler’s voice filters into my brain. I gasp.

  Air. There’s air, and I can breathe it, and it’s fresh and clean and flowing into my lungs, and I’m fine.

  I’m totally fine.

  My feet feel like bugs are crawling inside them, my knees are lit firecrackers about to split into a million pieces, and my stomach is threatening to turn itself inside out, but I’m fine.

  Or maybe I’m not fine.

  Tyler wraps an arm more firmly around me. “C’mon. Liquor store. Now. Veda needs you.”

  He doesn’t ask.

  I don’t offer.

  He just gets me out of there, supporting me while I figure out how my legs work again.

  But I know he will ask.

  And I probably owe him an answer.

  It’s but a matter of time.

  12

  Tyler

  You did this to yourself, idiot.

  Rule number one of knowing Muffy Periwinkle: Nothing is ever exactly as it seems.

  I let myself think I’d get a chance to be alone with her, work out whatever’s wrong with my junk, and that everything would go back to normal after this trip.

  Nope.

  Because who needs a date to a thing?

  Of fucking course this is a funeral. With a woman who thinks I ghosted her.

  Jesus.

  I hate funerals.

  I hate funerals more than I hate losing, more than I hate all the complications that go with relationships, and more than I hate listening to my sisters talk about their cracked nipples and perineal tears at the dinner table, combined.

  “Who was that guy you ran into?” I ask as we walk down an alley back toward the cave of doom, also known as the funeral home, laden with a few four-packs of single-serving margaritas and two new Yeti tumblers full of ice.

  “Can we maybe focus on Veda right now?”

  “No.”

  “Her father just died.”

  “And you nearly had a panic attack running into a random old guy on the street. Are you going to have more panic attacks when you see more
people? What the hell happened the last time you were here, and what the hell kind of friend is this Veda person for wanting you to come back here?”

  If anyone asks, I’m in full protective mode over Muffy, and this has nothing at all to do with the level to which I hate funerals.

  I’m not trying to re-channel my energy.

  That’s my story. Don’t challenge me. I know how to use a hockey stick.

  “Do not talk crap about Veda. She’s my hero.”

  “Does she fly?”

  “She’s the first person who’s ever believed in me.”

  That gets my attention, and I cut a look at Muffy in time to see her eyes widen and her hand fly to her mouth. Either she didn’t mean to say that out loud, or she’s never realized it before.

  Maybe both.

  We stop outside the back door to the funeral home, facing a row of hearses, which makes my skin crawl. “Your parents don’t believe in you?”

  “My mom’s a bit of a spotlight-stealer, in case you haven’t noticed, and my father only thinks you’re worthy if you’re young, rich, skinny, and pretty, which is one thing my mom’s never gotten over and is also one hundred percent the reason she had gastric bypass surgery a few years ago. She’s still trying to stick it to him for leaving her.” She pulls her phone out and texts someone.

  Probably Veda, telling her we’re at the back door to the funeral home.

  I sincerely hope they don’t have any bodies delivered while we’re standing here.

  And now I’m shuddering.

  That’s perfect. Exactly the image I want to project.

  Scary hockey player terrified to be at funeral home.

  I try to work up something to say about Muffy laying out all of her family’s dysfunctions and psychological issues, but I can’t.

  Because I’m at a damn funeral home.

  “Veda says to come on in and meet her in the first room to the right.”

  I can do this. It’s like heading into a game. Objective is winning. Winning is delivering a margarita to the mourning.

  Focus.

  I can do this.

  I tuck the two Yetis between my arm and my abs. My hand barely shakes when I reach for the door and turn the knob.

  Do they do all the things to the bodies in this room we’re going to?

  Or do they have a secret basement?

  How big of an elevator would you have to have to move gurneys and caskets between floors?

  I’m gonna throw up. Shit. I am. I’m gonna hurl.

  Muffy steps past me into the hallway, which is neither dim nor bright. It’s neutral, like the light is trying to not impede on anyone’s experience of being in a funeral home.

  Pictures line the neutral-colored walls, but I don’t look at them.

  Logically, I know they won’t be pictures of dead people—Look at all of our satisfied customers!—but illogically, my balls are sweating and my pulse is racing and I need something forty billion times stronger than a margarita.

  I’m gonna need a horse tranquilizer.

  Please.

  Let me wake up tomorrow when all of this is over.

  “First door on the right,” Muffy murmurs to herself.

  First door on the right. Don’t look up. Don’t look down. Don’t focus. Follow Muffy. Don’t concentrate. Don’t breathe.

  What the hell is that smell, anyway?

  Is that flowers?

  Dead flowers?

  “Here.” Muffy turns left, I follow, and oh, fuck me.

  That’s a body.

  That’s a dead body. Straight ahead. Laid out in an empty room.

  With a dog.

  There’s a dead stuffed poodle, head cocked, staring straight at us, while sitting on the chest of a dead elderly woman in a pink glitter casket.

  They’re both dead.

  Dead-dead.

  Why do they have to elevate the bodies in the caskets so you can see all the deadness?

  And why is this room empty? Why aren’t there people in here?

  Am I hallucinating?

  Is that actually a dead lady?

  Am I having a horrible dream?

  Am I dead?

  Is this how it all ends, with me trapped in a room with a dead body?

  And is she actually dead?

  And the dog too. If that dog moves—

  It’ll be Grandpa 2.0.

  I am okay. That body is dead. Death is part of life. That person is not coming back to life.

  I am okay.

  That’s not Grandpa.

  “Tyler?”

  Tyler? Tyler! Oh my god, Grandpa came back to life! How long have you been sitting here?

  All I can see are my grandfather’s eyes.

  They took him off life support.

  He died.

  Everyone cried.

  Everyone left.

  I stayed.

  And then Grandpa came back to life.

  Fuck me.

  I need to sit down, but hell if I’m sitting in this room.

  Muffy’s voice is tinny in my ears. “Right. I went left. Whoops. C’mon, Tyler, this way. Hey, Tyler? Oh my god, are you going to faint?”

  I am not going to faint.

  I’m not.

  I’m a badass hockey terror. I don’t faint.

  But everything’s going blurry at the edges of the room.

  The dog’s still staring at me, its head cocked and its tongue hanging out, but still fucking dead.

  “Oh my god, that’s seriously disturbing,” Muffy says.

  The casket jumps.

  Swear to fuck, it does. It jumps. The dog jiggles. The body jiggles. I scream.

  And then the world goes black.

  13

  Muffy

  There comes a point in every dreaded trip back to your college town for a funeral when you give up counting all the ways things are going wrong and start wondering when you should call a biographer or a Netflix studio executive and offer them your life story for a train wreck biopic.

  Pretty sure we’re there.

  The funeral director was all kinds of nice while helping revive Tyler, and also super apologetic over accidentally backing into the casket while he was trying to get the lectern in place for that viewing for his other customer—customer? Patient? Whatever—to start later. Basically, either of us can have a funeral for free if we happen to die in Richmond now.

  I got to drive Tyler’s car from the funeral home to the hotel, and I’m pretty sure that’s only a minor ding in the bumper from where I hit that concrete log thingie at the front of the parking spot at the hotel. What are those even called?

  Whatever it is, it should really be two inches shorter.

  Also, Tyler only twitched a little when my credit card was declined when we checked in and he had to offer his instead—no, I don’t want to talk about it—but the twitch could’ve as easily been because there was also no record of me booking two rooms.

  Only one.

  And the rest of the hotel is full with—you guessed it.

  Funeral guests.

  So now, we’re in a single hotel room with a double bed—yes, a double bed, not a queen, not a king, but a lone double bed—while he sits on the ugly green and brown comforter, the top two buttons in his shirt undone to reveal the white undershirt, sleeves rolled up to show off his tattoos, glowering at the fish and chips I got him from the local Cod Pieces with my seventeen dollars’ worth of coins on our way here.

  Veda arrived not long after I texted her the room number, and I’m attempting to not ogle Tyler while my best friend and I huddle over the small round table smushed next to the bed, sharing the margaritas.

  She ditched the viewing after faking menstrual cramps and is the brightest part of my evening.

  Completely, one hundred percent worth running into Dr. Richardson to be here for her right now.

  “I am so glad you’re here,” she tells me again.

  I hug her tight, loving the way she smells like cardamom and cinna
mon. “I’m so gladder you’re here.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  We make eye contact, and we both burst into snort-filled laughter.

  “To not being here!” She lifts the massive Yeti tumbler Tyler bought at the liquor store, takes a long gulp, then passes it to me.

  The other one got left at the funeral home, because I didn’t realize it rolled away when he hit the floor.

  Whoops.

  “To not being here!” I echo.

  Tyler gives both of us the death-eye, which is what I’m calling it every time he looks up from his fish and chips on the bed and glares at us for being happy in the midst of all of this.

  Also, is it hot in here, or is it just him?

  Probably just him. He came to a funeral with me despite clearly having issues with death, and he definitely knew what he was in for by the time we saw that casket.

  That’s sexier than all the orgasms in the world.

  Possibly I have weird standards.

  I hold out the Yeti to him. “Alcohol?”

  “Not during the season,” he mutters, like I didn’t see him drinking at Manning Frey’s annual Halloween party a few weeks ago when he didn’t realize I was there since I was hiding inside a giant blow-up chicken costume, and he goes back to his fish.

  Maybe it was juice or water?

  Or maybe it doesn’t matter. I still got to see him bench press a casket, so I really did not expect him to pass out.

  I guess it’s different when you know it’s fake versus knowing it’s real?

  Veda leans over and pats his leg. “Thank you for being here for Muffy.”

  He grunts, not at all charmed by Veda’s sweet voice and gorgeous face and warm smile.

  I want to hug him and apologize, but I’m also not eager to get close to him, considering he has reason to basically hate me for the rest of my life and if I were him, I’d be plotting how best to handcuff me naked to the shower curtain rod before leaving me here to find my demise on my own.

  And now I’m thinking about myself naked, and Tyler, who’s a million times more attractive right now than he was back when I thought he was an attractive hockey player who sometimes talked to me like we were equals.

  I make myself focus on Veda. “How are you? Has it been awful?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Yes and no? I don’t think it’s fully processed yet. It wasn’t even two weeks ago that we were having dinner and he was lecturing me about how I wasn’t being aggressive enough with expanding my practice, and now it’s like…”