I Pucking Love You

by Pippa Grant

  “Your first time should be special no matter what.”

  “Who died and made you king of sex rules?”

  “Veda’s dad.”

  “Oh my god.”

  I choke on a laugh.

  Yeah, that was probably inappropriate.

  Muffy halfheartedly shoves my arm. “Veda’s dad was this stuffy academic guy who only ever wanted to talk about the importance of the grading system and how big of a dick parking ticket traffic cops were. Veda’s mom died when she was three, and she grew up with a dad who’d make eyebrows at every skinny woman who walked past him and then forbade Veda to be anything other than a woman who liked men, like he had the market on being attracted to women in the family. I saw him choke on a burrito once, and Veda told me she’d accidentally walked in on him getting busy with his secretary and saw him making that exact same face. If that’s who you want making the sex rules, then pull over and let me walk home.”

  Jesus, I have a problem.

  My boner isn’t at all affected by any of this. He’s still raging down there. It’s party central in my pants. “The one thing everyone in high school talked about more than anything else was the state of people’s virginity. It’s ingrained in our culture to care about it.”

  “Maybe I don’t.”

  “You auctioned yours off and couldn’t follow through with it. You care. You thought you didn’t, but you did.”

  She goes silent.

  I pound the button on my stereo to switch stations, because now Whitney Houston is singing, and I don’t mind Whitney Houston, but I’m not feeling like dancing with anyone right now, and it’s annoying me.

  Pearl Jam.

  Better.

  I tap my thumb on the steering wheel, feel every beat in my boner, and concentrate on the traffic around me as we fly down the highway.

  Until Muffy mutters a very soft sentence a few miles later. “So what if I was?”

  And here I thought I couldn’t possibly get any harder.

  Why. The fuck. Is my dick. Obsessed. With Muffy?

  Because we like her. Catch up.

  “Do-over,” I say before I can stop myself. “Thursday—no, out of town. Saturday. Saturday night. You. Me. Dinner. Do-over.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but—”

  “It’s not kind of me. I have something to prove here.”

  “So you want to have sex with me just to prove that you’re good at sex.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it has nothing at all to do with you liking me or being attracted to me or wanting to see if having sex with me, again, after being my date to a funeral, with a whole lot more baggage than I expected showing up and making things hella awkward for both of us, might demonstrate that there’s something between us?”

  This is exactly why I’m never getting married.

  Mind games.

  Traps.

  Or possibly she has a point and I don’t want to admit it.

  Am I afraid of commitment? Is she right?

  Or is it really that my sisters soured me on living with women forever?

  And possibly one or two girlfriends in high school and college who got way too close, then dropped me like a puck that sprouted spikes in their hands?

  My first girlfriend dumped me because things got super awkward when I introduced her to my family before our date to my junior year homecoming game.

  My second girlfriend didn’t so much dump me as she listened to her brother when he forbade her to ever look at me again, and then he tried to beat the shit out of me before practice.

  Related: It astonishes me every day that Nick Murphy’s sister is married to Ares Berger and the team didn’t implode when they hooked up.

  And I don’t date seriously anymore.

  Just not worth it when I know the ultimate payoff to relationships.

  “I want you to know it can be good,” I tell Muffy. And I need to see a doctor. My dick really isn’t supposed to strain like this.

  Plus, Muffy’s looking at it. I hid it at the cemetery. I’ve been doing my best to block her view with my arm. But there’s no hiding Junior. He’s being an exhibitionist.

  “So your own needs have nothing to do with this?” Muffy asks.

  “I could hook up with any woman I wanted. So, no. My own needs have nothing to do with this.”

  She snorts softly and goes silent.

  And a text message thread with my family plays out in my head.

  Who needs actual messages when I know what they’d say?

  Keely: Smooth, idiot. Tell her how many other women you want to bang.

  Allie: Maybe you can tell her how many other women you’re bringing home for Thanksgiving too?

  Britney: Women love a man who brags about how hot he is and how many women he can get. Serious turn-on. Maybe you should tell her you’re smarter than the average hockey player too.

  Dad: Tyler is never getting laid again. Whoa! Autocorrect got this one right!

  Keely: I’m pulling Staci in, and you KNOW she doesn’t do group texts.

  Staci: I’m only here to reiterate that you need to plug your mouth back in to your brain, muzzle yourself for the next millennium, and hope that the gossip rags don’t hear about this.

  Daisy: Go easy on Tyler. It’s hard (heh) to be a guy with a broken penis and then realize the only person he can get it up for is the only person he not only fails to impress every time, but also actively pushes away every time.

  Keely: Fear of commitment.

  Allie: Well, duh. He takes us for granted and he knows it.

  Brit: Any other woman definitely wouldn’t put up with him the way we do.

  Staci: And they don’t have to love him like we do, and they definitely won’t love him when he gets old and retires from hockey and has a monumental identity crisis.

  Dad: He has redeeming qualities. Like his beard. He gets that from me.

  Daisy: Also, he has to compete with West, who’s basically perfect, and he has nothing going for him other than his hockey career, if he can manage to stay pro and not get demoted back to the minors.

  Muffy rustles next to me.

  I cut a glance toward her and see her pulling a pack of Oreos out of her purse. She starts to open them, notices me watching, and shoves them back in her purse.

  My jaw clenches on its own, and my grip tightens on the steering wheel.

  Is it any of my business if she’s self-conscious?

  No.

  But do I want to fix it anyway?

  Yes.

  That’s not normal.

  I have a problem.

  And it’s bigger than my boner.

  21

  Muffy

  I’m trying very hard to not look at Tyler’s erection and instead concentrate on what I need to do when we get back to Copper Valley.

  Namely, shower quickly and manage my time very well for two appointments I have back-to-back early this evening that I booked myself as we’re heading out of Richmond.

  The funeral’s over. Time to think ahead. Get back to business. Make a few more matches. Get a few more referrals. Set reminders to check in on Veda every day this week, and schedule lunch with her one weekend soon.

  Find out why my mother thought she needed to charge my credit card for her boudoir photo session, thus maxing it out, and figure out how I’m going to pay Tyler back for gas money and the hotel bill.

  Ponder why Tyler would’ve made a joke about his penis not working if it’s clearly working fine.

  Although, is that actually his penis? That’s a long erection.

  Long-lasting, I mean. But yes, also long-long. Lengthwise.

  Is it hot in here? Someone needs to turn the heater down.

  Like he’s reading my mind, he reaches for the control and yanks it down. “Why don’t you date?”

  I flinch. I hate when the tables are turned. “Trust issues.”

  “That’s a reason to not get married. Not a reason not to date.”

  “I get to h
ave whatever reason I want to not date.”

  “I dare you to go on a date with me.”

  “Been there—”

  “Nope. Nuh-uh. Not hooking up at a bar where we ran into each other. Not being tricked into going to a funeral together. Not having breakfast with my brother and his family. A date-date. You and me. Alone. On purpose. Saturday night.”

  If Tyler’s anything like his teammates, he’ll take me out to a fancy restaurant where I could pronounce things on the menu even though no one would expect me to be able to, and I’d still probably break a bunch of unspoken rules, like laughing too loudly at a joke that isn’t funny, or putting my elbows on the table, or accidentally mistaking the tablecloth for a napkin when I don’t look clearly as I reach for my lap and standing up and pulling everything off the table when I need a bathroom break, or turning down wine when it’s expected that everyone who goes into the restaurant pays for hundred-dollar bottles that you can get for thirteen at the liquor store.

  And while it’s nice to think about being pampered with a treat like that, I can never enjoy my meal knowing what a dent the final bill would make in my student loans.

  Not that I expect a date to offer me peanut butter and jelly and a check for my monthly loan payment instead, but I’m still aware of it.

  And then there’s the kissing problem.

  Kissing leads to touching, touching leads to clothes coming off, and the truth is, no matter how many hours of therapy I’ve had, I still hate the idea of being completely and totally naked in front of a guy.

  I went through with having sex with Tyler in the walk-in fridge at the bunny bar because the lights were off and the flashlight on his phone only worked so well and I’d been wondering if he was into me for a while, and I wanted to.

  But doing it again?

  I’ve been telling myself the payoff isn’t worth the effort, but the truth might be a little more than that.

  The truth might be closer to I’m afraid he’d be good at it if I let him.

  And if he were good, I’d want more, and he…wouldn’t.

  He steers the car off the interstate at an exit with nothing more than a closed auto repair shop sitting within view on either side of the road.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Solving a problem.” His eyes are flashing, and his beard is twitching like his jaw’s clenching and unclenching.

  I glance at his crotch again and the way his cock is straining his pants.

  Is he—is he going to jack off behind the building?

  Crap.

  That should be disturbing, but my panties just got wet. Again.

  He whips the car into the crumbled parking lot and around to the back of the building, out of sight of the interstate.

  I shrink into my seat, gripping my phone in front of me like it has some kind of force field that’ll keep me from whatever tumultuous emotions have him scowling like the Thrusters are down five-nothing going into the third period, and he has something to prove.

  As soon as he puts the car in park, he yanks his seatbelt off and turns to face me. “I like you.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said, I like you.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry.”

  “Dammit, Muffy. You’re likeable. You’re obnoxious and you’re opinionated and you’re bull-headed. You act like you have your life together when it’s painfully obvious you don’t, and it’s nearly impossible to help you until you’re at your breaking point.”

  My face is curling into a horrified glare, and my fingers are doing something similar. “I thought you liked me.”

  “I do. I like all of those things about you. It’s sexy as hell to me that you’re not easy. You’re not predictable. You’re not boring. You’re different. I like that. I like you. Okay?”

  I blink at him. “Oh my god. Am I a shrew?”

  “Oh, fuck me.” He squeezes his eyes shut and drops his head to the steering wheel. “You’re not a shrew. You’re you. I’ve met your mother. I know what you live with every single day. You don’t fit any mold of what’s conventional or expected, which puts you at a disadvantage in this ridiculous world that rewards people like Daisy for being able to afford the right clothes and makeup and hair dye, and punishes you for not being able to do the same, but you’re still trying. You still believe good things are possible for other people who don’t meet modern standards of brains or beauty or whatever. But you’re fucking infuriating in refusing to see that good things are possible for you too. So let me be one damn good thing in your life, for one damn night. Okay?”

  I really am a shrew.

  I hide behind all the forces that shaped me and tell myself I can’t be anything more.

  That I don’t deserve more.

  Three years of therapy haven’t made it as painfully obvious as Tyler’s making it right now.

  But three years of therapy have reinforced the idea that I can change if I want to. That I can choose to believe in myself and step over to the other side, where I am worthy of having a date with a guy who’d drive a couple hundred miles to pass out at a funeral home for me.

  Except there’s a reason I don’t like Tyler.

  I like him too much, and that makes me vulnerable.

  It wasn’t one little moment of him being attractive at a bar that had me giving in to temptation that night.

  It was him tossing me a puck before a game last year, with a grin and a wink that didn’t immediately put me on the defensive for wondering if he was setting me up for embarrassment later.

  It was him sitting down next to me at Chester Green’s one night and asking if I’d read any good books lately, then having an actual conversation that suggested he reads books regularly.

  It was randomly running into him at a coffee shop downtown and him taking the seat across from me like we were friends to talk about which Pokémon we were still hunting for, when any other guy on the team would’ve nodded, grunted, and run like hell to go drink his coffee anywhere else besides with me.

  I kept telling myself that he was just a nice guy. That he wasn’t into me. That he would’ve done the same for any other teammate’s cousin-in-law, except Tyler Jaeger isn’t that kind of a saint.

  He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t like me.

  And he’s going out on a limb, risking me rejecting him.

  So I resist the urge to close my eyes, and instead, I make myself look straight at him. At his disheveled hair. His twitching beard. His eyes, sparking with blue fire. His parted lips. The way his chest is rising and falling like he’s been sprinting on the ice.

  “I like you too,” I whisper.

  I’ve never said those words out loud to a man before. Never. And I know he’s not offering a relationship—he wants one date.

  He’s made that crystal clear.

  But I’m not panicking like I thought I would.

  Am I raw and exposed and a little uncomfortable for admitting to him that I like him?

  Yes.

  Except over it all is this sense of freedom.

  I just told a man I like him, and he didn’t laugh. He didn’t point and pull a gotcha. He didn’t whip out a hidden camera and threaten to send it to the national news so the entire world could mock me for thinking that I, Muffina Alexandra Periwinkle, would be worthy of the attention of an attractive athlete with his life together.

  Instead, he’s leaning into my space, his fingers brushing my cheek as he tilts his head and goes in for a kiss.

  It’s not like the kiss in the cemetery or the sloppy whatever-it-was before we banged in the walk-in fridge.

  This one’s slow.

  Deliberate.

  With his beard tickling my cheeks and his lips hot and firm and his tongue slowly but steadily teasing me into parting my lips so that he can show me an entirely new world.

  Like I’m the very last Oreo cookie in existence, and Oreos are his favorite, and he wants to make it last as long as possible, savoring every last little bit, experiencing it f
ully.

  I don’t think Tyler Jaeger likes me. I think he like-likes me.

  And maybe he wants a quickie in the car to relieve what looks like a very uncomfortable situation in his pants.

  Or maybe that’s actually a can of squeezy cheese.

  Squeezy cheese?

  And possibly this is why I don’t have romantic relationships.

  Why do women even hire—oh.

  Oh, my.

  Tyler’s hand is drifting from my jaw, down my neck, and I didn’t know a full-body shiver prompted by a man’s touch could make my clit pulse like that.

  It certainly didn’t that night we went all the way at the club.

  But this is different.

  None of what I’ve put him through since he picked me up yesterday has been easy or convenient or comfortable. He should be making me sit in the backseat while he blares his music so loud that our ears would ring for days, since that would be preferable to putting up with each other one minute longer.

  But instead, he’s kissing me like he needs me to know that I matter.

  That I have value.

  That he sees me, and he likes me anyway, and he wants more of me.

  I trust him.

  And that’s more arousing than how well he kisses, where he puts his hands, or how well he uses his equipment.

  I follow his lead and let myself touch him, my hand lingering first on his forearm, radiating with heat, and then up, soaking in the feel of thick muscle beneath his shirt.

  And touching him is turning me on every bit as much as having him touching me.

  Every bit as much as him kissing me.

  Every bit as much as this new, heady feeling of believing that he wants me.

  I’m doing this.

  I’m going to have sex with Tyler Jaeger, in his car, in this parking lot, because if I don’t, I might implode.

  I want him.

  I want him.

  I shift in my seat, intent on climbing into his lap, and he abruptly pulls back, chest heaving. “No.”

  One simple word.

  And that tower of self-confidence that was growing inside me crumbles.