I Pucking Love You

by Pippa Grant

  This.

  This is trouble.

  It’s terrifying.

  And it’s also completely thrilling.

  It’s a relationship.

  And despite my better judgment, I’m all in.

  32

  Tyler

  I’m suiting up for practice, my brain short-circuiting and refusing to remember the name of this sport I play because it’s stuck back in my apartment with Muffy.

  In the shower.

  Her mouth on my cock while she got herself off.

  I don’t think a woman has ever masturbated in front of me before, and when I get home tonight, I’m asking her to do it again.

  I want to watch her touch herself.

  I want to watch her go breathless and mindless, those gorgeous lips parted, her eyes unfocused, her hair wild, her legs spread, her—

  “Jaeger.”

  I blink.

  Fuck.

  Nick Murphy’s in my face.

  He’s not just standing in front of the bench while I strap on my pads. He’s bent down, in my face so that I can see every last pore in his skin and that nose hair that he missed when he was trimming.

  He’s scowling. “Are you fucking my wife’s cousin?”

  I stand up so we’re eye-to-eye. He’s already in his goaltender chest protector, which makes him look six feet wider than he really is, and it’ll hurt if I punch him there, but if he thinks he can intimidate me, he has the brains of a goat. “I’m dating my girlfriend.”

  “Do you even know how to date a woman?”

  “Did you?”

  Frey and Lavoie both snort with laughter.

  “Oh, snap, Murphy,” Klein calls. “Jaeggy got you there.”

  Nick pokes me in the chest. “I hope you fuck up. Kami’s approved saving all of Sugarbear and Tooter’s poop to serve to you inside your next hamburger if you so much as make one of her eyebrows twitch wrong.”

  “Gonna have to nix that one, Murph-meister,” Rooster announces. “Friends don’t let friends eat cow shit.”

  “They’re dogs,” Murphy reminds the room at large.

  Then he does something completely unexpected.

  He grins and rubs my head. “Just messing with you. Anyone brave enough to date Muffy has to deal with her mother. I can’t top that kind of torture.”

  Ares glances over at us. His gaze drops to my crotch, then back to my face, brows up like he’s asking did it work?

  “What are you, my mother?” I ask him.

  He smirks.

  Can’t tell you the last time I blushed in the dressing room, but I think I’m blushing now.

  “Game first,” he says to the room at large.

  Right.

  Game first.

  Even if Muffy won’t be there tonight, I know she’ll watch the highlights reel. Can’t tell me half her wardrobe is Thrusters gear and she doesn’t care what happens during the games.

  You’re damn right I want to make the highlights reel.

  “Wait,” Klein says. “If you’re dating Muffy, who was the chick in the shower with you?”

  I flip him off while a round of laughter and hoots go around. They all know I’m dating Muffy.

  We talked about it last night.

  Which means those assholes came into my place this morning knowing what they were walking into. “Remove those images from your brain, or I’ll do it for you.”

  “We didn’t see a thing,” Rooster says. He’s already in his practice jersey and skates, but instead of his helmet, he’s still wearing his cowboy hat.

  I’d bet money he has a stuffed Thrusty stored in there. I’ve seen him pull one out to hand to kids more than once after a game, though I don’t know why anyone would want it after it lived in his hat.

  Gross.

  “We saw enough to know he wasn’t alone,” Klein points out.

  “You cheating on Muffy already?” Nick asks.

  “No. That was my sister.”

  An awkward silence falls in the dressing room, and I swallow a smile while I pull on my own practice jersey.

  “You got issues, Jaegs,” one of the guys mutters.

  “Or maybe he wants some privacy because relationships are hard enough when they’re all over the gossip pages,” Lavoie mutters.

  “Wait, what?” I say at the same time Nick moves down the bench and gets in his face. “Talk. What?”

  Lavoie rolls his eyes and lifts his phone. “Gossip pages. Tyler. Your sister-in-law is Daisy. She went to that funeral with you. And you didn’t think the rags would pick it up?”

  I snag it and look at the site he’s pulled up.

  Dammit.

  There’s a shot of Muffy and me at the funeral. And another of us kissing. And a third of me holding the car door for her looking like I want to eat a piece of the metal.

  The headline makes me want to eat this phone.

  Mystery Girl in Daisy Carter-Kincaid’s Family Circle.

  “Whatever.” I throw the phone back at him. “It’ll get two hundred clicks, all from inside this room, and that won’t be worth it for the gossips to keep digging. There’s no payoff in who I’m dating. I don’t sell magazines.”

  That’s why I’m never in the gossip rags myself.

  I’m never the draw.

  Daisy is.

  “Could help her business get some word-of-mouth advertising,” Klein points out.

  It could, but the idea of the public at large picking apart a business called Muff Matchers that specializes in helping women who don’t fit the standard mold—let’s just say I’d have to quit hockey and spend the rest of my life egging houses and getting in bar fights after I hired a hacker to track down every last internet troll.

  Fuck.

  That wasn’t a fluke last night.

  I love this woman. And I don’t know what to do about it.

  Tell her?

  Not a chance. She’d bolt faster than a starving lion chasing a gazelle.

  I don’t even have any faith she’ll still be at my place tonight, much less when I get back from the team’s road trip out to Vegas and Seattle this week.

  Lavoie and Ares settle on either side of me on the bench.

  “Tell her,” Ares says.

  “She might want to use the story for her own purposes,” Lavoie adds. “Let her make the call.”

  Ares grunts.

  Pretty sure that’s a grunt of that wasn’t what I meant and you know it.

  He thinks I should tell Muffy that I love her.

  “Right,” I say to Lavoie. “She’s smart about her business stuff. She’ll know if it’s good or bad.”

  Ares grunts again.

  Lavoie grins. “Go easy on him, big guy. It’s terrifying the first time it happens.”

  And now I don’t know if he’s talking about me or the story.

  Or both.

  Coach walks into the dressing room. “Ten minutes, gentlemen. Applebottom, switch to white team today. Lavoie and Klein, marketing wants you for a video with Thrusty. Jaeger, medical. Now. You’re not getting on the ice until you get your head checked.”

  Now I’m grunting.

  I don’t want to report to medical. I want to go play hockey.

  Apparently my doctor’s note hasn’t come through yet. Fucking dead body.

  But I’d still do it all over again.

  I grab my phone before I head down the maze to the on-site clinic, and I text Muffy on the way.

  33

  Muffy

  Do I have an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong, or am I so new at being the one actually in a relationship that I’m suddenly feeling like a total jerk for sitting at a bagel shop with a guy who thinks we’re here on a date?

  I know it’s not a date.

  But he doesn’t.

  He thinks he’s here to meet Octavia Louisa, formerly an airman in the Air Force, who likes crocheting and CrossFit, and is currently studying classic literature through an online master’s degree program.

  H
e’s a single dad of a ten-year-old, working some kind of technical job at a telecommunications company, divorced because he got married too young to his pregnant college sweetheart, telling me about his mom’s cat without giving off unhealthy attachment vibes, and I’m rapidly deciding I could introduce him to Brianna.

  Just to be sure, I accidentally spill my coffee.

  And then my phone dings.

  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” I leap up, glance at my phone, realize it’s Tyler messaging, and my nipples harden into diamonds.

  My date’s grabbing napkins and asking if I’m okay while I stand there getting wet in the panties at the mere sight of my boyfriend’s name.

  Boyfriend.

  I have a boyfriend.

  It’s the weirdest sensation.

  And also terrifying. I mean, apparently sex is good, but how long until he gets bored of me? Is this like a this week thing, or is it a we’re officially dating with the purpose of seeing if we’re compatible long-term thing?

  “Octavia?”

  Oh, crap. My date’s said my name like seven times, and I forgot he was talking to me.

  Also, I don’t remember what his name is.

  “Sorry,” I stutter as I dive in to helping clean my mess. “Family emergency.”

  “Do you need to go?”

  “No. It’s my cousin’s goldfish. He’ll probably make it. She’s a vet. She knows mouth-to-mouth.” Shut up, Muffy. Shut. Up.

  My date peers at me with the kind of warm concern that Brianna deserves.

  Or possibly he’s starting to question my mental state.

  All good. This isn’t a date, after all.

  I manage to end my not-date soon after so I can check the message from Tyler. Before I let myself click on his studly face, though, I prep a note to my date—Steve, that’s his name—to send after a while where I’ll apologize for being flaky, tell him this is a weird question, but I feel like he should meet my friend Brianna?

  I’m almost back to the light-rail stop before I finally give myself permission to look at Tyler’s message.

  And my heart nearly stops.

  I call him, but he doesn’t answer. No surprise. He’s at practice. Morning skate. Team time. Whatever they call it.

  And since I can’t get ahold of him, I go down my list.

  I start with Veda, who gets a text. Her dad’s funeral is going viral. She should know. Someone in her circles in Richmond might notice and ask about it.

  Hello, stomach dropping.

  Why does Richmond still bother me?

  I went, I funeral-ed, I came home with a boyfriend.

  I survived. They didn’t hurt me.

  But I’m still breaking out in a cold sweat.

  So, my next move is to call Kami.

  She has experience with the limelight. Not only were she and Nick featured in a Valentine’s Day promo shoot for the Thrusters last year that aired on the video boards at the arena during the game, but they were also covered on a national news channel for a feature about the personal lives of hockey players.

  Forty minutes later, we’re seated at the Cod Pieces franchise closest to her veterinary practice. I don’t know the crew here, and that’s probably for the best.

  “Is this all going to blow over without me getting named and Muff Matchers coming into it?” I ask her over fried fish once she’s skimmed the gossip article on my phone.

  “Probably. I heard Liv Daniels is having a fling with a mystery man, so Daisy Carter Kincaid’s brother-in-law dating a normal person shouldn’t be interesting for long.”

  I don’t answer.

  Kami squeezes my arm. “Did you want the attention?”

  The question makes sense. On one hand, it’s free advertising if I’m identified.

  But I don’t want it.

  And it’s not the world-wide public attention that has me frowning. It’s the local attention. “I don’t want anyone digging into why I left medical school,” I whisper.

  There’s freedom in Tyler knowing. It’s an unexpected gift to feel so comfortable in knowing my secret is safe with him, plus his complete support and lack of judgment make me feel like everything’s okay. Or if not okay, better than it was before, even if I still get the cold chills and shakes at thinking about ever going back to Richmond. They’re less chilly and shaky now. Like maybe I’ve been holding on to the shame and the guilt and the whole big secret for too long, when really, nothing was nearly as guilt- and shame-inducing as I’ve been telling myself it is.

  I haven’t even told my therapist that part of my story. We talk more about my parents and my feelings of inadequacy at being a normal adult with a normal job after such a big failure.

  But Tyler knowing is different from the world at large knowing.

  I am not ready for the phone calls and emails and questions I’d get.

  I probably won’t ever be. It’s not really anyone else’s business.

  Kami leans closer. “You’re not worried your clients would dump you over something that happened years ago, are you?”

  I start to shake my head no, then stop.

  Am I?

  “Tyler’s really mad at my mom,” I hear myself say.

  Kami doesn’t blink at the subject shift. “Why?”

  “I think he thinks she’s done a lot of things to make me feel insecure in who I am and what I look like.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Probably like you feel about thinking you’re the dumb one in your family?”

  Kami’s not dumb. She made it through vet school and she’s saved Rufus’s life more than once. But her brother and sister are uber smart, and I know it’s always bothered her when they nerd out and she can’t keep up.

  She drops her gaze to my chest. Pretty sure she’s not making a comment on how big my boobs are, but more that I’m hiding them under a massive Thrusters hoodie.

  And yes, it’s Tyler’s, and no, I won’t stop borrowing his clothes until he makes me.

  They smell like him.

  I like it. This might not last long. I’m YOLO-ing while I can.

  Plus, I was screening someone for Brianna an hour ago, and so it was important to dress as close as she would for a date.

  “You think I wouldn’t have body issues if my parents hadn’t waved their own unhealthy relationships with the human shape in my face my whole life?” I guess.

  “Things get rooted deep when you’re little. I know my dad never meant for me to feel dumb, but I overheard him telling my mom how much he loved being able to talk to Atticus about particle physics when I was in seventh or eighth grade, and I internalized that as I love my children who are smarter more than I love my children who don’t grasp physics concepts. It was wrong—of course my dad loves me, and he didn’t say it maliciously or to hurt anyone, and since Atticus is older, of course he grasped more complicated concepts before I was mentally capable of doing the same—but that doesn’t mean it didn’t make me feel inferior for not being able to talk to him about his job the same way my brother could.”

  “She doesn’t mean to hurt me.”

  “But she still does. And don’t let your dad off the hook. He knew your mom was self-conscious, and he called her names anyway.”

  I stare at my fried fish.

  It’s delicious.

  I totally get why Brianna wanted to lick it. And why Tyler eats it when he’s stressed.

  And I can’t finish it, both because I’m thinking of how it will look on my hips, and also what it will do to my arteries.

  But the weird part is that for once, I might actually be thinking more about my arteries.

  Possibly Tyler defending my body was very, very good for me.

  But why did it take him saying something my therapist has been trying to explain to me for years for it to sink in?

  Am I putting his opinions on a pedestal because he gave me an orgasm?

  Or did I have to have an orgasm for the message to sink in?

  Which came first
, me or my possibly improving self-image?

  “Mom charged her boudoir shoot to my credit card and maxed it out,” I tell the filet. It’s easier than telling Kami, and I don’t want to think about my self-image anymore.

  “Again?” she gasps.

  It wasn’t a boudoir shoot last time—it was her buying into a pyramid scheme for herbal supplements—but I know that’s not the important part. “My card got declined when we got to Richmond. Tyler had to pay for our hotel room. And then dinner. And all the gas. And he didn’t complain once and he glared at me like I was insulting his manhood when I told him I’d pay him back.”

  “I don’t think Tyler’s the type who thinks a man has to pay for everything. I think he’s more the type to help a friend in need and he doesn’t take thank you well.”

  “I know, it’s just…you do it, because we’re family. And Veda did it for Muff Matchers because we were so tight in med school and she knows—anyway, we have history. Tyler and I—we don’t.”

  “So this past year was nothing?”

  “We were harmlessly flirting.”

  “You weren’t also becoming friends?”

  My cheeks are getting hot. “We were making friends.”

  “And now?”

  “And now he’s like this master conductor and my body is his orchestra and I don’t want to date or get married except I could see me and Rufus living at his place forever, and I also don’t know how long it’ll be before Tyler gets tired of us. He doesn’t want to have a girlfriend or ever get married either, except he told me this morning that we’re dating and he gave me the keys to his car and he’s acting like he won’t allow me to go see my mother unless he’s present to serve as a shield to absorb all of her accidental insults, even though we both know he can’t order me to do anything, and I don’t think it’s a control thing. I think it’s that he wants to protect me from getting hurt. And it feels a whole lot like what I see your parents have. And what you and Nick have. And now I’m going to hyperventilate, okay?”

  Kami grips my greasy hands while I breathe through the sudden panic gripping my heart.

  I know why my mom’s broken.