I Pucking Love You

by Pippa Grant

  But I don’t see the bar. I don’t see the lounge chairs. I don’t see the puck bunny flag.

  I see my heart, sitting in the middle of the room, sloshing a pink drink in a martini glass while she talks. “My next client called me to tell me her date needed bail money, because he tried to steal a chicken out of someone’s backyard, and that was it, you know? Then I was like—hic!—Mutzy, I mean, Muffy, you need a pew land. A new gland. A—hic!”

  “And that’s when you started signing up for all of the dating apps?” Cassadee asks.

  Muffy hiccups and nods.

  “You are such a badass.” Another bunny—is that Jami?—clinks her glass to Muffy’s. “Way to stick it to the man and find a way to get what you need. How many matches have you made this way?”

  “All of them.”

  “Woohoo, you go, girl!” I know that one too. That’s Anni. With an I.

  Muffy shakes her head. “I’m done. Washed up. Hic! Mutch Maffers is dead.”

  “What? No.” Veda rises. Veda. Veda’s here. Good. “Muff Matchers is not dead. Do you hear me, Muffy Periwinkle? You are doing the women of the world the best fucking service ever in screening out the losers for your clients, and you are not giving up. I forbid you.”

  “But I cheated.” Muffy glares at her. “Wheaters don’t chin.”

  Athena cocks a brow at me. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

  Jesus. I don’t know how they found her, or why she’s here, but I have zero doubt they’re taking care of her because they knew she needed it, and that will always be what I love most about these bunnies.

  In the friend way. Naturally. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I love her.”

  “Hm. I suppose that’s a start.”

  I don’t bother wasting my facial expressions on her, and instead step down into the sunken seating area. Muffy looks up at me, her eyes going wide, and she drops her drink in Jami’s lap.

  “I love you,” I tell her.

  She blinks.

  “I fucking love you,” I repeat. The bunnies scatter as I reach her and drop to my knee so I’m at eye level with this amazing, beautiful disaster of mine. “I love you when you’re cuddling your cat. I love you when you’re talking about your job. I love you when you’re naked. I love you when you’re being difficult. I love you when you’re using dating apps to screen assholes for your clients, and I love how much you love them. I love you when your hair’s a mess, and when you’re throwing eggs all over my kitchen, and when you’re taking me to funerals so you can be there for a friend in a place you never wanted to go back to. I love you when you’re happy, and I love you when you’re stressed, and I will never stop loving you, because I’ve been waiting my whole life to love you. You’re the one and only you, Muffy, and you will always be my one and only. It’s you. It’s only you. I love you.”

  She blinks again. “What about Amelia Cranford?” she whispers.

  It legit takes the question a minute to register, and when it does, I have to stop myself from choking on a laugh. “She’s not you, Muffy. No one will ever be you.”

  “You forgot her name.” Muffy’s a little cross-eyed, but she’s starting to grin as she pushes me in the shoulder. “You forgot her name.”

  “I’m gonna have to tell you all of this again when you sober up, aren’t I?”

  “And basically a dozen times a day, every day for the rest of your life,” Veda agrees.

  “Kiss her!” one of the bunnies cries.

  “You can use the walk-in fridge again if you want,” another chimes in. “We’ll keep it clear.”

  “And clean it afterwards.”

  Jesus. I’m not banging Muffy in the fridge again.

  At least, not when she’s drunk. Next time we’re here when she’s sober—if she wants to come back—might be a different story. “Can I take you home?” I ask her.

  She loops her arms around my neck, leans in, and presses a wet kiss to my cheek. “No. I like it here. We’re moving in. It’sh my new office. And my bedroom. Someone bring me Rufus.”

  “Aww, he’s missing practice for her!” another woman says behind me. “That’s like, the most romantic thing a hockey player can do!”

  “No, it’s way better if he misses a game.”

  “A playoff game!”

  “For a funeral,” Veda chimes in with a smirk.

  It all bounces off, because Muffy’s tugging me into a hug, her breath hot on my neck, smelling very much like a distillery crossed with a cotton candy factory. “I love you too, and that’s not the alcohol talking,” she tells me.

  “I’m still gonna make you say it again when the alcohol’s out of your system,” I murmur back against her neck.

  She shivers, sighs, and then—

  Snores.

  She snores.

  Muffy Periwinkle, goddess of my world, the woman that every step of my life has led me to, and the love of my eternity, has passed out drunk on my shoulder.

  And you know what?

  I think she’s utterly perfect.

  Perfectly perfect for a guy like me.

  46

  Muffy

  Someone replaced my brain with concrete and I cannot lift my head off this fluffy bit of silky something under my ear.

  Also, there’s a vibrator gluing my leg to a very soft floor.

  “Amoofle?” I grunt.

  The vibrator meows and the floor sags and the concrete sloshes, but then gentle fingers brush through my hair, and soft lips press against my forehead, and the concrete gets a little less hard and angry.

  “Hey, party girl,” a familiar voice whispers. “Aspirin and water?”

  I whimper.

  What did I do yesterday?

  Yesterday?

  Today?

  This morning?

  Last week?

  “Muffy. I need to get to practice, but Daisy and West and Remy are staying here if you need anything, and Veda’s on her way over too. I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?”

  I’m at Tyler’s place.

  I flipped out, freaked out, shut my business down, ran into the bunnies, got drunk with them, and now I’m back at Tyler’s place.

  I crack an eyelid open, and four Tylers swim into view. He’s crouched at the side of the bed, all the blinds shut so he’s shadowy and mysterious and hot, especially when he grins at me like that. “You rest more.”

  The Tylers all lean close so I can sniff the laundry detergent on his T-shirt—T-shirts? Are they all wearing shirts?—and I get a single kiss on my forehead. “Love you, beautiful.”

  And then everything’s dark again.

  But it’s a happy, glowy kind of dark.

  I slide into the dark, and everything is good, until I have no idea how many hours later when I wake up with a gasp.

  Rufus is sitting on my chest, sliding onto my neck. People are talking and laughing down the hall. A small human is squealing nonsensical words. And the light filtering through the slats in the blinds has an early afternoon quality to it.

  I’m at Tyler’s place.

  He came for me.

  He found me.

  Did he tell me he loves me?

  Never mind that.

  Did I tell him I love him?

  I push Rufus off, throw the covers back, leap out of bed, and my head reminds me that we subsisted basically on alcohol and cheese yesterday, and I go down.

  Am I wearing pants?

  Am I still wearing my own boobs?

  And why does my hip feel like my padding is bruised?

  “Aw, Muffy, it’s like finals week again.” Veda pokes her head into the door, smiling widely, and I’d hug her, except I won’t be trying my legs again.

  “What day is it?”

  “Monday.”

  “You’re still here.”

  “I’m quitting my practice. It’s not what I want to do, and I wish I’d followed your lead out the door before med school graduation
. There’s an opening for a biology professor at Copper Valley University. I have an interview today.”

  I gape at her. “Am I still drunk?”

  “No. You inspired me, actually. You’re out here, doing what you want to do, making a difference on your own terms, while I—I just don’t like people.”

  “Um, you know students are people?”

  She laughs. “I know. But lecturing a roomful of possibly jaded, possibly optimistic twenty-year-olds and doing research sounds so much better than listening to everyone’s Aunt Betty and Uncle Milton ask why their goiter is acting up again. At least I know the students won’t listen to my advice, and I can actually grade them accordingly. I can’t flunk someone on their cholesterol test. My dad wanted me to be a doctor with my own practice because he couldn’t. I want to be a teacher because I can.”

  “That’s—that’s amazing, Veda!”

  “Especially if it means I get to see you more.” She helps me to my feet as the scent of fried something wafts into the room. “Also, Tyler DoorDashed us Cod Pieces.”

  “Oh my god, I love him.” I slap my hand over my mouth, but then I whisper it again. “I love him. And he said he loves me. I don’t think I drunk-hallucinated that.”

  “Muffy. He passed out at a funeral for you. The man has loved you a lot longer than he’s been willing to admit it.”

  “Completely true.” Tyler himself pokes his head into the room and smiles at me, making me warm from my toes to my split ends. He’s in athletic pants and a Thrusters T-shirt, his hair barely damp like he’s been to practice and come home and showered, his black eye ugly but beautiful at the same time, his grin completely intoxicating, but in the good way.

  I could very happily have a Tyler Jaeger smile hangover for the rest of my life.

  “Fries and fish?” he asks. “Veda swears it’s your favorite hangover cure. If she’s lying I’ll toss her off the balcony.”

  My feet carry me to him with minds of their own, and I’m throwing my arms around him and peppering his face with kisses merely because I want to. “I love you.”

  “I love you more.”

  Veda laughs again. “So should I shut the door, or are you going to let Muffy eat her fish while it’s still hot?”

  She doesn’t wait for an answer, and shuts the door on her way out.

  And I suddenly realize why it tastes like moldy shoe leather in my mouth.

  I drop back to my heels and clamp my hand over my mouth as Tyler leans in.

  He tilts a brow at me over his good eye. “What?”

  “I have bad breath.”

  “I love your bad breath. How’s your head?”

  “A little swishy.” Sort of like my heart. Warm and swishy. But my heart’s all good.

  It’s all good.

  “You came to find me yesterday,” I whisper. “I thought you were mad about me going on dates.”

  “It’s your job, Muffy. I was mad that the tabloids attacked you, and that you were acting like there was anything wrong with you, and that you needed to defend yourself, and that anyone in my family might’ve judged you for being anything other than the determined, big-hearted, amazing woman that you are.”

  I drop my head to his chest. “You know I’m always going to feel a little like a disaster, right?”

  “And I’m always going to be here to assure you that it’s completely normal to have off days, and that you’ve worked harder and put more heart into everything you do than most people I know.”

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  “Even though you don’t want to get married?” Yes, yes, I’m pushing it.

  “It’s entirely possible I’ve realized a life without you would be more torture than a life of commitment and regularly banging your sexy body. So now, clearly, I have to spend the next several months of my life bringing you regular sacrifices of good food and magic penis so that you reconsider your anti-relationship stance too. Fair warning—I play dirty. And I happen to know you like dirty, so the sooner you give up and admit you want me forever too, the better for the both of us.”

  I won’t cry. I won’t.

  Okay, I’m totally sniffling up the happy tears.

  And squeezing his ass.

  Oh my god, I love his ass. And the way his cock twitches against my belly. And the way he’s pressing his hot lips to my forehead while he squeezes my ass.

  The door bangs open, and I leap and grab my head.

  A petite, very tattooed, pixie-haired woman in cat-eye glasses eyeballs me as she flips the laptop in her hand so that the screen is facing us. “You Muffy?” she asks in a six-pack-a-day voice.

  “Am I?” I whisper to Tyler.

  She’s a little scary.

  And while Tyler’s scary too, the buff tattooed guy with a buzz cut behind the woman holding what looks like my laptop is possibly even scarier.

  “Yeah. This is Muffy,” Tyler says with a grin.

  “Good. I got your website fixed. Upgraded, even. Won’t even have to meet half these guys after their IP address goes through this little extension I installed for you. It’ll pull up full criminal history right down to speeding tickets and any incriminating photos on their phones. If anyone asks, it’s legal and I wasn’t here.”

  She does that here, take it gesture, and Tyler grabs it from her. “Appreciate the help.”

  “Tell the Zeusinator we expect him in the bedroom at four PM sharp,” she replies.

  Her bodyguard growls.

  She snickers.

  And then they’re both gone.

  “What was that?” I whisper.

  Tyler nudges me out of the bedroom. “Your site crashed. I know someone who knows someone who could fix it, and the bunnies threatened to castrate me if I didn’t make the call to make it happen.”

  “They did not!”

  “They might’ve. You were drunk. Can’t tell me otherwise.”

  “Muffy!” My Muff Matchers support group is in the living room—every last member, even though it’s a Monday—and they all leap to their feet when we step out of the hallway.

  The pixie woman and her bodyguard are nowhere to be seen. If Tyler wasn’t carrying my laptop, I’d swear I hallucinated them too.

  “We’re fixing your business model,” Maren tells me. She and Daisy are hunched together on dining room chairs that have been pulled in near the fish tank.

  “It’s a great plan,” Veda says.

  She beams at Maren.

  Maren blushes.

  And oh my god.

  It’s suddenly crystal clear why I haven’t been able to match her.

  Brianna tackles me with a hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay. We were super worried. yesterday.”

  “I have three friends who want your screening services,” Julie says.

  “And I have six friends who want you to write their dating profiles for them,” Eugenie adds. “At first I was so pissed at that dumb gossip rag for searching out your profiles on the various apps, but then I was like, damn, Muffy knows how to represent us.”

  West shoves a bag at me. “Here. Eat. I’ll fend them off until you’re not quite so green.”

  “What’s happening?” I ask Tyler as he sets my laptop aside and helps me dig out the fried fish and chips.

  “Friends and people who believe in you,” he replies. “Because you, Muffy Periwinkle, provide a valuable service to women who feel like they don’t quite fit.”

  “Muff Matchers isn’t a failure,” Veda tells me. “It’s a work in progress, like we all are.”

  “And sometimes you need a helping hand to figure out the best part of your business,” Daisy adds.

  “We’re helping steer you in a little clearer direction,” Maren agrees.

  “One that doesn’t put you on the streets having dates with weirdos all the time.”

  “Or at least quite as much.”

  “Not after your website upgrades.”

  Tyler pulls me into his lap on the couch and shoves a piece of fi
sh in my mouth. “Eat. And be happy. And then I’m kicking all of these people out so you can get some rest before you get back to work tomorrow. Okay?”

  Happy.

  Holy crap.

  I am. I’m happy.

  Muff Matchers isn’t dead. It’s just starting.

  My clients believe in me, apparently more now that they know how I’ve been screening their dates.

  And there’s a very attractive man who’s not grunting under the weight of me as he feeds me my favorite hangover food and squeezes my thigh.

  “Oh, and your mother called,” Maren says. She and Veda share a look and roll their eyes together. “She said to tell you she’s very proud of you, and that she and William and his nephew would love to take you out for lunch soon so you can tell her all about the things you’ve been up to with Muff Matchers.”

  That’s weird.

  Very weird.

  I shift a look at Tyler.

  He stares back like an innocent little lamb, and suddenly, I’m cracking up. “What did you do?”

  “Anything necessary to make you happy.” He winks, and I swear I fall in love with him all over again. “Fries? Or do you want me to kick these people out now?”

  Remy toddles over and holds a hand out. “Fie?”

  Tyler grins and hands it over, earning a massive smile from his little nephew, and there my heart goes getting all melty again.

  My boyfriend—my sexy, smart, handsome, stubborn, loves me for me boyfriend—will make the best dad one day.

  And I can’t wait to share that day with him.

  Epilogue

  Tyler Jaeger, aka a groom in absolute and utter heaven

  Eloping to Vegas during the all-star break is the best idea I’ve ever had.

  After my idea to propose to Muffy, of course. And the one before that, when I decided she needed to know I love her. And the one before that, when I took it upon myself to insist on accompanying her to an overnight trip where I pulled the studly move of passing out in a funeral home.

  After lots of debate, I’ve concluded my bride never would’ve agreed to continue talking to me if I hadn’t shown her my own disastrous side.

  And speaking of disasters, my entire family is crashing this elopement, which is basically my favorite disaster ever.