I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,100
underestimate what I’ll do for her,” I tell Maren.
Then I head down the hall to the kitchen, texting West on the way. Muffy’s tired. Long day. See you at brunch.
He replies with an eye roll emoji followed by a fist bump emoji.
West-speak for I know you’re going to get laid, and I don’t blame you.
Hockey, the bunny bar, and Chester Green’s are my three favorite things in Copper Valley.
At least, they used to be.
Miss a night hanging with my teammates and hockey fans?
The old Tyler wouldn’t have considered it.
This new Tyler?
He has something more important to do.
41
Muffy
That was close.
If Brianna had introduced me to Steve, and he remembered me, I would’ve been caught.
He knows about Muff Matchers. Kind of. When I told him I thought he should meet a friend, I also told him I worked part-time for a small private matchmaking company that doesn’t do much advertising and that my role was supposed to only be administrative work. It’s highly likely that my clients will call Muff Matchers out by name at some point if their relationships keep developing, and I’m hoping that by then, no one will care how I found the guys or how I presented myself.
The ends justify the means, right?
I’m probably delusional.
Plus, I don’t want to know what Tyler will do if he finds out I’m using dating apps to meet and screen guys.
Not gonna lie.
I feel like I’m cheating on him every time I open an app and ask guys for dates, even though it’s strictly professional on my end.
But since they don’t know that, it’s complicated.
And the more matches I make this way, the more likely I am to get caught.
But it’s working.
So is it really wrong?
“Muffy.”
I leap sixteen feet in the air when Tyler says my name behind me. Mist and fog are invading the city, and I thought he listened when I told him to stay and have fun with his teammates and family—you know, where he’s safe if the Indies decided to go out and try to start something off the ice—instead of following me out, down a dark alley, and back onto the street toward his building. “Ohmygod.”
He grips me lightly by the elbow and tugs me away from the light-rail station I was passing as a trolley pulls up. “Are you okay?”
“I’m—I’m overwhelmed.” I say it out loud and realize it’s actually true. “Things don’t usually go this well for this long, and right now I have more satisfied clients than I’ve ever had, I hadn’t seen my mother in a week until tonight and I’m trying very hard to not let her get back in my head with her comments about my birthing hips, which I think is supposed to be complimentary, and I had a fantastic time hanging out with your family today even if I’m really pissed that you got a black eye in the game and I want to hit that asshole back for you. Nothing has ever gone this right for this long in my entire life.”
He studies me for a moment, then nods and pulls me into a hug. “That doesn’t mean anything’s about to go wrong.”
“You sound like my therapist.”
“She sounds like a very good therapist.”
I hug him back tight. It feels so damn good right here in his arms.
If I could stay here, in the drizzly night after a super disappointing game, but with him holding me, forever, I would die a very happy woman. He’s not a superficial jerk who only cares about a woman’s size.
He’s everything, and I think he was everything before I let myself see it.
I can’t deny it anymore. I don’t even want to.
I am head over heels in love with Tyler Jaeger. Completely. Without question.
Not because he’s handsome.
Not because he’s successful.
Not because he gives me the most incredible orgasms of my life.
But because he cares.
He doesn’t have to. If anything, he has all the reasons in the world to not care.
Who am I to him, really?
Considering he’s still here, and all the other places he could be, I must be someone pretty special to him, and there’s nothing in the world to make a woman want to love a man more than feeling complete, total, unquestionable acceptance of even her worst moments.
He’s choosing me.
I need to choose him right back.
“Tyler?” There are so many emotions swirling in my chest, I can barely get his name out.
“Hmm?”
“Will you please—” I don’t finish the sentence before someone jostles into us.