I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,105
I do. And I am so tired of feeling like that’s not enough.”
The door’s open.
The door to our private room is open, and the entire Sunday brunch crowd heard me.
Brianna’s gaping.
Steve’s confused.
Some brunchers are whispering or giggling at the freak show. The Jaeger family are all tongue-tied.
And Tyler—Tyler’s sitting there livid.
Completely, one hundred percent livid.
My heart is a punching bag and his eyes are throwing the daggers to obliterate it.
“And you can all fuck off if you don’t like it,” I finish.
And there you have it.
I’m done.
My career?
Over.
I cheat.
I break the rules, representing people I’m not on dating apps so that I can screen for the good ones for women who deserve love as much as, if not more than the rest of us, and I announced it to the world while dating a hockey player whose sister-in-law is among the tabloids’ favorite subject.
I’ll be news for exactly fourteen minutes at some point today, and everyone who matters will see it.
People who think they matter but don’t—like Connie Bragowski—will see it and try to friend me on social media to pretend to care but really because she wants to feel superior and be in the middle of the drama, to tell people she saw it coming.
And Tyler?
I have no idea what I’ll do about Tyler.
I just know that if he wants to be pissed at me for doing my job, even if I’m stretching the boundaries of how I should do my job, then he’s not the guy I thought he was.
And maybe this is a convenient way for him to dump me so he can go back to Gator Cranford’s sister.
Fine.
Whatever.
I snag my bag off the back of my chair and march to the door.
You know what?
I hope he does go back to her.
And when he does, you’re damn right I’ll take credit for that match.
No matter how much it hurts.
44
Tyler
For the second time in twelve hours, I’m watching Muffy leave me behind.
But this time, I’m so pissed I might take a chunk out of the table with my bare hands.
I need to follow her. I need to get up and follow her.
But my entire body is so tense I’m positive all I’ll do is yell, and I’m just rational enough to know that yelling at Muffy right now would be a bad, bad idea.
Why doesn’t she trust me enough to know I don’t care if she does her job, and I will literally break people if they so much as look at her wrong for any of the ways that she’s exactly perfect?
And who the fuck made her national news?
West drops into the seat she vacated while Brianna and what’s-his-name turn and do the one thing I’m supposed to be doing. “Breathe, Ty.”
“I am breathing.”
“No, you’re punishing the air with your nose and lungs, and pretty soon, it’s gonna be too bruised for the rest of us to survive.”
I snort.
“Oh, no, I’m going to faint dead away,” Brit says.
Three of her kids burst into tears.
When I turn around to glare at my siblings, four more do too.
“Down, boy,” Allie says as she gathers two of her kids up and shushes them. “None of us think Muffy’s a failure, and you’re being an idiot if you think sitting here is going to make her come back.”
“You do want her to come back, don’t you?” Keely says as she hands one of Brit’s kids a biscuit, which is like plugging the cry hole before it bursts.
“I want her to come back,” Mom says. “You were happy yesterday.”
“She’s off-limits in your show. Understand?”
Mom rolls her eyes. “The easy targets are never the fun jokes, Tyler. You know that.”
“So?” West says. “You going after her, or what?”
Fuck this.
Or what.
I’m going after the tabloid who published her secrets, and then I’m going after every single person who’s ever made her feel small and insignificant and like a failure.
I rise and grab my coat. “Come back for Thanksgiving,” I grunt at my family.
I pass Staci and her family on my way out. “Whaaaa…?” she says. “I just saw Muffy, and—Tyler? Ty!”
Not worth answering.
Someone else will fill her in.
Muffy’s long gone when I hit the street, which is fine with me. I’m not chasing her today.
Not yet, anyway.
It takes me forty minutes to get where I’m going, and I’m still fuming when I pull my car to a stop in front of the two-story house where my girlfriend grew up, behind an old beige Crown Victoria with custom plates that say BADA88.