I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,17
to drop me an email.
He didn’t ask about me. If he had, Nick would’ve told Kami, who would’ve told me. I mentioned the kind part, right? Kami doesn’t press, but she does have eyeballs, and if she thought I wanted to hang out with Tyler and he wanted to hang out with me, she would’ve mentioned if he talked about me.
She didn’t.
Which means he didn’t.
I might’ve claimed I ghosted him, but that was my wounded pride talking.
Better to be the one who walked away, right?
And now, I’ll probably have to tell him why I left med school, because other people who know—or at least strongly suspect some vague version of the truth—will almost certainly be there, and while I seriously doubt any of them spend any time thinking about me on a regular day, I don’t know if any of us will be able to look at each other without me thinking about why they’re practicing doctors now and I’m not.
And if I’m going to hyperventilate before we make it through the doors to the funeral parlor for the viewing, much less to the graveside services the next day, Tyler deserves to know why.
But, since I’m running late, this is a problem for tomorrow.
Or Sunday.
Sort of like booking two hotel rooms is also a problem for tomorrow.
So I finish getting dressed, call to Mom that I’m heading out to dinner and a party with friends, and I take off to attempt to succeed at my dream job.
I mean, the dream job I found after I gave up the dream of being a surgeon. And let’s be honest here, does anyone who knows me think I could’ve actually been a surgeon?
Surgeons have their lives together.
I don’t.
Plus, Dr. Muffy Periwinkle?
Please.
No one would’ve come to me for anything anyway, except possibly to inspect their stuffed animals’ upset tummies after a tea party.
My therapist says the name is what you make it, not what makes you, but I wouldn’t have hired me. And now I’m filling a niche need in the world for special people who don’t know what they’re worth, even if it’s a struggle, and even if I’ve had to get creative in finding potential dates for my all-female clientele. I have a purpose. It’s not in physically fixing people’s hearts, but in emotionally fixing people’s hearts.
I call Veda on my drive to check in and see how she’s doing and reiterate my promise to be there on Sunday, which I have to do over voicemail since she doesn’t pick up.
Not surprising.
She’s planning a sudden funeral for her father, whom everyone thought would live to be at least two hundred years old, after he came down with salmonella poisoning. And I’m pretty sure she has complicated feelings about all of it.
She and her dad weren’t all that tight since he refused to accept that she’s bisexual and always thought she should be working harder and succeeding faster than anyone else, but publicly, she was his pride and joy for following in his footsteps. We bonded over mutual father issues.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
My client arrives at our meeting mere seconds before me, which I know because I pull into the parking lot at Cod Pieces in time to see her walking through the door.
Fingers crossed that my instincts are spot-on with wanting to introduce her to D’Angelo. Since I started here two weeks ago, I’ve had a lot of time to talk to him, and if ever there was a good candidate for Muff Matchers’ first male client, it’s D’Angelo. People are forever asking him if he plays basketball since he’s a tall Black guy, but he has as much interest in team sports as an armadillo has in fashion. His parents enrolled him in tae kwon do classes when he was ten to try to help smooth out his klutziness, and he’s here at Copper Valley University with an undeclared major and a serious love of all things Star Wars. Also, he’s a few years older than his fellow freshmen, since he worked at the family business while his grandpa was sick instead of enrolling straight into college after high school.
This match is my best chance at making a match without having to stretch into questionable territory for digging up male prospects.
I toss a Thrusters hoodie over my Cod Pieces polo and grab my messenger bag, which has a Muff Matchers new client box inside it, and I scurry into the dining room.