I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,24

adorable.

This is going to be a good trip. It’ll fix me. Everything will be absolutely fine when we get back to Copper Valley tomorrow afternoon.

I can feel it.

9

Muffy

There’s nothing like being trapped in a car for three hours with a man who doesn’t know the full story of where we’re going or why to make a woman get the nervous sweats. Especially when our date has already started with me smacking him in the face with my handbag and a discussion of his brother-in-law’s vasectomy issues after my mother most likely offered to show him pictures of herself nearly naked.

I keep telling her that it’s basically harassment, but she’s lacking the critical pieces of her brain to understand that not everyone is as open with bodies as she feels the need to be these days.

I’m peeling out of my coat before we’ve left the Copper Valley metro area. “Nice game last night.”

Tyler grunts.

We haven’t been alone really since the walk-in fridge hook-up thing—not if you don’t count the cows and dogs as company the other day at Kami’s—and we’ve only seen each other maybe three or four times since then, with two of those times being in the last week, and the other time or two being super awkward with me spending half the time avoiding looking at him and the other half of the time wondering why he was avoiding looking at me.

There’s some perspective that comes with knowing each of us expected the other to make the next move after our time in the veggie locker.

I should tell him what he’s in for today.

And thank him.

And not question why he’s doing this, or why I agreed to let him. I tried to visualize myself going alone, and in the end, I couldn’t do it. Every time I thought about seeing him, my confident visualizations would fade into the dust and my eyes would fly open while I breathed through a simulated panic attack.

Possibly I should’ve faced all of this a long time ago.

Or I should be faking Montezuma’s revenge or something right now.

I shift in my seat again. “Thanks for coming with me. I…used to go to college in Richmond, and leaving was…difficult.”

“Medical school, right?”

“Oh. Kami told you.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“Flunked out.”

He makes one of those faces guys make when they’re annoyed, or when I used to ask if they’d like to be on my prospect list for Muff Matchers.

I don’t ask anymore. My pool stays wider when they haven’t specifically said no.

“No, you didn’t,” Tyler says.

“How do you know?”

“You’re too smart to have flunked out.”

“That was a few years ago, and also, medical school is hard. Maybe I didn’t do well under the pressure. Maybe I don’t test well. Maybe—”

“Did you actually flunk out?”

“Better question—how fast does your car go? And can I eat road trip snacks in here, or are you the type who doesn’t want to get your interior dirty?”

A wicked grin flashes over his handsome face. “You can get my interior as dirty as you want.”

That was not supposed to make my belly drop like I’m on a roller coaster.

Accept that we had a misunderstanding post fridge sex? Yes.

Sign up to do it again, since clearly we communicate so well? No. “Good, because I have powdered Donettes in here.” I reach into the backseat for my bag, which is like a Mary Poppins bag. More fits in than you’d expect.

Tyler flinches.

“I swear I won’t hit you in the face again. Or do you really not want powdered sugar all over your seat?”

“How often do you hit people in the face with your purse? Is that actually why you left medical school?”

“Yes. I was at the movies. It was dark. I went to the bathroom in the middle of the show, and when I got back to my row and tried to get back to my seat, I tripped and smacked the university president in the mouth with my purse. He expelled me because I gave him a bloody nose.”

He takes a hard left to get on the interstate ramp, and I grab the oh, shit handle to keep from falling on top of him, which is awkward since I’m still half in the backseat, reaching for my purse on the floor, which is also making my boob rub his arm.

Oh, god. Solid hockey arms. You wouldn’t think it would require that much muscle to lift a hockey stick—they’re not that heavy—but Tyler’s arm is hot steel against my squishy boob, and also, I probably need