Fish-and-chips?”
Did I stick my foot in my mouth? Because I feel like I definitely stuck my foot in my mouth. “Did you throw up?”
And now she’s giving me the are you a shapeshifting worm who digs up my flowers for fun? look. “No.”
“You looked sick.”
“You look lovely today too, Tyler. Your beard really makes your neanderthal stick out.” She snatches a pack of gummy bears off a hook and marches past me.
The guy who was at the next pump pauses at the end of the aisle, looks at me, then at Muffy, then back to me. “Holy hell. You are Tyler Jaeger. I didn’t mean what I said about that fourth line thing. I—”
“Keep supporting the Thrusters, man.” I clap him on the back and step past him to follow Muffy, who’s snagging breath mints and two king-size candy bars from the racks under the checkout counter. “I got this.”
“I can pay for my own junk food,” she mutters.
This is exactly the problem, my dick tells me. You’re an idiot when it comes to Muffy.
“Should’ve taken that shot in the second period last night,” the cashier tells me.
“Shit happens.”
Muffy pays for her stuff and marches out of the shop, with me trailing behind like a puppy. She stops short on the sidewalk outside, squints at the pump I used to fill up the Maserati, spots my car to her left, and keeps marching.
It’s on the chilly side today—thank you, November weather—and she didn’t put her coat back on after wiggling out of it back in Copper Valley, so I have a very clear view of her curvy ass hugged tight in that black dress.
Anything? I ask my dick.
She’s just not into us, he replies with a yawn.
And that’s why I’m here. To fix it. Figure out where I went wrong, what I can do better, and get back out there. So I climb into my car and start the engine while Muffy sits there clutching her bag of snacks.
“Thank you for coming with me,” she says stiffly.
“What friends do,” I grunt back.
Friends.
I’m friend-zoning myself.
And the weird thing?
Of all the women I’ve fooled around with, I probably like Muffy most. She’s funny. She’s unpredictable. She’s creative.
So are most of the women I hook up with, if I’m being honest.
But there’s something about Muffy that’s different too. In a good way. Fresh. Unexpected. Always something of a puzzle, which is basically irresistible to me. She has this air about her that says I care about people and want them to be happy, but I won’t let you close because you are not yet to be trusted.
Somehow, I don’t think leaving her unsatisfied at the bunny bar is scoring me points on that last bit.
The weird part is how much I care, and not because my dick has been broken ever since.
Fine.
Fine.
We were friends. She’s a woman. I’m a man. And we were friends.
We settle into silence, her clutching her candy but not eating it while she goes back to working on her phone, me driving and pretending I’m listening to the radio, and we hop back on the interstate.
By the time we roll into Richmond, neither of us has said three more words to each other.
But now that she’s looking away from whatever she was doing on her phone, taking in the scenery around us, her face is pasty and sweaty again, and I don’t know if it’s from all those Donettes that I would’ve given my left leg to eat with her, if it’s because staring at her phone makes her nauseous in the car, or if it’s because of whatever happened the last time she was here.
Or maybe she’s coming down with an actual bug.
“Take the next left.” She’s squeaking like a mouse as she studies the map on her phone, which I can see now.
She was hiding the phone from me until we hit the outskirts of Richmond, which makes me wonder if she was playing Candy Crush and didn’t want me to know, or if she was working on top secret Muff Matchers business.
“How much further?” I ask.
“Six blocks.”
Six blocks?
I don’t see anything university-ish anywhere. I thought we’d be near the campus.
Maybe it’s in six blocks.
Or the hotel is.
And maybe I’ve had three hours in the car with her to ask her what I could’ve done better when we hooked up, and I’ve been a complete and total chicken shit.
That’s the whole reason I’m here.
To find out what Mr. Disappointment in my jockey shorts and I need to