I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,36

trips and tried to make me wear the cutest clothes but my shoulders were too wide for the cute tops and I always muffin-topped out of the cute shorts, and one time, I muffin-bottomed. My thighs had rolls under the jean short cuffs.”

“You’re perfect exactly the way you are, Muffy.”

“Any man or woman would be so lucky to have you, Veda.”

“Same, Muffy. Same.”

“Why is it always two chicks?” Tyler mutters.

At least, I think that’s what he mutters. When I lift my head and peer through the blurriness at him, he’s dumping his fish and chips in the trash and pocketing his wallet. “Get up. We’re getting out of here.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Where are we going?” Veda asks.

“Like, leaving Richmond leaving, or leaving the hotel leaving?”

“I have to be at the funeral in the morning or my uncle will disown me.” Veda cocks her head. “Actually, I don’t care if he disowns me. I think the only thing he’s leaving me is his pet fish and a few more insecurities, because he thinks I should’ve been a lawyer and gone into politics, and I’m allergic to aquariums. Let’s hit the beach. I’m not allergic to sea life. Only sea life kept in buildings.”

Tyler presses his palm into his eye socket.

He’s seriously hot, standing there looking like he wants to strangle someone.

And it doesn’t lessen the hotness factor that I’m pretty sure the someone he wants to strangle is me.

“We’re getting dinner,” he informs us. “And while we’re there, you two are going to sit there and tell each other good things about yourselves and then we’re all getting drunk. Or possibly drunker.”

Veda squints at him. “I get to say good things about Muffy?”

“No. You get to say good things about yourself. And Muffy gets to say good things about herself. And I get to suffer through it all in my vodka and steak. And if either of you tell me you’re vegan or fruititarian or potato-tarian, or you only eat cocktail shrimp or watermelon soup or whatever, tough shit.”

“He grew up with four older sisters,” I whisper to Veda. “Something tells me this won’t be the first time he’s had to do this.”

“He’s seriously hot in the protective kind of way. You should really think about dating him for real,” she whispers back.

He glares at her.

“Told you she’d know you were only doing me a favor,” I say to him.

“It’s not that Muffy’s not hot enough for you,” Veda says. “She doesn’t date. And I did want to know how you met because it’s just as interesting when friends who’ll go to funerals with you meet as it is when lovers meet.”

A muscle ticks in his neck, which really is as wide as his head. I hadn’t noticed until Veda pointed it out, since his beard technically makes his face wider than his neck, but she’s right.

He has a very thick neck.

“Ride’s here,” he grunts.

I grab my shoes and shove Veda’s at her too. “C’mon. Let’s go get dinner.”

“But not anywhere my father or his friends or colleagues would go,” she says quickly.

“Deal.”

14

Tyler

We drive ten miles south of town to a busy exit off the interstate with a popular chain sports bar not far off the main drag, and now I’m trapped in a booth with Muffy and her friend Veda, who are breaking all of my rules and saying nice things about each other but nothing nice about themselves while I chow through a steak.

The bar’s playing the Washington-Denver hockey game on one screen, the LA-New York basketball game on another screen, and the Chicago-New England football game on a third screen.

I could easily lose myself in any of the three, but instead, I’m paying attention to the women.

Neither of them have said a word about me passing out at the funeral home.

Not exactly. Muffy did give me very specific looks while she made that side trip to Cod Pieces before we got to the hotel, like she knew that was my comfort food, and that, more than anything, has me in a mood.

Muffy Periwinkle is not supposed to take care of me.

She’s too flighty for that.

Or is she?

She is the same woman who once texted me after a game to ask me to go to Chester Green’s and “accidentally” bump into a specific table where she overheard a family talking about how I was their favorite player, and they came all the way in from Chicago for the game, and wouldn’t it be cool if I showed up at the