I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,39

let me help you take care of whatever it is that has you so pissed off?” I ask Veda.

I’m done asking Muffy.

She’s made it clear she won’t tell me.

But I know this game. When one won’t tell, you get on the other’s good side.

Veda wipes her eyes with a napkin. “There’s nothing to take care of.”

Someone’s foot brushes my calf under the table.

I jolt.

My dick lifts a sleepy head.

Whose foot is that? Is it Muffy’s? Or is it her friend’s?

Whoever’s it is, it’s not stopping.

It is definitely rubbing me on purpose.

And my junk is tingling like it’s waking up.

Hell. Shit.

That better not be Veda’s foot.

If I’m getting my first semblance of a woody over Muffy’s friend, my life is basically over. It’s a rule. You don’t take one woman to a funeral and then bang a different mourner, even if she’s the head mourner.

But we’re raising the flagpole! my dick cries.

You could do two chicks! my balls chime in. One for each of us!

Jesus.

My balls are talking to me too.

I have issues.

So many damn issues.

15

Muffy

I’m not drunk enough.

I want to be drunk enough, but I’m not, not by a long shot, and now we’re back in our hotel room, just me and Tyler and an inky-dinky bed and a whole bunch of elephants that we’re tiptoeing around.

“You can have the bed,” I tell him.

“And you’ll sleep where? The bathtub?”

“It’s on my bucket list.”

He scrubs a hand over his face and opens his mouth, but I cut him off.

“I get that you’re trying to be nice to me, but the truth is, you’re doing me the hugest favor in the history of favors, and I was an asshole for not telling you that we were coming for a funeral, and so I would very much appreciate it if you’d take the bed, if for no other reason than I know how important sleep is to athletes and I really like the Thrusters to win so I need you to sleep well tonight, then sleep well tomorrow night, and then kill it on the ice Tuesday night so that I don’t have to have any lingering guilt about anything that goes down here, okay?”

“Do you actually breathe when you talk, or do you have secret gills somewhere?”

I flinch.

I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. It’s habit.

And now he’s doing that see-right-through-me thing where he looks ready to whip out a sword and slay dragons. “Talk,” he orders.

“I have a new client and I was going to set her up with D’Angelo from Cod Pieces but he started dating someone the night before I introduced them.”

“Talk about talking,” he growls. “Does someone tell you that you talk too much?”

Did someone take a blowtorch to my cheeks, or am I having a weird reaction to alcohol tonight? “Tyler. I’m a woman. Someone is always telling me I talk too much.”

He crosses his arms and glares, but he also goes a little pink in the cheeks above his thick beard, which is adorable.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess he’s told his sisters they talk too much a time or two in his life.

But the idea that he’s realizing it’s rude because he doesn’t want people telling me I talk too much is making him a little more attractive, and I can’t have that.

Tyler Jaeger doesn’t want me.

But he’s here, isn’t he?

I flick a hand at the room phone. “I’ll call down to the desk and ask for extra blankets and pillows. It’ll be like camping in a bathtub, plus, after a day in heels, it’ll feel good to have my feet elevated.”

“You’re sleeping on the bed.”

“You’re sleeping on the bed.”

“We’re both sleeping on the bed.”

“There’s not room.”

“That’s another thing—your parents are dicks. No one gets to judge you based on how you look or what size you are. No one. You know what’s important? How you feel. That’s what’s important. Fuck everyone, especially your parents, for telling you otherwise. If Donettes give you good energy and make you happy, eat the fucking Donettes, okay? Now get ready for bed, and get in the fucking bed, and go to sleep.”

His chest is heaving and those bright pink spots are growing over his beard. Fists clenched and tendons straining in his neck like he’s holding himself back from punching the wall. And I want to throw myself at him and kiss him until I can’t breathe.

I won’t.

I basically can’t.

Even if I thought he did want me, I’ve rejected him every possible way