I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,5
here?” I know she dropped out of medical school pretty far into it a few years ago. She runs her own matchmaking service, which isn’t all that great, but she does it. And she lives with her mom, who’s terrifying on a completely different level. “If you need a job—”
“I have a job, which you’re well aware of.”
The fish smells stronger back here, and my mouth is watering. I can see it frying, with a red digital timer counting down. My fish and chips are almost ready. “Then why are you here?”
She’s a manager.
She’s a damn manager. Her nametag says so. She didn’t pop in to Cod Pieces for research or whatever it was she said she was doing here. She’s been working here a while.
“Go away, Tyler. We need to serve your fish and close up for the night.”
“Bruh, yeah,” D’Angelo calls. “I got a test in the morning. But can I get a selfie?”
The fish fryer beeps, and Muffy turns to lift the basket, and fuck me, my backstabbing dick is twitching again.
I pull out my waistband.
Shit.
He did grow.
Like not even half an inch, but he grew. At this point, I recognize any change in his appearance.
Is it the fish?
Or is it Muffy?
Or is it Muffy making me fish?
Or do I need to get my head scanned because Athena and Cassadee were right and I might have a neurological disorder preventing me from popping a boner?
“Put your junk away! Oh my god, do your neurons even fire in your cerebrum? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Jesus. She’s hot when she uses big words to fling insults. “I’m not flashing my junk.”
“You’re looking at it!”
“I like it!”
“We all do, man.” D’Angelo pushes his mop cart around the corner and slaps me on the shoulder, then goes deer-in-the-headlights and shrinks back. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to touch you. Can I get a selfie? For real?”
Muffy shoves a bag at me. “Take the mother-forking selfie and go away so we can close up, please.”
“I’ll take care of it, Muff,” D’Angelo says.
He smells like fish when he loops an arm around me and leans in to snap a pic.
I feel fish grease settling all over my skin and hair and beard, and I shouldn’t have taken the bag the way I did, because instead of grabbing it by the top like a normal human, I let her set it in my palm and all of the just-fried fish and chips are still dripping oil through the brown paper.
I’ll probably have blisters tomorrow. Pretty sure she was supposed to put it in a thicker paper tray or something before she dropped it in the bag to prevent this.
Probably I shouldn’t poke a woman who’s clearly not having the best day of her life.
She works at Cod Pieces by night and runs a terrible matchmaking service called Muff Matchers during the day.
She’s probably had several not-the-best-days-of-her-life.
And yet I still wish I could go home and rub one out while thinking about her frying fish for me.
D’Angelo gets four selfies, pockets his phone, and then claps me on the shoulder again, except this time, he doesn’t let go.
Nope.
The guy hits a nerve in my neck that almost has my knees buckling as pain rips through me from scalp to ankles. “Sorry, bruh. Hate to do this to you, but it’s protocol. If you don’t leave, I gotta go ninja on your ass. Can’t have the boss-lady upset or she’ll make me clean the toilets. You know? Then I go home smelling like a dead fish with diarrhea, and you can’t get that smell out for days.”
My body is breaking. Knees? Jell-O. Thighs? Overcooked noodles. Hockey ass? Quivering in pain.
I’m a badass on the ice, and this hundred-and-twenty-pound teenager is about to take me out with a little pressure on a point in my neck that I didn’t even know I had. “You’re a ninja?” I gasp.
“It’s a hobby. You going?”
Dammit. “I’m going.”
He releases the trigger point, slaps my shoulder, and does a thing with the mop and bucket on wheels that puts him out of reach and would make me have to step in dirty mop water to get to him. “No hard feelings, man. Gotta guard my manager, you know? Kick ass on the ice next game. I’ll be rooting for you.”
No hard feelings.
Jesus.
Nothing’s hard anymore.
I should take my ass home, eat my fish and chips, and forget this ever happened.