I Pucking Love You (The Copper Valley Thrusters #5) - Pippa Grant Page 0,64
he gets to his team meeting this afternoon, because he’s probably cutting off enough circulation to his fingers to cause some stiffness in the joints.
I know exactly where we’re going a few blocks before we get there, and it makes my stomach drop.
His place.
We’re going to his place.
I haven’t been here before, but I’ve heard Kami talk about going to Schuler Tower and running into Beck Ryder—the former Bro Code boy band guy and underwear model who owns the building and lives in the penthouse—when she and Nick dropped by Tyler’s place once to drop off something he left at the arena.
My stomach drops again when we pull into the parking garage across the street from Reynolds Park.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He grunts a response.
Rufus yowls.
I wince.
Tyler doesn’t react at all.
Instead, he whips the car into an open numbered space that I’m going to assume is his assigned spot, throws the car into park, kills the engine, and pops the trunk.
He still doesn’t say a word as he climbs out, but he also doesn’t slam his door.
And he comes around to open my door too.
Rufus eyeballs him, eyes wide, ears back, and I grab him a little tighter.
I have two choices.
One, I can start listing off every other person in the world who would take me in for a few days.
Or two, I can acknowledge that Tyler already knows all this, and I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want me to be here, even if he’s angry, and he’s probably not angry with me unless he gets off on self-torture and will be telling everyone the horrible story of how he’s stuck with a roommate with a needy cat.
I don’t think he’s the kind of dysfunctional who would take us in just to bitch about us and make himself out to be the victim though.
I think he’s mad at my mom.
For me.
This dress was always a little tight in the boobs. More so since I’ve gained a few pounds. But now, with my heart swelling so hard and fast at Tyler sticking up for me and insisting on getting me out of my mom’s house?
I’m about to split seams this dress doesn’t have.
And that’s before he grabs all of our luggage from last night, plus the bags he gathered for me at Mom’s house, all in one trip, and still has enough of a hand free to hit the button on the elevator.
Confession: there’s this group on the internet that’s all about women—mostly moms—carrying in all of their groceries in one trip, and I sometimes spend hours scrolling through the pictures and stories, fascinated at how they can move while loaded down like that.
Seeing Tyler do the same with our luggage?
The man cannot get any hotter.
We step into the elevator, and I briefly wonder if I could zip Rufus into a suitcase—very temporarily—so that I could leap on Tyler and kiss him until I can’t breathe.
I want to have elevator sex with him.
I want to have elevator sex with him right now.
I’m getting up the nerve to hit the stop button when the doors open.
He hustles me out of the elevator, down a hall, around a corner, and stops in front of apartment 708.
While he digs his phone out and uses it to unlock the door, Rufus squirms.
Tyler shoots my cat a look, then swings the door open and gestures us inside.
We almost get tangled in the middle of the bags he’s carrying, and I am definitely caught up in the subtle scent of hotel soap that I didn’t notice on him as much in the car as I do now.
He follows us inside and lets the door swing shut. When it seals with a bang, Rufus leaps out of my arms, lands crooked next to the door in a houseplant that resembles a small tree, then plops into the dirt in the elegantly simple pot.
Tyler eyeballs the cat, then glances at a large aquarium full of brightly-colored fish. He briefly squeezes his eyes shut before grunting something that I interpret to mean follow me.
I don’t pretend I’m not gawking at everything as I trail him through the apartment. The living room is done in tans and browns, and I’m almost positive the floor is bamboo. In addition to the fish tank, Tyler has a wall of family photos, and there’s a gas fireplace beneath a massive television, with a lone stuffed Thrusty the Bratwurst mascot sitting on the mantle.
His furniture is understated and positioned around red Turkish rugs.