He folds his arms over his chest. “You don’t date, but you still spent time thinking I ghosted you? When every time we’ve ever seen each other, it was because you were on my turf? At the arena? Or at Chester Green’s? Or Nick’s house?”
“Nick’s house is also Kami’s house. And who keeps track of turf? That’s ridiculous.”
“And you never texted or called me either.”
Clearly, we’re both to blame, and this is why misunderstandings suck. One of us needs to say sorry, then maybe the other one will say it too.
Or maybe not.
“Oh, look. Veda’s asking me to sneak her a margarita. This is why we’re here. C’mon. Let’s go find a liquor store.”
I tug his elbow.
He grunt-sighs the long-suffering grunt-sigh of a man frustrated with a woman, but he doesn’t argue, which is a relief.
Not a relief?
Running headfirst into someone cutting in line.
The scents of licorice and pipe smoke fill my nose. Wool scratches my cheek. Dread fills me from the feet up like someone’s pouring concrete into my blood, and I freeze as my eyes connect with his.
His weathered face twists into annoyance. “Watch where you’re—do I know—oh, fuck.”
“Gerry,” the woman with him snaps. “Language. We’re at a funeral, for shit’s sake.”
I can’t blink. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe.
I’m back in a dark hotel room, trapped, half-naked, waiting, like I promised I’d be, except it’s not some rich douchebag from the football team coming to claim what he’s paid for.
It’s my middle-aged rheumatology professor.
My married middle-aged rheumatology professor.
“Excuse us,” Dr. Richardson’s wife says. “Eyeballs, Gerald. Straight ahead.”
The wall of wool disappears. The scent fades. And the whispers start.
Or possibly they don’t, but I feel like I’m this giant blob covered in boils that everyone’s pointing at and trying to stay away from, lest my extreme discomfort cooties infect them too.
My ears are burning. My lungs are coiling themselves into a ball. My eyes are so hot they’re melting. All the Donettes I ate threaten to make a reappearance.
And then a hand settles on my shoulder. “Muffy?”
Tyler’s voice filters into my brain. I gasp.
Air. There’s air, and I can breathe it, and it’s fresh and clean and flowing into my lungs, and I’m fine.
I’m totally fine.
My feet feel like bugs are crawling inside them, my knees are lit firecrackers about to split into a million pieces, and my stomach is threatening to turn itself inside out, but I’m fine.
Or maybe I’m not fine.
Tyler wraps an arm more firmly around me. “C’mon. Liquor store. Now. Veda needs you.”
He doesn’t ask.
I don’t offer.
He just gets me out of there, supporting me while I figure out how my legs work again.
But I know he will ask.
And I probably owe him an answer.
It’s but a matter of time.
12
Tyler
You did this to yourself, idiot.
Rule number one of knowing Muffy Periwinkle: Nothing is ever exactly as it seems.
I let myself think I’d get a chance to be alone with her, work out whatever’s wrong with my junk, and that everything would go back to normal after this trip.
Nope.
Because who needs a date to a thing?
Of fucking course this is a funeral. With a woman who thinks I ghosted her.
Jesus.
I hate funerals.
I hate funerals more than I hate losing, more than I hate all the complications that go with relationships, and more than I hate listening to my sisters talk about their cracked nipples and perineal tears at the dinner table, combined.
“Who was that guy you ran into?” I ask as we walk down an alley back toward the cave of doom, also known as the funeral home, laden with a few four-packs of single-serving margaritas and two new Yeti tumblers full of ice.
“Can we maybe focus on Veda right now?”
“No.”
“Her father just died.”
“And you nearly had a panic attack running into a random old guy on the street. Are you going to have more panic attacks when you see more people? What the hell happened the last time you were here, and what the hell kind of friend is this Veda person for wanting you to come back here?”
If anyone asks, I’m in full protective mode over Muffy, and this has nothing at all to do with the level to which I hate funerals.
I’m not trying to re-channel my energy.
That’s my story. Don’t challenge me. I know how to use a hockey stick.
“Do not talk crap about Veda. She’s my hero.”
“Does she fly?”
“She’s the first person who’s ever believed in me.”
That gets my attention, and I cut a look at Muffy in time to see her eyes widen and her hand fly to her mouth. Either she didn’t mean to say that out loud, or she’s never realized it before.
Maybe both.
We stop outside the back door to the funeral home, facing a row of hearses, which makes my skin crawl. “Your parents don’t believe in you?”
“My mom’s a bit of a spotlight-stealer, in case you haven’t noticed, and my father only thinks you’re worthy if you’re young, rich, skinny, and pretty, which is one thing my mom’s never gotten over and is also one hundred percent the reason she had gastric bypass surgery a few years ago. She’s still trying to stick it to him for leaving her.” She pulls her phone out and texts someone.
Probably Veda, telling her we’re at the back door to the funeral home.
I sincerely hope they don’t have any bodies delivered while we’re standing here.
And now I’m shuddering.
That’s perfect. Exactly the image I want to project.
Scary hockey player terrified to be at funeral home.
I try to work up something to say about Muffy laying out all of her family’s dysfunctions and psychological issues, but I can’t.
Because I’m at a damn funeral home.
“Veda says to come on in and meet her in the first room to the right.”
I can do this. It’s like heading into a game. Objective is winning. Winning is delivering a margarita to the mourning.
Focus.
I can do this.
I tuck the two Yetis between my arm and my abs. My hand barely shakes when I reach for the door and turn the knob.
Do they do all the things to the bodies in this room we’re going to?
Or do they have a secret basement?
How big of an elevator would you have to have to move gurneys and caskets between floors?
I’m gonna throw up. Shit. I am. I’m gonna hurl.
Muffy steps past me into the hallway, which is neither dim nor bright. It’s neutral, like the light is trying to not impede on anyone’s experience of being in a funeral home.
Pictures line the neutral-colored walls, but I don’t look at them.
Logically, I know they won’t be pictures of dead people—Look at all of our satisfied customers!—but illogically, my balls are sweating and my pulse is racing and I need something forty billion times stronger than a margarita.