And when he opens the door for me, he doesn’t touch me.
Instead, he looks down at his phone.
Right.
That kiss?
It was all for show.
And this favor?
It’s over.
20
Tyler
I have a boner.
And not just any boner.
It’s like my first boner after my junk developed and I found my buddy’s dad’s anime magazine collection and stole an issue with one of the hottest anime girl drawings to look at with a flashlight under my sheets, spanking the monkey and not understanding why I had that infernal ache in the pit of my stomach when it felt so good to yank on my dick.
I have a boner so hard I actually feel physically ill.
And I’m supposed to drive three fucking hours like this.
Gratitude. I should have gratitude. My dick is no longer broken. He’s fully capable of standing up for himself. But it’s so hard I’m nauseous.
I could text West. Tell him Muffy and I need to “talk” and I need his hotel room for twenty minutes.
He’d know I was asking for space for a booty call.
I wouldn’t care.
It’d be quicker than checking into another hotel. More efficient. Even if there’s traffic between here and Copper Valley, I’ll be back in time for the team meeting if I can use a pre-paid hotel room.
Or we could find an abandoned parking lot and bang it out in the back seat.
I cut a glance at Muffy, who’s staring straight ahead as I pull out of the cemetery, lips drooping, eyes sad, arms crossed over her chest in exactly the right way to offer a hint of cleavage at the top of her dress, and my boner grows another inch.
Not a good sign for my performance if we do stop.
Or maybe it is a good sign. Maybe she needs comforting.
“You need a bathroom or anything?” My voice is rough and also higher than normal. It’s like I’m sliding backwards into puberty again.
Muffy doesn’t seem to notice. She keeps staring straight ahead. “No, thank you.”
“Food?”
“I’m full, thank you.”
“Want to change?”
She twists in her seat to face me. “Thank you for being basically the perfect date for Veda’s dad’s funeral. I’m fine. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it could’ve been, especially if you weren’t here. Thank you for worrying. That’s very kind of you. But I’d prefer to get on the road. I need to get back to work on helping a client get a first date, which isn’t going well, if I’m being perfectly honest, and it makes me mad, because she’s this awesome person with the biggest heart and a great sense of humor, and she’s so real, but she’s not conventionally pretty, and everyone judges her by her shoulders.”
Is this a trap? Is this one of those times when she’s actually talking about herself but pretending she’s talking about someone else, and I’m supposed to tell her I find her very attractive, both inside and out?
Do I find her attractive?
Or do I simply like that I was right, and the solution to getting my boners back was to go back to the woman who took them away from me?
Holy shit.
Muffy’s a witch.
She heaves a loud sigh and flings herself back into her seat.
I clear my throat. Right. Didn’t reply for too long. And she’s probably not talking about herself. She did that plenty in front of me with Veda last night. “I could ask a few guys on the team to take her out.”
“Thank you, but that’s not necessary.”
Translation: I’ve met your teammates and I think they’re all superficially judgmental assholes, just like you are, Tyler Jaeger.
I’m not a superficially judgmental asshole, which I’d think she’d know by now, so why am I calling myself one?
And yet I still have a raging hard-on.
Shit.
Is this like one of those things I should call my doctor about?
Or is it the reflex boner after weeks of no boners?
“Do you want me to take her out?” I ask.
It feels like the wrong question, but I don’t know what else to ask.
Her answer is equally wrong. “Do you want to get married?”
“No.”
“Then no, thank you. My clients are looking for long-term, committed relationships.”
She doesn’t sound angry or irritated by any of this.
She sounds tired and defeated.
Much like my junk was until that kiss.
How many guys has she kissed like that?
Was she a virgin when we banged in the bunny bar kitchen?
She’s thirty, I think. Maybe a year or two older? I don’t actually know. The odds of her being a virgin seem slim.
But at the same time, I’ve never heard her talk about a boyfriend. I’ve never seen her with a date, and she’s been pretty vocal about not dating. And if she was a virgin in her final year of med school, she was at least—dammit, math is hard when I have the boner from hell—okay, I don’t know how old she would’ve been, but I know she would’ve been through at least four years of college and at least two or three years of medical school—or four? I don’t know—which means she made it past the prime virginity-shedding years with her v-card still intact.
Jesus, this woody hurts.
I shift in my seat to try to relieve some of the pressure.
Distraction.
I need a distraction.
And not a distraction that involves thinking about funerals, friends dating married guys, my family, or anything other than getting to know Muffy a little better. “What made you get into matchmaking?”
There’s a long pause while Phil Collins sings softly in the background.
Phil Collins?
One, who changed my radio station?
Two, how did I know that’s Phil Collins? I don’t listen to Phil Collins.
“I want to help people,” Muffy says quietly. “Especially the people who are usually overlooked.”
I glance at her. She’s staring out the window at the row of stores we’re passing on our way out of Richmond. “Help people find love?”
“It’s the greatest power on earth. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we actually loved each other the way we pretend to? I can’t fix the world. I can’t fix their bodies. Clearly. Medical school drop-out and all that. But if I can help one person who feels different find someone who loves her the way she deserves to be loved, then I can change her world. And I don’t always get it right.” She snorts quietly. “Okay, I often don’t get it right. I could write a book about all the awkward dates my clients have had because of me, though I’m getting better at making sure that doesn’t happen anymore. But I hope I’m also showing all of my clients that they can love themselves. That they’re worthy of love. And that their needs are as important as anyone else’s.”
Now my dick isn’t the only thing uncomfortable.
My chest is feeling some tightness too. “That’s pretty cool.”
“It would be if it worked,” she mutters.
I’ve seen Muffy sassy. I’ve seen her confident. I’ve seen her not give two shits and I’ve seen her tell off people to defend her friends.
Hell, she’s told me off a time or two. Not that many days ago inside a Cod Pieces, actually.