“Nope. Nuh-uh. Not hooking up at a bar where we ran into each other. Not being tricked into going to a funeral together. Not having breakfast with my brother and his family. A date-date. You and me. Alone. On purpose. Saturday night.”
If Tyler’s anything like his teammates, he’ll take me out to a fancy restaurant where I could pronounce things on the menu even though no one would expect me to be able to, and I’d still probably break a bunch of unspoken rules, like laughing too loudly at a joke that isn’t funny, or putting my elbows on the table, or accidentally mistaking the tablecloth for a napkin when I don’t look clearly as I reach for my lap and standing up and pulling everything off the table when I need a bathroom break, or turning down wine when it’s expected that everyone who goes into the restaurant pays for hundred-dollar bottles that you can get for thirteen at the liquor store.
And while it’s nice to think about being pampered with a treat like that, I can never enjoy my meal knowing what a dent the final bill would make in my student loans.
Not that I expect a date to offer me peanut butter and jelly and a check for my monthly loan payment instead, but I’m still aware of it.
And then there’s the kissing problem.
Kissing leads to touching, touching leads to clothes coming off, and the truth is, no matter how many hours of therapy I’ve had, I still hate the idea of being completely and totally naked in front of a guy.
I went through with having sex with Tyler in the walk-in fridge at the bunny bar because the lights were off and the flashlight on his phone only worked so well and I’d been wondering if he was into me for a while, and I wanted to.
But doing it again?
I’ve been telling myself the payoff isn’t worth the effort, but the truth might be a little more than that.
The truth might be closer to I’m afraid he’d be good at it if I let him.
And if he were good, I’d want more, and he…wouldn’t.
He steers the car off the interstate at an exit with nothing more than a closed auto repair shop sitting within view on either side of the road.
“What are you doing?”
“Solving a problem.” His eyes are flashing, and his beard is twitching like his jaw’s clenching and unclenching.
I glance at his crotch again and the way his cock is straining his pants.
Is he—is he going to jack off behind the building?
Crap.
That should be disturbing, but my panties just got wet. Again.
He whips the car into the crumbled parking lot and around to the back of the building, out of sight of the interstate.
I shrink into my seat, gripping my phone in front of me like it has some kind of force field that’ll keep me from whatever tumultuous emotions have him scowling like the Thrusters are down five-nothing going into the third period, and he has something to prove.
As soon as he puts the car in park, he yanks his seatbelt off and turns to face me. “I like you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, I like you.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Dammit, Muffy. You’re likeable. You’re obnoxious and you’re opinionated and you’re bull-headed. You act like you have your life together when it’s painfully obvious you don’t, and it’s nearly impossible to help you until you’re at your breaking point.”
My face is curling into a horrified glare, and my fingers are doing something similar. “I thought you liked me.”
“I do. I like all of those things about you. It’s sexy as hell to me that you’re not easy. You’re not predictable. You’re not boring. You’re different. I like that. I like you. Okay?”
I blink at him. “Oh my god. Am I a shrew?”
“Oh, fuck me.” He squeezes his eyes shut and drops his head to the steering wheel. “You’re not a shrew. You’re you. I’ve met your mother. I know what you live with every single day. You don’t fit any mold of what’s conventional or expected, which puts you at a disadvantage in this ridiculous world that rewards people like Daisy for being able to afford the right clothes and makeup and hair dye, and punishes you for not being able to do the same, but you’re still trying. You still believe good things are possible for other people who don’t meet modern standards of brains or beauty or whatever. But you’re fucking infuriating in refusing to see that good things are possible for you too. So let me be one damn good thing in your life, for one damn night. Okay?”
I really am a shrew.
I hide behind all the forces that shaped me and tell myself I can’t be anything more.
That I don’t deserve more.
Three years of therapy haven’t made it as painfully obvious as Tyler’s making it right now.
But three years of therapy have reinforced the idea that I can change if I want to. That I can choose to believe in myself and step over to the other side, where I am worthy of having a date with a guy who’d drive a couple hundred miles to pass out at a funeral home for me.
Except there’s a reason I don’t like Tyler.
I like him too much, and that makes me vulnerable.
It wasn’t one little moment of him being attractive at a bar that had me giving in to temptation that night.
It was him tossing me a puck before a game last year, with a grin and a wink that didn’t immediately put me on the defensive for wondering if he was setting me up for embarrassment later.
It was him sitting down next to me at Chester Green’s one night and asking if I’d read any good books lately, then having an actual conversation that suggested he reads books regularly.
It was randomly running into him at a coffee shop downtown and him taking the seat across from me like we were friends to talk about which Pokémon we were still hunting for, when any other guy on the team would’ve nodded, grunted, and run like hell to go drink his coffee anywhere else besides with me.
I kept telling myself that he was just a nice guy. That he wasn’t into me. That he would’ve done the same for any other teammate’s cousin-in-law, except Tyler Jaeger isn’t that kind of a saint.
He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t like me.
And he’s going out on a limb, risking me rejecting him.
So I resist the urge to close my eyes, and instead, I make myself look straight at him. At his disheveled hair. His twitching beard. His eyes, sparking with blue fire. His parted lips. The way his chest is rising and falling like he’s been sprinting on the ice.
“I like you too,” I whisper.
I’ve never said those words out loud to a man before. Never. And I know he’s not offering a relationship—he wants one date.
He’s made that crystal clear.
But I’m not panicking like I thought I would.
Am I raw and exposed and a little uncomfortable for admitting to him that I like him?
Yes.
Except over it all is this sense of freedom.
I just told a man I like him, and he didn’t laugh. He didn’t point and pull a gotcha. He didn’t whip out a hidden camera and threaten to send it to the national news so the entire world could mock me for thinking that I, Muffina Alexandra Periwinkle, would be worthy of the attention of an attractive athlete with his life together.
Instead, he’s leaning into my space, his fingers brushing my cheek as he tilts his head and goes in for a kiss.