It’s weird to be left behind.
It’s even weirder to realize I’m in her core group and I’m one of the people who might be leaving her behind. Or at least make her feel that way, even if I wouldn’t ever abandon her as a friend.
I mean, assuming this thing with Tyler is serious.
I haven’t exactly asked him if he sees me as the future Mrs. Jaeger, or if we’re having some kind of extended friends-with-benefits-who-live-together thing.
There’s a strong possibility I’m terrified to know the answer. Plus, it’s only been a week.
A week. That’s way too soon to start thinking about forever. I need to slow down, enjoy him as my friend and orgasm-maker, and not start acting like my mother.
Julie drifts off mid-sentence with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth, eyes going wide and aimed at something behind me.
Eugenie glances over my shoulder, and her eyes pop too. Brianna drops her bagel.
Maren gets a smug smile and pulls out her camera.
“Well, that’s a sight better than coffee,” Mom announces.
I’m bracing myself as I turn and check out what they’re all staring at.
It briefly registers that the commotion in the outdoor seating area is Rooster Applebottom signing a woman’s chest with a Sharpie, and that Duncan Lavoie is the crazy guy in just a T-shirt in the chilly morning, on one knee talking to an overexcited little kid.
I say briefly registers mostly because the window’s not worth watching when the door is so much more interesting.
Tyler’s average size for a hockey player, but he seems to take up the entire width of the doorway. He doesn’t scan the room, and he doesn’t trip over any tables despite not actually looking at what’s in his way as he strides inside.
Nope.
The man trains those eyes on me like he’s tearing down the hockey rink on a breakaway, his only mission scoring a goal.
It’s me.
I’m the goal.
Pretty sure a hockey goal doesn’t come with a suddenly throbbing clit and aching breasts and a short-circuiting brain that can basically only think about the picture Tyler sent me after my shift at Cod Pieces last night, where, yes, I had one earbud in playing the game the whole time, and yes, I did accidentally yell GOAL! in a customer’s ear in drive-thru.
But the more important thing?
That picture.
Tyler’s boxers.
Tyler’s tented Thrusters boxers.
He stops behind my chair, bends, and claims my lips in a searing kiss that I feel all the way in the ghost of me that will one day haunt this earth.
“Phew,” Mom says. “Muffy, I don’t know what you’re sprinkling on his corn flakes, but keep it up, sweetheart. Am I having a hot flash, or is he just that sexy?”
Tyler’s face twitches.
I can feel it.
And it’s suddenly the funniest thing in the world.
I break off the kiss with a fit of the giggles, like I’m fourteen again, and I get the eyebrow of are you kidding me? from my gruff, broad-shouldered, hot-as-sin boyfriend.
He tugs at my chair. “Excuse me, ladies. Personal emergency. Muff will see you next time.”
“Keep her as long as you want,” Mom tells him. “I wouldn’t mind if you knocked—”
Maren clamps a hand over Mom’s mouth. “Hilda. Shut up and don’t ruin this for her.”
“Highly unlikely,” Tyler tells her as he pulls me to my feet. He flicks that deadly gaze at my mom. “But agreed. Hilda. Shut up.”
I glance at my clients.
All of them shoo me one way or another without demanding introductions.
“Sunderday—” I start, then realize that’s not a real day of the week.
“We’ll see you Tuesday,” Julie says with a grin.
“Blank you.”
Blank you?
Was I trying to bless her and thank you?
I don’t bless people. What the hell, Muffy?
Tyler’s chuckling as he wraps an arm around my shoulder, snags my coat and handbag from the back of my chair, flinging the bag across his own body like he’s done this a million times even though it’s bright pink, which definitely makes it more noticeable than a normal purse—for a guy, I mean—and steers me out of the café. “Is someone tongue-tied?” he murmurs.
“You are seriously hot.”
“I am seriously horny. Let’s go home.”
Home.
Definitely not ruining this moment with questions. Not when my heart’s sprouted wings and is acting like a fighter jet at an air show in my chest.
“Have fun, Jaeggy,” Rooster calls.
“Don’t encourage him,” Duncan says, loud enough for us to hear.
A few people look our way, but Tyler’s here, and he’s solid, and he’s sexy as hell, and he’s taking me home.
I don’t care who looks.
We reach the edge of the parking lot and he glances around. “Where’s my car?”
“At home.” Holy crap, does that word feel weird.
He shoots me a what? look.
“I grove. Got. Grove. Drove. My car.” Dammit. I stop, pat my bag, and manage to dig into it to grab my keychain with a rubber Thrusty hanging off of it, and dangle it in front of his face. “My conda.”
His lips are twitching because I can’t say car or Honda.
Screw this talking baloney.
I go up on my tiptoes and press my mouth to his.
Nothing else matters. I’m kissing Tyler. He’s holding me so tight against his body that if I were a little less solid mass and a little more actual putty, we’d be melding into one goopy mass of overheated slime.
And I mean that in the sexy way. I swear that could be sexy.
It would still be a shame, though, because I wouldn’t want anything to lessen that solid bulge pressing into my belly.
“My car,” I say on a gasp as I break the kiss. “Drive. Broken.”
His breath is coming unevenly too. “Your car’s broken?”
“No. Me.”
That earns me another grin, and then I’m being tossed over his shoulder. My car alarm goes off three rows over, and I realize he’s using my fob’s panic button to find it.
Smart, smart man.
I kiss him when he puts me down and tries to open the passenger door for me. He kisses me back as he tries to make me sit so we can leave.
I squeeze his ass.
He squeezes my breast.
I am no longer a woman with insecurities and complexities and a cat.
I am one flaming ball of hormones about to strip in a parking lot so I can have sex with my boyfriend in public.
“Back seat,” Tyler says.
“Oh, god, yes. I can’t wait until home.”
“Back seat so I can’t touch you while I drive.”
“I don’t like that plan.”
“Cross my heart, Muffy, I’ll get arrested with you for public indecency, but not until after the season.”
“You clearly don’t want me badly enough.”
He growls, shoves me into the back seat, and shuts the door.
I’m fogging up my own window before he makes it to the driver’s seat.
“Tyler?” I pant.
His gaze flicks to mine in the rearview mirror.
“I’m going to masturbate in the back seat while you drive.”