Athena. Definitely Athena. It’s the boobs. “You know you’re why the password changed, right?”
“What? Why? What did I do?”
She rolls her eyes, then crooks her finger at me. “One chance, Jaeger. One. Chance.”
I don’t ask questions.
Instead, I silently follow her inside and down the stairs into the glittery silver, gold, and pink club.
But I don’t see the bar. I don’t see the lounge chairs. I don’t see the puck bunny flag.
I see my heart, sitting in the middle of the room, sloshing a pink drink in a martini glass while she talks. “My next client called me to tell me her date needed bail money, because he tried to steal a chicken out of someone’s backyard, and that was it, you know? Then I was like—hic!—Mutzy, I mean, Muffy, you need a pew land. A new gland. A—hic!”
“And that’s when you started signing up for all of the dating apps?” Cassadee asks.
Muffy hiccups and nods.
“You are such a badass.” Another bunny—is that Jami?—clinks her glass to Muffy’s. “Way to stick it to the man and find a way to get what you need. How many matches have you made this way?”
“All of them.”
“Woohoo, you go, girl!” I know that one too. That’s Anni. With an I.
Muffy shakes her head. “I’m done. Washed up. Hic! Mutch Maffers is dead.”
“What? No.” Veda rises. Veda. Veda’s here. Good. “Muff Matchers is not dead. Do you hear me, Muffy Periwinkle? You are doing the women of the world the best fucking service ever in screening out the losers for your clients, and you are not giving up. I forbid you.”
“But I cheated.” Muffy glares at her. “Wheaters don’t chin.”
Athena cocks a brow at me. “And what do you have to say for yourself?”
Jesus. I don’t know how they found her, or why she’s here, but I have zero doubt they’re taking care of her because they knew she needed it, and that will always be what I love most about these bunnies.
In the friend way. Naturally. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I love her.”
“Hm. I suppose that’s a start.”
I don’t bother wasting my facial expressions on her, and instead step down into the sunken seating area. Muffy looks up at me, her eyes going wide, and she drops her drink in Jami’s lap.
“I love you,” I tell her.
She blinks.
“I fucking love you,” I repeat. The bunnies scatter as I reach her and drop to my knee so I’m at eye level with this amazing, beautiful disaster of mine. “I love you when you’re cuddling your cat. I love you when you’re talking about your job. I love you when you’re naked. I love you when you’re being difficult. I love you when you’re using dating apps to screen assholes for your clients, and I love how much you love them. I love you when your hair’s a mess, and when you’re throwing eggs all over my kitchen, and when you’re taking me to funerals so you can be there for a friend in a place you never wanted to go back to. I love you when you’re happy, and I love you when you’re stressed, and I will never stop loving you, because I’ve been waiting my whole life to love you. You’re the one and only you, Muffy, and you will always be my one and only. It’s you. It’s only you. I love you.”
She blinks again. “What about Amelia Cranford?” she whispers.
It legit takes the question a minute to register, and when it does, I have to stop myself from choking on a laugh. “She’s not you, Muffy. No one will ever be you.”
“You forgot her name.” Muffy’s a little cross-eyed, but she’s starting to grin as she pushes me in the shoulder. “You forgot her name.”
“I’m gonna have to tell you all of this again when you sober up, aren’t I?”
“And basically a dozen times a day, every day for the rest of your life,” Veda agrees.
“Kiss her!” one of the bunnies cries.
“You can use the walk-in fridge again if you want,” another chimes in. “We’ll keep it clear.”
“And clean it afterwards.”
Jesus. I’m not banging Muffy in the fridge again.
At least, not when she’s drunk. Next time we’re here when she’s sober—if she wants to come back—might be a different story. “Can I take you home?” I ask her.
She loops her arms around my neck, leans in, and presses a wet kiss to my cheek. “No. I like it here. We’re moving in. It’sh my new office. And my bedroom. Someone bring me Rufus.”
“Aww, he’s missing practice for her!” another woman says behind me. “That’s like, the most romantic thing a hockey player can do!”
“No, it’s way better if he misses a game.”
“A playoff game!”
“For a funeral,” Veda chimes in with a smirk.
It all bounces off, because Muffy’s tugging me into a hug, her breath hot on my neck, smelling very much like a distillery crossed with a cotton candy factory. “I love you too, and that’s not the alcohol talking,” she tells me.
“I’m still gonna make you say it again when the alcohol’s out of your system,” I murmur back against her neck.
She shivers, sighs, and then—
Snores.
She snores.
Muffy Periwinkle, goddess of my world, the woman that every step of my life has led me to, and the love of my eternity, has passed out drunk on my shoulder.
And you know what?
I think she’s utterly perfect.
Perfectly perfect for a guy like me.
46
Muffy
Someone replaced my brain with concrete and I cannot lift my head off this fluffy bit of silky something under my ear.
Also, there’s a vibrator gluing my leg to a very soft floor.
“Amoofle?” I grunt.
The vibrator meows and the floor sags and the concrete sloshes, but then gentle fingers brush through my hair, and soft lips press against my forehead, and the concrete gets a little less hard and angry.
“Hey, party girl,” a familiar voice whispers. “Aspirin and water?”
I whimper.
What did I do yesterday?
Yesterday?
Today?
This morning?
Last week?
“Muffy. I need to get to practice, but Daisy and West and Remy are staying here if you need anything, and Veda’s on her way over too. I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?”
I’m at Tyler’s place.
I flipped out, freaked out, shut my business down, ran into the bunnies, got drunk with them, and now I’m back at Tyler’s place.
I crack an eyelid open, and four Tylers swim into view. He’s crouched at the side of the bed, all the blinds shut so he’s shadowy and mysterious and hot, especially when he grins at me like that. “You rest more.”
The Tylers all lean close so I can sniff the laundry detergent on his T-shirt—T-shirts? Are they all wearing shirts?—and I get a single kiss on my forehead. “Love you, beautiful.”
And then everything’s dark again.
But it’s a happy, glowy kind of dark.