He just knows.
And when he decides other people need to know, then other people know.
“Don’t do anything out there that’ll scare my dogs,” Murphy says as I follow Muffy.
“Your dogs will get over it,” Lavoie retorts. “Fixing Jaeggy takes priority over a moment of trauma for pampered pups. Or cows.”
Frey, who’s a real-life prince of a small country north of Scotland in addition to being one of the best right wings the Thrusters have ever had, smirks like he always does. The cheerful asshole has one of those faces stuck in a permanent grin. “Especially if it makes him quit scowling like a sheep with an intestinal disorder all day. I miss his smile. Don’t you, Murphy?”
I leave them all with double-fisted, one-fingered salutes and step out into the chilly, overcast late afternoon.
Four chickens bawk at us from a pen near the back of the garage. Kami’s dogs ignore us as they chase each other through the yard. Muffy marches to the back fence where two cows, which Murphy calls his other dogs, raise soft eyes at her.
The first one moos, then the second one joins in.
If you’d told me two years ago that Nick Murphy would move out of his swanky downtown condo and into a house on the line between city and suburbs with a big enough yard to keep farm animals, for love, I would’ve asked how hard you hit your head.
It’d be like telling me that I’d one day want to get married and have kids.
You want a guy to stay single for life, give him four older sisters with no verbal boundaries.
Would I like a woman in my bed every night?
Yes.
At the cost of living with what my brothers-in-law live with?
Not a chance.
I love my sisters. They’re great. My nieces and nephews? Awesome too.
In small doses.
Being able to leave the house on my own when my sisters start talking about the trauma of childbirth has been the greatest gift of adulthood. I was a surprise several years after Mom and Dad thought they were done, so yeah, I’ve heard a lot when I couldn’t leave.
Second-best?
Until recently, it was being a hockey-playing sex god. And I’d like to get back to the having sex part of adulthood.
The last time my dick worked was when I hooked up with Muffy. So I’m retracing my steps, going back to whatever went wrong, and I’m fixing this.
I stop next to her at the fence, where Sugarbear, the all-brown cow, is rubbing her muzzle into Muffy’s hand. The other cow, a brown and white rescue named Tooter, snorts cow snot at me, turns around, and drops a load.
Muffy looks at me, then does that thing with her eyes where they go unfocused so you know she’s not actually looking at you, and then looks back to the cow. “Thank you for your kind offer, but I’ve decided I don’t need a date after all. You can get back to your Havarti party now if you’d like.”
One, the next time I have people over, I’m serving cheese and calling it a Havarti party.
Two, what the hell is her problem? “Did I do something to offend your majesty?”
“No. But I don’t date-date, so I figured ghosting you after that thing in the walk-in fridge at the secret club was the kindest gesture I could do for you. I mean, it’s not like you don’t have your pick of women.”
She’s lying. Not about me having my pick of women—that part’s true—but about the rest of it.
And the idea that she’s lying because I did something to ruin her trust makes something roil in my gut.
Not the marrying kind here, so it’s not like I’m heartbroken if she doesn’t want to see me anymore. But women don’t usually actively avoid me either, especially women who felt weirdly like my friend before we hooked up, even if I refuse to admit that we might’ve been friends, and a walk-in fridge isn’t the strangest place I’ve ever had sex, so that’s clearly not the problem. Also, as much as my sisters can irritate me, I’d defend the shit out of every last one of them and their best friends, even the annoying ones, if a guy ever so much as insulted a single one of their fingernails.
Never mind if he actually hurt her.
I clear my throat. There’s no good way to ask what I suddenly have to ask, but it was dark in the fridge, and I could’ve missed something with all the teeth chattering. “Did I force myself on you?”
“What?” She spins and looks at me, eyes wide. “No. No. I wanted—I was a willing participant. I just…don’t want to anymore. With you. I’m one-and-done. Boom. We’re over. Sorry. Should’ve warned you. You can go back to your business now.”
One and done.
Jesus Christ on a goat.
I’m hardly a paragon of commitment, and I make no secret that I don’t do relationships, but this is extreme. Why the hell wouldn’t Muffy—oh, hell.
Oh, hell no.
“It wasn’t good for you?” I sputter.
Her face goes the same shade of maroon that I put on every game day. “Of course it was. It was very good. The best I’d ever had.”
Fucking fucknuggets.
It wasn’t good for her.
“We’re doing it again.” Jesus. Where did that come from? I can’t do it again. I can’t even get it up. “This time I’m eating your pussy. All of it. Like seven times.”
“That’s a very kind offer, but no, thank you.”
“That’s a very kind offer? Are you serious? I offer to go down on you, and you come back with that’s a very kind offer?” Holy shit. “You faked it.”
She cringes like it’s her fault, and I want to hit something.
“You did. You faked it.” I look down at my dick and silently ask him if he knew.
Can’t see him through my pants, but I think he rolled his eyes and asked me how long it was going to take me to catch up.
And now I’m wondering how many women have faked it.
How many of them have I left unsatisfied, thinking I was master of the female body when really, I was a notch on a bedpost, and not one worth the time it would take to scratch that notch in?
Shit.
My dick knows we suck, and he’s given up on life. No more nookie for us. He’s done. Called it quits. Told me to go do other things that I do well, and leave the orgasm-making to dudes who know how to actually play a woman’s body.
Wait.
That can’t be right.
I’m fucking awesome.
“Have you ever…you know…with another guy?” Maybe it’s not me.
Maybe it’s her?
But if it’s all her, why do I feel like I’m going to throw up all my cheese?
Her face contorts and the maroon stain spreads down her neck. “And this conversation is officially over. Goodbye, Tyler.”
“Hold up. I think I deserve an answer here.”
Sugarbear moos at me, which sends the chickens squawking all over again, and then the dogs—the actual dogs—come running over while Muffy tries to step around all of us. “Um, no, actually, as my therapist constantly reminds me, the only person I owe anything to is myself.”
My sister Allie uses her therapist’s wisdom all the time too. If Muffy thinks she can my therapist her way out of this conversation, she’s wrong. “Then could you do me the honor of telling me if I need to work on my game, or if this is maybe not all my fault?”