Plus, at a funeral, there are so many more tears, and it takes a special kind of date to pull off being there just for a funeral.
Maybe that’s the next step for Muff Matchers.
Maybe I branch out into temporary dates for funerals.
And maybe I’m utterly insane.
Kami glances toward the dining room. I can’t see Nick, so I don’t think she can either, but I’d guess he’s listening in, and she probably thinks so too. “A ceremony for Veda?”
“She’s being…honored…for her work with… You know what? I got tied up working with a client who has this huge list of little awards she’s won over the years this afternoon and I’m having a total brain fart. But the point is, Veda’s the reason I started Muff Matchers. She’s the only friend I have other than your friends who tolerate me because you’re awesome and they’d do anything for you—Maren and Alina say hi, by the way—and so I’ll do anything for Veda, including going back to Richmond and Blackwell just because she asked me to. But I really don’t want to go alone, so can you please talk Nick into going? Or maybe Nick and Duncan? Showing up with two hot hockey-playing bodyguard dates is way better than one.”
“Muffy. My friends do not tolerate you. They love you. You’re hilarious and fun and you tell it like you see it, except for right now, when I’m pretty sure you’re hiding something from me.”
The baby burps in agreement. Kami catches a bubble of spit-up before it lands on her clothes, which is a skill I don’t expect I’ll ever learn in my lifetime, even if I someday have a baby, which is also unlikely.
On the off-chance that I could find a guy I wanted to marry and have kids with, I’d still know where half that child’s DNA would come from, and cursing another human with my genes seems like a cruel and unusual thing to do to an innocent baby. “Can you please loan me your husband and a few of his friends for a day and a half for no reason other than that I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate?”
“Are you sure Veda would be okay with you stealing her spotlight by bringing a harem of hot dudes as your dates?”
“That’s a really good point. I should ask her. And I get what you’re saying. I shouldn’t accidentally set myself up to be the center of attention. I’d rather get sucked into a wormhole so I never have to go there again, and if I could go in a magic suit that makes me invisible, I would, but also, I can’t be Veda’s support if I’m having my own personal crisis without a human brown bag.”
“Human brown bag?”
“Someone to hyperventilate on when it’s all over.”
I frown.
I probably shouldn’t have said that part out loud. Nick’s surprised me with how good he can be with diapers and puke, which Kami did a lot of when she was pregnant—the puking, I mean, not the wearing of diapers, though I’ve gotta tell you, I wouldn’t have judged that either considering the number of times she had to pee every hour those last three months.
But back to Nick.
Puke and diapers? Yes.
Hyperventilating Muffys?
Probably not.
“Or maybe he can suggest someone else on the team to go? What about Duncan all by himself? He’s got his life together and he’s adorable with those curls and those eyes, and he’s not quite as well-known around the world as Nick after all of those pranks and presents last year. Or Connor! I’d take Connor. There are like, zero pictures of him on the internet since no one ever cares about the backup goaltender. I’d take Ares, too, but it’s not like he can go in disguise, except maybe unless he disguised himself as Zeus, but if there’s a single person in the world who doesn’t know who the Berger twins are or who would still think either of them is single, I’d be shocked. Plus, again with the upstaging thing. There’s no way I could ask Ares.”
“You know the guys have practice on Monday morning, right? Sunday too. They still practice on their days off between games.”
“One guy can’t get a single day off to go support a friend in need? We can leave after practice on Sunday. They don’t practice all the way until night on a Sunday, do they?”
She winces. “Muffy, I—”
“I’ll do it.”
That voice.
I know who that voice belongs to, and it has my shoulders bunching up to my ears so high that if I were in a onesie like the baby, I’d have to pull my underwear out of my butt.
“What about Rooster?” I say to Kami like The Voice didn’t speak. “If I took Rooster, people wouldn’t be looking at me, and then I could be there for Veda?”
“I said I’ll do it,” Tyler Jaeger repeats.
If I don’t look at the wide arched doorway between the living room and the dining room, he doesn’t exist, and he’s not making the offer, so instead, I give Kami my best imploring please don’t make me answer him look.
She half-squints back at me with the universal looks of both what the hell is wrong with you? and also beggars can’t be choosers, Muffy. Maybe you should take your octogenarian criminal friend instead.
And then she stabs me in the back by turning to face Tyler straight on. “That’s so kind of you. Muffy accepts.”
6
Tyler
There’s nothing quite like a woman trying to look past you as if you’re not two hundred pounds of solid muscle standing right in front of her to make a guy realize there might be a reason for his complex.
His and his dick’s.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Kami, but I think you should see a doctor if you’re accepting dates for me with ghosts,” Muffy says as she scrambles off her knees, making the pink bag slung across her body shift, clanking the contents inside it.
What does she have in that thing, coffee mugs?
Knowing Muffy, it’s more likely cans of silly string and Magic 8-Balls.
She’s in jeans, a Muff Matchers hoodie, a light jacket, and a layer of something that smells like panic, and she’s clearly not interested. “I need a real man in corporeal form to do this, but if you can’t help me, I’ll go—hey!”
Yeah, it’s juvenile, but I’m now holding her scrunchie high above my head while her hair flops out of its ponytail and frizzes to her back, except for the smoother portion that was held against her scalp. I point at her. “You. Me. Outside. Or we’re talking about last night in front of Kami too.”
“There was no last night.”
“Whatever, fish lady.”
Kami makes a noise between a cough and a snort, and I wonder if she knows about Muffy working at Cod Pieces, or if she assumes I’m making a vulgar insinuation about Muffy’s muff.
Whatever.
It works.
Muffy lifts her head high, bumps into me as she stalks through the wide doorway to the dining room, then through to the kitchen, where Murphy, Berger, Lavoie, Klein, and Frey are debating god only knows what over a cheese platter—yes, a cheese platter—and past them all to the back door.
Their idea of an intervention was stuffing me full of dairy and suggesting women I should hook up with to work off my frustrations.
The fuckers know. They know I love cheese, and they know my dick doesn’t work. I don’t know how Berger knew, but then, Ares is Ares.