Page 104 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
MARCY
I’m going to die. Not from a plane crash or terrorist incident or the soft-cheese fog rolling off the man beside me. No. I’m going to die from sheer humiliation.
I. Am. Petrified.
I tap my fingers on the armrest in what I’ve now mentally dubbed Panic Morse Code.
Three short, two long, three short again:What on earth am I doing?
A pause. Then four fast taps:Am I going to survive this?
The businesswoman on my other side sighs without looking up from her laptop. She’s typing like she’s conducting an orchestra, elbows out, trench coat already folded neatly in her lap. Probably going to Paris for something sleek and important.
Meanwhile, I’m here because I fell in love with a French hockey player who might be on this very plane and hasn’t responded to any of my texts. Who might not be on this plane at all. Who might be gone for good.
When I asked at the check-in desk if Clément Rivière was on the flight, she looked at me like I was a stalker. He probably has a first-class seat, knowing him, and they have fancy lounges for those types. I turn again, for the umpteenth time, scanning the rows in front and behind me. Nothing. No tousled curls. No crooked smile. No goalie with eyes you just want to fall into.
I lean against the back of the seat and stare at the air vent, willing it to blast me out of this existential shame spiral.
Why did I wear this sweater? Why did I buy a ticket toFrance? I don’t even like wine unless it’s free with a meal and served in a tiny hotel glass. This is absurd. I’m absurd.
I lean into the aisle and catch the attention of the nearest flight attendant, a warm-looking woman with a silver bun and an accent that says she’s probably fluent in five languages and can still spot heartbreak at thirty thousand feet.
“Hi,” I say. My voice is small. “Um, are we still boarding?”
She gives me a kindly smile. “I think we’re all set, honey.”
My stomach drops.
All setis airline code forthe doors are closingandyou made a mistake. I grip the armrest—cheese man has fallen asleep with his mouth open—and I try to swallow the disappointment sitting in my throat like a peach pit. Where is he?
I’m crossing the world for a man who already let me go.
And I’m trapped in seat 22B,en routeto heartbreak, with eight hours to rehearse what I’ll say when or if he ever responds to my texts.Oh, Paris? No big deal. I go every fall to replenish my favorite paper clips.
The plane shifts slightly, the final call echoing over the intercom.
And then?—
There’s a commotion at the front.
I know very little about flying, having specifically avoided it all my life, but I know that a commotion isnevergood.
This is it. My life is going to end before we’ve even taken off because I’m chasing a man who isn’t even here.
CHAPTER 40
CLÉMENT
Ihave never sweated so much in my life. Not during training or playoffs or even that time I played an outdoor game in Bordeaux in a thermal base layer that was warm enough for an Everest climb.
And yet here I am, drenched, gasping, weaving through airport signs and confused tourists like it’s the Olympic obstacle course no one trained for.
“I lost my boarding pass,” I pant.
Behind me, Mathieu waves it in the air. “Je l’ai!I’ve got it!” he calls. “Keep running!”
Weston nearly plowed through the glass doors to drop us at Departures. Mathieu, Jamie, and Carson spilled out like a reverse clown car, each yelling something about go get her and if you miss this plane, we’re staging another intervention.
