Page 107 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
I turn to laptop lady. “Ma’am, would you mind exchanging seats so that my—” what to call him? “—my boyfriend can sit beside me?”
“No way! I paid extra for an aisle seat.” She hugs her laptop and I really wish the stewardess would intervene. She was supposed to put that away.
“Don’t worry.” The stewardess nods her head toward the front of the plane. “I have a couple seats open in first class on the upper floor. I think it will be better suited for this moment.” She giggles. “I justlovelove.”
We settle into our new seats, the kind with real cushions and champagne poured into actual glass. I don’t know where the stewardess went, but I’m tempted to ask if she moonlights as a matchmaker.
Clément leans back, legs stretched out like he’s already forgotten the madness of the last twenty-four hours. His curlsare still slightly damp, and one has dried into a perfect comma over his forehead.
He turns to me with that warm, mischievous expression—the one that starts somewhere behind his eyes and spreads like honey to his smile.
We both raise our glasses.
“To Maple Falls,” I say softly.
He clinks his flute against mine. “To the ranch goat that started it all.”
I laugh. “To Edgar.”
“To the Ice Queen who melted.”
“To first dates that end with the sunrise.”
He looks at me, deeply, and my breath catches the way it always does when he lets the world fall away and focuses only on me.
“To the accountant who stole my heart,” he murmurs.
I tilt my glass toward his, cheeks flushed and full of everything I feel but don’t need to say.
“To the Frenchman who didn’t ask for it back.”
CHAPTER 42
EPILOGUE: CLÉMENT
A FEW WEEKS LATER…
Everything smells like cinnamon.
The kitchen of the ranch house at Happy Horizons is covered in sweet potatoes, casserole dishes, and an alarming number of miniature marshmallows. Angel’s got two aprons on—one over her dress, one somehow tied around her hair like she’s staging a kitchen rebellion—and I’m standing at the counter, elbow-deep in a dish she insists is essential to a proper American Thanksgiving.
Lisette is underfoot again, giggling as she weaves between our legs like a mischievous kitten in footie pajamas. At one point, she parks herself in front of the oven and starts narrating the turkey’s journey with the seriousness of a newscaster. “The chicken is sleeping in the fire bed,” she declares, then crawls over to poke my shin. “You need a hat like Mama.” I glance at Angel, who shrugs before tying a tea towel on my head.
“Now fold the cranberries in,” she says, eyes sparkling as she dumps a bowl of ruby-red berries next to me.
I look down at the batter. “Fold? Like in origami?”
“No,” she says, fighting back a laugh. “You gently turn the mixture over the berries. Not stir. Fold.”
I frown. “Is folding salad an American thing? Because in France, we stir things. With confidence.”
Angel points a spatula at me. “You stir that, and I swear to the turkeys, our cranberry fluff salad will be going in the compost.”
I raise my hands in surrender, then attempt the most delicate folding motion imaginable. It’s less “gently combine” and more “awkward pancake flip,” but she lets me continue with a sigh. In the background, Andy yells from the dining room about a missing gravy boat, and Scotty shouts back, “Check with Edgar!” which I sincerely hope is a joke.
The last I heard, Lisette was explaining how unicorns gave birth to turkeys. But that was five suspiciously quiet minutes ago.
“Hang on,” Angel stops. “Why is it so quiet?”
