Page 108 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
We both turn in unison.
Lisette is standing on a chair, beaming like a tiny kitchen deity, her curls dusted white and her hands wrist-deep in the flour container. The floor looks like it’s been hit by a blizzard. The table, the counters, and most of the lower cabinets are blanketed in powder. The markers are gone—possibly buried. She sneezes and leaves a cloud of flour in the air like a magician’s finale.
“Oh, no,” Angel breathes, stepping forward.
Lisette lifts her flour-covered palms. “I’m bakin’, Mama!”
I can’t help it—I laugh. I’m not the only one.
Angel pinches the bridge of her nose, but she’s smiling too. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” she mutters, scooping her daughter into her arms.
“Don’t worry,” I say, grabbing a rag. “In France, this would be considered avant-garde cuisine. I’ll clean it up.”
Angel adjusts Lisette on her hip and glances toward the front window. “Hey, where’s Marcy? She didn’t take off for Paris again, did she?”
I grin, tossing the rag into the sink. “She better not have. If she did, I’m climbing into the next overhead compartment.”
Angel laughs, already bouncing Lisette on her hip as she disappears down the hallway.
I lean against the counter for a second, letting the quiet settle, flour drifting in the air like confetti. The scent of cinnamon and roasting turkey fills the room, but my mind drifts back to Paris—where everything really began to make sense.
The Ice Breakers gave me a short leave of absence to recuperate, so we stayed at my place on the Marais, on a street with lopsided cobblestones and a bakery that made her tear up with joy our first morning. She walked with her head tilted up, absorbing every wrought-iron balcony like it was her first time seeing sky. She made me take a picture of her in front of every bookstore, every flower cart, every carousel. She even tried escargot—once—then spent fifteen minutes explaining to the waiter that she respected the cultural experience but never wanted to do it again.
But more than what we saw, it was how we felt. The pace slowed. The pressure lifted. Our second night hanging with my oldest group of friends, only Mathieu was missing but he video-called to join the fun and to deliver some excellent news: I finally had my building permit.
Without any details, the mayor had said my house was “not at any risk anymore.” That was enough for me.
Marcy and I toasted that night, as my friends all cameover to celebrate everything falling into place. I’ve got my spot with the Ice Breakers, and I’ve also got a foot in the door with the new team in Paris. Marcy and I agreed that I’ll go back and forth, and when she can, she’ll join me. The house can finally get fixed up the way it should, and the home I’ve dreamed of will be a reality. Most of all, I’ve got Marcy at my side. That night in Paris, with my friends over, showed me again how perfect we are for each other.
She fit right in, offering to help chop vegetables and engaging in a half-hour debate with my buddy, Étienne, about the superiority of American peanut butter. Somewhere between a riverboat ride on the Seine and that night, I knew we just… fit. No pushing. No pretending.
Paris is home, but with her, it becomes something new.
I know my future is with her, and I can’t wait for just the right moment to ask her to be mine forever. I bought the ring on the Champs Elysée while she was sipping an espresso and admiring the view.
While Paris with her was perfect, I couldn’t wait to get home to Maple Falls. Thanksgiving is, after all, mythic here.
Happy Horizons Ranch has become yet another home for me, and that thought keeps me smiling as I continue to clean up the flour Lisette cast over the kitchen.
Gravel crunches outside. Not a car, but feet.
The sound yanks me upright. My heartbeat spikes—same way it did that day I found Marcy doubled over, trying not to pass out in front of my house. I don’t even think. I’m already moving, pushing past the swinging door and down the steps two at a time.
“Marcy?” I call, scanning the drive.
Then I hear it. Not one set of footsteps—two. Maybe three. Some of them distinctly… not human?
Marcy appears from behind a set of pine trees like a comet in a pencil skirt—heels discarded, hair flying, face lit up with a massive grin. And she’s holding a leash.
At the end of said leash is a goat.
But not Edgar. No, this one is smaller. Sleeker. Deep brown like dark chocolate in the shade, with ears that stick out like antennae and a tongue lolling to the side like it’s hada day.
“Clément!” Marcy gasps, breathless and utterly delighted. “Look who I found!”
The goat stops, then promptly launches into a series of enthusiastic hops, nearly dragging Marcy into a bush.
“Is it… smiling?” I blink. “Oh la la, it has dimples.”
