Page 14 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
My oldest friend. I swipe to answer.
“Mathieu,mon frère,” I say. “To what do I owe the intrusion?”
“You actually picked up.” He sounds like he’s smiling too, but there’s a hollowness underneath.
I glance at the hammer still embedded in a pile of haunted hay. “I’ve been bonding with my property.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“I am a man of culture,” I say. “And calluses.”
“You had a blister from peeling an orange last spring.”
“That orange was aggressive,and I’ve grown since then.” I glance around the room and sigh. “Well. Grown emotionally. Not structurally. The house is still very much winning.”
Mathieu chuckles, but it fades quickly. He’s quiet for a second too long.
“Have you eaten anything?” I ask gently.
“I had coffee.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s not food.”
He laughs again, weaker this time. “Don’t start.”
“You need real food. Protein. Solids. You’re basically built from espresso and unprocessed heartbreak.”
“Clément.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to do this every time we talk.”
“Do what?”
“The thing where you pretend I’m still me.”
He says it so plainly that it catches me off guard. I lean on the side of the doorway and feel the weight of it settle in my chest.
“Youarestill you,” I say. “You’re just slightly collapsed.”
“And very single.”
“Better single than still with?—”
“Don’t,” he says, cutting me off sharply. “Don’t say her name.”
I stop. Shift my weight. Nod, even though he can’t see me.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “No names. But for the record? She never deserved your weird little heart.”
“I’m trying to forget her,” he mutters. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m excellent at distracting,” I say, sitting back on a crate that’s pretending to be a chair. “In fact, I may have news.”
“Good or bad?”
“Depends on your tolerance for dangerous women.”
