Page 19 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
But I’m grinning like a lunatic. Because this time I get to be the hero.
I’m halfway through mentally composing my acceptance speech for “Best Use of RCW in a Crisis” when I look up and see a light.
It’s in the window of the supposedly abandoned house at the edge of town. The one with the warped porch and the reputation for drafty ghosts and aggressive squirrels. Someone’s in there. Standing on a ladder. Moving.
A ghost?
I blink once. Twice. Nope. Still there.
The glare of the nearby streetlight makes it hard to see clearly, but I squint through the afterimages. My eyes adjust.
And then I freeze.
It’s him.
Clément Rivière. Consummate Frenchman, human distraction, and apparently shirt-optional contractor.
He’s balancing one foot on a rung of a ladder like gravity is merely a suggestion. A hammer hangs from one hand. The other is braced on the window frame, backlit by a crooked pendant light he’s clearly just installed.
He has stubble now.
And his chest—okay, not that I’m looking, but hypothetically if Iwere—is glistening in a way that should not be allowed outside of a streaming romance adaptation. Everything about him forms a perfect V from his shoulders down to the waistband of his sweatpants.
I am still panting from my victorious run and my lungs are staging a coup.
And he’s looking right at me.
He cocks his head slightly. Then he raises a hand and makes a small gesture, pointing at himself and then at me. His meaning is clear.
Want me to come out there?
That’s whathesays with his gesture, but also with his eyes and his stupid cheekbones and his absolutely criminal abs.
I lift my hand and wave like I’m the picture of nonchalance and a dignified businesswoman. Like I didn’t just sprint from home, using up all the oxygen in my body.
My body picks that exact moment to cramp.
A lightning bolt of pain arcs through my side, and I double over again with a choked noise that isnotthe sound of a dignified anything.
“Ahh-hehh–nnnope,” I mutter to myself, but when I look up, he is gone from the window.
Then I hear the front door slam open. He’s running. Full sprint with bare chest and long legs.
“Oh, no. No no no—don’t youdarego neighborly on me now,” I whisper. “I’m fine,” I call, gasping a little.
He doesn’t look convinced. “You’re folded like a lawn chair.”
“I just—it’s a cramp,” I say through clenched teeth. “Not the end of the world. It’s probably gratitude-related. High emotional output. Heroic adrenaline. Classic stuff.”
“You should come inside,” he says, gesturing toward the house behind him.
“I don’t go into strangers’ homes.”
I try to straighten, but my side chooses that exact moment to stab me like I just insulted its mother. I double over again with a wheeze.
“Mince,” Clément mutters, already scanning the street like he expects paparazzi or wild dogs. “Okay. No. You’re done.”
“What are you?—”
