Page 20 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
Before I can finish, he sweeps me up. I’m suddenly in his arms, binder jostling against my ribs and coffee-soggy skirt clinging to my leg.
“I can walk,” I protest, which is a lie, and we both know it.
“You were mostly horizontal,” he says.
“I—this is—completely unnecessary.”
He tightens his grip, warm and careful. “And yet, here we are.”
It’s surreal. He’s surprisingly gentle for a man made mostly of forearms and pectoral muscles. I should be fighting harder, but his arms are strong, and I can smell cedar and whatever soap makes French men smell like a concept instead of a person.
“What happened?” he asks, stepping through the doorway like he carries strange women in distress across thresholds every day.
“I ran.”
“You ran,” he repeats.
“Yes. For a cause.”
“Like a 10k for charity?”
I try to keep my head upright. “No, for the mayor.”
“Ah. And I get the sense that running isn’t something you do often.” He gestures to my pristine running shoes.
I don’t know why I’m suddenly self-conscious. “I run approximately never. Except when Edgar steals my paperwork.”
“Edgar sounds like a jerk,” he says.
“He’s a goat.”
A beat passes. “A paperwork stealing goat?”
“You have no idea,” I add.
He huffs and it sounds dangerously close to a laugh. “Okay. If you never run, and now you’ve sprinted across town, you might’ve strained your obliques or popped a muscle fascia—all non-life-threatening but extremely unwise.”
“Unwise sounds about right.”
He carries me into what I think used to be a foyer, but currently looks more like a construction-themed escape room. One wall is missing. The ceiling has exposed insulation hanging down like damp cotton candy. The floor creaks underfoot in a way that inspires no confidence.
There are tools everywhere. Drop cloths. A saw. A half-eaten protein bar balanced on a level.
And in the center of it all: one solitary folding chair.
He lowers me into it like it’s a throne.
“Home sweet home?” I ask, trying not to look directly athis chest. Which is glowing. Gleaming, actually. There’s a streak of sawdust across one pectoral like someone whittled him for a very niche calendar.
“Do you live here?” I was aiming for “casual and unimpressed,” but landed squarely in “mildly confused.”
He opens his mouth to answer and our eyes lock. For longer than is socially acceptable. I cannot tear myself away, and it seems he can’t either.
Time is suspended as we look deep into each other, the intimacy of it getting to be too much. I pull myself away as heat crawls up my neck and my eyes land right in the middle of his perfectly sculpted abs.
He follows my gaze and his face goes red.
Red.
