Page 45 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
“No. Thenotbeing watched.”
I study him more carefully. He’s not joking now. “You don’t like the crowds?”
He shrugs. “I love the game. Everything else is just part of the package. Noise. Attention. Expectations. I live with it. But I wouldn’t say I enjoy it.”
I didn’t expect that.
He brushes a crumb from his jacket sleeve, suddenly very focused on it. “When you’re the goalie, everyone notices when you fail. And only sometimes when you don’t.”
I don't say anything at first. His voice is different now. Theflirtation's still there in the shape of his mouth, but not in his words.
“And yet,” I say, “you keep going back.”
“I do,” he says. “Because when it’s just me and the puck, and everything slows down—it’s like silence in motion. I lovethat.”
I understand that kind of love. Quiet. Specific. Impossible to explain unless you’ve felt it.
His eyes meet mine, less sparkling now. More unguarded.
There’s more to the French goalie than what he shows. And this could be a real big problem. I look away before he sees what’s actually happening in me.
Feelings.
CHAPTER 16
CLÉMENT
Marcy stands in profile, a single step off the gravel path. She’s illuminated by the lights overhead and she glows like a heavenly being. Her hair is swept up, though a few strands have escaped. Her dress shimmers with movement, but it’s her expression that catches me. That fierce, calculating gaze slightly dimmed, like the armor she wears is tiring her.
I’ve been to galas before. In New York. In Paris. In Geneva, where even the napkins wear cufflinks and the chandeliers cost more than most people’s mortgages.
But this corner of a garden, tucked beside the arena and lit with string lights, is quiet and unpolished. Music is drifting through the air, and for me, this night is already magical.
It’s her.
She thinks no one notices. She’s wrong.
I take a step closer to her, but I don’t speak. I just reach up and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. My fingers graze her temple, and the contact is so slight, so careful, I feel like Ican’t breathe.
She exhales, a soft, fragile sound that feels like it belongs to another version of her. One who doesn’t hold the world together with binders and deadlines.
Her shoulders dip slightly. Her defenses don’t drop, but they waver.
I’ve never met a woman like her. French women flirt like it's performance art. But Marcy doesn’t perform. She observes. She calculates. She holds her ground like it’s sacred, and maybe that’s why I haven’t stopped thinking about her since the moment she told me I wasn’t supposed to be there.
I’m starting to think I was destined to be there.
“Tellement belle,” I whisper.
So beautiful.
It slips out before I can stop it. And when her eyes meet mine, I let her see it—every unguarded thought I’ve kept tucked away. The awe. The ache. The way I’ve been quietly rearranging my entire sense of direction since the moment she scowled at me in her blazer.
“You say that to all the girls?” she asks, but there’s no venom in it. Just a thread of self-protection.
“No,” I say. “Just the ones who make me forget I ever said it to anyone else.”
There’s silence, and then she crosses her arms across her body.
