Page 70 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
CLÉMENT
The ringtone of my phone jolts me upright, heart pounding.
I blink into the darkness, disoriented. An unfamiliar ceiling. A lump under my spine that is not a mattress but Weston's sofa armrest. Right. I’m crashingchezWeston.
That’s because my house is uninhabitable, the new renters for my previous condo have arrived, and the mayor hasn’t returned a single call since the morning he told me,“Don’t worry, Monsieur Rivière, I’m sure we can make this permit happen.”That was three weeks ago. His voicemail is now perpetually full.
The phone vibrates again in my hand, lighting up with a name I haven’t seen in a while.
Jules.
I squint at the screen. It’s 4:04 a.m.
I hesitate, then swipe to answer. “You remember there’s a thing called time zones?”
“Sorry,mon frère, but I knew you’d want to hear this,”Jules says. My old teammate. Defender. Solid on the ice, reliable off it.
“What’s going on?” I mutter and then gently slap my cheeks to wake myself up.
He jumps right in, not even giving me a chance to get upright. “We’re building a new team. Outside Paris. Backed by the league, fully funded, training center. Ambitious, but with vision. I want you to manage it with me, Clément.”
I sit up slowly, the phone pressed tight to my ear. “You want me to manage it with you?”
“As head coach. We need someone with presence. Leadership. Someone who can anchor the roster and bring in trust from the younger guys. And with your headaches…” He trails off. Jules is one of the few in the world who knows about what’s going on with me.
This should feel like the opportunity of a lifetime. It would’ve been everything, if…
Ifwhat?
I don’t respond right away. I stay where I am, staring at the ceiling, letting Jules’s words sit heavy in the dark.
“You still there?” Jules asks.
“Yeah.” My voice comes out quiet. “I’m here.”
“I know it’s sudden. But the offer’s there for you. Think about it. I’ll send you the terms.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say automatically, and then roll off the sofa. Might as well get a bit more work done on the house. I can’t crash on Weston’s sofa forever.
It’s not the buttons on the couch that wake me from my afternoon nap. Or the half-folded throw blanket that’s somehow wrapped around only one of my calves.
It’s Weston.
Or, more precisely, the scent of what must be the strongest coffee brewed in the state of Washington slapping me straight across the face.
“Rise and shine, lover boy. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon,” Weston says, cheerful like someone who hasn’t been exiled to a piece of furniture with enough buttons to puncture a lung. “Time to pretty yourself up. It’s auction night.”
I groan and roll over, face buried in the couch cushion, every part of me protesting.
After spending all morning at the house, I finally had to admit defeat. My bags are locked in a shed at the back of the house and I’m crashing with the minimum necessary on Weston’s couch.
Total defeat.
I’m not sure what hurts worse—my pride or the reminder in the back of my skull that I am one bad headache away from losing everything.
Weston taps my shoulder. Then shakes it. Then—not gently—shakes it again.
I sit up and the room spins slightly.Please don’t let it be a headache.
