Page 81 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
I sit on the edge of the bed and push the heels of my hands into my eyes. The thing is—this isn’t just a date. Not in the way Americans do it.
French dating is a slow burn. A drawn-out courtship where we walk and we talk. We spend three months pretending it’s not serious while secretly memorizing their coffee order and imagining their name with ours.
There’s no this-is-a-date-and-it-ends-with-a-kiss pressure. There’s no hyper-structured, milestone-based, swipe-left-or-right performance. There’s nuance.
But here it’s all formal and intense. And Marcy is American with French levels of complexity. She’ll want to see the real me, which makes this all the more terrifying. My only saving grace is that the pounding in my head has quieted.
“Rivière,” Weston calls gently, not joking this time. “You good?”
I take a breath and stare down at the absurd collection ofclothes on the bed. Then I grab them all, shove them into a backpack, zip it up, and toss it over my shoulder.
“You bringing a parachute in there, or what?” Jamie says as I rejoin the group.
“Absolutely. If I’m going tofallfor her, I might as well be prepared.”
A collective groan rises from the couch, followed by applause. Carson flings a pillow at me and I catch it.
Let the date begin.
CHAPTER 29
MARCY
Ihave a date with Clément Rivière in less than thirty minutes.
So naturally, I’m elbow-deep in chicken feed.
I shouldn’t be out here. Every part of me knows it. From the mud drying on my jeans to the sticky specks of hay glued on my arms, to the clock on my phone that reads: 5:32 p.m.
Scotty asked if I could help him stack bags of grain before the next delivery, and I said yes. I don’t particularly enjoy hauling massive sacks across uneven dirt, but it gave me an excuse to do what I do best: pretend I’m not nervous. Pretend I don’t have a date. Pretend that I’m not secretly a teenager again, all twisted up with hope and dread and “what if he actually likes me?”
And I can ignore the truth that comes back to haunt me yet again:
I’ve never been on a date.
With Paul, things just happened without dates or any discussion. We never had to define what we were back then, because we were kids—as a couple, we justwere. Sameclasses. Same friends. Same track through life. Ever since we split, I’ve kept myself busy and the thought of a date never even entered my mind.
That’s why it’s easier to shovel grain into a bin and let the dusty quiet of Happy Horizons soak into my skin rather than face the fact that Clément gave me a date in front of half the town. That I said yes. That in about twenty-six minutes, he’s going to show up and I’ll still smell like chicken coop.
“Hand me that feed scoop,” I tell Scotty, not bothering to wipe the sweat from my temple.
“You sure?” he asks. “I can finish it off?—”
“I’m already here.”
Scotty shrugs and hands me the scoop, going back to the fencing he’s repairing. The sun’s still high, casting long amber beams across the property. Sheep are bleating softly in the next pen over, and Edgar’s chewing on what looks suspiciously like one of Angel’s flip-flops.
It’s peaceful. If I forget what time it is, I can almost believe this is a regular day.
That is until a screech cuts across the yard. “Scotty! Where’s Marcy?!”
His head doesn’t even lift. “She’s with me! Coop duty!”
“Nooooo!”
“Oh, no,” I whisper, just as Angel comes bursting through the barn doors in a flurry.
She skids to a stop in the dirt, stares at me, takes in my entire ensemble—sweaty T-shirt, mud-dotted jeans, frizzy hair from coop humidity—and practically levitates with horror.
