Page 90 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door
When I return and settle beside him, he shifts just slightly. I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder. He lifts his arm and encircles me. The weight of it feels right. We sip our tea in silence, wrapped up in each other. Nothing has ever felt better.
We let the moment stretch and settle as the first rays of morning touch the windows.
“The light,” he murmurs, barely above a whisper. “It casts everything in a new glow. Even what we thought we knew.”
I turn my face slightly, and when I meet his eyes, every shield I’ve ever built cracks under the weight of his gaze.
I’m falling.
Completely, recklessly, terrifyingly falling.
I break the stare before I lose all ability to function, setting my mug down with care.
“Come,” I say softly, standing.
He doesn’t ask where. Just rises and follows.
Outside, the air is cold and still, the sky full of that rich, aching pink that comes before dawn. I lead him to the porch of my cabin, one of the only places on the ranch with a perfectly unobstructed view, and extend my arm.
He steps forward and wraps both arms around me like we’ve done this a thousand times before. His chest is warm against my back. His breath at the side of my temple. We don’t speak.
The sun crests the ridge, sudden and glorious, and the whole sky erupts in color. My breath catches. It’s too beautiful for words.
He squeezes me tighter.
I tilt my face up toward him, and he looks down at me. Despite the lack of sleep, the tangles in my hair and what must be dark circles under my eyes, he turns me and leans forward. I meet him halfway.
This kiss is slow. Like a sunrise all its own.
And just like that, our world goes still.
CHAPTER 32
CLÉMENT
Iam kissing Marcy Fontaine.
The girl I thought I could never win. The girl who, somewhere between the lasagna and the dawn, won me instead.
I am completely lost in her as the sun rises red in front of us.
Her lips are soft but certain, like she made the decision a moment before I did and has just been waiting for me to catch up. Her hands are light against my chest, and my heart is thudding so hard I expect her to pull away and ask if I’m okay.
But she doesn’t. She just kisses me back like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
The morning air wraps around us, crisp and clean. I taste her breath, warm against mine, feel the way she leans into me. She’s letting me in.
Everything else—the house that still isn’t livable and might be pulled out from under me, the burden to perform onthe ice, the call from France, the headache that’s been flaring too often—disappears.
In this moment, it’s just her.
Her and the first light of day catching on her cheekbone, the way her hair smells like cedar and sugar and something uniquely hers.
She is strong and kind, with a heart of velvet wrapped in steel. She told me things she’s never said aloud, and I listened, and I told her things I didn’t even know I remembered.
This kiss… it feels like what comes after the truth. Like we’ve both bared so much of ourselves, and now we’re meeting each other with no pretense.
But how can I fall in love when my foundation is cracking all around me?
