Page 19 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door (Love in Maple Falls #5)

MARCY

T he cupcake margins aren’t margining.

I squint at Neesha’s spreadsheet and try not to bang my head against the table.

She’s got talent, no question. Her cinnamon chai cupcakes are basically an out-of-body experience.

But talent doesn’t pay taxes. And right now, her inventory system is more suggestion than structure.

She’s labeled half her receipts as “fun stuff” and included an entirely unexplained line item for “cupcake emergencies.”

I cross out cupcake emergencies and replace it with contingency supply budget. Better. Slightly less adorable. Much more IRS-friendly.

My pen stills as my mind wanders back to last night, to the rink, the lights, the roar of the crowd.

Back to him.

Clément played like he was born for it. The way the arena screamed when his name was called, I swear the floor vibrated. People love him .

Including the woman in front of me, screaming throughout the game, Je t’aime, Frenchie! and referring to him—loudly and with zero shame—as filet mignon.

Okay, yes. Objectively, he’s symmetrical. And tall. And the tux on the night of the inaugural bash didn’t exactly hurt.

But did she have to yell it like she was ordering off a menu?

I’m desperate to absorb myself back in Neesha’s financials when I hear a low chuckle, faint through the window.

No.

No, no, no, no. I am hallucinating now. I’ve officially conjured his laugh out of thin air.

I push back from the desk, walk to the curtain, and pull it open?—

He’s here.

Walking across the garden with Scotty. Clément is wearing a flannel shirt and pushing his hair back like he just stepped out of a woodsy fragrance ad. He says something I can’t hear, and Scotty laughs so hard he nearly topples into a fence post.

And just like that, my carefully cultivated emotional distance crumbles a little more.

I dart a quick glance around the cabin like a raccoon caught in a flashlight beam. No back door. No closet big enough to convincingly slip into. I even consider climbing out the window, but the screen is still stuck from the summer storms.

Then the knock comes. Firm and cheerful, it’s Scotty’s knock.

“Marcy?” he calls.

I freeze. My heart tries to burrow down into my stomach. I grab the closest object, a highlighter, and clutch it like I’m going to defend myself with fluorescent yellow logic .

“I—uh—I’m doing inventory!” I shout. “Very delicate math happening in here! Can’t open the door!”

There’s a pause.

“Marcy,” Scotty says in his patented Dad Knows You’re Lying voice, “you doing inventory in your pajamas?”

Busted.

I groan and shuffle to the door, taking a second to smooth my hair and pull my cardigan tighter around me, as if that will fortify my crumbling emotional walls.

When I open the door, Clément is a step behind Scotty. I stand up straight, trying to conjure professional composure in jammies that are covered in corgi dogs. “Good morning.”

Scotty claps Clément’s shoulder. “Player of the game stopped by for coffee. You joining us?”

“I’m busy.”

My voice comes out clipped.

Clément’s face flickers. That smile he always seems to carry, natural and easy, hesitates at the corners of his mouth before slipping.

Good.

No, not good.

Heavens, I don’t know what I want anymore.

Scotty’s eyebrows lift like I’ve just pulled a fire alarm for fun.

I clear my throat and fold my arms tighter. “Let me just say…” Deep breath. Steady. Stick to the facts. “You played well. Last night.”

There. Compliment delivered. No swooning. No evidence of emotional vulnerability. Just one adult acknowledging the performance of another adult, like we’re at a formal awards banquet instead of standing three feet apart with my heart doing somersaults and my stomach tying itself in knots .

Clément’s mouth curves back into that smile. “I was glad you came.”

I nod, resisting the part of me that wants to say, Me too.

Instead, my mouth does the thing it does when I’m uncomfortable and rapidly spiraling: it talks.

“I didn’t realize you were so popular. I mean, the crowd loved you. You’re practically the dreamboat of the Ice Breakers team. All those people shouting your name, and that woman with the I love you, Frenchie thing—what was that?”

Clément stares and Scotty shifts his weight and folds his arms.

I should stop. I should. I hear the edge in my voice. I know it sounds defensive, but it’s like trying to steer a canoe in a hurricane.

“Then again, you must be used to it by now,” I say, arms crossed tight. “Being a star. Must be hard keeping all your lady fans off you.”

There’s a beat of silence. Clément stares at me. Stutters. Opens his mouth. Closes it.

Then Scotty turns his head slowly toward me with a look I recognize very well.

It’s the look he gives Lily when she tries to claim the broken jar was “already cracked.”

Clément rubs the back of his neck, his fingers dragging slowly through the hair at his nape. He looks… hurt? Or like he’s trying to read me, trying to understand if he imagined the warmth between us the other night or if it has simply evaporated.

There’s a question in his expression, maybe more than one. But he doesn’t ask.

He drops his gaze to the ground, lets his hand fall to his side, and clears his throat lightly.

“I should get back,” he says, voice lower now, a little rougher. “My house isn’t going to fix itself and I’m on a timeline now. Thanks for lending me the nail gun, Scotty.”

And just like that, the wall between us is complete. I built it, brick by careful brick.

He nods at Scotty, offers me the smallest of waves, then shoves his hands deep into his jacket pockets. “ à bient?t .”

Scotty claps him on the shoulder. “I’ll try to get out there, lend a hand.”

Clément pats his hand back, gently. “Don’t worry about it, mon vieux. I have strong legs and poor time management. It’ll get done, eventually. This was the dream.”

He looks at me again, hesitates, and then smiles quickly.

Then he’s walking away, shoulders hunched. I have an awful swoop in my stomach. He didn’t do anything wrong.

But this is for the best. Space. Logic. Self-preservation. I know how these stories end.

I intend to go back inside and continue convincing myself that I’m doing the right thing, but Scotty’s still standing there. Hands on hips and eyebrows up.

“Marcy,” he says. “Let’s talk about what’s really going on.”

I stiffen. “There’s nothing going on. I mean, you know how hockey players are.”

His brows inch up higher.

I barrel ahead. “They’re charming. They’re flirty. They know exactly how to work a crowd. And they always go for the person who isn’t falling for it, because it’s a challenge. That’s what this is. That’s what Clément’s doing. He’s just circling the ice like I’m some kind of… emotional puck.”

Scotty exhales slowly. “Is that really how you feel about hockey players?”

My brain screams abort, but my mouth doesn’t listen.

“Look at them on TV,” I say, waving widely like the entire streaming industry has betrayed me personally.

“The tabloids, the interviews, the headlines. They’re bad boys in designer suits.

Tattoos, fast cars, bad decisions. And I am not getting pulled into that orbit.

I’ve been down that track before. And spoiler alert, it doesn’t end in happily ever after. ”

Scotty doesn’t laugh. “Is that what you think of me?”

And just like that, the floor falls out from under me.

“What? No. Scotty, no. You’re… you’re different.”

He waits.

“You’re responsible,” I say. “You’re grounded. You’ve got Angel, and the kids, and you care about people, and you’d never treat anyone like they’re a prize to be won.”

My throat feels tight. Like I swallowed the truth and it lodged halfway down.

Scotty reaches out a hand. “C’mon,” he says gently. “Let’s sit.”

He gestures to the front steps of my cabin and lowers himself onto the top one with a quiet groan.

I follow, because somehow, in the middle of this tangle of nerves and stubbornness and whatever it is Clément’s doing to my brain, Scotty’s still a lighthouse and I’m more lost than I thought I was.

We sit side by side on the step, staring out at the fields.

The autumn air nips at my ankles, cool enough to raise goosebumps even through my socks. I should go inside. I have spreadsheets waiting. A cost analysis for cupcake scalability. A budget update from the town hall from Drench for Defense. A perfectly ordered list of things that make sense.

Instead, I stay.

Scotty shifts a little, joints creaking like an old barn door. He rests his arms on his knees, letting the silence stretch just long enough that I start to squirm.

“You know,” he says, “when I first started dating Angel, I was pretty sure I was too old, too banged up, and too tired to be anyone’s beginning.”

I glance at him. He’s still watching the fields.

“She saw something in me I didn’t know was there anymore,” he says. “And I fought it. Thought I was protecting myself. Turns out, I was just stalling.”

He turns to me, his eyes kind.

“I know you’ve been hurt. I know when someone burns you like that, you get puck shy. That’s normal.”

My throat tightens. I fold my hands in my lap, knuckles white.

“But Marcy,” he says softly, “you’re smarter than this.”

Oof.

He's neither cruel nor disappointed in the way he says it. It’s just fact.

“You’ve got a brain that could scare a tax auditor and a heart big enough to hold a town full of folks trying to save it.” He pauses. “You know better than to judge a man by the jersey he wears.”

I look away. My jaw works, but there’s nothing to say.

We sit there in the quiet. The wind rustles through the dried sunflowers at the edge of the field. Edgar bleats dramatically at a chicken in front of the barn.

A big part of me wants to go back into my cabin. Everything in there represents my life before Clément showed up with his crooked grin and his impossible house and his way of making everything feel less safe and a lot more alive.

That life in my cabin was predictable. Manageable. Fulfilling, even.

And yet… Up until now, Clément hasn’t done a single thing to deserve the ice wall I’ve built.

Not one thing .

Maybe he will. Maybe he’ll turn out to be exactly what I fear.

But maybe he won’t.

And if that’s true—if there’s even a chance—it’s unfair to write him off.

It’s unkind.

Scotty doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t have to.

He already made his point.