Page 22 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door (Love in Maple Falls #5)

MARCY

T here are a thousand things happening around me—music playing, cider bubbling, a child screaming with joy over winning a stuffed goat that looks suspiciously like Edgar’s cousin—but all I see is Clément.

He’s goat-whispering again.

One hand gently pats Edgar’s head like he’s an old buddy, while the other gestures in wide, exaggerated sweeps toward the dunk tank. “ Regarde, mon chèvre ,” he murmurs, as if Edgar speaks fluent French. “We are going to humiliate the man with the smug smile.”

Edgar bleats in agreement. He’s absolutely on board.

Angel, who is watching with the bemused expression of someone who long ago surrendered to the pandemonium, holds out a bucket of softballs while Lisette plays at her feet. Clément slips her a twenty with a wink.

“Ten throws,” she announces, counting them out like poker chips and then points with her thumb to Carson. “No refunds if he heckles you. ”

“Oh, he will,” Clément replies. “But I will have the last laugh.”

The crowd thickens. People have started noticing that Carson, with a mile-wide grin, is perched on the dunk tank ledge, taunting the town's newest favorite Frenchman.

“You call that a throwing stance?” Carson crows, leaning forward with an exaggerated yawn.

Clément mutters under his breath, squinting down the invisible line from the softball to the bullseye.

He throws…

And misses. A collective “Ooooh!” ripples through the crowd.

Carson waves. “Strike one!”

Clément puffs out his cheeks and tosses the next ball. Another miss.

“Strike two! Should’ve stuck to throwing tantrums!”

The third hits the wooden board but bounces off harmlessly. By the fifth throw, Clément has abandoned the air of quiet confidence and begun muttering what I can only assume are very creative French insults under his breath. Though the words sound lovely.

By the seventh throw, Angel offers him a hot apple cider.

By the ninth miss, Edgar has sat down beside me, chewing a piece of someone’s corn husk doll, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

I’m trying not to laugh, but it’s hopeless.

Clément whirls toward me, cheeks flushed, arms wide. “I’ve been cursed.”

“No,” I say. “You’re just bad at throwing things.”

The crowd is fully invested now. Children are chanting. Teens are filming. Someone has set their phone to play the Rocky theme song.

Clément lifts the final ball like it’s made of gold .

Then he turns toward me.

“Ah non ,” I say, hands going up.

He drops to one knee. “Marcy Fontaine,” he says, loud enough for most of Maple Fest to turn our way, “would you do me the honor… of helping me vanquish my overconfident friend?”

“You’re ridiculous.” A laugh escapes me. I take the ball, fingers brushing his as I do.

“Do your best,” he whispers in that silky French accent. “All of Maple Falls is watching.”

So is he.

My hands are sweating. The ball’s lighter than I expected and I square my shoulders.

Just like that, I’m not at Maple Fest anymore. I’m back in a dusty field on the edge of the Hudson River, the sun burning the tops of my thighs through white polyester pants, the scoreboard announcing Poughkeepsie Pixies – 4, Syracuse Sirens – 3 .

Top of the ninth. Two outs.

My hand around the softball, slick with nerves and Gatorade. My catcher, Laney, crouched behind the plate with that look in her eyes that said, This is it, Fontaine. You mess this up and you’re paying for post-game snacks for the rest of the season.

I struck the batter out to win the game.

We didn’t win a championship—the Pixies weren’t really built for dynasties—but that moment, that throw… it was mine .

I take a slow breath and return to the present, ball in hand, Clément’s eyes locked on me like I’m holding his fate in my fingers.

This time, the stakes are somehow higher.

Or at least weirder. Because the crowd here isn’t just fans.

It’s neighbors. Kids I’ve tutored in math.

Retirees whose taxes I’ve helped sort for free.

Shopkeepers whose budgets I’ve rebuilt. The entire fiscal backbone of Maple Falls is currently chanting my name as I attempt to dunk a man into a glorified livestock tub.

None of them know I used to play. None of them know I can throw.

They’re about to.

I roll the ball once between my palms. Anchor my feet. Eyes on the target.

Carson is still heckling. “You sure you’re not an undercover hockey scout, Marcy? You’ve got that don’t talk to me unless it’s about penalties vibe.” I pull my arm back. “Show me what you got, Mar?—”

I throw.

The ball leaves my hand in a perfect arc and hits the bullseye dead center with a mechanical CLUNK so satisfying it belongs in a highlight reel.

Carson doesn’t even have time to finish my name before the seat collapses and he drops straight into the pool with a splash that soaks three kids in the front row.

The crowd erupts .

There’s shouting and laughter and a collective high-pitched “WHOA!” as Carson resurfaces, sputtering with hair slicked back like a golden retriever at bath time.

Now, that was a pitch.

Next thing I know, Clément’s arms are around me. One second, I’m standing in my boots, flushed with triumph, and the next I’m airborne, twirling in the middle of the Happy Horizons corner.

His embrace is sure. His smile is wide. He sets me down like I’m made of something rare and breakable. The world spins a little slower.

“You didn’t tell me you had skills,” he murmurs .

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I reply, and it sounds a lot like flirting.

Flirting? Who am I? The girl who never had a date in her life is flirting?

Carson lifts himself out of the tank, sopping but with a big smile. “Well, if I was going to get dunked, I’m glad it was in style! Who knew the accountant had a mean curveball?”

Clément beams. “I know exactly how to celebrate your victory.”

“Oh?” I arch an eyebrow. “Does it involve Carson buying me a new pair of boots after that cannonball splash?”

He winks. “Cupcakes.”

“Of course.”

He steers us toward Neesha’s stand full of purpose and pastry dreams. “Thankfully, I don’t know how to make them,” he says. “If I did, I’d never eat another vegetable again.”

I shake my head, trying not to smile. “You keep eating balanced or I’m telling your mother.”

He goes quiet and glances away.

“You okay?” I ask, already regretting the joke. “Did I overstep? Do you have a complicated relationship with your mother?”

“No, it’s not that.” He takes a deep breath. “She passed away when I was twenty-two.”

“Oh.” I stop walking. “Clément, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have been throwing jokes like that around without knowing you better.”

But he looks over at me. “It’s okay. She’s one of my favorite subjects.”

We reach Neesha’s table and Clément buys us both cupcakes. Maple buttercream for me. Candied pecan for him.

He leads us to a quiet bench under a tree strung with golden lights that pop on as the sun starts to go down. The music and laughter fade behind us.

“She’s the reason I played hockey,” he says as he sits beside me, unwrapping the cupcake. “My mom. She found this junior team on the edge of Paris. Told me I was too fast to be stuck inside all day. We didn’t have gear, didn’t even have a car. But she made it happen.”

“She sounds kind of amazing,” I say.

“She was tiny. Smaller than you, even,” he adds with a glance at me.

“But loud. Loud in this way that echoed in your bones. She’d wave a ridiculous red embroidered handkerchief at my games, so I always knew where she was.

Even when I played well enough for scouts to come, she never stopped waving that thing. ”

There’s something about a man who loves his mother like that. Something grounding. Something good.

“She would’ve loved Maple Falls,” he adds with a small, crooked smile. “All this charm and pandemonium.”

“Sounds like the kind of woman who’d love Edgar as much as he loves you,” I murmur.

He laughs, and it’s so sincere that I feel it in my ribs.

Right there, sitting on a bench with icing on my fingers and seeing more of the real Clément, I forget why I ever thought he was trouble.

“Frenchie!”

I glance over. Clément stiffens beside me. The call breaks our quietude like a hockey puck through a window.

Jamie Hayes, the Ice Breakers’ captain, is striding toward us, jacket unbuttoned. He spots us, sitting way too close on this little wooden bench, frosting still on Clément’s thumb, and his eyebrows tick upward.

“Oh,” Jamie says, slowing as he registers our faces. “Sorry to interrupt. You two were having a moment? ”

Were being the operative word.

“It’s okay.” Clément stands, brushing nonexistent crumbs from his pants. “ Salut , Jamie.”

Jamie nods, then turns to me with a grin. “Hey, you’re Marcy, right? I hope we’ll see you bidding at the bachelor auction. This guy”—he claps Clément on the shoulder—“is one of the top picks. Accent alone’s gonna raise a fortune. I hope he’s told you to bring your credit card.”

The words hit me like a slap. Clément goes still as Jamie backs away with a wave.

No, he hadn’t told me. In fact, he specifically said he wasn’t participating. How he said he wouldn’t be caught dead doing such a thing. Like it wasn’t happening . But now he’s standing there, not denying it.

I feel myself folding up inside.

Clément turns to me, voice low and desperate. “Marcy, I—” Then he lapses into French.

“It doesn’t matter.” I smile but it feels fake. I smooth my skirt even though I can’t feel my hands. “Don’t worry about it. You know you can do whatever you want.”

He blinks. “It’s not?—”

“You’re a grown man,” I continue, forcing a bright, brittle laugh. “You’re a hockey celebrity, right? Who was I to think you wouldn’t do such a thing, and for a great cause? We both know a ton of women would love to bid on you.”

His face crumples a little, and I hate how much I want to fix it. Because I won’t. I should’ve known he was that kind of guy. Should’ve remembered what kind of story this is. The woman falls for the golden boy and ends up flattened when the cameras come back on.

He opens his mouth, but I’m already stepping back. “Seriously, you’re going to have a blast. I have to get going, so why don’t you boys go have fun. I have about four hundred spreadsheets waiting for me, plus filings for Happy Horizons, and Neesha’s books are due next week…”

“Marcy, please—” Clément pleads.

I can’t.

Not if I want to hold it together.

I turn before he sees the tears gathering at the corners of my eyes.