Page 25 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door (Love in Maple Falls #5)

CLéMENT

T he 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 crashing chez Weston.

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…

If what ?

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.

“Here,” he says, handing me a coffee that smells like it was brewed in a black hole. “Afternoon breakfast of bachelor champions.”

I stare at it, then take a sip. It’s molten and tastes like burned tires, but it does its job. I’m awake now.

Sort of.

“You look like a raccoon gave up halfway through raiding your soul,” Weston says, flopping into the armchair across from me.

I rub my eyes. “It was a long morning, been a long few weeks. I needed the rest.”

I keep thinking about what Asher said. About integration.

About being two versions of myself and not knowing which one is real anymore.

In France, I was the rising star who never had time for anything but ice.

Here, I’ve started to become someone else.

Someone who wants more than stats and trophies.

Someone who maybe believes in connection and roots and early morning coffee in a tiny town full of goats and stubborn women who make your chest ache in all the best ways.

The offer back in France is everything I used to want for my post-playing days. So, with my condition ever-present like a guillotine, why does it feel like a question mark instead of a lifeline?

I rub my temple, but the ache doesn’t go away.

I know this pain.

The neurologist had been very clear.

“We don’t know what’s causing it, and we have no way to cure it.”

I look at Weston, but I can’t bring myself to say anything more. I know something’s not right in my head, and tonight I’m supposed to stand on a stage and smile like everything’s fine.

I wish I could talk to Marcy about all this.

Bachelor auction. The closer I get to the building, the bigger the rock in my stomach gets.

It’s not nerves. I’ve played in front of twenty thousand screaming fans, been body-checked so hard I forgot what city I was in, and taken penalty shots with the game on the line. That kind of stress, I know how to carry.

This is different.

This is smiling for people who don’t know you, laughing at things that aren’t funny, pretending like it’s all harmless fun while you feel like your life is unraveling in quiet, invisible ways.

I stop just before the entrance and glance down at myself.

In my team suit, at least that feels familiar. Pressed shirt. Tailored jacket. French cravat because of course . Shoes polished so hard I could check my reflection in them. And yes—I blow-dried my hair.

The Frenchman has arrived, ladies and gentlemen. Your imported fantasy in all his pre-packaged glory.

I laugh, because I genuinely don’t care. There’s only one woman I wanted to see tonight.

And she wouldn’t be caught dead at a bachelor auction.