Page 35 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door (Love in Maple Falls #5)

CLéMENT

T he couch creaks as I shift again, trying for the hundredth time to find a position that doesn’t make my skull feel like it’s being slowly compressed by invisible hands.

Weston left me a soft blanket and a firm warning to text him if I needed anything, but I can’t even look at my phone.

The light hurts too much. Everything does.

Mathieu’s arrival was less than fanfare, poor guy. He knows what I’m going through and is already off sight-seeing, but I can’t help feeling a little guilty. Only a little, though. I know Maple Falls is going to do him a world of good.

I close my eyes, but I don’t sleep. I hover in that strange place where time distorts and thoughts coil like vines around my throat.

Another migraine. Or maybe the same one that’s been lurking behind my eyes since I left Marcy on that beautiful morning with the sun rising behind her.

I press my palm to my temple. My fingers are clammy. I can’t get warm .

What am I doing?

What am I doing?

Hockey, my sport, the one that gave me a lifeline when I had nothing else, is slipping away from me.

I can’t play like this. I can’t think, can’t track the puck like I need to, can’t even breathe when the lights hit me just so.

I’m losing the one thing I’ve spent my whole life building.

I clawed my way up and left everything behind.

My country. Every other version of a life I could have lived. I gave it all to the game.

And now I can feel it, the way a goalie feels a bad bounce before it ever hits the ice.

The end.

I pull the blanket up higher and tuck it under my chin.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

The dream fills me again. A house that creaks with character.

A long career with fans in the stands and my name on a jersey.

Sunday mornings with the woman I love beside me, her laugh echoing through a kitchen we built together.

A kid or two. A dog with a ridiculous name.

Some version of permanence I never had growing up, even with my mother’s best efforts.

But now the house is falling apart, my body’s giving out, and the future I let myself believe in is slipping through my fingers.

And then there’s Marcy.

Marcy, with her quiet fire and numbers that never lie, and a heart so big it scares me. Marcy, who looked at me during that sunrise like I was the only man for her.

I kissed her like I meant it, because I did. Every breath, every heartbeat, every piece of me was hers.

I am in love with Marcy Fontaine.

But now I’m losing my dream, my body, my team. I can’t stand the thought of losing her, too. Which is why I cannot see her.

If I see her, I’ll stay. I’ll stay, and I’ll fall, and I’ll ruin everything.

This body of mine has an expiration date for the ice now. I can feel it ticking with every throb behind my eyes.

So I’ll go back to France, back to the offer my friend made.

A new team. A new purpose. A softer ending.

Marcy deserves more than a man who can’t promise her forever. She deserves someone who isn’t half-broken. Who doesn’t have to choose between pain and passion. Who won’t one day struggle to say her name when the pain becomes too much.

I stare up at the ceiling, tears stinging.

Maybe I’ll send her flowers. A letter to explain. A poem. Something French. A goodbye worthy of the woman she is.

I’ll write to her that I was homesick, that the offer was too good to pass up and I had to leave immediately.

Because if I look her in the eyes again, I won’t go.

And I have to go.

The photograph that I found in the basement of the house peeks out from the side of my bag.

I pull it out and look again at the large extended family, and at the couple on the top step.

There’s no doubt in my mind now that this is Victor MacDonald, and I feel a sudden urge to get this back into the hands of his family.

I can’t go back to France and keep this.

It doesn’t belong with me, it belongs with the town, with the family who started it all.

After the sun rises and a reasonable hour strikes, I dress in the nearest set of clothes and head out, the photograph tucked into an envelope for safe-keeping.

I know most people here would recoil at the idea of me seeking out Jeremy Hunt, Alexander MacDonald’s representative, but that’s the only way I can think of to be sure this photograph gets to its rightful owner.

There’s only one place I can imagine a man like Jeremy Hunt staying: The Regent’s Hotel.

The Regent’s Hotel rises in front of me like something from an old novel—one of those grand American estates that wanted to be Versailles but landed closer to art deco Gatsby instead.

I try to flatten my hair and step through the carved wooden doors.

The receptionist looks at me with suspicion at first, but the moment I ask if Jeremy Hunt is staying here, she smiles and declares, “Oh! It’s the Frenchie Ice Breaker!

” She calls up to Jeremy Hunt’s room and says he has a visitor.

Mr. Hunt doesn’t sound convinced based on the back and forth I hear, but the receptionist hangs up and tells me he’s coming.

Jeremy Hunt looks exactly the way I’d expect a representative of a billionaire to look.

“Good day, Mr. Hunt,” I begin and extend my hand.

“I haven’t had my morning coffee yet, so this better be good,” he says even as he extends his hand and shakes mine.

“I’ll be quick.” I suddenly realize I don’t want to be here as much as he doesn’t want to be here either. I have a game coming and a plane to book. I recount the story quickly, that I found the photograph and that it’s important to me for it to return to Victor MacDonald’s heir.

“Sounds fishy.” Mr. Hunt looks me up and down as I hold out the envelope. “Why should I believe this photograph is original? Are you looking for money?”

“No, I just want to give it back.”

“Is this some ploy you’ve cooked up with the Town Hall to make an illegal claim to the town?”

“What? No. I’m French, and I’m heading back to Paris in a couple of days. ”

Why did I tell him that? I haven’t told a soul yet, not even my team. Though Jeremy Hunt seems like the last person to make such an announcement. And it’s important to me that he takes the photo.

“I’m being honest,” I say, holding the envelope closer to him. “I have no stake in it. But I suspect your boss would be very disappointed if you did not give this to him.”

That argument seems to work. He takes the envelope and lifts the flap, looking skeptically inside as though there might be a bomb and not an heirloom photograph. He shuts it and looks at me with narrowed eyes.

“I suppose you want me to say thank you.”

“I don’t want you to say anything,” I reply. “I’ve done my part. Bonne journée, monsieur .”

I walk out of the Regent’s feeling lighter. It was a small thing to do, but it was the right thing. Now I have to return to my real life, where the right thing is so hard to know.

There is no right thing. Only what I must do. Even if it feels wrong.