Page 6 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door (Love in Maple Falls #5)

CLéMENT

I came to Maple Falls to play hockey.

So why am I holding a hammer that looks older than my grandmother’s croque-monsieur pan, standing in a doorway that sags with despair?

Because apparently, dreams are complicated.

Back home, I played for Les Lions de Paris , a team full of style, strategy, and ego. It was all press conferences and traffic and overpriced coffee in places with names like L’Atelier du Sport .

But I always had this idea—maybe from too many American movies, maybe from my grandmother’s vintage Better Homes & Gardens collection—that American small towns were different . Simpler. A place where I could breathe.

Most NHL teams are based in big cities, which kind of kills the fantasy. But the Ice Breakers are a big league team bringing life to a small town.

It was a perfect mix.

The thing is, this house is nowhere near livable. The kitchen floor tilts east, the water smells like old pennies, and last night I found a wasp the size of a kiwi in the attic.

But the charm could kill. Perhaps literally if I don’t get this building permit soon.

This house has more character than most French villas. There’s a sunroom with stained glass, floorboards that creak like they’re telling secrets, and a little brass keyhole on the upstairs bedroom door that I’m pretty sure unlocks another dimension.

I love it. I also have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

Case in point: I’ve been trying to reattach a doorframe for forty minutes, and I’m starting to suspect that the “level” I bought is either broken or possessed. The bubble keeps sliding off-center like it’s mocking me.

“Stay,” I mutter, tapping the level gently against the wood. “That’s all I ask. S’il vous pla?t. ”

The level slides again. I adjust the doorframe. Tap. Re-check.

Still crooked.

I hammer a nail into place just to feel like I’ve accomplished something—and promptly hit my thumb.

“GAH! Mince! ” I shout, flinging the hammer across the room. It lands in a pile of what I’m calling insulation and what might actually be haunted hay.

I stick my thumb in my mouth, sulking like a kid who got benched in peewee league.

This was supposed to be my sanctuary. My fresh start.

And now I’m bleeding in a grumpy house with a temperamental level and no permit.

Worse, I’m still thinking about her .

My phone rings just as I’m seriously considering the possibility that I might not be able to move in time before I’m kicked out of the rental condo. I dig the phone out of my back pocket and squint at the screen.

Mathieu B.

My oldest friend. I swipe to answer.

“Mathieu, mon frère ,” I say. “To what do I owe the intrusion?”

“You actually picked up.” He sounds like he’s smiling too, but there’s a hollowness underneath.

I glance at the hammer still embedded in a pile of haunted hay. “I’ve been bonding with my property.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“I am a man of culture,” I say. “And calluses.”

“You had a blister from peeling an orange last spring.”

“ That orange was aggressive, and I’ve grown since then.” I glance around the room and sigh. “Well. Grown emotionally. Not structurally. The house is still very much winning.”

Mathieu chuckles, but it fades quickly. He’s quiet for a second too long.

“Have you eaten anything?” I ask gently.

“I had coffee.”

I raise my eyebrows. “That’s not food.”

He laughs again, weaker this time. “Don’t start.”

“You need real food. Protein. Solids. You’re basically built from espresso and unprocessed heartbreak.”

“Clément.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to do this every time we talk.”

“Do what?”

“The thing where you pretend I’m still me.”

He says it so plainly that it catches me off guard. I lean on the side of the doorway and feel the weight of it settle in my chest.

“You are still you,” I say. “You’re just slightly collapsed. ”

“And very single.”

“Better single than still with?—”

“Don’t,” he says, cutting me off sharply. “Don’t say her name.”

I stop. Shift my weight. Nod, even though he can’t see me.

“Okay,” I say quietly. “No names. But for the record? She never deserved your weird little heart.”

“I’m trying to forget her,” he mutters. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m excellent at distracting,” I say, sitting back on a crate that’s pretending to be a chair. “In fact, I may have news.”

“Good or bad?”

“Depends on your tolerance for dangerous women.”

He groans. “Tell me you haven’t already gotten yourself involved.”

“I wouldn’t say involved. I would say… cautiously fascinated. ”

Mathieu exhales. “Is she blonde?”

“Dark hair. Sharp tongue. Wears blazers in a heat wave.”

“Business casual or sexy CEO?”

“Both. More like, angry-sexy CEO. The kind that cancels meetings by staring at you.”

“Ah,” he says. “You’re in love.”

“No!” I sit up too fast and almost knock over the box of nails I forgot I left on the windowsill. “I’m not in love. I’m interested . Professionally. Maybe academically, like a social experiment. She’s fascinating.”

“She have a name?”

“Marcy Fontaine Accounting is what it says on the card she flung in my direction. She’s the accountant for the town and did not have much time for me.”

“You mean she hates you.”

“Deeply. ”

Mathieu laughs, and it doesn’t sound forced. “So you’ve introduced yourself.”

“She said I wasn’t supposed to be there,” I say, chuckling. “And then accused me of being the type who rolls into town and jets when it gets hard.”

Mathieu whistles. “She clocked you.”

“I’ll remind you that I’ve planned for years to try my luck in America.”

“And not at all because you’re afraid that your last bout of migraines nearly took you with it.”

That’s the problem with best friends. They keep you honest. I’ve been doing everything I can to forget that there’s something wrong in my head, something that just keeps getting worse.

“I came here,” I say slowly, “to start a new life. I wanted quiet and space. Hockey, sure—but more than that. I wanted mornings with birds and odd neighbors and a diner that remembers my order. I wanted a house that creaks and leaks and probably curses me when I sleep. And a woman who wants the same.”

Mathieu doesn’t say anything for a while.

“Right,” Mathieu says. “Well, she sounds like a woman who files her taxes early.”

“She probably files other people’s taxes for fun.”

“You should go after her, mon frère .”

“I didn’t say anything was going to happen.”

“You didn’t have to. I know you.”

I smile. And for one brief moment, the sun hits the stained-glass window just right and everything—me, the house, this town—feels like it could work.

Then Mathieu says, “I’m surprised I caught you. I thought you’d be at practice by now. ”

I glance at my watch and immediately let out a string of French that would make my grandmother wag a finger at me.

I jump off the crate, whack my shin on a rusty toolbox, and drop the phone.

“I’m late!” I shout into the speaker as I scramble to grab it. “I’m so late. They’re going to put me on mascot duty for this!”

“Tell her you love her! Americans love a French accent!”

“Shut up!”

I slap the phone off, grab my duffel, and bolt out the door, tripping over a coil of extension cord on the way and showering myself in dust, again.

Late, to the very first practice of the newly-turned-pro Ice Breakers. I am never going to hear the end of this.

The second my blades hit the ice, a whistle blows and everything stops.

I mean everything.

No pucks, passes. Or shouting. Just twelve grown men in full hockey gear standing like statues, watching me glide in like a very guilty goalie.

“Well, well, look who decided to grace us with his presence,” Coach Dale calls. His voice echoes like we’re in a cathedral and I sneezed during mass. “Did your baguette take too long to toast, Rivière?”

Snickers ripple across the rink.

I skate faster, ducking my head, trying to blend in with the boards. Not easy when you're wearing bright white goalie pads and carrying a stick the size of a canoe paddle .

“Sorry, Coach,” I mutter as I reach the crease. “Alarm didn’t go off.”

Coach isn’t done. “Since you clearly needed the extra rest,” he says, eyes gleaming, “you can do a little extra work after practice. The ice bath needs cleaning. And by cleaning, I mean scrubbing . With a toothbrush.”

Groans from a few. Laughter from everyone else.

“That thing’s a biohazard,” one of the guys says.

“Pretty sure something in there blinked at me,” another adds.

I try to smirk. “My pleasure, Coach.”

“ Do not say that in a French accent,” he snaps.

More laughter.

I drop into the butterfly position just to feel grounded. The net is mine.

I can handle their chirping. The toothbrush duty? I’ll survive. Probably.

The room with the ice bath smells like bleach and at least three protein shake spills that were never properly addressed.

I’m on my knees, scrubbing a glob that might be mold or might be the beginning of a sentient life form, when the door creaks open and I hear Weston’s voice.

Weston is my neighbor in the condo complex I’m renting while the house tries to kill me with splinters.

He’s a defenseman with the energy of a Labrador retriever who just discovered coffee.

Behind him is Lucian, a fellow defenseman I just recently met.

“Well, well,” he says, “if it isn’t our Parisian prince, brought low by his own tardiness. ”

I don’t look up. “You’re jealous of my natural elegance.”

“I’m jealous you get to bond with mildew while the rest of us hit the showers. Clément, meet Lucian,” Weston says. “You know he came up from Carolina. Known for two things: the fix-it flip and knowing how to use a torque wrench.”

So that’s why he’s got that calm, I-fix-my-own-plumbing energy.

Lucian gives me a nod. He has the quiet confidence of a guy who could rebuild your bathroom, but will silently judge you if you ask him to hand you the wrong screwdriver.

“Sorry about your penance,” Lucian says, eyeing the scrub brush in my hand.

I wipe sweat off my forehead with the clean part of my wrist. “It is humbling.”

“It is disgusting,” Weston offers helpfully. “The last guy who got this duty developed a mysterious rash and started seeing spiders that weren’t there.”

“I’ll put that in my memoir,” I mutter.

Lucian squats down a few feet away. “So,” he says, “Weston said you bought a house?”

“ Oui. ” I lean back on my heels. “Technically, I bought a pile of wood wearing a roof. It’s historic. By which I mean no one’s done a thing with it since the Civil War.”

Weston cuts in. “You’ve seen the place, Lucian. The two-story out on the edge of town, heading toward Happy Horizons Ranch.”

Lucian snaps his head back to me, eyes wide. “You bought that?”

“I like a challenge.”

Lucian raises an eyebrow. “You like electrical fires?”

I shrug. “Keeps you warm in Pacific Northwestern winter. ”

“And you’re doing the work yourself?” he asks, brushing a fleck of paint off a bench like it offended him.

I hesitate. “Yes? Mostly. Ish. That was the dream. Use my own hands to build something that will last a lifetime. If I hire out the work, then my blood and sweat will be for nothing.”

Lucian grins. “Want a second pair of eyes on it? I could swing by. Point out what’s going to fall on your head first.”

I try to play it cool, even as a wave of overwhelming relief washes over me like a spiritual pressure wash.

“That would be appreciated,” I say. “Merci, mon ami .”

Weston snorts. “Wow. He only breaks out mon ami when he’s seconds away from crying.”

“I am not crying,” I say, vigorously scrubbing a tile to prove it. “This is how French men express gratitude. And deeply repressed emotion.” I look up and wink.

Lucian stands up. “Text me the address. I’ll bring gloves. And don’t forget the back corner of the bath.” He points and cringes.

I head that way to scrub. “Remember me next time your muscles are getting a nice, cool bath, and all the sweat labor it took.”

He chuckles. “You bet, Frenchie.”