Page 70 of The Goat Next Door

“Oh, please,” Amy says, leaning forward, her calm teacher voice completely disappearing, replaced by an eager, conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s be real for a second. Brooks Lawson is a literal statue of a man. He has that jawline, those gray eyes, and that whole tragic, brooding protector thing going on. He is a certified hot man, Ember.”

“Right?” I blurt out, throwing my hands in the air. “Thank you! I thought I was losing my mind because everyone in this town treats him like he’s a piece of historical architecture! He carries a stove into my kitchen and I’m just sitting there trying to remember how sentences work.”

“Oh, he’s a hazard all right,” Amy purrs. “The entire valley has been trying to set that boy up for three years, and he won’t even look at a woman if she isn’t wearing a high-visibility vest. But he carried a stove into your kitchen?”

“A floor model,” I clarify, my cheeks turning a hot, involuntary pink. “And then on Thursday night… he drove me home in the thunderstorm because the grandmas basically forced him to at knife point. And things got… slightly complicated in the front seat.”

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“I kissed him, Amy. And not a polite little standard thank-you peck on the cheek. I grabbed his jaw and actually kissed his mouth,” I wail, burying my face in my hands, though a tiny, breathless thrill shoots straight down my spine at the memory. “His stubble was hot, his mouth parted, and I swear to you, I felt his entire brain short-circuit. I even grabbed his hip through his damp uniform.”

I pause, blinking at her. “Oh my God, I’m doing it again, aren’t I? I’m sharing too much. I promise I don’t only talk about my parents’ erotica empire or my impulsive romantic disasters, I just haven’t spoken to a peer in days.”

Amy lets out a loud, sharp gasp, clapping her hands together. “Don’t stop, share more! Emmy, you broke the Chief! I am completely rooting for this. You need to marry him, move into the big house, and let Sophie teach you how to dress like a normal person.”

“Sophie is a sweetheart,” I laugh, my heart doing that strange, high-velocity thumping just thinking about the kid—and her father. “But Brooks is thirty-one, a serious professional, and carries himself like he’s built out of municipal regulations. I am a walking financial anomaly. We are from different solar systems.”

“Different solar systems make for the best gravity,” Amy says. She checks a delicate leather watch on her wrist. “I have to get back to the school to sign off on the summer reading lists. But I’m coming to see you at the bakery. I expect a full update on the fire department’s status, and you better have a raspberry danish waiting for me.”

“The danish will be secured, teacher,” I say, walking her back to her bicycle.

“Keep scrubbing that goat,” she says, throwing her leg over the cruiser with absolute elegance. “And don’t look Brooks in the eye unless you’re prepared to handle the hose!”

I shake my head, a massive, genuine smile on my face as I watch her pedal down the lane, her dark braid swinging against her back, completely unbothered by the dust.

Having an actual friend—someone my own age who understands the absolute hilarity of a brooding neighbor—makes the air in the hollow feel lighter than it has since I arrived.

The Gilded Goat is also finally starting to look less like an abandoned historical lawsuit and more like an actual house.

Not a fully functional house, obviously.

There are still exposed pipes in the laundry room, one suspicious soft spot near the upstairs hallway window, and a section of porch railing Brooks keeps referring to as “a liability.”

But the broken cabinet doors are rehung now. The dining room lights actually work without flickering like a paranormal warning. And over the last few weeks we’ve managed to scrape, patch, sand, or stabilize enough things that the place finally feels lived in instead of condemned.

There are fresh curtains over the kitchen windows. The floor no longer groans like it’s spiritually suffering every time I walk across it. And at night, when the lamps are on and the windows glow gold against the pasture, the old farmhouse almost looks proud of itself again.

Which just makes me even more emotionally attached to this money pit.

⋆ ✦ ⋆

I am standing over my pristine, newly installed vintage stove, wearing my yellow overalls with a white apron tied over the top, staring into a giant stainless-steel pot.

Inside is a gray, rubbery, curdled mass that looks less like elegant chèvre and more like a melted orthopedic shoe.

I’ve spent the last ninety minutes meticulously measuring raw goat’s milk, drops of liquid rennet, and diluted citric acid according to a highly rated digital infographic, but the chemical reaction has gone entirely off the rails.

The screen door rattles, and the heavy, slow thud of leather work boots echoes on the porch boards.

“Emmy?”

Brooks pushes the door open, his massive frame instantly filling the kitchen. He’s in his casual utility uniform—dark blue canvas trousers and a tight gray t-shirt that shows off the rigid, heavy lines of his shoulders.

He takes one step across the threshold, stops dead, and his nostrils flare as his eyes instantly narrow.

“What the hell is that smell?” he asks. “Did something crawl under the floorboards and die near the pilot light?”

“It is not a carcass, Brooks,” I snap, aggressively stirring the rubbery gray mass with a long wooden spoon. “It is artisanal goat cheese. Or rather, it is currently in the beta-testing phase of artisanal goat cheese.”