Page 98 of The Goat Next Door

I’m pacing his entryway, my hands flying, gesturing to the air as if I can manifest a contractor. “And the garden! Do you have a rake? Do you have heavy-duty fertilizer? Can we install a path? Is there time to install a path?”

Brooks leans against the doorframe, a slow, amused smile spreading across his face. He watches me, his eyes tracking my frantic energy with a kind of grounded patience that makes my chest hurt.

“Ember.”

“Yes? Yes, do you have a path-laying tool?”

“Take a breath,” he says.

He sets his coffee mug down on the console table and walks over to me, his hands settling on my shoulders. His grip is firm, warm, and grounding, his thumbs rubbing through the thin cotton of my shirt.

The contact is electric, and for a second, I forget about the table. I forget about the parents. I just feel him.

“Your parents are going to love this place,” he says. “They’re going to love this place because they love you.”

“You don’t know them!” I wail, but my voice is shaking with laughter now. “They once had a dinner party in a tent in the middle of the Sahara because the ‘aesthetic was better’! They care about everything!”

“Okay,” he shrugs, a glint of challenge in his eyes. “Okay. Then we have to follow the procedure. We need a list. We need a timeline. We need to prioritize the structural integrity over the aesthetic finish.”

I blink at him, my heart slowing down. “A list?”

“A list,” he says, walking over to his desk and pulling out a yellow notepad and a pencil.

I stare at him for a second. Then, embarrassingly, I almost melt on the spot.

“What?” he asks cautiously.

“You making lists for me is weirdly attractive.”

Brooks pauses with the pencil halfway to the paper. “…What?”

“I don’t know,” I admit helplessly. “It’s the competence. The emotional support. The terrifying organizational skills.”

A laugh escapes him before he can stop it. “Emmy.”

“I’m serious. This is foreplay for you, isn’t it?”

“It is absolutely not.”

“You’re literally prioritizing my structural vulnerabilities.”

“That sounds dirty when you say it like that.”

“Everything sounds dirty when I say it.”

He snorts but doesn’t disagree. “Now. What’s the biggest problem?”

I look at him—the way he’s ready to drop everything to help me, the way he’s already taking charge of my chaos—and the panic dissipates, replaced by a warm, bubbling sense of relief.

“The kitchen table,” I say. “It rocks to the left.”

Brooks nods, writing it down. “Leveling the table.”

“The mudroom floorboards,” I say, leaning against the doorframe, watching him write. “They’re loose.”

“Tightening the sub-floor,” he mutters. “And those latch hooks on the pantry—they’ve been loose since you moved in. We’ll fix those, too.”

We stand there for the next hour, me rambling about table cloths and wine glasses, and Brooks methodically turning my panic into a series of actionable, structural repairs.