Page 75 of The Goat Next Door

She loses her footing with a sharp gasp, tumbling forward. I catch her, her bare legs landing on either side of my thighs, trapping her in my lap. The bowl rattles on the side table, and the whisk clatters across the deck like a gunshot.

“Brooks,” she breathes, her hands flattening against my chest, her pulse jumping under my fingertips.

“You think you’re in control?” I lean down, my mouth hovering over hers, my left hand gripping the back of her neck to hold her steady. “You think you can come over here, talk that trash, and just walk away? If Mel drives by right now, I’m going to have to explain why the new baker is straddling me in her short shorts. And I don’t feel like explaining a goddamn thing.”

“Then don’t,” she whispers, her mouth curving into a breathless, defiant smirk. She shifts her hips against me, making my jeans feel like they’re two sizes too small. “Let them guess. Or better yet, let them watch.”

I pull her down and catch her mouth with mine.

I tilt her head back, my tongue demanding entry. I pull back just an inch, grazing my teeth over her lower lip, listening to her ragged, sharp inhale, before diving back in, deeper this time, forcing her to realize exactly who is in charge on this porch.

I slide my hand from her neck down to the small of her back, pressing her flush against me, feeling her nipples harden against my chest through that flimsy tank top.

She’s whimpering, shifting, trying to find a rhythm, but I’m setting the pace, nipping at her throat, moving back to her lips only to punish them with another kiss.

“You like that, city girl?” I say against her skin, my hand sliding down to cup her ass, squeezing the soft flesh through those shorts. “You like being manhandled?”

“Yeah,” she gasps, her hands tangled deep in my hair. “Don’t you dare stop.”

“I’m just getting started,” I promise, my palm rubbing firmly against her thigh. “But you’re gonna have to beg for the rest.”

BLEE-EE-AT!

A loud, flat, vibrating trumpet sound shatters the air.

Emmy freezes, breaking away from my mouth with a sharp gasp. We both snap our heads toward the steps.

Kevin the goat is standing there, his hooves planted on the bottom step, his weird, horizontal eyes locked directly onto the bowl. Before we can move, he gives a greedy, violent lunge, bites down on the edge of the blue plastic, and flips it.

Three quarts of forty-two-dollar French culture go cascading across my floorboards in a thick, white, pathetic puddle.

Emmy stares at the mess. Then she looks at the goat, who is chewing on a piece of the plastic rim like he’s proud of himself. Her face is flushed a deep, bright crimson, her lipstick smeared across her chin.

“He ruined it,” she whispers, a tiny, breathless, hysterical laugh cracking her voice. “He ate the pedigree.”

I look at the white puddle dripping through the cracks of my deck, then back at the goat. The absolute absurdity of it hits me—the hormones, the ego, the fucking goat—and a rough, dark chuckle breaks out of my chest, shaking us both.

“Get off my lap, you menace,” I mutter, giving her waist a parting, possessive squeeze as I push her up. “Before he decides he likes the taste of your shorts better than the cheese.”

19

Ember

“There’s something holy about being known in ordinary ways.

The exact sound of your footsteps. The way you take your coffee.

Which pocket you hide your hands in when you’re scared.”

— Ember

“More flour on five, kid!” Marge barks from the pastry station.

She has a cloud of white dust suspended around her hair like an aura, her forearms glistening with sweat as she cleaves a sheet of laminated butter dough into twelve perfect triangles.

I glance at the clock. 5:16 AM.

“And stop staring at the clock. It doesn’t give a damn if you’re tired.”