Chapter 27 Return of the Goat-i
RETURN OF THE GOAT-I
SAGE
The November night has finally stopped its torrential downpour, leaving everything glittering and clean and smelling like earth and hope and pine.
Or maybe that's just the baby smell still clinging to my clothes.
James David Hill.
Seven pounds-eight ounces of pure perfection, already has his father's serious expression and his mother's ability to get what he wants through volume alone.
"Welcome to the family, kiddo," I mutter, gathering my things. "We're all disasters, but we love hard."
The inn is dark except for the porch lights, which is weird because I definitely turned those off before leaving.
Probably Mira, worried about me coming home to darkness.
Sometimes I don't deserve my staff.
I unlock the front door, expecting the usual greeting of silence and the lingering scent of whatever Buttercup destroyed last.
Instead, I'm hit with... warmth?
What the hell?
The fireplace is crackling softly, casting dancing shadows across the lobby.
And there, on the registration desk, is my laptop.
Open. Glowing.
"What in the world?”
I drop my purse, approach cautiously like the laptop might explode. Which, given my track record with technology and feelings, isn't impossible.
The screen shows SecureMatch.
My profile.
But something's... different.
Where my matches should be, there's just one. A single profile labeled "New Match!" with a timestamp of 2:47 AM.
My heart does a back-flip in my chest as I click on it.
Instead of a profile, there's a message.
Match found: Someone who's been refreshing your profile every hour for two weeks, six days, and approximately eighteen minutes. He’s been trying desperately not to count.
"Luke," I breathe.
Another notification pops up.
Match found: Someone who drove past your inn twelve times after midnight but was too scared to stop.
Then another.
Match found: Someone who named his new security protocol 'Buttercup' because he missed saying her name.
The messages keep coming, each one a confession, a truth, a piece of Luke's heart served up in notification form.
Match found: Someone who can't eat scrambled eggs anymore because they remind him of your kitchen.
Match found: Someone who bought a goat yoga mat. He doesn't know why. His therapist has theories.
Match found: Someone who threatened your dickhead of an ex with bodily harm. Someone who may still do him bodily harm. His lawyer advises against elaborating.
I'm laughing and crying simultaneously, probably looking deranged as I read each message.
Match found: Someone who sent $250,000 not to buy you but because he couldn't stand the thought of you losing your grandmother's dream, even if you never spoke to him again.
Match found: Someone who learned your coffee order, your favorite song, the way you organize sticky notes by crisis level. Someone who fell in love with your chaos before he understood your reasons.
Match found: Someone who hacked back. Not to trick or trap but to tell the truth: You hacked his profile fifteen times. He's hacked yours infinity times, because that's how many times he chooses you.
The final notification is different.
Just text.
No "match found" prefix.
"Turn around."
My heart stops.
Actually stops. I'm pretty sure that's medically concerning, but I turn anyway.
Luke is asleep in the chair by the fireplace—the same chair where he waited that first night.
His glasses are askew, his usually perfect hair is a disaster, and curled at his feet like a small, demanding fluff is—
"Buttercup?"
The goat's head snaps up at her name, and she lets out a throaty cry that's somewhere between "FINALLY" and "MOM'S HOME."
She launches herself at me with the velocity of a small, hooved missile.
"Oof!" I catch her, staggering backward as thirty pounds of goat affection tries to climb me like a tree. "How are you—why are you—"
"Maaah!" She's licking my face, butting her head against my chin, making the kind of scene that usually requires advance warning and liability waivers.
The commotion wakes Luke.
He blinks, straightens his glasses, and looks at me with such vulnerable hope it makes my chest ache.
"Hi," he says softly.
"Hi," I manage around Buttercup's aggressive affection. "You hacked my profile."
"You hacked mine first."
"That's... fair." I set Buttercup down, but she immediately presses against my legs like she's afraid I'll disappear. "Luke, what is this?"
He stands, looking like every Clark Kent wet dream that has ever existed. "It's... an apology? A declaration? Possibly breaking and entering, though I'd argue the door code you gave me implies consent—"
"Luke."
“Christ, I’m fucking rambling." He takes a breath. "I've spent the last two and a half weeks trying to figure out how to forgive you for lying. Then I realized that was the wrong question."
"What's the right question?"
"How to forgive myself for walking away." He steps closer, and Buttercup helpfully positions herself between us like the world's shortest chaperone. "You made a desperate decision to save something you loved. I made a cold decision to protect myself. Guess which one I regret more?"
"Luke, you don’t have to—“
"I'm not finished." He pulls out his phone, shows me something. "I deleted my SecureMatch profile. The whole thing. But first, I hard-coded something into the system."
I look at the screen.
It's code, elegant and complex and completely unnecessary for a dating app.
"What is this?"
"It's us. Written into the architecture. No matter what parameters get entered, no matter how the algorithm evolves, in the system we always match." He sets the phone aside. "You hacked your way to me. I'm coding us into permanence."
"That's..." I'm crying again. Definitely crying. "That's the nerdiest thing anyone's ever done for me."
"I also stole your goat. Or rather I borrowed it. With permission. From Melody.”
"You conspired?"
"Conspired is harsh," Luke says. "Collaborated. With livestock."
Buttercup half-shrieks agreement, then tries to eat my hospital visitor badge.
"No more eating important things," I tell her, but I'm smiling.
Smiling so hard my face hurts.
"Sage," Luke says, and his voice is serious now. "I need you to know something. I fell for you before I knew about the hack. That first night, when you were chasing Buttercup in your pajamas, covered in murder-shower water, making jokes while your world fell apart—that's when it started."
"When what started?"
"When you started rewriting my code." He touches his chest. "I'm a different operating system now. Sage 2.0. Completely corrupted by feelings and goats and the absolute certainty that I want to debug life with you."
"Oh my god." I'm laugh-crying now. "Did you just use debugging as a romantic metaphor?"
"Too much?"
"It's perfect." I step over Buttercup, who protests being excluded from the moment. "You're perfect. Perfectly imperfect and absolutely—"
He kisses me before I can finish.
It's soft and certain and tastes like coming home.
Buttercup immediately tries to insert herself between us, because goats have no sense of moment.
"I love you," he says against my lips. "Present tense. Current state. Permanent condition."
"Active virus?" I suggest.
"Incurable infection."
"That's disgusting and romantic."
"Like goat yoga."
We're both laughing now, Buttercup adding her own commentary.
By the time we stop, my cheeks hurt from grinning so hard. I slide my fingers into Luke’s shirtfront, inhaling the scent of his skin—all warm and spiced and masculine perfection.
I nearly feel physical pain when my hands finally fall from his skin.
"So," I say eventually. "What now?"
"Now?" Luke adjusts his glasses in that way I've missed desperately. "Now you tell me about your nephew. And I tell you about threatening your ex. And we figure out how to be together without any more hacking."
"But I'm so good at hacking," I protest.
"Sage."
"Kidding. Mostly." I lean into him, feeling his arms come around me. "James David Hill. Seven pounds, eight ounces of perfection. Already judging everyone."
"Takes after his aunt."
"Rude. Accurate, but rude." I pull back to look at him. "You really threatened Derek?"
"I may have implied his financial future depended on never speaking your name again."
"That's... weirdly hot."
"I also shoved him against a wall."
"Luke Sterling!" I gasp. "Violence? You?"
"He insulted you. And, by extension, Buttercup. It was instinct."
"My hero." I mean it as a joke, but it comes out sincere.
"No," he says seriously. "Partners. Equal partners in chaos and code and questionable goat-related decisions."
"Speaking of which." I look down at Buttercup, who's made herself comfortable on Luke's foot. "You adopted her?"
"Technically you adopted her. I just facilitated. With bribery. And promises of goat yoga participation."
"You're doing goat yoga?"
"Apparently. Melody was very specific about energy exchanges."
I kiss him again because I can't not.
Because Luke Sterling is going to do goat yoga for me. Because he coded us into permanence.
Because he's here at 3 AM with messy hair and my goat, being perfectly imperfect.
"I love you too," I tell him. "In case that wasn't clear."
"It was unclear. Very ambiguous. Might need more data."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
So I do. And Buttercup, blessing her chaotic little heart, lets us have the moment.
Well, mostly.
She does eat Luke's shoelace halfway through, but honestly, that's just her way of saying welcome to the family.
"We should probably sleep," Luke says eventually. "It's been a very long day. Days. Week. Month."
"Sleep sounds good." I yawn, the adrenaline finally crashing. "Your place or mine?"
"Yours is closer."
"Mine has a goat."
"Mine has no goat-proofing."
We look at each other, then at Buttercup, who's now investigating the fireplace with scientific interest.
"We need to figure out the logistics," Luke says.
"Of goat custody?"
"Of everything. Your inn, my company, where Buttercup lives, how to explain this to our families—"
"Luke?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up and take me to bed. We'll figure out the rest tomorrow."
He grins, that rare, real smile that transforms his whole face. "Yes, ma'am."
"Bring the goat," I add. "She'll eat the furniture if we leave her."
So that's how we end up trudging to my room at 4 AM.
Me, Luke, and a four-legged fur ball of reconciliation who's apparently forgiven us both for the separation.
The entire scene is ridiculous. And messy.
And perfect.
Just like us.
"Hey Luke?" I say as we're settling Buttercup in her makeshift pen.
"Mmm?"
"Best hack ever."
He laughs, pulling me close. "Very us."
And it is.
Buttercup goat-screams her approval.
Or she's hungry.
Maybe we’ll never know.
But either way, we're home.