Page 103 of Near Miss

“It was.” She nods, a little crease between her eyebrows that I feel a bit like smoothing out with my thumb, but I don’t know what’s in bounds anymore.

“Statement still stands.” I jerk my chin towards her house, like we can see the bath from here. “We’re good together.”

“We are,” she confirms.

She looks beautiful when she says it—chin tipped up just so, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, eyes wide and blinking, all that dark hair twisted into a knot on top of her head.

It kind of makes me want to throttle her. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve lost my cool—and she has me on the precipice of another.

I think about ripping her seat belt off, dragging her over here, and telling her I love her, that I’d drop to my knees every day for the rest of my life and beg her to just open for me—I’d carve half of my liver out and hand it to her, if that’s what she needed to give us a real chance.

She’s already got my heart, what’s one more organ?

But my eyes drop to the sweater she wears. It’s mine. The ratty practice one I gave her at the cottage, and I think of the scar it’s covering up. Healed after all these years, but not really.

I’d rather cut off my kicking leg with a rusty saw than hurt her, so I give her a resigned smile instead. “The real world kind of fucking sucks.”

“Sometimes.” She wrinkles her nose.

I press my fist into my mouth, exhaling. “There’s this open practice on Friday. It’s sort of an appreciation event. We play no-touch football and have dumb competitions. They always make me try to kick different things through the uprights. They moved it up because they thought it would boost morale before the Baltimore game on Sunday.” I take my hat off, tugging on the ends of my hair. “Families come. Friends. Partners. Wives. Girlfriends.”

One eyebrow kicks up, and Greer angles her head. “What about business acquaintances?”

“Is that what we are?” I ask, voice rough.

“No,” she answers with a soft shake of her head.

“What are we?” It’s a bit of a hopeless question, just another rope thrown out into her sea that I know she won’t grab. But I’ll probably spend the rest of my life throwing them just in case.

Her shoulders rise with an inhale. She blinks, and she opens those fucking eyes right as the sun hits the windows, illuminating everything about her. Her voice sounds sort of like the first time I heard it, each lift and rasp of a word plucking atmy heart in my chest and jump-starting the whole thing. “Why don’t we talk about it Sunday night after the game?”

“You’ll be there, right?” I don’t know why she wants to wait, and I probably sound desperate. I am. But there’s no one else I’m interested in sitting in those stands.

She touches me for the first time all drive, reaching out, her fingers just ghosts of what they were before, trailing across my jaw. “Of course. And I’ll be there Friday.”

I lean into her hand, pressing my eyes closed and trying to savour the whole thing before looking back at her. “Sunday night. Win or lose. Record or no record. Kick or no kick.” I hold out my hand, pinky finger up for her. “You and me?”

Her finger wraps around mine, and she whispers, “You and me.”

Our fingers stay joined and I think all the promises we made echo between us, all these things we said and did to help each other, and I feel a bit like going back in time and kicking that old me for never promising anything that meant us being together.

She brings her lips to the crease where our fingers meet, sits back, and grabs her bag from the floor, and I watch her leave my truck.

She’s halfway up the path to her place when I roll down the window.

“Dr. Roberts.” I lean across the passenger seat, and she glances back over her shoulder. “I meant every word.”

She smiles softly, raising her hand. “So did I.”

Beckett

I’ve kicked a rugby ball, a soccer ball, and a volleyball through the uprights, and I’m moving on to a tennis ball, propped up on a tee when I see her.

Hair pulled back into one of those braids she likes, hands tucked into the pockets of a shiny black bomber jacket, and navy scrubs hugging the curves of her legs.

None of us are wearing helmets, so the press can see us and get shots of us having fun out here, laughing and smiling, a cohesive team despite the devastating loss, while we all wave at our families.

The only part of mine interested in showing up were my brother and sister, and I asked them not to.

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