Page 26 of Near Miss

Greer makes a noncommittal shrug of her shoulder, her braid swings across her back, and she starts walking towards the elevators. “My dad is more into fictional shows about dragons than he is into sports, but my sister knows you’re sort of volunteering here with me, and she was a big fan of the Gatorade commercial.”

A laugh catches in my throat, and I kiss my fist before raising it in the air. “Gatorade commercial coming through clutch, as always. I take it you’ve seen that, then?”

She shakes her head, practically ignoring me in favour of answering whatever page or text came through on her phone. “No.”

“You’re not the least bit curious?”

“No.” She sticks out her elbow to touch the elevator button, and I drop against the wall with another exaggerated groan.

She’s still looking at her phone, thumb flying across the screen and teeth chewing on the end of her straw.

“I would have thought you would be. What with the inquiring scientific mind and thirst for knowledge you have.” I widen my eyes, teasing. “You ran away pretty quick to your appointment. You didn’t even see the opening credits or the first slow-motion, up-close shot of my abs.”

She flinches. Eyes pinched closed, her phone slips in her hand, but her reflexes probably rival mine and she catches it before it falls. Her nostrils flare and I see her take this deep, measured breath before she cuts me a sideways look. “Don’t flirt with me.”

I cock my head. “Hey, you okay?”

Greer blinks, before turning and giving me another flat look. “Yes. But talking about your Gatorade commercial incessantly really seems to compromise the whole ‘just business’ thing we’ve got going on. It’s your last day, don’t ruin it now.”

I eye her for a minute before the elevator dings and I follow her in. I know what Nathaniel’s talking about now—I’ve seen it a fewtimes—where she just sort of shuts down. She flinches randomly or takes this big inhale and needs to steady herself for a minute. Sometimes she’s short when she responds, but it always passes and she always looks apologetic after.

I ask her if she’s okay each time, and she always says fine or breezes by the question like nothing happened to begin with. I go along with it, because Beckett Davis is affable and easy to get along with, even though the idea that something hurts her—that maybe I’ve done something to upset her—makes me feel a bit like someone hurt me.

I hold up my hands in surrender. “You’re right. Who do you have for me today? My very last day of PR damage control, as Nathaniel calls it.”

She hits the button for the fourth floor. Pediatrics. “Theo’s still here.”

“What?” I blink. I’ve seen Theo every week since preseason started, but he was supposed to be discharged. “Is everything okay?”

She shakes her head, biting down on the straw. “He’s fine, but some of his levels just aren’t steady enough for me to feel comfortable discharging him.”

“Is he still not peeing enough? He was telling me last week his urine needs to be in the acceptable range before he goes home. We need that up to about 1.5 ccs, right?”

She tips her head back, laughing—this throaty, beautiful noise she doesn’t make all that often either. “You’re right. We do. You can come away from this exercise with more than an improved image—newfound knowledge to impress your teammates with.”

“Sadly”—my lips tug to the side—“my teammates don’t care much about urine output.”

“It sounds as though they need to get their priorities in check.” Greer’s voice is dry, she gives me this sideways glance, and I think there’s the ghost of a smile there.

It’s another thing I don’t think she’s aware of—I don’t think she’d say she’s a particularly lighthearted person, but she’s funny and I think she tries really hard to make me smile in this place that I used to hate.

She wrinkles her nose, eyes shimmering in this sort of sad way, and points with her almost-empty coffee cup when the elevator door slides open. “Your last day awaits.”

I won’t miss the hallways here—all the ducks and cartoon clowns and other weird things taped to the walls that probably scare the children more than help them.

But I’ll miss these elevator rides. The anonymity of this elevator. The coffee that’s much better than hospital coffee should be. This girl.

It feels a bit too much like I might be overstepping the business line to tell her that, so I grin and follow her down the hall for the last time.

Greer gets paged when I’m halfway through helping Theo with his fantasy draft. He doesn’t even spare her a second glance, but I do.

Her eyebrows knit, eyes move across her phone at rapid speed, and she holds up her hand before practically sprinting out the door.

I thought she was gone—that it was the last time I’d see her in here like this, but she stopped, grabbing the doorframe. “I’m sorry. I need to go. Theo, your parents said they’d be by this afternoon. I’ll be back to talk to them, I promise.”

He grunts noncommittally, eyes focused on his draft.

Greer raises a hand to me. “Beckett. I’ll see you around.”

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