Page 28 of Near Miss

Beckett holds the flowers in the air before turning and jogging out the lobby door.

He’s only gone for a few minutes—just enough for everyone lingering around to stop staring and then start again as soon as he walks back, raising his empty hands.

“Dinner?” he prompts, eyebrows lifting.

I point towards the opposite end of the lobby, and the long sunlit hallway that leads to the cafeteria. “What’s with the flowers?”

Beckett shoves his hands in his pockets, falling into step beside me. “A friend can’t bring another friend flowers?”

“Flowers aren’t friendly.” My voice is flatter than I mean for it to be, and I can hear my sister in my ear—hear Kate and Willa—telling me not to be so harsh. Just because I drew lines aroundmyself like a child might in an attempt to make a self-portrait—scribbled and everywhere, jutting out around certain parts of my body because I can’t seem to stop giving away pieces of me—it doesn’t mean I can’t be kind.

“What’s with the commitment to business-only friendships?” He angles his head, tousled hair catching the sunlight streaming through the windows.

I glance sideways at him, and he looks curious, eyebrows furrowed and lips in this quizzical sort of line that makes him look cute instead of earth-shatteringly, Gatorade-commercial-level handsome—the kind of boy in another life I’d have run straight home each day to tell Kate and Willa all about.

I give him a small shrug. “I just don’t date.”

“Too committed to saving lives?”

Trying to save my own, I think.

But I don’t tell him that, I just shrug again and say, “Something like that.”

In addition to their commitment to ensuring high-quality food, the hospital redesigned their cafeteria to be warm, welcoming—a place families could come and not be forced to sit in uncomfortable cracking plastic chairs. It’s quite nice now. Cushy leather chairs with polished wooden arms spread out around trendy concrete tables. Waxy, impossibly green palms tower over everything in wooden planters, and the buffet line looks like something you’d find in a first-class airport lounge.

Beckett stops abruptly as soon as we round the corner. “What’s with the Michelin-Star restaurant? This is a hospital. Shouldn’t we be eating shitty egg salad sandwiches?”

I give him a pointed look and walk towards the tray line. “You know that’s not very good for recovery. There’ve been studies. Patients and their families score higher on different indexes when they’re fed well.”

“Huh.” A muscle in his cheek ticks, but he lines up behind me, hands practically dwarfing the grey plastic tray. “Well, the world is your oyster, Dr. Roberts. Don’t let cost stop you. Dinner is on me, so you can have whatever you want.”

I glance back at him. “Sorry to break it to you, but food is free for staff here.”

Beckett slowly turns away from the array of salad options to look at me with wide eyes. “What? Since when?”

“Recently, actually.” I reach forward and grab a bowl, piling it high with different leaves and greens. “It’s part of a resident wellness initiative, but we bargained to have it extended to all staff.”

He scoffs, helping himself to two separate bowls of salad. “You’re a cheap date.”

“Not a date.” I cut him a sideways look, and he holds up his hands in defeat before following me down the line, picking up a seemingly endless, and random, array of food. “Your tastes are ... varied.”

Beckett picks up his tray, barely sparing it a glance as he follows me towards the register. “As are my dietary requirements.”

“I didn’t realize a kicker would need to eat so much. Don’t you practice significantly less?” I ask, parroting back one of the endless tidbits of information my sister keeps inundating me with.

“It’s not necessarily the practice.” Beckett shakes his head, like he can’t believe me, picking up an apple from a bowl, tossing it in the air a few times before leaving it beside one of his seventeen plates. “I practice different types of kicks three times a week, at least. But it’s the workouts. I’m in the gym or stretching about double that amount.”

“Where does the reformer Pilates fit in?”

“You remembered.” Beckett smiles at me before he drops his tray and taps an index finger to his temple. “I do it a few times a week. Great for flexibility and strength. Really extends a kick.”

It makes sense, but the idea of impossibly tall—too tall for a kicker, according to Stella—Beckett strapping his muscled legs into reformer straps seems impossible.

I raise my badge and smile politely at the woman sitting behind the register. She glances at my tray before waving me on. She throws a bored look towards Beckett before blinking rapidly, a blush rising on her cheeks, and she quickly looks down, fingers slipping over the keys on her register as she rings all his food through.

Beckett reaches into his back pocket, fishing out his wallet with a grin, and I swear to god she looks like she might need to fan herself. My eyes narrow, flicking back and forth between the two of them. He pulls a nondescript black card from his wallet and holds it out to her between two fingers.

He grins when she takes it, his voice dropping an octave when she hands it back. “Thank you.”

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