Page 54 of Near Miss

She inhales. “Nutty—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Greer, I was joking.” Stella’s voice cracks, the line she crossed scoring through it. “I was kidding. Of course I don’t think that. You can date or not date or sleep with or not sleep with anyone you want. It doesn’t mean anything about who you are as a person.”

“It’s fine.” I wipe at my eyes. “Stella, I have to go. I need to check on a patient.”

I hang up before she can answer.

I blink away my tears, and I try to swallow away the ache in the back of my throat. She might have been kidding, but she was right—maybe I can’t help myself.

The sun doesn’t look serene anymore. I don’t find the early-morning quiet peaceful. I might be staring at a still lake. There might be birds chirping, a beautiful breeze and rays of sun inching across the body of water to touch the shore. But all it does is remind me there was a crash, that a car did go through the water, and maybe it still sits at the very bottom of the lake, sinking into the silt, and maybe I’m going along with it.

Beckett

She doesn’t look happy to see me.

Her brow sharpens, braid in those cute little bubbles swinging behind her when she crosses her arms.

I toss her a grin and hold the cup of coffee up. “Definitely not the warmest welcome I’ve received after sex.”

She widens her eyes, giving a pointed look around the hospital lobby, which feels a bit rich seeing as she let me go down on her in a hallway closet that didn’t lock.

I deflate a bit, palming my jaw with my free hand, while my post-sex coffee dangles uselessly in my fingers. “Did you not—was it not good for you?”

“Of course it was good.” Greer reaches forward, snatching the coffee from me.

“Then what’s the problem?” I lower my voice and lean down.

Her eyes narrow on me. She tips her head back in an exasperated sigh before grabbing my forearm and pulling me towards the hallway by the elevator bay.

She lets go of my arm—I wish she hadn’t, I think I want her touching some part of me for the rest of my life—and drops against the wall, holding the coffee to her chest. “The problem, Beckett, is that this is not the behaviour of a business acquaintance. This is not even friendly behaviour.”

“Bringing you a coffee?” I ask flatly.

“Precisely. Now that that’s sorted—”

I cut her off, taking a step forward and dropping one hand to the wall just beside her head. Her nostrils flare and I hear a tiny intake of breath. “Not sorted, Dr. Roberts. This is friendly behaviour actually. You let me into your home. Into your bed. Into you.”

Her shoulder blades hit the wall and she blinks up at me. “I don’t date.”

“I’m not interested in dating you. I’m interested in being kind to you.”

I would be interested in dating her, actually, and I’m certainly interested in more than just being kind to her. I’d actually like to do things to her that would definitely not be considered nice.

But she looks a bit like a scared deer—eyes wide, shaking her head ever so slightly. “This isn’t a joke or a game. This isn’t like the movies—I’m not going to wake up one morning and realize I’m this whole, healed person who actually just needed love the entire time. I gave a man a piece of my liver because I couldn’t set a fucking boundary. But I’m trying to set them now. I don’t date.”

I take a step back, holding my palms in the air. Her chin tips up, all of her resolute, but her fingers whiten against the cup of coffee and she’s blinking a bit too much.

If she realizes she gave something away, showed me something about whatever goes on in that big, beautiful brain when she referred to him as a man instead of her dad—that inher mind, something as selfless as that is considered an inability to set a boundary—she doesn’t let on.

“I don’t think your boundaries are a joke. I’m sorry I crossed one.” I angle my head down, lips tugging into a rueful smile. “It won’t happen again.”

She exhales, rolls her shoulders back, and takes a sip of coffee. She stands taller when she pushes off the wall, like the words lifted something weighing her down off her shoulders. “Great. Thank you.”

I grin at her. “We can be friends who’ve seen each other naked. It’ll be just like college.”

Greer rolls her eyes.

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