Page 67 of Near Miss

She doesn’t kiss me hello or goodbye. She doesn’t kiss me if we aren’t having sex.

But she kisses me tonight.

She tips her chin up, like she’s considering something, weighing the merits of her choice, but something in her face softens and some part of her wins, because she leans forward and brushes her lips against mine.

Lightly.

Like she doesn’t want to add the weight of anything more.

She doesn’t realize she’s not a heavy thing.

Her fingers whisper across my shoulders, up the lines of my neck, until each one of her palms finds either side of my face.

Her mouth lingers against mine, and when she finally pulls back, her eyes are a bit hazy, lips slightly parted and cheeks flushed with alcohol.

“You’re drunk, baby.” I grin when I say it because I can start to see those wheels turning in her mind as she realizes she’s overstepped whatever lines she’s drawn for herself, and I think she needs something that’s going to give her permission to step back from whatever ledge she’s teetering on.

She narrows her eyes, something shutters behind them, and she points at me. “Nobaby.”

“I call all my friends baby. Just ask when they get back.” I tip my beer towards Nowak’s empty seat.

They do come back—Stella sans Hugo spritz, and the same tracks playing over the speakers—and they look between us, a bit like teenagers waiting for some big reveal.

There isn’t one.

If the girl beside me hadn’t made me real, I’d say the whole kiss was a figment of my imagination.

And it might as well have been, because Greer points at me before turning to Nowak and Pat. “Does he call you baby?”

“What?” Nowak looks confused for a second before he sits back down and decides to play along. “Oh, yeah. He does. Here.” He reaches into his pocket and tosses his phone onto the table. “You can check our texts. Baby this, baby that.”

Her lips pucker, and she eyes the empty bottle of wine on the table. “Stella, we should go.”

Stella glances back and forth between us, assessing, like she’s trying to parse out what did or didn’t happen, before she rolls her eyes and pushes to stand. “Fine. Nice to meet you both.”

“It was nice to meet you.” Greer echoes her sister as she stands, careful not to brush up against me at all. “Good luck this Sunday.”

She offers Pat and Nowak a perfunctory smile before she turns to me.

“Night, Dr. Roberts,” I whisper.

She blinks. “Good night, Beckett.”

We look at each other for probably too long before she grabs her sister’s hand and tugs her towards the door.

“Davis.” Nowak sets a palm on the table and shakes his head, messy brown hair flopping down over his forehead like it’s rueful, too. “You’re so fucked.”

I make a noncommittal noise and glance back over my shoulder.

She’s holding her sister’s hand, weaving through the tables, growing more and more crowded the later it gets. But she stops right before the door, and she looks back at me, too.

She doesn’t say anything, but she raises a hand and wrinkles her nose before disappearing through the open door.

I watch her go, and I’m not really sure about much anymore, other than the fact that she might have made me a living, breathing person—but he’s someone who wants something I’m not sure he can have.

The league has all sorts of stupid distinctions and awards they give out each week. If you’re someone like me, you’ve probably won a lot of them.

You’ve been to the Pro Bowl, and you’ve been named to the All-Pro Team.

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