Page 69 of Near Miss

His bedding—crisp navy sheets with a matching duvet—always rumpled in exactly the best way. He doesn’t really make his bed, just sort of fluffs the endless array of pillows and pulls the duvet up haphazardly.

There are a lot of things in this room—but when I’m here, it’s just us.

We leave the rest of it at the door. Football. Surgery. Any acknowledgement of the fact that we’ve ended up here together. Again.

Rav says it’s not friendly behaviour, and I still haven’t worked up the courage to say anything to my sister, but I know what she’d think.

And it probably isn’t friendly behaviour, but my brain reminds me that I once gave away a literal piece of my body when I wasn’t sure I wanted to, and that protecting our remaining organs—our heart—is of the utmost importance if we’re to survive.

I hear the shower turn off and I glance up from my book—it was just getting good.

But watching Beckett come out of the shower isn’t an experience I particularly feel like missing. It’s a nice bonus to our friendship—the fact that he looks like someone sculpted him like Michelangelo didDavid.

The door to the bathroom opens, and one eyebrow kicks up when he sees me. He was in the shower when I got here, but he left the door open for me, and I crawled right into his bed. Friend-like.

Moisture hugs every carved inch of him, his skin still damp, and the black Lycra of his boxers leaves little to the imagination, clinging to each curve of thigh muscle and everything else.

“How was your day?” He runs the towel over his face, scrubbing it over his head and shaking out his hair before he tosses it into the hamper by the door.

“Oh, you know.” I open a hand and wave it around. “Just another day of playing my twisted version of Robin Hood. Stealing organs from the dead and giving them to the living.”

“Saving lives,” he corrects, and something passes behind his eyes. We’ve hovered around this topic, circled it and come close to dancing right on top of it. He knows I don’t always love my job, but he’s not quite sure why yet, and there’s this thing Beckett doesn’t even realize is beautiful—he doesn’t push. He doesn’t pry. He just meets people where they are.

“It just seems ...” I exhale, shutting the book and propping myself up against the pillows. “Wrong sometimes. To hope for an organ for someone I’m treating and trying to help when I know it means someone probably had to die to give it up.”

That sometimes, I wish someone else did die and give my dad a piece of them so I didn’t have to.

Beckett nods, blinking at me. He pulls back the covers on his side of the bed and sits there, reaching out, one thumb brushing over the fabric of my tank top, the raised skin of the scar jutting out ever so slightly. “If you could be anything, what would you be?”

“A faerie princess.” I hold up the book before chewing on my lip. “Or a human captive who finds out she’s actually part of a magical race.”

He smiles—and it’s this radiant thing. It’s not “the grin,” as it’s known. It’s not something you’d see in that stupid Gatorade commercial I still haven’t watched all the way through, or any of the press shots he’s in.

He looks at ease. Comfortable, like he’s just Beckett, unburdened by all those shackles and responsibilities thatmade him Beckett Davis—likeable, reliable, many-things-extraordinaire instead of a regular person.

He lies back, propping his head up with one arm. Droplets of water track down his trapezius muscles, across the swell of his shoulders, and over the jut of his biceps. “Would you like to be my prisoner?”

“Beckett doesn’t sound like the name of a brooding, morally grey fae lord who could fuck me into next week.” I shrug, waving the book around. “Sorry.”

He nods, like he’s conceding defeat. But real Beckett, like Beckett Davis, is wildly competitive, and unlike Beckett Davis, real Beckett is a bit childlike at times. He lunges forward, grabbing the book from my hands and throwing it to the floor, before rolling on top of me and pinning my hands above my head. “Beckett’s not here. I’m Baxtian, and I’m taking you down to my dungeon.”

I blink up at him, lips parted, before I burst out laughing. “Oh my god, that’s so fucking stupid.”

“But it’s close, right?” He raises his eyebrows, and some of his still-damp hair falls across his forehead.

I nod, biting on my lip before smiling at him. “It is.”

We stare at each other for a minute that seems to go on for much longer than sixty seconds—and so it goes: another night between two friends.

His fingers twitch and tense against my wrists.

Those full lips of his part, his eyes find my mouth—they trace all the curves of me. My jawline, my collarbone, the swell of my chest under my tank top.

His hips shift and mine rise to meet them.

He hardens between my legs, and all of my skin prickles and sets itself on fire.

He grins—an entirely different grin I hope he only ever makes for me.

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