Page 80 of Near Miss

This is why Beckett Davis can only be your friend.

Look what happens when you forget your lines. Your boundaries. Your rules.

Look what happens when you give yourself to people.

Beckett

A purple bruise blooms along my left side, right where my chest protector meets my rib pads. It shouldn’t be there because of the padding and equipment, but I’m not twenty-four anymore, and I haven’t had to practice tackles in years.

But those are big plays, and those are big games coming up.

Coach Taylor comes into the recovery room to remind me when I’m sliding down into an ice bath after practice. My quad cramped, and Darren sent me right here.

One brow lifts when he spots the bruise, and he gestures to it, like it’s the perfect prop to support his point. “Those types of plays—those types of kicks—that’s what I need from you over the next two weeks.” He taps his clipboard. “These next two games are critical. We’re undefeated and—”

“I know,” I cut in, wincing when I shift back and the ice water sloshes against my chest. I feel a bit like telling him that he has a whole host of offensive players he should be talking to about making plays. But I get it. My fall from grace and subsequent inconsistency has been a favourite storyline of the season. Noone wants a useless kicker. I’m sure the team publicist has had her regrets about making my stupid smile and dimple the face of so much. “I know we’re six and oh. I know who we’re playing next week, and I know who we play the week after. I know what game is coming up. I know how it’s going to look if we lose to the same team that my failure gave the championship to.”

He appraises me, not a care in the world that I’m submerged in freezing water, and I’m supposed to be focusing on my breathing, not talking about the fact that he needs me to perform and do my job. I think he’s going to tell me not to throw a pity party, to smarten up, but he cocks his head instead. “It’s more pressure than anyone gives it credit for being. Do you miss catching?”

I blink. I’ve never really thought about it. I liked it—liked running because I’m quick, liked catching and making big plays. Winning games. But it was just this thing I did because it got me a partial scholarship and my parents were trying to recover financially. I wonder if I would have been happier doing it. I might have been drafted, but it would have been late, and maybe I would have played and had a decent career, or maybe I wouldn’t have.

It certainly wouldn’t have been this.

He spares me from answering and having to psychoanalyze myself. “I think you could have done well, under the right coaching staff, with the right QB. You’re more of a team player than half the wide receivers out there, you have a great read of the field, and you’re fast. But these legs”—he gestures down to my quads, covered in nothing but black compression shorts, barely visible under the floating ice—“they’re a once-in-a-generation kind of talent. Hall-of-fame kind of talent. I don’t want to look back and read about how Beckett Davis became irrelevant after one mistake.”

I try to grin. “Neither do I.”

“You’re not stupid, so it won’t be a surprise that I’m getting a lot of pressure to do something about you. This is a championship-calibre team, and we can’t have an inconsistent kicking game. Not like this. If it keeps up, I’m not going to be able to protect you, and I won’t want to. I want what’s best for the team.” He tucks his clipboard under his arm. “What do you want, Beckett?”

He’s expecting me to say I want to win. I want the record. And I do want those things. I’m still me, competitive to a fault, and I want everyone to know I’m the best.

I know I am.

But I think of Greer.

I think of the way she brought me a book on warfare in ancient Egypt. I think of how her voice sounded when she read passages to me as I stretched.

I think of her fingers, deftly wrapping around my wrists, fitting between mine, skating across my shoulders and down my back. Fingers that fix things and save lives, even if she doesn’t see it that way. Her hands in general and all that they hold.

Her eyes when she laughs, how her full lips always part just a bit, and the whole thing is raspy just like her voice and I feel it all the way down to my bones. How I’ve been the luckiest man on the fucking planet that she’s given me so many laughs and smiles now, I can’t really keep them in my pockets.

They’re scattered across my apartment, across my life.

A smile sits on the cold granite of the kitchen island, right in front of the seat she likes to tuck herself into when I make her coffee.

A laugh lives in the cushions of my couch, where she tips her head back and rests it there before she rolls her eyes at me.

I can’t even count how many have planted themselves down in my bedroom. Just like the girl—dug their petulant little feet in and refused to leave.

The whole apartment is probably ruined with her now and I’ll have to move whenever she calls the whole thing off.

I’m probably ruined, too.

The truth is—I want her. More than I think I’ve ever wanted anything. I’ve gone to war with myself in the mirror over this, when I’m lying awake at night and her side of the bed is empty. But I respect her more than anyone on the planet, and I’ll never ask her to give me what she can’t.

I scrub my face and instantly regret it—my hands are covered in freezing water.

I shake my head out, a bit like a dog, and look back at Coach Taylor.

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