Near Miss

1. Beckett

Beckett

Being paid a few million dollars to kick a football a few times a game is arguably the best job in the world.

It’s a stupid thing to be a generational talent at. But up until recently, it’s made my life pretty easy.

No one usually cares much about the kicker. You’re not the quarterback, the wide receiver, a tight end—no one important on a minute-by-minute basis.

You show up, you go to practice. Train on special teams, stay flexible, keep the strength in your legs, and kick.

If you’re me, and you get to be stupidly good at something irrelevant to most people, you focus on breaking records for yourself. You kick well for your team, and sometimes you get to win them games.

You rarely do press, you’re rarely in the media. But if you’re also me, your agent and team really capitalize on the fact that you’ve made a career not only on power and accuracy but also on being likeable. Then, you get shoved everywhere. You’re doing more post-game press than any kicker ever has because you’re nice. You’re the face of fan and charity events because you smile more than anyone else. You’re on advertisements all over because people think you’re photogenic.

But you’re not important until you are.

And no one hates you until they really, really do.

And people really, really hate me.

I can’t say I blame them. Who likes someone who misses the most important kick of the year and costs the first and only Canadian team in the league their first championship in franchise history?

I would have preferred to spend my summer the way I usually do: in relative solitude at my cottage, only showing up for events when I’m asked, but otherwise just doing the things I can’t do during the season.

But now, one week leading up to preseason, my agent has me trailing behind my brother while he does rounds in the hospital.

Nathaniel looks at home here—white coat, stethoscope hanging around his neck. He’s even got what I’m pretty sure is a Pokémon clipped to it because we’re in possibly the most depressing place here—a children’s oncology unit.

I’m definitely not at home—I fucking hate hospitals. Rolling my shoulders back for the millionth time, I take my hat off and tug at the ends of my hair. I’m trying to relax, but I don’t like it here.

Even though the hallways are bright, paintings hang everywhere, nurses and doctors skate by on wheeled shoes, and I’ve heard more children’s laughter than I would have thought could possibly exist here—those bright colours and paintings and games and nurses and kids just remind me of everything I try to forget.

I clear my throat. “Are we almost done? I’m only supposed to be here so people see me. I didn’t agree to visits, so no one will know—”

I can’t see him, but I can practically hear the eye roll in his voice when he speaks. “Wouldn’t dream of dragging the great Beck Davis anywhere he might not be photographed at an opportune time. I just have to run these labs by my attending, and we’ll be out of here. You can make your big show in the parking lot.”

“Ouch. That was rough.” I force a grin when he turns around.

I’m always grinning, even when I don’t feel like it.

My agent calls it “the grin.” It puts people at ease, makes people like me, and that, plus whatever work the muscle fibres of my legs somehow manage to do, gets me endorsements, and has my team shoving me in front of cameras at every opportunity.

Until I failed one time. And everyone forgot that knees allegedly go weak when the dimple in my cheek pops, that I always show up for practice even when my contracts are being negotiated, that I rarely, rarely miss, or that I’m generally nice and affable and I’ve never once mouthed off to a reporter.

My brother looks over his shoulder at me, eyes narrowed. “Was I wrong? You’ve not set foot here once since I started my residency, even when I’ve asked.”

There’s a reason for that, and it’s probably something he should know, but I’m not really sure he knows me, at the end of the day—so I keep grinning and I shrug. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Convenient timing.” Nathaniel rolls his eyes and I see it this time, but he holds up a hand when he stops in front of a paned window with pictures of cartoon ducks dotting the edges.

He waves, and a doctor a few years older than him pokes his head around the door. “Are those the labs?”

“They look great.” Nathaniel raises a manilla folder before holding it out. He turns to look at me and I widen my eyes expectantly.

This is what I’m supposed to be here for. My agent, Yara, wanted to socialize people to my presence, test the waters and see if people might be receptive to me doing some volunteer work here or showing my face at a fundraiser every once in a while.

Everywhere else seems hesitant to commit to making me the face of anything now, but here was my brother, a pediatric oncologist at one of the largest hospitals in the city, an opportunity ready-made.

Nathaniel gestures to me. “Dr. Ladak, this is my brother, Beckett Davis. Beck, this is my attending, Dr. Ladak.”

Dr. Ladak’s finger moves at rapid speed down the stack of papers, but he pauses and does a double take when he hears my name.

One eyebrow rises on his forehead. “Quite the kick to miss last season.”

“No shit. Wouldn’t mind a do-over for that one.” I hold out my hand to him and grin again, like we aren’t talking about one of the worst moments of my life and the source of my never-ending public embarrassment.

He leans forward and shakes my hand, lips twitching upwards. He turns to my brother and taps the stack of papers. “Call Dr. Roberts for a consult. I want her eyes on the labs and her lead.”

Nathaniel pales, his nostrils flare and his lips part. He opens and closes his mouth for what seems like the world’s longest minute before he speaks. “Can’t we just email her? She’s so mean.”

A laugh catches in my throat, and the million-dollar grin I’ve grown to hate shifts into a real smile.

My brother cringes when Dr. Ladak narrows his eyes at him. “She’s not mean, Dr. Davis. She doesn’t tolerate mistakes or lazy surgical work, and it’s not her fault some of your colleagues can’t perform to her standards. I mean it, she signs off before we move forward.”

He hands the folder back to Nathaniel and nods at me, like maybe he’s warming up to me and the Beckett Davis charm hasn’t lost all its shine, before disappearing back through the doorway.

“Who the hell are you so afraid of?” I ask, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall, obscuring what I consider to be a fairly terrifying photo of a clown and a donkey.

Nathaniel pulls his phone from the pocket of his jacket, thumbing out a text before dropping it back. “She’s a transplant surgeon. She’s a fellow and she terrifies me.”

“Why?” I prod, still smiling. My cheeks start to ache, and I forget I’m in one of my least favourite places. It feels like I’m just a regular person, teasing his younger brother for something inconsequential.

“You wouldn’t understand.” Nathaniel’s eyes are still wide, and he starts to look around like whoever this Dr. Roberts is, she might also possess supersonic hearing and be able to detect her name being uttered from anywhere in the hospital.

My brother doesn’t look like a twenty-eight-year-old pediatric oncologist who saves children’s lives every day. He looks a bit like he used to when I gave him shit for not finishing his chores, because our mother and father certainly weren’t around to do it.

“Enlighten me.” I shrug one shoulder.

He shakes his head, voice dropping to a whisper. “She’s—”

“You paged?”

Nathaniel’s nostrils flare, and he takes a measured swallow before scrubbing the five-o’clock shadow on his jaw and turning around.

I tilt my head so I can peer over his shoulder and get a look at whoever has him so terrified.

A dark eyebrow rises on her forehead, arms cross over teal scrubs, and the fingers on her right hand tap impatiently against her bicep. Eyes that sort of remind me of mine—and Nathaniel’s and our sister, Sarah’s—widen like she’s trying to encourage speech. Green, and even under the shitty fluorescent lighting embedded in the panels above us, amber flecks shine.

Her nostrils flare with exasperation, full lips purse as she stares at my brother. Even her hair—impossibly shiny and this deep brown, pulled back in one of those bubble braids—looks annoyed at Nathaniel where it swings slightly behind her.

Beautiful, but thoroughly unimpressed.

“Well?” she asks again. She has one of those raspy voices—I sort of hope she keeps talking, because even when she’s mad, it sounds nice.

Nathaniel clears his throat and holds up the manilla folder in a pathetic display. “Consult. Dr. Ladak and I have a patient, fifteen years old, in remission, but her kidneys are shot. Everything’s in there. She’s not high on the donor list, but her cousin is a perfect match, and she’s willing to donate.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” She uncrosses her arms and takes the folder from my brother. She tips her head from side to side, her features soften, lips moving ever so slightly as her eyes track the words on the page.

My brother looks nervous, and I feel a bit like an asshole for making him take me around because my agent told me to—this is obviously important to him.

So I do what I do best—I try to get her to like me. I push off the wall, my smile changes, and I stick out my hand to her. “Great to meet you, Dr. Roberts. I’m Beckett—my brother speaks very highly of you.”

“He’s the one who plays football,” Nathaniel blurts, and I cut him a look, lips pulling back and eyes sharpening on him before I look back to her and that stupid smile slides back into place.

My hand stays outstretched, her eyes flick up to me, finger pausing halfway down the page. She blinks. Once. Twice.

And I wait for the inevitable, but it never comes.

“I don’t watch football,” she mutters before looking back down at the stack of papers and closing the folder.

She hands it back to my brother, his hand shaking when he takes it. She notices, and one eyebrow arches up again. “You’re right. I couldn’t have found a better match. Run it all again tomorrow so we can be sure. I’ll do the transplant as soon as we have OR time, and I’ll ask Dr. Godoy to do the harvest. You can scrub in and observe, if you’d like. I’d say you could even hold a retractor, but we both know it was wise you didn’t pursue surgery when your hand shakes like that.”

Nathaniel’s mouth opens and closes again uselessly. He looks a bit like a fish—gasping for air like she had him on her hook and dangled him above the water for too long. He doesn’t say anything until she’s gone, halfway down the hall. “Thank you!”

“Page me when you have the latest labs.” She doesn’t turn back, but she raises a hand in acknowledgment.

“Dude, that was so fucking rough. ‘We both know it’s wise you didn’t pursue surgery’?” I crack a smile. He still looks a bit dumbstruck standing in the middle of the hallway: a Pokémon clipped to his stethoscope and the folder gripped loosely in his hands.

Nathaniel finally comes to and gives me a flat look. “Shut up, she wouldn’t even shake your hand.”

I look down and realize my hand is still there, fluttering by my side, waiting for hers.

“Huh,” I mutter, stretching out my fingers and examining them like there might be something all over me. I glance back up at my brother and offer him a shrug. “At least she didn’t throw a drink at me.”

He winces, and it’s exaggerated for a moment before he remembers to feel sorry for me. “People don’t actually throw things at you. Do they?”

“You’d be surprised,” I tell him. But I’m grinning when I say it, and that puts him at ease. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

I toss my arm around my brother’s neck like I’m going to try to shove him the way I did when we were kids, even though we’re much closer in height now, but I glance back over my shoulder before pushing him down the hallway.

She’s gone.

Nathaniel might think she’s mean, but I think she was probably nicer to me than most people are on a day-to-day basis.