13. Beckett
Beckett
Samir has three more glasses of scotch during dinner. He places two unfortunate prop bets on kicks I’m going to miss against certain teams once regular season starts, flashing his phone at me like it’s a joke I’m in on.
Greer’s hand tightened around the stem of her wineglass, and I think he might have been afraid she was going to smash it and carve him up to take one of his organs, so he put a disproportionately large bet on me breaking the 66-yard field-goal kick record this season.
I haven’t given much thought to trying to break another record—I’ve mostly been concerned about choking and failing everyone miserably. But the idea that he might benefit if I do makes me think I’ll make up a lie about the wind not being right if Coach gets me to try.
Greer doesn’t say much, offering the occasional comment about research when it’s mentioned, and answering questions when she’s asked.
But her shoulders relax as the night goes on, and there’s this small part of me that hopes I have something to do with that, because more than once, her hand finds my thigh, eyes widening and nostrils flaring, but her forced smile still there when someone says something horribly pretentious.
It became a little game—which of us could grab the other’s hand or thigh under the table quicker, who could keep their face straight.
She sits forward in her chair, chin propped up on her hand, the other dangling a third glass of champagne that’s almost empty, and this really fucking beautiful pink flush on her cheeks from the alcohol. She’s nodding along, listening intently to one of the other doctors at the table talking about regenerative medicine, the first time she’s seemed truly interested all night, when the microphone kicks on.
Another man who looks like he’s probably had one too many glasses of something, too, steps up to the podium on the illuminated stage at the centre of the room, and I already know it’s going to be a cringeworthy speech when he leans forward, tapping the microphone unnecessarily in what might be his version of asking, Is this thing on ? He doesn’t wait for laughter that’s never going to come, and starts into a horrifying rehearsed opening line. “Good evening, everyone! What a dinner, am I right? The steak could have put me into cardiac arrest, but I think I spotted a heart surgeon or two holding a sharp knife out in the crowd tonight. Guess I’m in the right place.”
“Oh my god,” Greer mutters under her breath, cutting me a sideways look.
Smiling, I lean in, dropping my hand to her thigh. “This is the best gala I’ve ever been to. Truly. Who knew doctors were more self-important than athletes?”
Her eyes sharpen. She plucks my hand off her thigh and makes a show of dropping it back in my lap. Her lips purse, and she’s about to say something when the announcer cuts in again.
He calls her name and she starts; glancing towards the stage. There’s a small smattering of applause, and she pushes back from her chair.
“You have your speech ready?” I whisper, arching a brow.
“I’ll be back in five minutes, and we can get the hell out of here.” She cuts me a look, finishes her champagne, gathers her dress in her hand, and walks across the room to the stage.
The clapping gets a bit louder, the presenter does some big rigamarole, jogging around her and gesturing to her, and I know she fucking hates it because she smiles and fakes a laugh when they stop at the podium and he makes a big show of handing her an ugly glass plaque.
Even though she doesn’t want to be there, the bright light shining down on her, drawing all this attention to her—it does wonders. She looks beautiful. Hair impossibly shiny, ponytail swinging ever so slightly. Every jut of her collarbones and shoulders defined and on display.
She smiles softly at the presenter before turning and leaning towards the microphone. “Thank you for this. I don’t take for granted what it means to have patients who—”
The sound of glass smashing cuts across the relative silence of the room.
I glance over my shoulder. The waiter scrambles to mop up the wine seeping from a tray of broken glasses across the wooden floor and raises their hand in apology to the table nearest them.
But when I turn back, Greer’s taken a step back from the podium. Her grip on the plaque slackens. She blinks. Once. Gives a tiny jerk of her head. Blinks twice again in quick succession.
She takes a step forward, and the way her dress pulls, I can see her calf wobble. She pushes her hand against her chest and squeezes her eyes shut again. But when she opens them, she blinks again before forcing this smile and stepping back towards the podium. “Uhm—sorry. What was I saying? I’ll just—let’s just keep it brief.”
Greer presses her hand harder to her chest, the skin of her fingers whitening. Her nostrils flare and she tries to smile but it looks like nothing more than a mechanical movement of some muscles. “Thank you. It’s an honour and a privilege.”
And then she turns and practically sprints off the side of the stage.
I think the announcer makes a stupid joke about keeping it short and sweet, but I push back to stand just as she throws open a door at the side of the room and actually does sprint through it this time.
My chair makes a scraping noise against the wood, but no one’s looking at me, and no one’s looking for her. Samir and his friends have their heads down, laughing over something on one of their phones, and everyone else’s attention is back on the stage, waiting on bated breath for whatever terrible joke is coming next.
I’m faster than her—the one time in recent memory I’m thankful for these stupid legs and the stupid muscles in them.
I’m across the room and into the hall before she pulls open another door at the end.
I catch up just as she ducks inside.
It’s a closet full of random shit, and one sad, dusty light hanging from the ceiling.
“Greer,” I say, voice low, reaching forward to grab her shoulder, but she whips around, the stupid glass plaque raised in one hand, her other finding her chest.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” I hold my hands up, before reaching behind me and gently closing the door so it’s just us in here. “What’s wrong?”
“Tachycardia. Dyspnea. Paresthesia.”
“Greer”—I palm my jaw—“I don’t know what that means.”
She pushes her shoulders back against the concrete wall of the closet. “Accelerated heart rate. Shortness of breath. Pins and needles in your hands and fingers.”
“What—”
She exhales, nostrils flaring, before taking in a gulp of air. “Panic attack.”
I reach for her, but this sob catches in her throat, and my hand flexes uselessly in midair instead. I don’t know how to help her. I take the plaque from her hand and set it on the ground before standing back up and leaning my head down so we’re eye level. Her eyes—usually effervescent, cunning, beautiful—they’re wide and she looks like a startled deer. “What happened? I need you to tell me what happened so I can try to fix it.”
“The glass shattering.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “It sounded like the window—when the window shattered.”
“No window shattered,” I tell her, leaning forward and grabbing her chin. She looks like she’s going to dislocate her fucking neck.
Greer opens her eyes, nodding up at me with flared nostrils and tears streaming down her face. “It did. In the car accident.”
“Car accident,” I repeat, letting go of her chin and grabbing her shoulders. “You might have been in a car accident before, but it wasn’t tonight, okay?”
Her voice cracks. “But I heard it. And now I can feel it.”
She presses her hand to her chest, shifts back and forth on her feet, like she’s trying to shake something off and she can’t because it won’t let her go no matter how hard she tries.
I drop my forehead to hers. “How can I help you? Tell me what you need.”
“My Lorazepam. I don’t have my meds. I don’t—”
I pull back. “Are they in your purse? I’ll go get it.”
She shakes her head again, a tiny jerk of a movement. “No. No. I didn’t—I didn’t bring them. I didn’t think—”
I hate how she looks right now. I fucking hate seeing her like this. “Okay, what can I do? What do you need?”
“I need you to tell me what you see. What you feel in the room.” She gasps and pushes her hand against her chest. The other grips my arm through my suit. “The water. I can feel the water on my legs.”
I shake my head, dropping down to my knees and grabbing her calves through her dress. “There’s no water, Greer. Do you feel my hands?”
She’s still shaking her head, hand finding my shoulder and her nails digging in. “I can—”
“Breathe.”
She inhales and her shoulders shudder.
“Breathe. There’s no water. It’s just me touching you.” I move my hands just under the hem of her dress, wrapping each one around her calves and pressing my palms into her skin. “Do you feel my hands?”
She squeezes her eyes shut again, but she nods.
“Eyes on me.” I press my thumb into her calf and start moving it in small circles. “Greer, open your eyes. Look at me.”
Her eyelashes flutter, but her eyes do open. They’re too bright, lined with tears.
I look around. It’s just a closet, filled with forgotten shit that no one would miss. But she’s looking at everything like it’s hurting her impossibly. “Tell me what you see, and I’ll tell you what’s real, okay?”
She nods and takes another inhale. Her hand presses against her chest, and her fingers dig into my shoulder. “Coats.”
“Real,” I answer.
“Broken umbrellas,” she whispers.
“Real.” I nod.
She blinks. “A stack of boxes.”
“Real.” I smile softly, pressing my fingers into her calves.
“You. I see you.”
I swallow. “Real.”
Beckett Davis. A real, whole person after all. Who knew.
Greer blinks, her grip loosens against my shoulder, fingers feathering softly, and the knuckles on her hand pressed against her chest go from white to pink. Her voice is impossibly small, but it cracks when she speaks. “I don’t feel the water anymore.”
“It was never here. It was never real, okay?”
“It was.” The corners of her lips tug up in a sad smile I hope I never see her make again, and she gives me a tiny shrug. “Once upon a time.”
I nod, and I press my forehead against her thigh before looking back up at her. “But not this time. Okay?”
“Okay,” she repeats.
We stay there, silent, staring at each other—two real people surrounded by real things that aren’t here to hurt us, just to collect dust.
I watch her take another deep breath, and I don’t mean to do it, but I breathe in and out with her. Like we’re in this together, we’re going to take in the same amount of oxygen, be on an even playing field until she can breathe as well as she deserves and needs to feel better.
She looks at me like she’s relying on me, and for once, the idea of it—reliable, dependable, Beckett Davis—doesn’t feel like this burden that’s going to weigh me down so much it sends me crashing through the floor into the sub-basement of whatever hell our expectations go to die.
My shoulders straighten. It feels easy, to carry something when she needs me to.
My thumbs still move in these small, tiny circles against the muscles of her calves.
My eyes stay on hers until she takes this little, even, low, regular breath that somehow looks beautiful.
“You feel better?” My voice is rough.
Greer nods a bit, giving me another sad smile. “Steady. My heart feels close to normal again. Lungs feel full and no more pins and needles.”
“And the water?” I ask, drumming my fingers against her calves.
“Still gone.”
“Good.” I try to give her a reassuring smile. “What else can I do for you?”
“Nothing.” She shakes her head, finally dropping her hand from her chest to my other shoulder. “Unless you can give me an injection of fast-acting serotonin or dopamine.”
I give a jerk of my chin. “Sadly, fresh out of syringes with readied injectable brain chemicals in my suit jacket. What else gives that?”
“Some foods. Things that help you relax. Yoga. Massage. A cute animal video.” Greer shrugs, her shoulders curving inwards a bit, skin somehow illuminated under the dim light. “An orgasm.”
She says it through this tiny raspy laugh and it’s meant to be a joke—but it doesn’t feel like one.
My fingers tense against her calves. My suit jacket suddenly feels too tight, and I swallow, eyes on her.
Greer blinks, lips parting and her cheeks going pink. “A joke.”
“A joke,” I repeat. I don’t find it funny—my cock doesn’t find it funny. I like the idea of it. Making her feel good—being someone who takes care of her when I think she spends most of her time taking care of everyone else.
My thumb starts in slow circles against her skin again, and I grin up at her. “I don’t mean to brag. But I’ve been told I’m pretty good. I can get you there.”
Her teeth come down on her bottom lip, and another small rasp of laughter catches in her throat.
But she swallows, blinking at me, and her fingers still against my shoulders.
I slide my hand up her calf, over the arch of her knee. The silk of her dress shifts, and I pause, fingers hovering over the skin of her thigh. My lips part and I don’t look away from her, waiting for any sign of permission that she wants me to reach up just a bit higher.
Her eyes flick down to her dress, the silk resting above my hand and when she looks back up at me, she inhales, moving her head in a tiny nod.
Grinning at her, I move my hand up past her knee, a shiver whispering over her when I trace the inside of her thigh.
We stare at each other as my hand climbs higher, fingers finding the edges of lace covering her. I graze where it meets her skin, and she gives me another small nod of permission.
My thumb scores up the centre of her, stopping right between her thighs. Her pupils widen, and she inhales.
I wish we were under the brightest sun in the world—so I could see everything about her, nothing shadowed under the dim light, but I know she looks beautiful: impossibly dark hair and bright eyes, full lips parting and a blush on the apple of her cheeks.
“Do you like this?” I ask, voice rough.
Greer nods. “It feels—” Her head tips back and her lips part when I move my thumb in a circle, before dragging it slowly down the centre of the lace. “It feels—I do, like it.”
“Lift your dress up.”
My hand stays where it is, moving in slow circles, tracing her, in reverence for this otherworldly girl who trusted me with something so much more than just her body. I can feel the lace get wetter when the silk of her dress slides up her thighs, until she holds it in one hand, revealing the underwear covering her.
I pull my hand back, and I don’t think she means to, but she makes a small whimper and I grin up at her, grabbing either side of her underwear, slowly pulling it down her legs until it pools around her heels.
I lift one foot up, sliding the lace off, gently setting it back down and doing the same with her other foot, before I grab her leg and hoist it over my shoulder.
Her heel digs into my back, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more turned on by someone in my entire life.
My eyes cut to her, bared to me, before I glance back up.
Her teeth come down on her lip again.
I swallow. “May I?”
Greer gives me one small final nod of permission, and I watch her teeth dig into that full bottom lip again.
I lean forward, inhaling, before sliding my tongue up and stopping at her centre.
“Fuck—you taste—” I groan, hoisting her thigh up higher and burying my face deeper. “I could fucking live here.”
Another rasp of laughter, followed by a sharp intake of breath, and she moans my name. “Beckett.”
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be me more than I do right now—on my knees for her, head between her legs, tongue soaked with her, this girl who keeps too many secrets, with those beautiful eyes that hide someone who’s nicer than she pretends to be, and a mouth that breathed life back into a person who wasn’t even real.
“Say my name again,” I ask against her, one hand gripping the muscles of her thigh so hard I think I’m going to leave a bruise on her skin, and I hope I do. I bring my other hand up, two fingers sliding inside her, moving slowly with the circles of my tongue.
She says it again, softer this time, one hand raking through my hair, and I’m real, I know I am, because how could I be anything else when she says my name like that—a tiny whisper, a tiny moan, with the tiny shift of her hips, bringing all of her closer to me.
Beckett .
I move my tongue in another circle. My hand grips her thigh, and my fingers move into her and out of her slowly.
Beckett.
I keep doing it—slowing down when she tells me to and moving faster when her fingers tug on the hair at the crown of my head.
Beckett .
My cock strains in my pants. I keep moving my tongue the way she seems to like, these deep circles, slower and faster, and I feel her clench against my fingers.
I flick my eyes up just as her back arches, her head tips back, and her eyes close—but her mouth opens, this fucking moan I want to hear for the rest of my life, and I keep going until her shoulders soften, those green eyes open and she blinks, looking down at me, cheeks flushed and everything about her radiant.
Pulling back even though I don’t want to, I slide my fingers out of her—I meant it, I could live between her legs. I press my lips gently to her thigh and set her leg down.
I lean back, rolling my shoulders, my hands finding my thighs. I feel a bit like bringing my fingers to my mouth instead, so she can watch and see how fucking good she tastes, but this wasn’t about me.
“That—uhm—” Greer breathes, eyes wide and bright and beautiful, before she drops her dress. “Thank you. That was—you did, get me there. Your endorsements were accurate. We should—we should get back to the party.”
“You’ll have to give me a minute.” I grin, undoing my zipper and untucking my shirt so I can adjust the hard-on that’s probably never going away for the rest of my life.
Her eyes flick down to my hands, watching, until I tuck my shirt back in and do my pants back up. I grab her underwear from the floor before shoving them in my pocket and pushing to stand. “You can put these in your purse later.”
She laughs, and it echoes in the space that seems significantly smaller than it did before.
We’re just on this side of touching, and if I moved not even an inch, I’d be pressing her against the wall.
Greer tips her chin up, offering me a small smile before she whispers softly, “Thank you.”
I swallow. “Anytime.”
I angle my head down, and her chin tips up just a tiny bit more.
Only a breath between us, and I lean in.
My lips brush hers, and hers brush mine, too. Just for a brief moment in time, forever to be locked in this closet with the dust-covered coats, umbrellas, boxes, and real her and real me—before she reaches down, grabs her plaque, opens the door, and I follow her back into the hallway.