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Beckett

It doesn’t feel like I thought it would.

Sure, there’s a part of real Beckett that’s just as competitive as old Beckett.

It would have become this elusive thing if I’d never hit it. And there’s already a part of me saying that 67 yards isn’t enough. It’s just the start. That he wants to kick so far and so well, no one’s ever going to catch up.

But the other parts of me say it can wait—because if it wasn’t for that one fuck up, the biggest fumble of the year according to significantly more articles online than one would think possible, I wouldn’t be here.

Pushing past my teammates, I ignore reporters for the first time in my life so I can get a clear line to sprint across the rest of this field.

It does open up a bit, and my hamstring and quad scream when I take off, but not as much as the rest of me does.

It’s nothing really, not the first time I’ve sprinted after her or towards her, and I hope it won’t be the last.

My hands and arms know how to hold her, so it really isn’t anything to jump and grab onto that barrier and lift myself up.

She’s right there. With her sister, her two best friends, and too many other screaming fans who’ve decided they like me after all.

Her sister whips her head around towards them. “Back off.”

They do.

“Dr. Roberts.” I grin, swinging my legs over the edge and hopping off, down into the stands.

She blinks up at me, hair lifting in the breeze, fluttering around her face. Earmuffs still on, one hand pressed to her chest, and my favourite lips move softly, deliberately, before my favourite sound in the world follows. “Great legs.”

“Who knew?” I say, voice rough.

“You’re a meme again, Record Breaker.” Her lips shift into this soft smile, forest eyes glistening and she holds up her phone. “All kinds of videos about what it takes to make a successful 67-yard kick look easy. They’re saying you’re the best.”

“I don’t really care.” I swipe a hand through my hair.

Greer tips her head to the side, chin angling upwards the way it does when I know she wants me to kiss her but she’s too stubborn to ask. Her voice drops, just a tiny rasp against a loud world, but something I think might be a bit like a lighthouse beam in the dark. I’ll always be able to hear it. “They’re saying other things, too.”

I lean down, mouth kicking to the side. “Oh yeah?”

Her eyelids flutter, and her chin rises further. “I didn’t realize you were professional football’s most eligible bachelor. I was harbouring under the delusion that you were a pariah forevermore, but they’re saying you’re not so eligible anymore.”

“Well, am I?”

“You are very, very much not.” She takes this tiny inhale before she kisses me.

First. Enthusiastically. Like she loves me. Probably entirely inappropriately for the venue.

But most of all, real.