Then we were smiling. At each other. Together. Laughing.

When was the last time I had really laughed?

I couldn’t remember.

“Keep Corin away from grocery stores and don’t let her watch insurance commercials. Okay, I’ve got it. Anything else I should know?” he asked, drinking more of his tea.

“You got all day?” I raised an eyebrow.

“For you? Absolutely,” Beckett replied, and I beamed. Seriously. I actually beamed at him. Who was this girl and where did she come from?

Beckett reached across the table and pulled my cup toward him. He leaned down and sniffed the steaming beverage. “Did you just smell my drink?” I asked, laughing incredulously.

“Damn straight I did.” He sniffed it again and there I was, laughing again. Loudly. A little stilted but from the gut.

“Do I need to give you two a moment?” I joked.

Beckett sat up and pushed the mug back toward me. “No, I think we’re good. Just letting her know I haven’t forgotten about her.” He glared down at his drink. “I’ll try not to hold it against you, green tea. But you’re just not as good as my girl coffee,” he pouted, and I rolled my eyes.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re pretty ridiculous?”

“No, actually. I’m not known for my wacky and zany personality,” he laughed.

“I feel special then.”

Beckett shrugged. “I guess you bring it out in me.”

“One of my many talents, I suppose,” I said.

“I can only imagine,” Beckett smirked, waggling his eyebrows, and I shook my head.

I cleared my throat, feeling a little off balance and sat up straighter in my seat. “So you see Dr. Callahan?” I asked, searching for a topic we could discuss easily. Our physical ailments seemed the simplest direction.

Beckett’s smile dimmed a bit. “Uh, yeah. Have been for a while now. But I don’t have another appointment for a couple of weeks when she checks my ICD,” he replied, pushing his mug to the side.

“Is it strange knowing that thing is there, under your skin?” I asked, scratching a spot on my arm compulsively.

“Not any stranger than having my entire life turned upside down because of a condition I never knew that I had.”

He didn’t sound upset. He didn’t sound bitter.

Just matter of fact.

“What is your condition? You mentioned some letter before but I don’t have a clue what you were talking about. I Googled it and was hopelessly confused,” I said and immediately bit my tongue. Way to admit that I was interested in knowing more about him!

“You Googled it?” Beckett asked, looking amused.

I shrugged and tried not to look as mortified as I currently felt.

“That’s pretty awesome actually,” he mused, his eyes soft with an emotion I didn’t entirely understand.

He started piling packets of sugar. Making elaborate structures that eventually fell down. He didn’t seem made uncomfortable by my question but wasn’t in a rush to answer it either.

“I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry. Forget it,” I fumbled, trying to backpedal as fast as I could.

“No, it’s okay. I appreciate you wanting to know more about it.” Beckett’s answering smile was a little pained but totally natural. Easy.

He knocked the sugar packets over and then rebuilt them. Slowly. Taking his time. “I have a genetic heart defect called ARVC. I won’t bore you with the long name. But it messes with my heart rhythm. I didn’t know I had it until I almost dropped dead from the heart attack.”

There was a touch of anger in his voice, but he brushed it off with an indifferent shrug.

“Wow. That has to be tough.”

Clearly that was the wrong thing to say. His mood instantly changed and his affable demeanor morphed into irritated frustration.

Beckett stiffened. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me.”

I drew myself upright, his tone making me defensive. But more than anything, I didn’t want him to think I felt sorry for him. Yeah, I sympathized but I honestly didn’t pity him. Not one little bit.

“I don’t feel sorry for you.”

Beckett looked at me incredulously, like he didn’t believe me.

“I’m used to it, Corin. It’s nothing new, all right.”

“Yeah, I feel bad that you’re going through that. It sucks. But you seem to be the last person in the world that needs anyone to feel sorry for him. I think you seem to be handling things pretty well considering.”

“Yeah, considering I’m a dead guy walking, right?” he scoffed, swiping the pile of sugar packets, knocking them over.

“Wow, I thought I had the market on pessimism. I should have known your Suzy Sunshine bit was total crap.”

Beckett blinked a couple of times, staring at me, and then he relaxed. His mouth curved upward and his eyes started sparkling again.

“You don’t have any sort of filter, do you?” he asked.

“Filter? What’s that?”

Then we were smiling at each other again. The anger and the tension were gone.

“It sucks though, doesn’t it?” he asked after a few minutes.

“What sucks?”

“The doctor’s appointments. The never-ending questions about how you’re feeling. The sympathetic looks when they find out what’s wrong with you. The whispers. The doubts that you’re really okay. It gets old. I try not to get down but being jabbed with needles and going through tests every few weeks is a buzz kill,” he said with a sigh.

“I hate going to the doctor. I hate the tests and the questions. I hate that my friends, my family, they all look at me like I’m going to fall apart at any minute. That when they look at me, they don’t see Beckett Kingsley, they see a body in a hospital bed with wires and tubes everywhere.” Beckett gritted his teeth together and I found that I couldn’t look away.

From his truth.

His honesty.

His everything.

But then his face smoothed out and he relaxed once again. He took a deep breath and lifted his hands into the air in mock defeat.

“But what can you do? Whine about it? Wallow in self-pity? That’s not how I roll. I can’t change what’s happened, only what I do from here on out. And one thing I won’t do is be miserable with the time I have left.”

He left me a little baffled. I didn’t understand how he could be so calm. So resolute.

“How can you be so damn optimistic? Why aren’t you more upset? Don’t you get angry? Or at least mildly pissed off? How in the hell can you sit there and talk about this stuff with a freaking smile on your face? Do they have you on antidepressants or something?” I scoffed.

Beckett gaped at me for a second and then slapped his hand on the table, startling me. Shit. I had overstepped again.

But he didn’t yell or become angry. He started laughing so hard that he was literally snorting through his nose.

“Are you okay?” I asked, getting concerned when he began to gasp a bit. He pressed his hand over his chest, fingers touching the bandage I could see peeping out from his collar.

“Seriously, Beckett, are you all right?” I asked. His face was red and he almost seemed to have trouble breathing. Was I going to have to call 911?

Beckett shook his head. “I’m fine,” he wheezed.

“What the hell was all that?” I demanded, irritated when he finally calmed down.

“In the last four months since my cardiac arrest, no one has ever asked me those kinds of questions.” I frowned, not understanding what he was saying. Beckett rubbed the back of his neck.

“Sure, my doctors ask how I’m feeling. If I’m short of breath or light-headed. They want to know about chest pains and dizziness. My parents coddle me and think I’m made of glass and my friends make a joke about it.” Beckett looked out the window, his blue eyes hooded, his brow furrowed. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t jovial and optimistic.

“No one has ever asked me if I’m upset. If I’m angry.” He turned back to me, his eyes meeting mine, and I couldn’t look away.