Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(107)

Every team in the NFL wanted a North Boston University recruit.

But while Clay, Kyle, Braden, and Leo had signed contracts with fat signing bonuses, Zeke had withdrawn himself completely.

It had shocked us all at first, but when he and Riley took us out to dinner and told us about their business plan, the only emotion we felt was ecstatic. They were working with the NFL to launch the Novo Football Coalition, a program dedicated to exposing young girls to football and giving them opportunities to play as they grew older. It was the first program the NFL was directly involved with that supported females stepping into the arena, and there was a partnership with the Women’s Football Alliance to make a future in football for girls, too.

They had a long road to walk, one that we all knew would be bumpy and full of roadblocks. There were so many adversaries to women playing football in our country, but with Zeke and Riley behind the wheel, I had a feeling there was nothing they couldn’t achieve. Maybe one day, there would be a Women’s Super Bowl with two teams of bad ass bitches just like Riley.

I couldn’t wait for that day.

We’d all told them we were there to help every step of the way, too. Some of the guys even forked over a big part of their signing bonus to help them get started. The first branch of their coalition was set to open in the fall right outside of Boston, and Riley’s brother, Gavin, was to be general manager.

“There’s my girl.”

I bit my lip on a smile as Leo’s arms wound around me from behind, his lips finding my neck before I was spun in his arms to face him. He trailed his eyes down every inch of me before making a deep noise in his throat.

“You in this fucking dress, Stig,” he mused, shaking his head. “Remind me to keep you away from all roads. We don’t need a car pile-up to ruin the wedding day.”

“Shut up,” I said swatting at him.

“No chance. Unless you think of a creative way to make me,” he added with an arch of his brow. “Sitting on my face might work.”

He kissed me before I could laugh at him, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, reveling in the way it felt to have him cling to me like I was all he ever wanted. I was also now very distracted by the thought of following through on his invitation later.

Leo was drafted in the third round to the Minnesota Vikings. And while I was secretly hoping we’d end up somewhere hot and tropical, I was just ecstatic for Leo that his dream had come true. There was a high chance he’d end up starting in the fall, too, with how awful the Vikings’ run game had been the past couple of years. They needed Leo, and he was all too happy to step in and step up.

As soon as he signed the paperwork, we were loading up a moving truck and heading to Minneapolis.

Leo’s mom had moved with us, buying a place just outside the city because she couldn’t bear the thought of being too far from her son. We’d welcomed her and the meals she loved to make for us, and my parents helped us move, too, before telling us we always had a place to stay when we wanted to visit Boston.

There was also a threat that we would be back for the holidays — and we were to bring Leo’s mom with us.

Leo’s relationship with his father was strengthening now, too, especially with Leo entering his career with the NFL. Nick was at our condo at least one weekend a month, running drills with Leo to prepare him for the season and walking him through everything he could expect once training camp started in the summer.

And as for me? I was busy renovating.

Because Leo did, in fact, buy me my first tattoo shop with his signing bonus.

Of course, the only way I allowed it was by him promising that he’d accept me paying him back once we were profitable. I still wasn’t convinced he actually would, but I was thankful for the chance to try.

My emotions surrounding tattooing had been a tangled mess after what happened with Nero. Skill wise, I felt like I was bursting at the seams, like I had just cracked the code on my style and was so anxious to get started on my clientele that I would go insane if I didn’t have my own chair. But mentally, I was shut down, afraid of my next move, of what might happen if I tried to work at another parlor in Boston while Leo and I waited to see what would happen in the draft.

For a while, I did nothing.

I allowed myself to come down off the crazy rollercoaster of everything that had happened, finding safety in Leo’s arms. I’d moved back to The Pit, thanks to my roommates who were more than happy to welcome me and Palico back into their space, and I found my joy there with them through the holidays.

Once the new year rolled in, I decided it was time to pull myself out of the rubble and rebuild.

My first plan of going to the other girls at Moonstruck failed miserably. Half of them wouldn’t talk to me at all, like I was a plague and if they so much as answered my texts, they’d be fired and blacklisted, too. The few I did manage to get a conversation out of denied Nero ever making them feel uncomfortable — even though I would have bet my life savings on them lying.

So, my final move was to tell his wife.

Arianna agreed to meet with me after I left an anonymous note with my phone number on the windshield of her car. I felt a little creepy reaching out that way, but I wanted her to know the story of what happened. She deserved at least that much. In the end, I couldn’t control what happened to Nero. In a world set up for men to get away with shit like what he pulled, I didn’t have a whole lot to work with.