Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(21)

“How’s it going with Mary?”

I blinked at the rapid change in subject, and a flash of Mary and her big green eyes hit me like a ball out of left field.

“Good,” I answered. “I think she’s feeling more comfortable than last week.”

“You guys are being nice to her?”

I smirked. “Very nice.”

Giana narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be cute.”

“Impossible not to.”

“I’ll see you later,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She pointed her pen at me as she backed away. “Angel behavior, got it?”

I drew a halo around my head before pressing my hands together in mock prayer. She turned with a smile, and then I dropped my hands, a long exhale leaving me.

I was already dreading the interviews Giana would set up, the inevitable questions that would come. No matter how G tried to keep them on track, I knew from experience that reporters wanted the dirt. They’d ask about that article, and about the girls in my life — emphasis on the plural.

If I told them the truth, they’d be let down.

They loved to believe I was this big player, fucking anything with tits that walked past me. That said athlete. That said cocky son-of-a-bitch.

If they knew that of those twenty-seven girls in that article, I’d only slept with four of them?

They’d be much less interested.

Did I love the attention girls gave me as a college football player? Hell fucking yeah, I did. Who was I to turn down a girl who wanted to dance at a club, or makeout at The Pit, or take a body shot, or wear my jersey to the games?

But something soft about me that I wouldn’t admit to anyone other than my mother was that I needed to feel a connection to a woman before I wanted to fuck her.

I had no problem making out, or even hitting second base with someone I didn’t have feelings for. I was a man, after all, and I much preferred a random girl’s mouth to my hand. But when it came to stripping down — literally and figuratively — I was a lot more picky.

I needed to feel something.

I couldn’t lay a stranger down and look into her eyes in a moment so intimate, in a situation where I felt so vulnerable, and not know a single thing about her or feel like she didn’t know me. I couldn’t fuck a girl and then immediately put my clothes on and leave, or ask her to do the same.

I needed to relate to her, be intrigued by her, be comforted by her.

And for that, I blamed the first girl who ever made me feel that way.

I dragged my ass down the stadium hallway, passing by the locker room and heading straight for the weight room, instead. I barely warmed up before I set up at the angled leg press, stacking three-hundred pounds of plates on the machine before I sat down and huffed out the first set of reps. I felt some of the tension melt out of me, but my thoughts didn’t quiet.

I let my head fall back against the bench, staring at my sneakers as I caught my breath.

I didn’t even know her name.

That was what bothered me most all these years later. It made me sick that she ghosted me. It coiled my guts to think that something might have happened to her. It made me furious that I didn’t push harder to meet in person, to put a face to the girl who had permanent residence in my head and my heart.

But not knowing her name?

That meant I didn’t have a prayer of ever finding her.

I shook my head. “Stop being such a fucking pu—”

The word died on my lips, and I paused before a little laugh exhaled out of me remembering how Mary had slapped me the last time I’d used that word as an insult.

Pulling the latches at my side, I focused on my core and my breathing as I repped out another set, and then I locked the weight back into place, legs burning.

I didn’t want to think about my past anymore, about the fact that I was hung up on someone who likely never thought of me now. She would be in college, too — or maybe graduated already. Or maybe she didn’t go to college at all.

Maybe she had a boyfriend. Maybe she was already married and knocked up.

I’d never know.

“Let it go, man,” I urged myself, and then I unlocked the weight again, prepping my breath before I brought my knees to my chest and then powered them straight again. Over and over, I pushed until my heart was racing and my legs were on fire.

And finally, my thoughts drifted away.

For the next hour, it was just me and the weight room. I was the only player in there, and I didn’t even put on headphones like I typically did. I savored the silence, savored the way my body took the pain and pressure off my heart.

One day, I’d wake up and not even think of her at all.

One day, I’d meet someone new, someone who made me feel the way she did, but stronger.

One day.

Until then, I had football.

That was all I needed.



I was exhausted by the time I dragged my ass back to The Pit. Between the early morning conditioning, the whipping from Coach, the punishment I self-inflicted in the weight room and an entire afternoon of Pee Wee practice, I was ready to collapse before I even made it through the door.

When I did, I ran smack into Mary.

I opened the front door and blew through it, and when I turned to the left to immediately toss my gym bag onto the disgusting cushion under our bay window, I collided with her, knocking her so hard she nearly toppled over the arm of the couch. My bag and her purse both crashed onto the old hardwood floor, but I focused on making sure she didn’t join them.