Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(28)

“Anything but football.”

“Halo?” Braden offered.

My eyes shot to Leo, who was standing behind the recliner now so he could see the screen. I waited to see if there was some sort of recognition on his face when the game was suggested, but I didn’t know why I did. He didn’t so much as blink, just wore that same cocky smile as he waited for us to start the game.

I ground my teeth together, and I no longer had to pretend to be annoyed. “How about COD, instead?”

Braden smiled, seemingly impressed by that alone, which made me want to roll my eyes. But he keyed up the game, and I ignored Leo standing in the corner as I proceeded to surprise every single one of them.

We played co-op mode, and Kyle and I had no sooner finished our first round before Braden was yanking the controller out of his hands so he could play with me next. Sunday morning slipped by like that, until I grew bored with the game of making Leo eat his words and stood, stretching.

“I’m going to shower,” I announced, reaching my hands up to the sky before twisting my body left and right to crack my back.

Leo, who had been quiet most of the morning, stared at where my shirt rode up over my panties as I did.

When I dropped my hands and the shirt fell back into place, his eyes found mine, and I smiled. “As long as it’s okay with you, Daddy.”

Kyle and Braden exchanged looks, and Leo grinned. “I’ll allow it, since you’ve been such a good girl.”

I rolled my eyes. “Someone needs to mow the lawn,” I said as I grabbed my empty mug off the table. “I’ll start the dishes, but I scrub toilets too much at the shop to do it here. One of you needs to hit the guest bath. And for God’s sake, please take care of whatever that is,” I added as I rounded into the kitchen, pointing behind me to the pile of gym bags overflowing with smelly socks, shorts, sneakers, and who knew what else that cluttered the front bay window.

As I rinsed my mug and set it in the top rack of the dishwasher, I heard Kyle say, “Maybe we should call her daddy.”





Leo

Our poor new QB1 looked like he was ready to shit himself.

The sun beating down on us only made Blake Russo sweat harder as he looked around at the team waiting for him to tell them what to do. It’d been another long summer day for all of us — a two-hour workout in the morning consisting of weightlifting and conditioning that made us all want to vomit, followed by classes. And now, those of us who wanted more torture were on the field for player-led skills and drills.

Except, typically, it was the quarterback who led us.

Holden wore leadership like it had been infused into his DNA at birth. Blake, who was stepping in to take his place this season after impressing all of us when Holden was injured last year, was getting there. He was working on it.

He just didn’t quite have the same demanding severity that our old Captain did.

I grabbed a water bottle and squeezed it over my head, cursing at the bite of the cold but loving it all the same. Riley grabbed it out of my hand next and did the same, shaking the water off her hair as she looked from me to Blake across the field.

“Think we stand a chance this season?”

“What kind of thinking is that, Mighty Mouse?” Zeke asked, smacking her ass from behind as he joined us. She swatted him away.

“I’m just being realistic. We’re a championship team with a target on our back now,” she said.

“And he’s not Holden,” Clay finished her thought, folding his arms over his chest. We stood there just like that in a line of cautious stares aimed across the field at our new quarterback.

“He kicked ass last season,” I reminded them. “If it weren’t for him stepping in when Holden was injured, we wouldn’t have even made the championship bowl game — let alone won it.”

My teammates made various faces that said fair point.

For a moment, I watched them with an uncomfortable nostalgia swimming in my gut. We’d all walked onto the team as freshmen together and had been through so much the last three seasons, I knew we had the kind of friendship that was forged in fire.

I could still remember when Riley walked into our locker room that first day of fall camp like she had something to prove — and she did. I remembered her slowly gaining our trust, kicking Kyle’s ass in a game of five hundred that would go down in our team’s history, and finally giving in to her feelings for Zeke.

Zeke, who had the highest returning yards of any special teams punt returner in the last season. On top of that, I’d watched him go from a kid who struggled so much in school that he just wanted to give up on it completely, to one who tutored the freshmen we had now who were in the same position he once was.

Clay had always been a beast on the field, and he’d had that same easy ability to lead just like Holden. But in the past year, he’d dedicated himself to weights and conditioning, to his diet, and he now had the build of an NFL player. He didn’t look like a kid anymore, like a college athlete. He looked like a pro. And I knew by this time next year, he would be — just like Holden.

My thoughts drifted to Coach Lee, to the look on his face when he showed me that stupid fucking article.

When he thought of us, of our crew, where did he place me? Did he see my growth, my potential?

Or did he only see wasted talent?

“I think he just needs a little support,” Clay said, and he clapped Zeke on the shoulder, stepping forward like he was about to jog over to where Blake stood with the team.