Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(41)

“Are you going to come home to visit anytime soon? Your mother and I miss you.”

I snorted. “I highly doubt she misses anything about me.”

When he didn’t respond, I sighed.

“Maybe you and I could grab lunch this week. I can come downtown to the office? We haven’t had your favorite Thai place in a while.”

“Okay,” Dad said after a pause, and I heard the hurt in his voice, how he wished things were different between me and Mom.

He wasn’t the only one.

“I’ll have Matthew join us, too. He’s doing big things, just closed a deal on an e-commerce app that we were in a head-to-head battle over.”

The first genuine smile of the day found my lips then. “That’s my big bro.”

I could tell Dad was smiling, too, even though I couldn’t see him. “He’ll be excited to see you.”

My heart ached, wondering for a split second if I should have followed in my brother’s footsteps, if I should have joined the family company right under him and Dad. I could have been finishing up my degree this year, just twelve months away from a six-figure salary that would only exponentially grow.

But the thought didn’t even have time to stick before my creative energy was beating it right out of me.

I would have been miserable.

The truth was, I’d rather be broke and doing what I love than rich in some passionless job.

Of course, after tonight, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that the last year of my life might have been wasted on a man who wanted to fuck me more than he wanted to help me make a career.

My mood depleted again as I turned onto our street, and when I saw cars lining both sides of The Pit and lights flashing from our living room, I groaned.

A fucking party.

Great.

“I gotta go, Dad. I’ll text you about lunch.”

“We love you, Mare Bear.”

“Love you, too. And… thank you,” I said sincerely. “For the card thing. It won’t happen again.”

“No sweat,” he said, and I knew for him it wasn’t. Even with the overdue charges, my bet was that bill couldn’t have been more than a few hundred bucks. My dad spent more than that on dinner most days of the week.

I parked at my old house, casting a forlorn look at it and wishing more than I had in the last six weeks that I could just open the door, climb the stairs to my room, pack a bowl, and be alone.

Instead, I dragged my feet across the street to The Pit.





Mary

No one noticed me when I walked through the door.

Not that that surprised me, considering half the cheerleading team was there as well as a dozen or so sorority sisters. I spotted Kyle and Braden in the kitchen lining up shots with a group of girls gathered around them, and while a lot of the team was there, I noticed Zeke and Clay weren’t, which meant Riley and Giana wouldn’t be either.

As much as I loved those girls, I was glad I didn’t have to put on a happy face and pretend I wanted to party when it was the absolute last thing on my mind. Thank God they both had boyfriends they were obsessed with.

I weaved through the crowd up to my room, smiling when I found Palico curled into a ball on the clothes I’d left on my bed.

She yawned and stretched when I quietly shut the door behind me, and I petted her until she was satisfied before stripping out of my clothes and jumping in the shower. I didn’t do the whole hair-washing and leg-shaving song and dance, just rinsed off and sighed with contentment once my sweatpants were slipped on. I grabbed the biggest t-shirt I had next, not bothering with a bra, and popped a blueberry-flavored edible in my mouth before flopping down on my bed.

I hadn’t seen Leo on my way up, and I wondered for a moment if he was in his room with a girl already.

Then, I angrily shoved the heels of my hands into my eyes before putting on my headphones to drown out the noise of the party.

And my brain.

For a while, I sat propped up in my pillows with my iPad, drawing as Palico purred where she was tucked in by my side. When the edible started to hit, I felt all the tension of the day melt out of me, and my drawings became more fluid, more free.

Somewhere around one in the morning, I stood and stretched, cracking my back with a few quick twists before I stared at the door that led down the hall. A small part of me wanted to join the party now, but the larger part didn’t want to put on makeup or wear anything with underwire or zippers involved. I could have gone to sleep, but I wasn’t exactly tired.

My ears hurt from my headphones, so I took them out and opened my window, savoring the cool breeze and gentle quiet of the night. Then, before I could even think about what I was doing, I shoved the window all the way up and crawled out onto the roof.

The room they’d given me overlooked the garden, and I crawled only a few feet above my window before I sat my ass right on the cool shingles, crossing my bare feet under me and leaning back on my palms. The party was loud enough that the music and laughter spilled into the night, but it was softer out here, farther away, and the gentle high I had from the edible made me feel weightless and happy.

For the first time all night, I felt at peace.

“You found my spot.”

I jumped, nearly toppling off the roof when I whipped around and found a shadowed figure hunched a little higher on the roof. I’d no sooner caught my balance before the shadow edged into the light from the streetlamp, and Leo’s hand shot out to make sure I didn’t fall.