Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(5)

“I guess so. Or maybe, as tiring as it is to play the role, it feels even more exhausting to try to change it.”

“For what it’s worth, I like you best when you’re real, when you’re open. You’re funny, yeah, but… you’re more than that.”

Leo was silent for a long moment.

“I wish you’d tell me who you are,” he said softly.

I swallowed. “Soon.”

Another week passed with me living on the outskirts of Leo’s life, in his periphery — there, but never really seen. I was happiest when he texted or called me. I was the most miserable when I was close enough to touch him and still somehow invisible. And it was in that time that I somehow found the courage I’d been searching for. Anxiety and fear still niggled at the back of my brain, but they were drowned out by the glowing orb of hope that whispered two words continually into my ear.

What if?

And so, on a crisp fall afternoon, I carried a notebook full of drawings tucked under my arm as I walked across campus toward the football field.

Practice would be over in twenty minutes, and I decided I was finally ready to tell Leo who I was.





Mary

My armpits were swamps as I stood there on the track that circled the football field, clutching my notebook to my chest and watching as Leo wrapped up practice with his team. Everything inside me screamed to turn around and bolt, but I fought against instinct.

My poor body was trying to save me, and I wouldn’t listen.

Instead, I stood as tall as I could, fingers trembling and heart racing. And when Leo was jogging past me with some of his teammates, I called out his name in a weak, cracking voice.

He slowed, head whipping in my direction, his damp, messy hair flowing like a slow motion commercial when he did. It stole my breath, seeing him that close after all the nights we’d spent together on the phone. His eyes were more golden than I’d ever realized, his jaw more defined, body glistening with sweat.

I waited for it, for the moment he looked into my eyes and just knew that it was me, that I was the girl he’d talked to every day and every night for most of the summer. I waited for his smile to spread, for him to run toward me and scoop me into his arms just like all the stupid movies had prepared me for.

Instead, he frowned, confusion etched in his brows as he slowed to a stop and walked a few hesitant steps toward me. “Yeah?”

I tried to ignore the way my heart sank, the way my nerves doubled when a few of his teammates stopped, too, looking at Leo, then me, then each other with this look that said oh, this ought to be good.

“H-hi,” I breathed, swallowing and reminding myself to force an exhale.

Leo still looked confused, but he offered a small smile of mercy. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, I just…” Every word I’d planned to say flew out the window in my panic, but I knew I didn’t need words. He’d know who I was without me having to tell him.

Because I was going to show him.

“I drew you this,” I said, thrusting the sketchbook toward him.

My smile was confident, wide and gleaming, because I just knew he was going to get it. Who else would be drawing him something? Besides, he knew my voice. He knew me.

Leo looked back at his friends who were fighting off laughter, his brows still bent together when he turned to face me again. “Um… okay?”

He took the sketchbook from me, and a teammate behind him said, “Go on, what is it, Hernandez?”

Leo glanced at me before hesitantly opening the book to the first page. It was the simplest of the drawings I’d been curating for him since the night he asked me to, a fine-line sketch of things that made me think of summer — wildflowers, bumblebees, a rushing river.

When it didn’t hit him after seeing it, when he just screwed up his face and glanced at me before flipping the page, my heart sank.

His friends watched over his shoulder, and when the page was flipped, they started laughing and yelling and hitting each other before one of them ripped the notebook out of his hands.

“What the hell? Did this crooked-teeth freak draw you porn?”

My cheeks flushed with a furious heat, and I made a mental note to never smile again. “It’s not porn,” I argued.

One of the guys flipped the book around toward me, showcasing the curvy girl who I felt looked like me. She was in a hoodie and leggings, what I usually wore when I played, and a boy in a football jersey held her in his arms, wrapped around her as they looked up at the stars.

The boy was supposed to be Leo.

If you looked closely, in our hands, there was a single Xbox controller — one we held together.

But Leo didn’t look closely. In fact, he barely looked at all before he ripped the book away from his cackling friends and shoved it back into my chest.

“Look, I don’t know what the hell this is supposed to be, but I don’t want it.”

His eyes locked on mine.

And what I saw reflected in them tore me to shreds.

He knew.

He knew it was me. It was written in every feature — the pity in his eyes, his furrowed brows, his rigid stance and heaving chest. And right then and there, I recognized the truth.

He knew it was me, and he didn’t like what he saw.

“You have no idea what I look like.”

“So?”