Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(55)

“But you weren’t there when it happened! I don’t even know if anything did happen.” A frustrated breath puffed out of me. “I… I probably read too much into it, and nothing weird has gone on since, but now—”

“Don’t do that,” he said, shaking his head. He took a tentative step toward me, his eyes softening a bit. “Don’t second guess yourself like that creep wants you to.”

My words stutter-stopped in my chest, and I swallowed, folding my arms over myself. “Look, what happens to me is none of your business.”

“What if I want it to be?”

Silence.

Silence that was so deafening I felt it in the very core of who I was.

It fell over us a like a parachute, drifting down slowly until we were encompassed completely and hidden from the rest of the world. My pulse reverberated through every cell in my body, the air between us a living thing. And when Leo took another tentative step toward me, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard in his throat, I lost the ability to breathe.

“Say something,” he pleaded.

My heart thundered in my ears as I shook my head, and I had to look down, away from him.

For a moment, Leo stood still, waiting.

Then, he growled in frustration, whipping around until he was storming away from me again.

“Leo,” I said, his name cracking my voice.

I gasped in surprise when he turned on me again, pulling at his hair before his hands thrust toward me, his eyes wild. “I can’t fucking do this, Mary!” His breaths shook through the words. “I want you. I know you know it, too.”

My heart shuddered to a stop.

It was one thing to assume it, but to hear him say it…

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t lie,” he said, his voice calmer now, softer. He took another step toward me. “You know it. You can feel it. You want me, too, but for some reason you keep playing this fucking game.”

I was shocked silent, but inside, I felt the volcano whistling and searing and roaring to life. Each word he said spawned it on more, the taste of ash on my tongue as it simmered and stirred.

“Damn it, woman,” he said, shaking his head.

My chest was on fire. My breaths were hot steam.

“I’m mad about you!” Leo gripped his hair again before his hands stretched out toward me. “Can’t you see that?”

“You were once before and you don’t even remember!”

There it was.

The eruption.

My eyes brimmed with tears, nose stinging as I lifted my gaze to meet his. My breaths were so haggard now that I pressed a hand against my aching ribcage as if I could soothe it, as if I could tame the molten lava burning me from the inside.

There was no going back now.

Leo just tilted his head to the side, frowning, confusion washing over him. “What?”

I shook my head, turning it to the side to focus on a random car instead of the stupid boy standing in front of me. The motion set two fat tears cascading down my cheeks, and I swiped them away, folding my arms over my chest.

“Two weeks ago, in my room…” Leo breathed the words slowly. “You… you said you wish I remembered…”

I closed my eyes again, tears burning behind my lids where I refused to set them free.

It felt like an eternity passed, but when I chanced looking at Leo again, he was ashen.

Every line in his face had softened, his eyes wide, jaw slack. He stared at me, but it was like he wasn’t seeing me at all.

It was as if he was in another place, another time altogether.

“You…” he croaked, and then shook his head, deftly blinking before his eyes found mine. “Stig?”

The nickname was just above a whisper when it left him, but it felt like a knife to my chest.

I swallowed.

I nodded.

And then I let out a gasp of a sob as he charged me and swept me into his arms.



Leo

An entire city crumbled inside of me, burying my aching chest and stammering heart in the rubble as I reached for Mary and pulled her into me.

My next breath burned even more than the last as I crushed her to my chest, but I held her only a moment before I was pulling back to look at her. I swept one hand through her silky hair, cupping the back of her head as my eyes searched every curve and line of her face. I took in her freckles, her glossy wintergreen eyes, her trembling lips.

My other hand ran along the line of her neck, her skin hot to the touch as I traced her collarbone and then up to her jaw. My heart was in my throat as I smoothed my thumb over the apple of her cheeks, memorizing the bridge of her nose as I traced it, committing her plump lips to memory when my thumb found them next. Her breath was as shallow as mine, the warmth of it ghosting over my fingertips as I took her in.

I choked on the first clean breath I’d taken since I lost her.

Wrapping her tightly in my arms again, my hands went from her hair to her back, over her arms, up to frame her neck and hold her even closer so I could feel that she was real, that she was here.

It was a dream and a nightmare all at once.

“How?” I whispered, not sure if the question was to her or myself or the universe. I pulled her back, framing her arms with my hands and letting my eyes wash over her before I crushed her to me again. “How?”

I never wanted to let her go.