Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(83)

Now, my future was uncertain.

I shook off that thought as I held Mary’s hand tighter and walked her over to the bleachers, climbing up several rows before I took a seat and pulled her down next to me.

The sun had already set on our drive over, but the cool, violet light of dusk still clung to the clear sky over the field. It was freshly painted and groomed, the season underway, and the only reason the lights flicked on overhead was because I’d asked Coach to do so.

“I feel like this is trespassing,” Mary said, sliding her arms inside my letterman and crossing her arms against the chill of the night. “Are we allowed to be here?”

“Please, I’m like a celebrity at this school.”

She rolled her eyes. “So they did this just for you, huh?”

“For us.”

“Uh-huh. I can guarantee you, not a single teacher or faculty member remembers my name.”

My smile slipped, gut sinking when I thought about how different our high school years had been. I moved closer to her, sliding my hand between her thighs again and holding tight.

For a moment, we just looked out over the field, listening to the sounds of the city. We were about a half hour from downtown now, the trees more abundant than buildings, but it still had the feel of the city, like Boston bled right into Weston and they were one.

“I used to be here every morning and afternoon,” I told her. “Every fall. In the spring, I’d do track just so I could stay on the field in the off season. And then in the summer, it’d all start back over with camp.”

Mary turned to face me, listening intently.

“My dad was in these stands every game. Mom, too. Never sitting together, though,” I added with a weak smile. “I can still close my eyes and hear the sound of the whistles, the cheers from the stands, and my dad’s voice barreling over all of it.”

“I came to a game once,” Mary said. “I sat in the very top back corner.”

“You did? When? What year?”

She looked down at her nails. “It was the season opener after we met,” she said. “Well, we hadn’t met yet, but…”

I let out a long exhale, tilting her chin with my knuckles and pressing a soft kiss to her lips. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “I am, too.”

“What the fuck do you have to be sorry for?” I asked with a laugh.

“I didn’t tell you who I was,” she said with a shrug. “I mean, in my dramatic teen head at the time, I felt like I did. But I didn’t really. I shut you out without giving you a chance to explain. If I would have just picked up the phone when you called that night…”

“I might have fucked it all up even worse,” I finished for her. “Listen, I hate thinking about the years I missed with you. But at the same time, I wonder if it all worked out the way it was supposed to.”

Mary shot a brow up.

“Not the horrible things my friends did to you,” I amended, wrapping her cool hands in mine. “I’d go back and kick them all in the dick if I could.”

That made her laugh.

“But I mean… what if we weren’t ready for each other yet? What if I needed to grow up a little?” I paused. “Maybe I didn’t deserve you yet and the universe knew it. But then, when the timing was right… it delivered you right across the street.”

Mary crooked a smile. “Leo Hernandez, a believer in fate?”

“If fate is what brought you to me, I’m not only a believer — I’m a worshiper.”

She shook her head, but leaned into me, her head on my shoulder. “I saw about a dozen girls wearing your number on their shirts that night I came.”

“Am I a pig if I admit I used to love that shit?”

She chuckled. “No. I can only imagine what it felt like.”

“It’s nothing compared to seeing you in the stands now.”

“I don’t have your jersey, though,” she said, leaning up and balancing her chin on my shoulder to look up at me. “Need to change that.”

Everything in me beamed at the thought of her in my jersey, at just the idea of what she’d look like with my number on her chest.

“I brought you here because I wanted to share a little of my life before you came back into it,” I said. “I wanted to tell you what was important to me before I found you again. And I want you to tell me about you, too. I want to know how you spent your days, your nights, how you ended up in the house across the street, how you found your way to the shop, what your parents are like, your brother. Everything.”

Mary shifted uncomfortably, sitting up with her eyes on the field. “I don’t think my story will be as light as yours.”

“So, let me sit in the darkness with you.”

I watched the stars come out in Mary’s eyes as she told me about her life. Some of it she came out with easily, like how her older brother worked at the firm with her dad and how she found Nero’s shop when she turned eighteen and could finally get a tattoo without a parent’s sign off. I was surprised to hear she’d worked at various restaurants after high school, spending most of her money on tattoos until she was ready to move out of her parents’ house. That was when she got the apprenticeship.

She’d moved to the house across the street from us to be closer to the shop, and it really did feel like fate to me that out of all the houses in that part of town, she moved into the one so close to me.