Hail Mary: An Enemies-to-Lovers Roommate Sports Romance(9)

It also wasn’t any of my business.

But that didn’t stop me from dropping my duffle bag on the ground by my car and walking across the street.





Mary

“Months?!”

I repeated the word back to the stout, almost too-muscular man staring back at me with an expression like he was bored with my concern. He was chewing on some sort of seed, and he spit out a shell before nodding and looking back at the house with one hand on his hip and the other holding his clipboard.

“It’s very possible,” he said with a thick New England accent. “I know that’s not the news you or your landlord want to hear, but… the pipes are a mess.”

“Clearly,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose as I recalled the flood inside the house. I’d come home to it after a late night at the tattoo parlor and had spent most of the early morning hours mopping up what I could with every towel in the house.

“It’s going to take a while to assess the damage entirely, clean up enough of the mess to get to the root of the problems, and then fix said problems. Of course, you’re going to need new floors, and then there’s the walls, the ceiling…”

He must have noted the way my face crumpled more and more as he spoke, because he quieted, clearing his throat.

“The good news is it’s fixable,” he offered pathetically.

“Right. You just need to gut the entire system.”

The man gave me an apologetic smile. “Ah, don’t beat yourself up. Happens all the time with old houses like this, especially with the summers getting hotter and hotter. These pipes just can’t take the expansion of the water when it gets hot like this after an already-brutal winter.”

I wanted to beat my head against the nearest brick wall.

“I spoke with your landlord, and she wants this resolved just as quickly as you do.”

“Mm-hmm,” I said flatly, trying not to laugh as I pictured Miss Margie doing anything quickly. She was a doll, and an absolute saint for renting the house to me for the low price she did. But she was also a nutcase and moved at the pace of a snail on vacation.

It had been tight since Julep moved out. That traitor of a roommate had booked the first flight to Charlotte after her boyfriend — er, fiancé — was signed to the Panthers in April. Not that I didn’t know it was coming, and not that she wasn’t an angel for still paying her half through the end of our lease, but I’d been floating it all on my own ever since.

I was doing it. I was capable. But it wasn’t easy, and I had been actively looking for a roommate to help make things easier for a few weeks now.

So much for that.

Now, I was homeless with no money saved and a paycheck that just barely helped me scrape by as it was. And, unlike many of the college kids who lived in this old neighborhood, I couldn’t just call up my mom or dad and ask for money.

I mean, I could. But I wouldn’t.

My pride, among other things, wouldn’t allow that.

I was still standing with my arms folded, subtly pinching the inside of my rib cage just in case this was a nightmare I could wake up from, when someone sidled up beside me and nearly made me jump out of my skin.

“What’s the problem?”

I pressed a hand against my heart from the scare, eyes wide until I turned and found Leo Hernandez standing beside me with concern etched into his brow.

Leo fucking Hernandez — North Boston University’s star running back, most unobtainable bachelor, and number one on my people I would murder if I could get away with it list.

Also, my neighbor.

That had been a comically ironic discovery after I’d signed the lease with Julep last year. Had I known before signing, I’d have steered clear of this house, this street, hell — this entire neighborhood.

He looked like he was fresh from summer practice, sweat soaking the edges of his hairline and making his gray NBU football t-shirt stick to his chest. His hair was boyish in its length, messy and sticking up in a thousand different ways where it wasn’t stuck to his forehead. His hazel eyes and warm brown skin were too much for most anyone attracted to males to resist, and when you combined it with a body built by years and years of football, it was the most unfortunately irresistible combination.

I used to think I loved him.

But that was before I hated him.

He folded his arms over his muscular chest, and it was then that I realized he’d ripped the sleeves off his shirt, showcasing his upper outer rib cage and every inch of his arms. I glanced at his bulging biceps for only a moment before I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“As your neighbor, I beg to differ.”

“This your boyfriend?” The man with the clipboard asked, pointing at Leo. “I can explain it to him, if you’d like.”

I ground my teeth, both at the insinuation that I would ever date a pig-headed asshole like Leo Hernandez and that, as a woman, I needed a man whom the contractor could explain the pipe issue to in order for me to fully comprehend.

“He’s no one,” I grumbled, angling my body so that Leo was cut out of the circle that had somehow formed. “I’ll speak with Margie about next steps. Thank you for your time.”

The man looked between me and Leo a few times before shrugging, then he ripped off a copy of the assessment from his clipboard and handed it to me. “I recommend getting anything you care about out of there.”