Hail Mary: Chapter 5

“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.”

“Right,” I said, again annoyed that he even felt the need to say that, as if it wasn’t common sense.

He left along with the small crew he’d brought with him.

Leo, however, was still standing behind me once the truck pulled away.

“Did a pipe burst or something?”

“Go away,” I clipped before heading for the house.

He was on my heels. “It sounds pretty serious.”

I ignored him, opening the front door of the house and attempting to slam it in his face. But he caught it, and then he dipped his head through and whistled at what he saw.

It was a fucking mess.

Not just one pipe had burst. It was as if one gave out and the rest of the pipes decided they were tired, too, so they threw in the towel and joined the first. There was a giant hole in the ceiling where water had built and caused it to collapse, and if that were all I had to worry about, maybe I could have stayed. But the entire system had gone. Water was everywhere, and so was debris, and I just stared at it all with Leo at my side.

“You can’t stay here,” he said, assessing the damage with his thick brows bent together. His dark, messy hair was still half-stuck to his forehead, his lips a bit chapped from the sun as he looked around. How he made sweat and sun-damage so appealing was beyond me, and I filed it as just another reason to hate him.

And I already had plenty.

“Wow, where would I be without you to point out the obvious?”

He shook his head. “Do you have a place to go? Need a ride or anything?”

I made an exasperated noise in my throat and pushed inside, not caring at this point that he was still standing in my doorway. “My car isn’t an issue, idiot. And I’m fine. You can leave now. Thank you for the neighborly concern.”

I shot each word out like pellets from a gun chamber, surveying the house and trying to decide where to start, what I needed to get out, and what could possibly remain behind. The fact that I didn’t have anywhere to move any of it was an issue I would deal with once Leo got out of my hair.

“You can stay with us.”

I laughed — and not an amused laugh, but one that was laced with bitter anger and resentment.

“I’m serious,” Leo said, pushing inside and carefully side-stepping where the ceiling had collapsed. “You don’t even have to pay rent. Holden’s room is free now since he and Julep moved to Charlotte.”

I spun on my heels. “You really expect me to move in with you and two other football players?”

He shrugged, a cocky smirk playing on his lips. “What I expect is that you don’t have as many options as you’re acting like you do.”

I clamped my mouth shut, jaw aching with how hard I ground my teeth. He was right. I didn’t have a single option, really, other than stay a few nights at a hotel and try to find a cheap interim place on Craigslist. And even those options meant I’d have limited funds for things like food and gas after the fact. I was trying to work on a savings, but as an apprentice slash shop assistant, I didn’t have much to make ends meet, let along stash aside for a rainy day.

I didn’t think Margie would charge me rent while she fixed the place, but I also didn’t think she’d let me completely out of the new lease I’d just re-signed.

Even if she did, I didn’t have anywhere to go. And with fall just around the corner, I’d be fighting against the rush of NBU students trying to find places, too. I’d dealt with that nightmare time and time again already. The thought of having to face it again now made me want to fall into a heap on the floor and cry.

“Hear me out,” he said, approaching me slowly when I didn’t immediately respond. “You get to stay for free. It’s right across the street, so you don’t have to move all your stuff into storage or across town. You don’t even have to change your mailing address. You have me and the other guys to help you move. You have your own room. We’re clean…” He paused. “Ish.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Did I mention it’s free?”

I chewed my lip, hating how many good points he had. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the guys, either. I’d spent enough time partying or hanging out at The Pit now, thanks to Julep, that I felt like an adopted little sister.

It would be nice to not have to worry about paying rent for a while, to possibly get some sort of savings started…

I shook my head for even considering it, mentally slapping myself. This was Leo Hernandez, for God’s sake. This was the prick who’d made my entire high school existence absolutely miserable and then completely forgotten about it because that was how little it mattered to him.

How little I mattered to him.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, turning on my heels.

His hand shot out, catching me by the crook of my elbow. Heat shot through me just as much as revulsion as I pulled away from the touch.

“Come on. Let us help you out. You’re Julep’s friend, and therefore, a friend of ours.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Since when are you nice?”

He feigned offense, pressing a hand to his chest. “Me? I’m always nice. I’m the nicest guy you’ll ever meet.”

I blinked at him, ignoring the urge to refute that statement in a law-based manner complete with evidence and a jury of women I knew would find his ass guilty.

“Just… think about it. Here,” he said, holding his hand out. “Give me your phone. I’ll put my number in, and I promise not to say another word about it. But if you change your mind, one text and we’ll be here helping you move everything out and across the street. We won’t have anyone else in that room until fall, so you have at least a couple months, and it should all be fixed by then, right?”

I couldn’t do anything but look at him and slowly blink again.

I loathed his existence, and yet in that moment, I saw a glimpse of the boy I used to know.

The boy I thought I knew, anyway — the one who was crushed under the pressure of what he thought he should be, who laughed in a particular kind of way when I surprised him, who had deep thoughts and feelings that he didn’t share with anyone but me. I saw the boy who cared about the girl he stayed up with every night online.

“Phone,” he said, wiggling his fingers.

I blamed the lack of sleep and the supreme yearning to get him out of my house for my actions next. I dug my phone out of my pocket and handed it to him. For a split second, I panicked, thinking that when he tried to text me, he’d be blocked. But I’d gotten off my parents’ phone plan a couple years ago — another way of me asserting my independence — and so it would be a new number altogether, and a new area code, too.

He put his number in, sent a text to himself so he’d have my number, and then gave it back to me.

“One text,” he said, and then true to his word, he turned and left.

“Fucking shit hammock,” I muttered under my breath once he was gone.

I was exhausted, and angry, and stressed the fuck out. All I wanted to do was take a hot shower, get in my pajamas, and pack a bowl.

I didn’t care how desperate things were. No way was I moving into The Pit with a house full of disgusting football players, especially not with Leo Hernandez being one of them.

Three days later, I sent a text.

Me: Don’t make me regret this.

One minute later, Leo wrote back.

Shit Hammock: That’s a weird way to say thank you.

And within the hour, my house was full of football players hauling my belongings across the street.