Hail Mary: Chapter 9

“The twenty-seven exes of Leo Hernandez,” Coach Lee read off loud and proud, as if I wasn’t seeing the words on his computer monitor. Just under the headline was a picture of me at one of the parties we’d had at The Pit after winning the championship game last season. I had two girls under each arm, and though their faces were blurred, their scantily clad bodies were not.

Coach lifted a brow at me while Giana covered a little cough with her fist in the corner, pretending to write something in her notebook so she didn’t have to look at me. I hadn’t seen her since she helped us move Mary in last week, and I had been glad for it, for the break from doing press.

I had a feeling that was about to change.

“The number is probably closer to thirty-seven, if we’re being picky here,” I said with a smirk. That was my defense mechanism, like the old black and white movie my mom used to watch when she was having a bad day — Singin’ in the Rain. I lived my life like Donald O’Connor.

Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em laugh…

Coach wasn’t having it, though, and his stern expression said as much.

I sighed, sitting back in my chair and folding my arms over my chest. “It’s a sorority-run blog. It’s not like it’s the Associated Press.”

“No, but one of the girls made it into a video which has now gone viral,” Giana said, and when I looked at her, she cringed, like she was sorry she had to be the one to break the news. “And this morning, it showed up on the College Sports Network when they were talking about predictions for this upcoming season.”

“And the only prediction they have for you is that you’ll get a girl knocked up,” Coach clipped.

“Coach, come on,” I said, leveling a gaze at him. “You know me better than that. I’m careful. I’m—”

“Wasting your talent on the field by acting like an amateur off it?” he shot back. “Yes, you are.”

I zipped my lips closed, settling into my chair even more when I realized I wasn’t getting out of this lashing. Coach Lee was as severe as he was untouchable as a head football coach. He’d come in guns blazing as our new coach last season, a legend out of Alabama with a reputation that far preceded him. My father was ecstatic when he heard the news, because in his eyes, anyone who played or coached in Alabama was in a league above the rest.

Coach Lee came in, and in one season had taken us all the way to the championship game.

We brought the trophy home, and I knew a lot of it was thanks to him.

But he was also a little too condescending for my taste, and no matter how many times I’d hung out with him outside of practice, whether it be at The Pit or at some family event with Holden and Coach Lee’s daughter, it seemed his opinion of me never changed.

Then again, I guess I wasn’t helping matters by playing into the role I’d created.

“Leo,” Giana said softly, calling my attention to her. “You’re an amazing player, and you know how to charm the wings off a bird. Whenever I call on you for press, I know you’re going to hit it out of the park.”

“And I know when I call on you for a run, you’re going to get the first down or wreak havoc trying,” Coach added. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk and folding his hands together. “But here’s the thing — it doesn’t matter how well you do on the field. If the GMs think you’re a liability, they won’t think twice about skimming right past your name when it comes time for the draft.”

I snorted. “And getting laid makes me a liability?”

“Your attitude makes you a liability,” Coach snapped, his tone one that demanded I remember my place. “The way you strut into practice late, spend your time on the sidelines at every game making eyes at girls in the stands, and all your extracurricular activities that get more attention than you think.”

I stayed silent, resisting the urge to point out how I volunteered with Pee Wee football every summer, how I mentored high school kids in the fall, how I got straight fucking As in all my classes in a major that was twice as hard as the bullshit ones most of my teammates declared. The truth was none of that mattered, because to the media, it was boring.

They’d rather play my same cocky remark during a post-game interview over and over on the highlight reels as they debate whether I have a shot going pro or not.

But that was the thing — I knew what they wanted, what got their attention and put me on their programs. It was fine to be a great running back, but we had a nation full of those. There were also plenty of kids volunteering and acing their classes.

If I wanted to stand out, I had to give them a reason to remember my name.

And if there was one thing I was good at besides football, it was causing a scene.

The way Coach and Giana were looking at me now, though, I guessed I’d taken it a little too far. It was one thing to have general managers know your name. It was another entirely to have your name at the top of their mind when they thought about players they didn’t want to draft.

“Maybe just… tighten up a little this season,” Giana recommended. “Focus on football and not so much on the girls. I can set up a couple volunteer opportunities, and we can get a one-on-one interview for you before the opening game.”

“No.”

My response surprised them both. “No?” Coach repeated with a warning edge to his tone.

“I hate that shit. They just want to probe into your family or personal life, get some sob story out of you so they can plaster it all over the news. Look at how they treated Holden last season when he was inching toward the draft. You couldn’t turn on SportsCenter without seeing pictures of his dead family flashing on the screen.”

“And look where he is now,” Coach said without hesitation.

I sighed, sinking even farther into my chair.

“It doesn’t have to be super personal,” Giana offered softly. “Just… open up a little. Show them you’re more than the cocky running back they think you are.”

I wanted to roll my eyes so badly, but I refrained. “Fine.”

Coach and Giana shared a look before he dismissed us both with a nod. Giana stood, and I bolted out of the office first with her on my heels.

“Hey,” she said, catching the crook of my arm. “I’m sorry about that back there. I wanted to handle it with you myself, but…”

“I know.”

She nodded. “It’s just… I think he sees a lot of potential in you, Leo. He knows you can be great — you already are.”

I sighed, but knew she was right. Coach Lee didn’t know how to show his love to his players only to come down hard on us. I’d seen that firsthand with Holden last season, and with any other player he thought had a chance. He was much harder on me, Clay, Kyle, Zeke, and Riley than any other seniors. He thought we had potential.

Still, it thoroughly pissed me off that he couldn’t see past the superficial bullshit and realize I was already doing all the things he wanted me to. I was a part of our community — not because they asked, but because I wanted to be. I was doing well in school. I was performing on the field.

So what if I was confident in my interviews? They loved that shit. That’s why my clips got more airtime than anyone else’s. And who said this kind of publicity was bad? Isn’t all publicity good, in a way?

“How’s it going with Mary?”

I blinked at the rapid change in subject, and a flash of Mary and her big green eyes hit me like a ball out of left field.

“Good,” I answered. “I think she’s feeling more comfortable than last week.”

“You guys are being nice to her?”

I smirked. “Very nice.”

Giana narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be cute.”

“Impossible not to.”

“I’ll see you later,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She pointed her pen at me as she backed away. “Angel behavior, got it?”

I drew a halo around my head before pressing my hands together in mock prayer. She turned with a smile, and then I dropped my hands, a long exhale leaving me.

I was already dreading the interviews Giana would set up, the inevitable questions that would come. No matter how G tried to keep them on track, I knew from experience that reporters wanted the dirt. They’d ask about that article, and about the girls in my life — emphasis on the plural.

If I told them the truth, they’d be let down.

They loved to believe I was this big player, fucking anything with tits that walked past me. That said athlete. That said cocky son-of-a-bitch.

If they knew that of those twenty-seven girls in that article, I’d only slept with four of them?

They’d be much less interested.

Did I love the attention girls gave me as a college football player? Hell fucking yeah, I did. Who was I to turn down a girl who wanted to dance at a club, or makeout at The Pit, or take a body shot, or wear my jersey to the games?

But something soft about me that I wouldn’t admit to anyone other than my mother was that I needed to feel a connection to a woman before I wanted to fuck her.

I had no problem making out, or even hitting second base with someone I didn’t have feelings for. I was a man, after all, and I much preferred a random girl’s mouth to my hand. But when it came to stripping down — literally and figuratively — I was a lot more picky.

I needed to feel something.

I couldn’t lay a stranger down and look into her eyes in a moment so intimate, in a situation where I felt so vulnerable, and not know a single thing about her or feel like she didn’t know me. I couldn’t fuck a girl and then immediately put my clothes on and leave, or ask her to do the same.

I needed to relate to her, be intrigued by her, be comforted by her.

And for that, I blamed the first girl who ever made me feel that way.

I dragged my ass down the stadium hallway, passing by the locker room and heading straight for the weight room, instead. I barely warmed up before I set up at the angled leg press, stacking three-hundred pounds of plates on the machine before I sat down and huffed out the first set of reps. I felt some of the tension melt out of me, but my thoughts didn’t quiet.

I let my head fall back against the bench, staring at my sneakers as I caught my breath.

I didn’t even know her name.

That was what bothered me most all these years later. It made me sick that she ghosted me. It coiled my guts to think that something might have happened to her. It made me furious that I didn’t push harder to meet in person, to put a face to the girl who had permanent residence in my head and my heart.

But not knowing her name?

That meant I didn’t have a prayer of ever finding her.

I shook my head. “Stop being such a fucking pu—”

The word died on my lips, and I paused before a little laugh exhaled out of me remembering how Mary had slapped me the last time I’d used that word as an insult.

Pulling the latches at my side, I focused on my core and my breathing as I repped out another set, and then I locked the weight back into place, legs burning.

I didn’t want to think about my past anymore, about the fact that I was hung up on someone who likely never thought of me now. She would be in college, too — or maybe graduated already. Or maybe she didn’t go to college at all.

Maybe she had a boyfriend. Maybe she was already married and knocked up.

I’d never know.

“Let it go, man,” I urged myself, and then I unlocked the weight again, prepping my breath before I brought my knees to my chest and then powered them straight again. Over and over, I pushed until my heart was racing and my legs were on fire.

And finally, my thoughts drifted away.

For the next hour, it was just me and the weight room. I was the only player in there, and I didn’t even put on headphones like I typically did. I savored the silence, savored the way my body took the pain and pressure off my heart.

One day, I’d wake up and not even think of her at all.

One day, I’d meet someone new, someone who made me feel the way she did, but stronger.

One day.

Until then, I had football.

That was all I needed.

I was exhausted by the time I dragged my ass back to The Pit. Between the early morning conditioning, the whipping from Coach, the punishment I self-inflicted in the weight room and an entire afternoon of Pee Wee practice, I was ready to collapse before I even made it through the door.

When I did, I ran smack into Mary.

I opened the front door and blew through it, and when I turned to the left to immediately toss my gym bag onto the disgusting cushion under our bay window, I collided with her, knocking her so hard she nearly toppled over the arm of the couch. My bag and her purse both crashed onto the old hardwood floor, but I focused on making sure she didn’t join them.

My hands shot out, catching her by the hips just as the back of her knees hit the couch. She angled back with a surprised squeak, arms windmilling, but I kept her from going down, pulling her back up onto her feet.

Her eyes were wide when she was upright again, chest heaving a bit like I’d scared the shit out of her. I guessed I probably had, swinging through the door like a bat out of hell and nearly tackling her. I kept my hands braced on her waist, making sure she was steady, and her hands had found my shoulders once they stopped flailing about.

Now, we were about two inches apart, and I took the lack of distance as an excuse to soak her in.

I was so used to being kept at a distance, but now, I could see every curve the burnt orange dress she was wearing hugged, and every little tattoo peeking out from under the fabric. I noted the flowers wrapping her shoulders, the little bumble bee nestled under her collarbone, the impressive sternum piece that spanned her chest and disappeared under her dress. She wasn’t wearing a bra, either, her breasts gaping enough for me to see how that tattoo dipped between them. I followed the black lines of that ink until I couldn’t see any farther, and then lingered on the outline of the metal piercing her nipples.

Fuck me.

My eyes dropped to where my hands held her hips, continuing down to where the ink began again under the hem of her dress, coloring her thighs and knees and shins all the way to her black boots.

I took my time trailing my gaze back up, and when my eyes met hers, she lifted her chin marginally, as if I were a predator and she wanted to prove she wasn’t afraid of me. Her septum piercing glinted in the light, and I noted how her throat constricted with a thick swallow before she pressed her hands into my chest and shoved me away.

“Can you watch where you’re going?” she said, annoyance evident in her voice. Then she looked down to where the contents of her purse had spilled out, sighing as she dropped to her knees to start picking it all up.

I was really tempted to stand there and enjoy that view, but good sense found me and I bent to help her.

“Sorry,” I said, scooping up a lipstick and mascara and dumping them into her bag. “I didn’t expect anyone to be home.”

We finished gathering her belongings off the floor, and I held out a hand to help her stand. She looked at it, scoffed, and used the couch, instead.

“Where are you off to?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, are you my daddy now?”

“In every single one of my dreams.”

Mary folded her arms over her chest, that usual bored expression she loved to wear settling in and erasing any trace of that curiosity that had been there before. I’d felt it, though — the way her breath hitched when I had my hands on her.

It gave me the confidence to pin her with a cocky grin that told her I saw right through the act.

She flattened her lips. “You look like hell, by the way.”

“And you look like a snack,” I shot back. “We haven’t given you a proper tour of the house yet, have we? We could do that now, start with my bedroom…”

I thought I saw a flicker of something in her eyes — amusement, maybe? Desire? The temptation to say yes to my offer just to see if I made good on it?

But she just shook her head, pressing her tongue into her cheek as she scrutinized me. “That actually works for you, doesn’t it?”

She looked almost sorry for me as she pushed past, and all the playfulness died with that look. I closed my eyes, internally groaning at the idiotic comment as my hand shot out, catching the crook of her elbow and spinning her back around before she could reach the door.

“Wait,” I said.

She shook me off. “Stop touching me.”

“Sorry.” I threw my hands up in surrender. “For the bedroom comment, too. It’s been a long day and I was just—”

“Joking. Yes, I’m aware,” she said, folding her arms over her chest again. I thought she was going to lay into me, but she just fell silent, her eyes flicking between mine.

I shifted under that lingering gaze.

“What happened?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You said it’s been a long day. What happened?”

I sighed, raking a hand back through my hair as I looked away from her and out the bay window. “Just some media bullshit.”

Mary frowned. “What’d you do?”

I chuckled. “Why do you automatically assume I did something?”

All she did was arch a brow.

“Some sorority girl wrote a story about me being a player, essentially,” I said, shrugging. “The twenty-seven exes of Leo Hernandez.”

“Twenty-seven, huh?” Mary let out a little whistle. “Impressive. All in the same sorority?”

“Of course not. I’m not a monster.” I grinned. “I try to keep it to five per house.”

It was a joke, one that came so easily from me I was almost surprised. Almost being the key word, because it was easier for this front to slip out than anything close to the truth.

It was clear to me that the way I presented myself was exactly how Mary saw me, too, when she rolled her eyes.

“So, the article is accurate, then?”

“What do you think?” I challenged.

She tilted her head a bit to the side, and again, I felt myself want to fidget under the weight of her gaze. The longer it lingered, the more I felt like she was stripping me down without my permission.

“I think you’ve gotten really good at playing the part.”

Her words shocked me silent, all traces of humor leaving me at the sound of them. “What part is that?”

The corner of her mouth tilted up, but then she dropped her gaze, fishing her keys out of her purse. “I have to run. I have some laundry in the dryer, but I’ll take care of it later.” She pointed a key at me, then. “Don’t touch it.”

“What, you don’t want us to do something nice for our new roommate like fold her clothes?”

“I don’t want one of you perverts stealing my panties.”

“Oh, now there’s an idea…”

“Leo,” she threatened, poking that key out even more.

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, your thongs are safe. Now, your hot pink friend upstairs, on the other hand…”

Mary sucked her teeth before turning on her heels and swinging out the front door. “GOODBYE.”

I smiled until she was gone, thankful she left on a more playful note.

But once she was gone and the house was silent, that smile slipped.

And her words replayed in my mind for the rest of the night.