“I wish you remembered.”
I froze at the words, frowning in confusion as something sharp and hot zapped through my spine.
I turned slowly. “What?”
But Mary was already asleep.
Her mouth had fallen open in a little o, soft snores coming from her chest, hair fanning over her face.
After quietly shutting the door, I took a few steps before standing still in the hallway, one hand finding the wall as if I’d teeter off-balance and spiral down the stairs without holding myself steady.
My heart pounded. My thoughts raced. My breath was shallow and short.
Sleep wouldn’t find me that night.
I’d toss and turn and sweat overthinking every single second of what happened in that bedroom.
But the next morning, when Mary dragged herself into the kitchen in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, her hair a mess and last night’s makeup on her face, she’d smile at me. She’d smile, and groan about needing greasy food and a bottle of Advil, and sketch in her notebook while the rest of our roommates ambled into the kitchen, too.
She’d laugh when they commented on how drunk she was last night, and they’d take her jokes about how weak their game was with the few girls they’d invited over and failed to land at the end of the night.
They’d tell her she was a blast, that they were glad she stayed, that she was part of the family now.
And she’d blush and laugh and tell them she didn’t remember a thing after the first quarter.
Mary
“Oh, my God — please show me how you do that,” Giana said after I lined my left eye.
“Do what?”
“That perfect cat-eye thing. Mine always goes up too high or angles out too low and I can never get them even, either.”
Riley popped open her tube of mascara. “That’s why I skip eyeliner altogether.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us can look as effortlessly golden and gorgeous as you without a single ounce of makeup on, Riles,” I pointed out.
“Shut up, you’re both gorgeous,” she shot back, but I didn’t miss the way her cheeks tinged pink with a little blush. Something told me that being the only girl in a male-dominated sport probably meant she didn’t get compliments on her feminine energy much, but she radiated it, and deserved to know.
Giana smacked my arm and held out her liner with a look that said back to the subject at hand, please.
It was Chart Day, which I had zero knowledge about other than apparently it was the day Coach announced who was playing what position. Riley kept saying something about a depth chart and Giana had been up to her nose in media work all week. But tonight, they were dragging me out along with the rest of the team to celebrate the true kick off of the season.
Part of me had wanted to argue, but it was so quiet compared to that part of me just two months ago. Yes, I was tired and really just wanted to smoke a bowl and watch a movie, but at the same time, I was excited to go out with everyone.
I was happy that I had girlfriends who wanted to drag me out of the house, that I had the obnoxious yet somehow adorable roommates who treated me like a sister, that the team as a whole had embraced me. For the first time, I felt like I had a community outside of the tattoo one.
I felt like I belonged.
The fact that I hadn’t really felt that comfortable at the shop ever since what happened with Nero also added to my excitement to go out and blow off some steam. Nero hadn’t tried anything weird since, but I felt the difference, the way he watched me less with guidance and more with expectation. I swore I felt the other girls in the shop watching me differently, too — like they thought I was excelling too fast or getting special treatment.
That was supposed to be my home, my refuge. That shop had been my source of comfort for years.
Now, it had flipped, and my comfort came when I unlocked the door to this house at the end of each night.
That thought struck me, and a little smile spread on my lips as I talked Giana through winging her eye.
“What are you smiling so goofily about?” she asked.
Before I could answer, there was a soft knock on the door.
“Come in!” Riley called without hesitation.
The door opened slowly, and I peeked out of the bathroom just in time to see Leo hesitantly lean his head in.
My stomach flipped at the sight of him, especially once he saw that no one was indecent and let himself the rest of the way in. He wore a cream button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off those forearms I swore were the source of every fantasy I had. The neck was unbuttoned, his necklaces visible through the V of the collar, along with the muscular swells of his pecs. The jeans he’d paired with the shirt hung deliciously off his hips, and I followed the line of them down to his bare feet.
Fuck me… why is him barefoot wearing jeans so fucking hot?
I took my time slowly trailing my eyes back up, and my gaze snagged on his dark hair, on the way it framed his golden eyes, and the devilish smirk he wore so well.
“I just need to grab some shoes,” he said, and it was then that I realized he’d been busy checking me out while I was pretending not to take in every inch of him.
For a moment, we just stood there, eyes locked on one another while I held that stupid tube of eyeliner in my hand. There was a fuzzy memory in the back of my brain, one of him being in this room two weeks ago when I was drunk and half-asleep midway through Holden’s preseason game. I couldn’t remember what was said, but my body viscerally reacted to the memory, like it would always remember even if my brain never did.
Shaking it off, I cleared my throat and pointed toward his closet.
“Of course, go ahead.”
He nodded his thanks, but his eyes didn’t leave me until he dipped inside the closet to grab the shoes he was looking for.
“I think we’re going to call an Uber soon. Are you girls about ready?” he asked when he was upright again.
“We’ll meet you there, just finishing up,” Riley said, and I hadn’t even noticed that she and Giana had both been standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
“Cool,” Leo said to her, and then his eyes were on me again, his smile slipping. He swallowed, gaze washing over the length of me. I tried not to cower under the heat, focused on squaring my shoulders as he took in my favorite, earthy-green dress that made my tits look incredible and showed off all my thigh tattoos, too. I’d found it at a thrift store while shopping with Julep, giving up seven of my hard-earned dollars to buy it. I hadn’t even added the leather jacket or my favorite black boots yet. It was one of my favorite outfits to go out in, one that made me feel like a bad-ass bitch.
The way Leo was looking at me, I knew I’d landed the look.
He coughed a little before heading for the door. “Alright, well, we’ll see you there.”
When he was gone, I squeezed past Riley and Giana into the bathroom and went back to my lesson on the perfect cat eye. But I barely got two words out before Riley cut in, smacking the tube out of my hand.
“Bitch, we don’t care about the eyeliner. What the hell was that?” She pointed to the door Leo had just exited out of.
“What?” I asked with a shrug. “He needed shoes.”
“Oh, I think what he needs is a healthy dose of you in that dress,” Giana argued.