By the time October swept through Boston, the leaves turning bright yellow and orange and the skies growing more and more gray, I felt like I was on top of the world.
The Rebels were off to a killer start to the season — one we weren’t sure we’d have after losing some of our best players to graduation last year. But we were 5-0, winning all three of our home games and the two we’d played on the road. Another fight for the championship was within our grasp, and the entire team seemed focused, tuned in, alert and ready.
My father had surprised me at the stadium after our fourth win, along with a man named Leonard Bowden, who wanted to be my agent, and Coach Lee. I apparently had eyes on me for the draft, and it seemed everyone had forgotten about the little article about my girlfriends that came out over the summer. I’d been as squeaky clean as a college athlete could be, and I saw it in Coach’s eyes as much as in my father’s.
They were proud of me.
Hell, I was proud of me, too. My grades were excellent, I was performing the best I ever had on the field, and when I wasn’t in school or playing ball, I was with Mary.
We’d had parties at The Pit, of course — it was tradition, after all. But I swore, the entire team had their eyes on the prize, and none of us got out of line. In fact, most of the time, we were kicking people out by one so we could get sleep.
It felt a little like growing up, like we were going through our own changing of the seasons just as fall washed over us in all its glory.
Mary had been just as busy as the rest of us, her hours at the shop increasing now that she had a steady stream of clients. I knew it was only a matter of time before she was offered an official position at the shop.
I had mixed feelings about that.
Of course, I was proud of her — happy for her — but I was also still wary of Nero. It didn’t matter that he’d seemed professional since that night at the bar. Every time I visited Mary, I felt his eyes on me, on her, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up like he was a predator and I needed to be prepared for him to pounce.
So, I kept my guard up, kept my eyes on Mary to make sure she was safe.
And at the end of every night, no matter how late it was, Mary climbed into my bed.
God, it was easy to get lost in that girl.
Whenever we were together, everything else slipped away. I was completely wrapped up in her smile, her laugh, her tired eyes, her wandering hands, her lush lips and soft, inviting body that I was sure I could never tire of — no matter how many times I had her. And I was insatiable. Early in the morning before practice, in the middle of the day any chance I could rush off campus, late at night when she came home from the shop — whenever I could take her, I did.
It was never enough.
On the Sunday after our win over the Rhode Island Trojans, we both had the day off for the first time in a month. After we spent the morning waking up slowly together and the afternoon having brunch and playing games with the roommates, I gave her instructions to get dressed and be ready to go on a date by six.
“A date?” she asked, one brow arching as she wrapped her arms around my waist. “Where are we going?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I said with a swat against her ass.
She yelped, biting her lip against a smile before she pressed up on her toes and kissed me. “How dressy should I get?”
“Wear what you would wear on a date in high school.”
That made her blink in confusion. “Uh… I never went on a date in high school.”
“Then I guess the options are endless.”
It took me all of twenty minutes to get ready — a shower, shave, deodorant, and pulling on my favorite pair of joggers along with an old hoodie with our high school football team’s logo on it.
It took Mary two hours.
I didn’t rush her, just relaxed on the bed with Palico and watched as she showered and dried her hair — not before putting more products in it than I owned, though. She listened to Tame Impala as she moisturized her skin and did her makeup, dancing and singing in-between applications. Then, I didn’t even try to hide my smile as I watched her try on ten different outfits before finally settling on one. She’d gone through everything from a tight dress and leather jacket to jeans and a bodysuit, but she’d landed on my favorite of them all — leggings, an oversized sweater, and boots.
“You look perfect,” I told her, letting my hands float down to rest on her hips. It should have been a crime, the way those leggings hugged her ass, and she chuckled and shoved me away the longer I stared and appreciated the view.
“I’m trying to match your vibe,” she said, tugging on the strings of my hoodie. “Since I have no idea where we’re going.”
“One more thing,” I said, and then I ducked into my closet and pulled out my letterman jacket, draping it over her shoulders.
She rolled her eyes, but it didn’t stop her cheeks from flushing a beautiful shade of pink, or her hands from clutching it to her and making sure it didn’t fall off. She pulled it snug around her shoulders, and my chest tightened almost painfully as I stared at her, wondering if it could have been like this all those years ago if I hadn’t had my head so far up my ass.
I swallowed, snatching the car keys off my desk. “Ready?”
Only Kyle and I had cars, Braden and Blake usually hitching a ride with one of us or catching the train to campus. Mary had her car parked across the street. We hopped into mine — a gift from my dad when I graduated high school — and Mary kicked her shoes off as soon as we were buckled in and on the road. Her feet were on my dash in the next moment, tapping along to the beat of No Me Quieras Tanto by José Luis Rodríguez — one of my mom’s favorite songs.
I couldn’t swallow down the knot in my throat, not as I smiled at her or slid my palm to rest between her thighs. Just the sight of her bopping along to a song I’d heard my entire childhood had me imagining the first time she’d meet my mom. I knew Mom would love her, knew they’d get along right off the bat and probably be ganging up on me within an hour. I could picture it all — them sitting together at my games, Mom teaching Mary how to make gazpacho at Christmas — I could even see Dad proudly showing her all his trophies and awards in his basement, happy to explain all the rules of football to her if she was ever confused while watching me play.
I held tight to her the entire drive, one hand on the wheel and the other on her, my thumb grazing lazily over her thigh. We were both quiet, content to listen to the music and just be together, although I didn’t miss how Mary grew more and more confused with every turn.
When I pulled into our high school’s parking lot — one that had been unlocked just for me by special request to my old coach who I still had a good relationship with — she laughed.
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” she said, looking at the old brick building and then back at me.
I just smiled and cut the engine, rounding to open her door before holding her hand tight in mine and walking us toward the football field.
So many memories flooded back to me as soon as I opened the gate that led to the field. When my sneakers touched the grass and the distinct smell of fall drifted up to my nose on a breeze, I closed my eyes and inhaled it, feeling like I was seventeen again. Sometimes I missed it, that dramatic and yet simple time in life. My biggest worry was the game on Friday nights. I was looking forward to college, knowing I still had years and years left of playing ball.
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.
Other things, I had to pry out of her, like who her friends were (to which she said she had none really before Julep) or how she kept quiet when she knew it was me across the street (with great restraint and a desire not to go to jail, she’d answered with a sarcastic smile).
I shared my life with her, too — opening up about my complicated relationship with my dad, my high respect for my mom, and my desire for her to meet them both. I told her a few stories about being on the team in high school and how excited I was when I got the scholarship to NBU, even though my dad hated it.
“It was because of you, you know,” I said softly, fingers trailing over her leg. “I wouldn’t have had the courage to choose NBU if I’d never have met you.”
“Yes, you would have.”
“No,” I assured her. “I was content to go to Southern Alabama, to be what my dad wanted me to be. But when I met you, when I heard you talk so fearlessly about how you went against the grain with your parents, how you were so fearlessly yourself… it inspired me.” I swallowed. “After I lost you, it felt like a way to honor what we had, to stand up for myself and choose the school I wanted to go to instead of bending to my father.”
Mary smiled, her brows bending together. “I love that, Leo.”
I squeezed her thigh.
With a sigh that sounded like a laugh, Mary scrunched her nose like she didn’t want to admit what she was about to. “I actually did bend to my mom’s will after what happened between us, though.”
I balked. “Do tell.”
“Remember the deal I made with her to get Resident Evil?”
I squinted through the years, reaching through the filing cabinet of my mind for the memory. When it hit me, my jaw slackened. “No,” I said with a smile splitting my face. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, but I did. You’re looking at a certified debutante. I wore the white puffy dress and everything.”
“Okay, I demand a photo.”
I had to tickle her mercilessly before she finally relented, pulling out her phone and thumbing to a photo of her looking horribly uncomfortable in a white dress that corseted her at the top and flared off in a puff of cloud below her waist. Her parents stood behind her, their hands on each of her shoulders, proud as could be.
But my eyes snagged on the girls in the photo, how they held so much pain and sadness even at that young age. She looked like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin, out of the life she was forced into. I realized distantly that, not too long after, she did. She made a new life, one of her own.
The longer I stared, the more I willed the memory of that fateful day to come back to me. But even seeing a photograph of her back then, I couldn’t see her clearly in my mind.
It killed me.
“It’s okay, you can laugh,” she said, ripping the phone from my grasp before I could look too long.
I shook my head, quiet for a minute. “I should have been there with you,” I said. “Should have been your date.”
“I’m rather glad you didn’t have to witness my terrible attempt at dancing,” she tried to joke.
I turned to face her, pulling her closer. “I mean it. I know I’ve said I’m sorry a thousand times now but… I am.” I kissed her knuckles. “Thank you for giving me another chance.”
Her eyes softened, and she nodded. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still scared.”
“That’s okay,” I told her. “One day at a time, I’ll stay. I’ll be here for you. And I’ll prove to you that you don’t have anything to be afraid of.”
I love you.
The words blew through my mind as strong as the October wind, surprising me even though I’d felt them humming under the surface for weeks.
“What?” Mary asked, sensing the shift.
I swallowed the words down, burying them in my chest for now. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they’d crawl their way out, but Mary had just admitted to me that she was scared — of me, of us. The last thing she needed was me to throw that at her.
“Nothing,” I said.
Mary narrowed her eyes but didn’t press. Instead, she bit her lip against a smile. “You know… I always wanted to make out under these bleachers.”
I arched a brow. “Did you now?”
“I’m ashamed to admit how many times I fantasized that it’d be you.”
“Well, shit,” I said, pulling her to stand. “I’ll be damned if I miss an opportunity to play out one of your fantasies.”
I dragged her down the bleachers with her laugh singing sweet on the evening breeze, and when we were alone under the shadow of the bleachers, I pressed her into a dark corner and kissed her until her lips were swollen and both of us were desperate to get back home.
On the drive back, I was once again overcome by the high of life in that moment. We rolled the windows down and let fall sweep in, Mary’s hair blowing everywhere as we sang Breaking Benjamin songs so loud our throats were raw. I soaked up every drop of laughter, reveling in the way it felt to hold her hand and the steering wheel at the same time.
I was on a winning streak — in every possible way.
And with every whispered invocation against Mary’s skin that night, I prayed it would never end.
