The first dust of dawn was falling over the city of Boston when I shook out my yoga mat on the back patio. It was surrounded by the lush garden Holden had grown in his time here, and I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of flowers and herbs and vegetables as I wiggled my toes on my mat.
Usually, I’d wake and bake sometime around eleven, maybe even noon, before I’d settle in for a yoga session. But that was because under normal circumstances, I was at the tattoo parlor until two or three in the morning. I’d been off the last couple of nights to get my current situation under control, and it felt like a piece of me was missing.
I couldn’t wait to get back tonight.
Still, even without being at the shop last night, I couldn’t believe I was up this early. I blamed the lack of sleep in a new place.
Holden’s bed was comfortable enough, and the house was quiet once the boys went to bed. But it felt like trying to sleep in a tree knowing creatures lurked in the forest around me. I was on edge, too aware, like I knew I didn’t belong there. It was just… strange, and I couldn’t fully relax.
I’d given up somewhere after midnight, tossing the covers off and deciding to wander the house. I used to have trouble sleeping when I was a kid, and I swore Dad was connected to me in a way no one else in the world was because he would sense it. He’d knock softly on my door, and then he’d tell me to put my shoes on and we’d go for a walk.
We never talked, just walked side by side around the block a couple times. It wouldn’t take long to quiet my mind, still my heart, and find myself a bit more relaxed.
I always slept better after those walks.
Of course, last night, I didn’t feel safe walking the neighborhood at midnight, even if we were in a relatively safe suburb. Instead, I walked around my new home, slowly taking in the eclectic décor as I ran my fingers down the walls. The Snake Pit had character, that much was easy to see. There were so many remnants of the past football players who had lived there — pictures, knick-knacks, scuffs on the walls.
Everyone who lived here left a small piece of them behind.
I still felt a little wound up when I finally ambled back to my bedroom, but I did manage a few hours of sleep before my body woke me with the desire to get on my mat.
With my eyes still closed, I inhaled, sweeping my arms overhead and stretching up to the sky. On an exhale, I folded, fingertips touching my toes as every kink in my back and hamstrings let go with a sigh. On a halfway lift, I inhaled, folded once more, and then easily stepped back for my first cobra into downward dog. It took me a few salutations to get fully ready, to really slip into the session.
I was on my third one when a slap sound had my eyes popping open.
I peered up and found Braden.
Shirtless.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked, his mat already laid out beside me.
“I didn’t realize you practice.”
“Good for mobility,” he said simply, and then he was quiet, which I appreciated. I was worried for a moment I’d have another Leo on my hands. Instead, Braden moved through his own practice next to me, the only sound was our breaths as we flowed.
Once we were back in the rhythm, my brain decided to be an asshole and filter through the memory of last night. Leo pinning me with that curious gaze again, the way he’d said he felt like he knew me.
It was like a knife twisting in my gut.
Part of me wanted him to know, wanted him to remember what he’d done to me, to give even one small shit about the girl he hurt all those years ago.
The other part of me didn’t want a single damn thing from him other than to be left alone.
I’d worked hard on letting go of what happened between us — both the good and the bad — and I didn’t want to be reminded.
I wondered how impossible that would be now that his room was two doors down from mine.
And okay, so if I was being completely honest with myself, I hadn’t truly done that much to let go of what had happened. In fact, I’d maybe done the opposite, holding on to those wretched memories and using them to form a block of protective ice around me.
I’d learned to live despite what happened to me. And maybe that made me stronger than if I’d just forgiven and forgotten.
Shaking off the thoughts, I sank back into my practice, and for the next forty minutes, it was just me, my body, and my breath.
It was around six thirty when Braden and I rolled up our mats and tucked them under our arms, walking back into the house. As soon as we shut the back door behind us, my nostrils were invaded with a sweet, mouth-watering aroma.
Braden moaned. “Fuck yeah, pancakes!”
He took off in a run, abandoning his mat at the door. He slid to a stop at the end of the hall and paused, turning back to me.
“Come on,” he said, beckoning.
I didn’t know why I felt so nervous, like I was intruding on something not meant for me. But I offered as best of a smile as I could before placing my mat next to his and following — albeit at a much slower pace.
More and more sound found me as I made my way toward the living room. Rap music, dishes and silverware tinkering, soft sizzling, and then a chorus of laughter. I saw a glimpse of Kyle through the kitchen window, a goofy grin on his face and his hair mussed as he flipped a pancake.
He was shirtless, too.
I didn’t let myself take in his tall, lean build, or the muscles that lined it as I slowly made my way into the kitchen, pausing at the frame just like Leo had last night. And there all three of them were — Kyle making pancakes, Braden pulling plates from the cabinet, and Leo pouring coffee.
Every single one of them without a goddamn shirt.
It was really hard to remind myself in that moment that I hated football players with all those muscles gleaming back at me, the top edge of their boxers peeking out over the band of their shorts. Kyle wore tall tube socks, Braden was barefoot from practice, and Leo had on a pair of house slippers that should have made me laugh but somehow just made him look cozy in the way that had me itching to know what it would feel like to have him curled around me on the couch with the snow coming down outside.
I mentally slapped myself, and just in time for Leo to pop his head up and find me in the doorway. He had a sleepy sort of smile on at first, his hair curling around his ears, but when his eyes trailed the length of me in my leggings and sports bra, something heated his gaze.
“Well, good morning, roomie.”
I folded my arms over my middle, wishing I’d stopped to put a shirt on. “Hi.”
“You made it up just in time for my famous pancakes,” Kyle said.
“She’s been up for hours, dumb-dumb,” Braden interjected. “We just finished yoga out back.”
“You going to do Pilates next?” Kyle teased him.
Braden made a face before socking him on the arm as he passed. “Maybe. Both are great for mobility. Great for picking up girls, too, in case you didn’t notice that I’m vastly outnumbered when I go to a class.”
“We don’t notice because, unlike you, we don’t need to encroach on a women’s fitness class to get laid,” Leo shot back.
Kyle burst into a fit of laughter while Braden made a ha-ha face before grabbing a piece of bacon and hurling it at Leo. Leo opened his mouth and snagged it out of the air, chomping on it with a grin.
“You couldn’t handle the mental side of yoga, anyway,” I chimed in, sliding just a bit farther into the kitchen and leaning my hip against the counter.
Leo’s eyes landed on me, pinning me to where I stood. It was then that I noticed a few chain necklaces around his neck — a cross, a plain gold chain, and was that a saint?
I almost snorted at that.
“Oh yeah?” he challenged. “And why’s that?”
“Because you’d have to drop your ego, and we all know you cling to yours like a life raft in the middle of the ocean.”
A laugh fizzled out of Braden and Kyle both.
“I’m as humble as a priest,” Leo said, pressing a hand to his chest.
“And as full of shit as a porta-potty.”
Kyle and Braden let out mixed sounds of laughter and jest as Leo stared at me, an amused smile curling on his lips. I blinked and looked away, hoping he could see I was bored by our interaction.
At least, that’s what I wanted him to think.
The truth might have rested more in the fact that if I stared at him any longer, I’d start tracing those flecks of gold in his eyes, start remembering how that voice used to sound on the other end of the phone every night.
“Ladies first,” Kyle said, plating a couple pancakes for me. “This one I made especially for you. Welcome to The Pit, roomie.”
When he handed me the plate, I looked down to find a smiley face made out of chocolate chips staring back at me from the top pancake.
And the first genuine smile in days found my lips.
I arched a brow when I looked back up at him. “I thought you were a douchebag.”
Something softened his face then, like that actually hurt to hear, but he quickly laughed it off with a shrug. “I am. But I’m trying to make up for being an asshole yesterday. There’s a difference between the two, you know.”
“Yeah. Kyle’s a douche,” Braden said, piling a stack of pancakes on his plate. “But Leo’s an asshole.”
“And Braden’s a pussy,” Leo quipped.
I instantly flung my arm out, swatting his chest with the back of my hand and a loud thwap. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Braden snickered while Leo stared at me open-mouthed, rubbing the spot I’d just hit. “I was just—”
“You were just using female anatomy as an insult because in your Neanderthal brain, pussy is less than dick — weaker, not as important.”
“On the contrary,” Leo said, his lips curling as he stepped a little closer. “I think pussy is the most powerful thing in the world.”
“So you were complimenting him?” I challenged.
Braden shook his head, slipping in between where I was glaring at Leo, and he was smiling like the Cheshire cat.
“Alright, alright,” Braden said, holding a hand up to me and his plate of pancakes against Leo’s chest. “Break it up. We don’t need a fight this early in the morning. Besides, like I said, Leo’s an ass,” he said to me with a shrug. “We don’t take anything he says too seriously.”
Braden popped a piece of bacon into his mouth with that, exiting the kitchen and heading toward the living room with his food. I turned my glare back to Leo, ready to square off, but all the humor had faded from his expression. He almost looked a little… sad.
I thought about when we were younger, about the nights we talked until we were hoarse and bleary-eyed.
“Sometimes, I’m hanging out with all these people, all my friends, and I just look around and realize that I don’t really know any of them at all, and they don’t know me. Aside from football, I mean.”
An unwanted emotion caught in my throat, my brows bending together as I watched Leo. But he didn’t look at me again. Instead, he took a breath and put his cocky smirk back on his face before clapping Kyle on the shoulder as he plated his last pancake.
“Thanks for breakfast, man.”
“Thanks for the coffee. I swear, no one makes it better than you.”
“La jefa is the only one, and she’d disown me if I didn’t live up to her legacy now that I’m on my own.”
“La jefa?” I asked as Leo filled his own plate, and we all plopped down on the couch to eat. There was a folding table that could serve as a dining table, but it was currently sticky from what I could only hope was beer and not the alternative.
“The boss. In other words, mi madre.” Leo winked, and then the attention of my roommates shifted to the television where Braden had just turned on ESPN.
I smiled, but again, something pulled at my chest. Because I knew probably better than his roommates how special Leo’s relationship was with his mom. She and his dad had split up when she was pregnant with him, and so she’d given him her last name instead of his dad’s when Leo was born. And while his father pushed him to follow in his footsteps, his mom always gave him space to be whatever he wanted to.
Of course, Leo didn’t play football because of his dad. He played it because it was in the very fibers of who he was. Still, I wondered what it was like to have even one parent who supported you in that way.
My dad tried, he did. He was gentle with me in a way that Mom never could be. Still, I saw the disappointment in his eyes when I told him I didn’t want to go to college, when he realized I meant it when I said I wanted to be a tattoo artist.
He didn’t stop me, but he didn’t support me, either.
That hurt just the same.
I looked down at the smiley face that was melted into my pancakes now, and then up at the three shirtless boys chowing down on their massive stacks that could have fed a family of four each.
For the first time, I felt myself take a real breath and relax.
“Thank you,” I said out of nowhere, and all the guys swiveled their heads toward me. “For letting me stay here. It… it’s really kind of you. And I…” I swallowed, looking down at my plate. “I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.”
Kyle reached over from where he sat on the couch and thumped my knee. “Hey, we’re happy to have you.”
“Just remember how thankful you are when our mess starts to creep in,” Leo added. “We might have spent two hours cleaning before we started moving you in yesterday.”
“I am always clean,” Braden argued.
And then they were bickering again, tossing bits of food at each other and slinging insults like it was their love language.
I smiled.
Maybe it really was.
