Chapter 68 – Distracted

Sasha’s POV

”You seem distracted. What’s up? You and Nef doing okay?” Ovi asked after the morning skate against Carolina.

We’d played New Jersey Monday night, spent time with Val and Nef before we flew out to North Carolina and they drove back to D.C. It hadn’t been my best game.

”Yeah, we’re doing okay. There’s just a lot going on right now.”

It had been a couple of weeks since we found out Nef was pregnant. I was spending the Thanksgiving holiday with Nef and her family and we’d decided that we would wait until next month to tell them. She needed to focus on school. There were only a few weeks of the semester left for her and I didn’t want the wrath of her parents to distract her. I knew this wasn’t going to go over well. Her family was loving and caring but I expected shock and disappointment. Her father, as accommodating and nice as he had been recently, would be livid. I could expect nothing less from a father.

I knew my mother wouldn’t react well. There was no doubt about that but I knew that my father would be excited. Before I left to come to D.C. we had a talk where he told me that he was happy I was settling down with Nef. I talked to him frequently over the phone during the past couple of months. Nef and I’s relationship was growing stronger, going deeper and I needed him to talk to. He gave me advice on how to handle disagreements and how to make our relationship stronger. He did after all have more than 30 years of experience in the matter.
Normally on the road if we don’t like what’s being offered at the hotel we go out together in groups for the pregame meals. Some of the guys wanted to go to an Italian restaurant not too far from the hotel but Ovi asked me to go out with him instead. We took a cab to a diner. It was small and out of the way.

”Okay, spill it. What’s going on?”

”Nef’s pregnant.” His eyes went wide.

”How?”

”Her birth control failed. The doctor said it wasn’t good for her. Nef’s completely freaked and this couldn’t have happened at a worst time.”

”What are you going to do?”

”We’re going to have a baby. You’re the first person to know so far. We haven’t told our families yet.”

Looking back on those few weeks I don’t remember much about them. We were trying to get through each day one at a time. I told Nef that I told Ovi. She was happy because it gave us someone to talk to. We’d both been carrying around this secret, trying so hard to keep it from everyone. It felt good to have someone to talk to, someone listen. Ovi may seem like a lumbering Neanderthal but he’s sharp and very intelligent.

“I’m scared shitless. I don’t know what to do. What if Sasha and I don’t work out? What if he decides this too much for him?” I overheard Nef say to Ovi on the phone after the game against Carolina.

“You really think he will leave you?”

“I don’t know Ovi. He’s been…perfect so far. He’s been strong when I haven’t been able to but Ovi we’ve only been together for a year and this is a big thing. It’s a huge thing!”

“He’s scared too. He’s worried too. He not know about new contract yet. He not know about future but he knows he wants you. Yes, now is not a good time for a baby but the baby is coming so you have to get ready. It time to get ready and grow up.”



Nef’s POV


“He’s scared too. He’s worried too. He not know about new contract yet. He not know about future but he knows he wants you. Yes, now is not a good time for a baby but the baby is coming so you have to get ready. It time to get ready and grow up.”

Grow up. That’s what Ovi said to me. I had spent the last couple of weeks lamenting about how this couldn’t have come at a worst possible time. When Sasha arrived at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving he seemed different. He wasn’t as distracted as he’d been before. There was a shift in him that I could only attribute to our conversations with Ovi. Sasha ended up telling him that I was pregnant. I wasn’t mad, if fact I was really happy.

I ended up spilling my guts to Ovi, telling him all of the things that I had been so afraid of. He then proceeded to tell me that I wasn’t alone and that Sasha was completely freaked out too. What should have made me nervous or scared that he could leave me made me happy. It made me happy because the one thing that was certain in a sea of uncertainty was that Sasha wanted me.

I think it’s time that I start growing up. Accept the things that I can’t change and work to change the things that I can.