Chapter 77 – Better

Nef’s POV


I’d only been gone for two weeks but it felt like a lifetime. I rode with Sasha to the Rangers game. He hardly wanted to let me out of his sight. Jackie and Jesse were there and we went to the Green Turtle for dinner before the game. My roommates and I were like sisters. I told them everything. All they knew was that I’d fallen, lost the baby, and that I wouldn’t be back to our apartment for a little while.

“Don’t ever scare us like that again!” Jesse yelled at me.

“I’m sorry. I just needed to get away.”

“Sasha came looking for you. He…it was hard when you weren’t there. He called us everyday asking if you had come home yet.”

“I know. He called me every day. I just – I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.”

“But you’re ready now?” Jackie asked.

“I love him and I need him.” It had come down to being as simple as that.

For tonight's game Sasha would be in the owner’s box. He’d told me that he’d been injured a little while ago and hadn’t actually been playing.

Jesse and Jackie caught me up on the games and how the guys had been playing. Sasha couldn’t. He didn’t really remember that part of the last two weeks. It had been a tough time.

“Eww, you two are sickening,” Jesse said. She’d been reading over my shoulder the text messages that Sasha had been sending me. I'd be sitting in the Owner's box with him for the game.

Jackie told me that Sasha and I acted like an old married couple.

The guys ended up losing in the shootout. It seemed to mimic the season thus far. It had been a difficult one.

After the game Sasha told Ovi and his dad that he would be going back to my apartment. They had a mid-morning flight out for the next away game against the Thrashers and we wanted to be together until then. We fell into our routine. I helped him out of his suit and I grabbed a quick shower before pulling on a pair of his sweats and one of his training camp T-shirt – all of which were still at my place. We crawled into my bed together. The sheets were fresh and the room had been cleaned. My mother had been here.

We didn’t talk much. We’d said everything that needed to be said this morning. Sasha however did tell me that no matter what his contract situation looked like he still wanted me to move in with him after graduation.


Sasha’s POV


After the Rangers game we went back to Nef’s apartment. I still couldn’t stand the thought of going back into my house. I wasn’t ready for that just yet. Nef had made it back to DC in time enough to start her semester this week. Her mom had told her internship that she needed to take a leave of absence for medical reasons.

”Are you going to be okay to start school? ” I asked her when we crawled into bed.

”Uh-huh. It’ll be a good distraction.”

I interlaced our hands bringing the Egyptian rings we wore together. Nef looked down at our hands and smiled. We fell asleep like that, neither of us straying too far from the others arms. When it came time for me to leave I didn’t want to go. I really wanted to bring her to Atlanta with me but I knew she had to stay and get things in order with school and work. After practice I went by Ovi’s to grab a clean suit and my travel bag. He hadn’t left yet so we went together in my car.

”How are things with you and Nef?”

”Better. We talked a lot yesterday morning. It’s hard but we’re getting better.”

Ovi is my best friend. He’s been there with me through some challenging times since we both came to D.C. I couldn’t put price on how much I value his friendship and how much he’s done for me. I’m positive that if he hadn’t been there these last two weeks I’m not sure how I would have gotten through them.

I called Nef as soon as I landed in Atlanta. She was at the campus bookstore picking up her books for the semester before going out to dinner and a movie with her roommates. Her first class was Thursday. I wanted to stay and talk to her on the phone but Ovi told her some of the guys were going out for dinner and she insisted that I go.

“Call me before you go to bed,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Ovi, Mike, Nick, Varly, Neuvy, Brooks, Eric, and I went out to a steakhouse not too far from the hotel.

“So Sash, how have you been holding up?” Brooks asked.

“Better now. Nef is back and we dealing with it. Umm,” I hadn’t actually told the guys that Nef was pregnant and I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to tell them or how much she wanted to tell them. She was friends with more than a few of them.

“She…we were having a baby but…what is word for losing the baby?”

“A miscarriage?” Eric asked.

“Da, we were having a baby but Nef fall down the stairs at my house and we lose the baby.”

“I’m sorry,” they said.

“Is okay. We dealing with it. She had to go away to get better but she’s back now.”

There were a few questions about it but all in all the guys were understanding and supportive. They all liked Nef. Only Eric really understood what we were going through, he had been married for almost three years.

I should have been happy to be traveling with the team again. I’d been injured and unable to play. I was well enough to participate fully in practice and might play in Atlanta but I wanted to be home with Nef. Being unable to travel meant that while the team was away on road trips I have nothing but time and only my thoughts for company. The trainers wouldn’t let me train or practice as hard as I wanted to because of the risk of messing up my groin more than it already was. It had been miserable and I wanted it to end. But now, the sooner this trip is done the sooner I can get back to Nef.