Page 62 of Accidentally Checked By My Brother's Best Friend

Getting a second chance.

A heaviness of a different kind than Ava resting on me hits my chest, and I sigh. Turning around, I walk to my bedroom. The first thing I need to do, before taking a shower, is get my head in the right space to play hockey.

Ava, and what this is will have to wait a bit longer.

But right now I know exactly who to call.

Scrubbingmyheadwitha towel, I stop and stare at stormy green eyes looking back at me.

“There is no easy way to do this, Dunc,” David said when I called. “You just have todecidethat it’s what you’re going to do.”

My brow furrows at his words. “But I do…”

“No,” he interjects. “You think you do…just like I thought I did. But when everything you’ve worked for your entire life moves into second place. You realize you truly didn’t.”

“Second place?” My brow pulled together trying to understand what David was saying to me. He always put baseball first, I watched him do it. I have no clue what he’s talking about.

“Yes, second place,” he says firmly. “When I fell in love with Fiona, baseball took second place. I had to work every moment to ensure my head was in the right place for every game. Fiona understood and supported that, but everything I did was for her. When she passed away…”

Waiting for him to continue, I remember how he was after Fi’s death. My brother was barely holding it together, but firm that he needed to do it alone. Everything was falling apart—especially his play on the field.

“Everything just crumbled. Nothing seemed important. The only reason I got up every morning was for Scarlett. She became my why. But she wasn’t enough when it came to my performance. I had to learn a whole new way. I had to decide.”

“Decide what? I don’t understand.”

“Decide to turn it over. Decide that this is just what I would do and then do it.” I can hear David exhale just before he continues. “At some point I started playing for Fiona and our life together. When I lost her, that didn’t work anymore. And I needed to decide that no matter what showed up in my life, how scared, sad, heartbroken I was that it was okay for me to go on living. I decided to play for myselfandallow myself to enjoy it. And not only that. I had to give myself permission. Permission to love baseball again.”

Running my hand up and down my face I groan. “You’re not speaking English.”

David’s chuckle irritates me, making me want to reach through the phone and shake him.

“But I am,” he says patiently. “I know it doesn’t make sense. It was hard for me to grasp too. Until I decided.”

“Decidedwhat?” I grumble, unable to keep the frustration from my voice.

“To shut it all out.” Silence greets me as I take in his words, trying to decipher his code. “Allof it. The sadness that was so heavy I thought I was going to die, the voices that told me life was over. The feeling that I would never be happy again. The belief that playing baseball, a sport, was somehow betraying the memory of the woman I loved more than life itself.”

Shaking my head I exhale and squeeze my neck. I can’t relate to his feelings when it comes to this type of loss.

But don’t I already do what he’s saying? I thought I did, but maybe I’m not? This is so confusing.

“Do you remember what you did after my wedding? When Ava said no?” David asks softly, and I stop breathing. “You shuteveryoneout. You moved across the country and were completely off the grid for six months. Not taking phone calls, returning texts. Just focused.”

The shock that David knew about Ava, is replaced by the memories that flood me. It was make or break for me and I nearly lost everything I had worked for. But I didn’t because I blocked my past out. By not allowing anything but hockey to be my focus, I could keep my eyes on the prize. To be the starting goalie of an NHL team.

I had setbacks when Ava would have a new movie out, or I would see her, but I pulled it together because I had to. I was desperate.

“Duncan,” David’s voice breaks through my past and jolts me back to the present. “The difference between now and then, is that you can’t run from your past. Your past has become your present. Until you can reconcile the two and find peace with them, youwillstruggle deciding.”

“If you saydecideone more time, Yoda, I’m not sure I can be held accountable for what I do to you.”

His laughter rings through the phone and my grip on it tightens. “I get it. I felt the same.”

“Can you try explaining it another way?” I ask, clenching and unclenching my hand.

“What are you afraid of right now? What fear keeps you from being in the moment when you’re in front of the goal?” His question sucker punches me, making it hard to breathe. He’s right, fear is ruling my world at the moment. But how do I just let that go? “For me it was that I would be happy againwithoutFiona. I felt like I was somehow betraying her by loving baseball and being good at it.”

“That’s silly, Fi would never have wanted you to feel that way. She loved watching you play.” When David laughs at me, I finally get what he’s saying. “But then you decided it was okay.”

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