Authors: Lolah Lace

Violation (29 page)

A small percentage of the people in the church had spoken the words as I repeated them. Some people stood to acknowledge they knew this phrase. I walked away from the podium and down the stairs. I stopped at the closed casket and felt the weight of this moment. I felt tears that I fought to hold back. I walked back to my seat. I was able to keep my composure.

EPILOGUE

The time went fast. There was hollowness in my heart when Dee passed away. I literally felt it in my chest. Everything reminded me of him. Serena and I were lost but existing quietly. When would there ever be a good time to come out with our relationship? It seemed like never. Who would accept us together? My contract was extended for two years. I was a part of helping with the possible draft picks for the Cavs. My role had changed after Dee’s death.

Dee had an airtight last will. He included everyone in his family and he even included his three outside kids. In the midst of the sorrow was the birth of my baby boy. My son Justin Dandrew Hart was named after my sister. No one mentioned my son. He was quietly born without the fan fair of a baller baby. He was a team secret but I was okay with it. Tenisha accepted her half brother Justin without reservation. DJ refused to accept me but accepted the baby after he was home from the hospital for a week. DJ was angry with me. He acted like I killed his father. He was filled with rage and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was just an uncle that was quickly switching roles. When the time was right I would be his stepfather.

No matter how much he despised me I kept a tight leash on him. There was no way I would ever let anything happen to DJ. I owed Deshawn. It was my job to make sure his son was safe and cared for. Dee had shared with me his fears about his son’s future. Every single time a young black man was viciously gunned down in the Chicago streets Dee shared his alarm.

Tenisha didn’t go back to college. She decided to take the semester off. I hoped she would go to a university nearby. I hoped she would help her mother out when the season started and I would be on the road. A wedding wasn’t happening soon. People, me included, needed time to mourn Deshawn. Serena had a hard time dealing with Dee’s death. She was nostalgic. The birth of Justin was the distraction she needed to lull her away from the guilt and grief. I dealt with my guilt when I saw Dee everyday on the court. Serena never really got hers out. She moved out the house they shared. Then Dee sort of disappeared from her life and resurfaced the day of his accident.

The preseason was approaching and as the time moved so did life. I truly believed Dee had forgiven me. Not because he said it in the hospital but because of the times we played together and he would treat me like all was forgiven. I believed he loved me and he pretended to hate me instead of the other way around. I know that one day we will play together again. One day up in Heaven’s basketball court.

Things eventually got back to something that resembled normalcy. My dream of a family had come to fruition. My dream of a wife happened two years after the Cavs won our third Championship. Serena and I married in a simple beach ceremony in Punta Cana. Lance was my best man and his wife Tiffany was the maid of honor. My mother was overjoyed after becoming a grandmother. She was happy about my wedding. She strongly believed in marriage.

My sister used my destination wedding to come out to our parents. They took it rather well. They took me marrying my best friends widow without any reservations so I knew they could take her news without judgment.

All my teammates were at my wedding. Time healed wounds. The day of my wedding I felt Deshawn’s presence. He was the reason I found Serena. He was the reason I new what kind of husband I wanted to be.

Serena was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, flawless, perfect, and completely a dream. Our son Justin was there to see his parents wed. My adult stepchildren were there to witness our nuptials. I was happy we waited. I was happy we didn’t rush love. My wedding day the sunset was picturesque. I realized that I was a husband, a father and a basketball player. There was absolutely nothing better than that.

Authors Note

This was one of those random book ideas that sprung up from nowhere. I planned to write an entirely different book. I was writing three books at once and decided to go with the idea that held the most space in my brain. This book is the reason I failed at my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. I had 10K in one book and switched to write this book. I never made it to the 50K required to win. This book did end up being well over 50K (It’s 68K) but not in the 30-day month of November as required by NaNoWriMo.

I fell madly in love with the Noah Hart character as soon as he appeared to me. I’m known for my Balls To The Walls books, the series about a slick foul mouthed Alpha-male cheating on his wife. I flipped the dynamics of that story by posing the question: What if the wife was being unfaithful? This brought an entirely different dynamic to the old tried and true cheating tale. I mainly write in first person POV. I wanted to try to stick with one voice as much as I could throughout this book instead of switching back and forth between characters. Thank you for purchase. All heartfelt reviews are greatly appreciated.

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http://www.lolahlace.com

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Balls To The Walls books by Lolah Lace

Let’s Play Ball (Book One)

Line Of Scrimmage (Book Two)

Full Court Press (Book Three)

Free Agent (Book 3.5)

Bases Loaded (Book Four)

Flag On The Play (Book Five)

Out Of Bounds (Book Six)

Other books by Lolah Lace