“Oh really?” Rosanna tipped her head as she looked at him. “So you’re saying Dani was special?”
“Of course she was special. What kind of question is that?”
“A legitimate one.” She turned to face him. “You went to a lot of trouble to see her again, from what I understand. Why? Was it to clear your conscience? Give her peace? Or because you wanted another chance with her?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“No, I don’t.” She shook her head slowly. “I thought I did, but then you just gave up and I figured I must have been wrong. If it was really Dani you wanted, you would have fought for another chance with her. You wouldn’t have let anything get in the way of that.”
“Ro…” Ace sighed, tipping his head back to look through her sun roof at the sun peeking around the clouds. “You don’t know what it was like for her. Losing her brother nearly killed her.”
“You know that because you were there?” She frowned. “No, you weren’t there. You were sitting in some jail cell feeling sorry for yourself.”
“It wasn’t myself I was worried about,” he argued, feeling the sting of her accusation. “I was worried about what I’d done to Dani and her family. I hated myself for that.”
“So that’s why you never reached out to try to apologize? Because you hated yourself?”
“Well yeah, and I didn’t think she’d want to have anything to do with me after what I’d done.”
“So then, like now, you assume you know what’s best for her?”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Would you have wanted anything to do with the man who killed your brother?”
“If I were Dani, I would have had questions,” she said quietly. “Questions only you could have answered. Like why did Linc get into that car? What did he say in his final minutes? Did he know he was going to die? Was he in pain? Did he have a message for his family? Was he alone when he took his final breath or were you there with him?”
Ace felt his stomach clench as that night came flooding back. Every single minute assaulted him in slow-motion. He could hear Linc’s voice ringing in his ears, feel the grab he made for the wheel when Ace realized he was falling asleep. The jerk of the over-correction before they hit that tree…
“She had questions,” Rosanna whispered. “And she deserved answers. It wasn’t fair for you to just cut her off back then. And what you’re doing now isn’t fair.”
“I’m doing this because I lo—” He closed his eyes. There was no point admitting the truth to Rosanna. It wouldn’t change anything. “I don’t want her to lose her family because of me. I’ve already taken her brother from her. I won’t be responsible for taking her parents too.”
“Don’t you think that should be her decision to make?”
“She might say she’s okay with not having them in her life, but eventually she’d wind up resenting me. I know she would.”
Rosanna glared at him. “You don’t know jack. You think you know everything, but in reality, you know nothing.”
“Fine, enlighten me.”
“You don’t know what it’s been like for me to stand by and watch my best friend going through the motions, agreeing to marry a man who doesn’t love her, forcing herself to smile, living half a life because the life she really wanted was snatched from her years ago.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t put the pieces together until I saw her with you. Until I saw the way she was when you were a part of her life. You were the missing part of her.”
“I don’t follow.” But he did. He felt it too.
“She always seemed so sad, but I saw past that. I knew she had a good heart and really cared about people. That’s why we became friends. I always chalked her sadness up to losing her brother. But it was more than that. It was losing you too.”
“You don’t know that.” As much as he wanted to believe it, he couldn’t let himself think he had the power to help Dani put her life back together.
“I do know that, because I know her. I saw her smile when she saw you or thought about you or watched one of your games. It was a real smile, not one of those fake ones I’d been seeing for years.”
He felt guilty that he’d been able to find happiness in his life when she clearly hadn’t. “I know about losing a brother. I lost mine. The pain never goes away, but over time, you’re able to think about them and remember the good times without feeling so sad.”
“And don’t you think Dani’s able to do that too? It’s been a long time since Linc died. Unlike her parents, she hasn’t been stuck living in the past.”
“But I’m the guy responsible.” Ace swallowed. “If it weren’t for me, he’d still be here. You don’t think she carries that with her every time she looks at me? How long before she realizes she can’t go on making love to the person who took her brother from her?”
“I didn’t know Linc,” Rosanna said. “You did. So you tell me, what kind of advice do you think he’d give Dani about you if he were here?”
“Linc was all about living in the moment,” Ace said, smiling as he thought of his best friend. “If he didn’t do well on a test, he didn’t dwell on it. He’d get over it and start planning for the next one. If a girl broke up with him, he’d shrug it off and ask another one out.”
“So he didn’t get caught up worrying about the past?”
“No, definitely not.”
“Was he forgiving?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” Linc had the biggest heart of anyone Ace had ever known. That was why Ace loved him like a brother, because being around him made him feel like a better person. “He believed people were entitled to their mistakes…” He knew what Rosanna was getting at, but he couldn’t let himself off the hook.
“Do you think Linc would forgive you?” she asked, reaching for his hand. “If it had been Danielle in that car with you instead of him, would he forgive you for letting his twin die?”
His breathing stuttered as he tried to imagine a world without Dani. “He’d forgive me. He’d be the one to convince me to forgive myself.”
“Sounds like a smart man.” Rosanna patted his back. “Ace, you’ve been living with this secret a long time. Maybe it’s time to bring it to light, don’t you think?”
He wasn’t afraid of the public backlash. He could deal with that, but he didn’t want to hurt Dani or her family any more than he already had by drawing unwanted attention to them. He knew the press could be relentless. They’d camp out on their doorsteps, begging for photos and a statement. “That’s the last thing her parents would want. And what about Dani? You really think she’d appreciate being the center of that kind of attention?”
“What I think,” Rosanna said, slowly, “is that you all need closure. You need to unburden yourself, not just for Danielle’s sake but for yours too. It can’t feel good, living with this secret.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You’ve been through so much,” she said, curling her hand around his. “Everyone loves a good come-back story, and I really don’t believe people would hate you because of one terrible mistake you made when you were a teenager.”
Ace wasn’t worried about strangers hating him. He was worried about hurting the one person he’d do anything to protect.
“Part of the reason you’re not with Dani is because she’s trying to keep your secret. Let her know she doesn’t have to anymore.”
***
Ace couldn’t get Rosanna’s advice out of his head, so after the game, he was still in the locker room, sitting on the bench with his head bowed as he tried to figure out what to do.
“Hey.”
Ace looked up to see their second baseman, Chase Miller, coming out of the showers with towels around his waist and neck.
“What are you still doing here? I thought everyone went home,” Chase said.
After a disappointing one-run loss, most of the team had been anxious to call it a night, but Ace has more p
ressing problems to deal with. “I needed a little time.”
Chase smirked. “Is that your not-so-subtle way of telling me to leave you alone?”
“You ever make a mistake that changed the course of your life, man?”
Chase’s ever-present smile slipped, and Ace knew he’d struck a nerve. “Yeah, sure.”
“But you don’t feel like talking about it.” Ace knew the feeling.
Chase gave him a long, hard look. “I let my career become more important than my family. I lost my wife and daughter because I was too busy chasing a big fat paycheck and the ring.”
Chase had always been pretty tight-lipped about his past, and since Ace had his own skeletons, he’d respected his teammate's privacy.
“You ever get a chance to tell your ex you were sorry for the way things went down?” If Ace was grateful for one thing, it was that he’d had an opportunity to make amends with Dani. Even if he never saw her again, that gave him some peace.
“Are you kidding?” Chase rolled his eyes. “Jayda hates my guts. She barely looks me in the eye when I go to pick up our daughter.”
Ace could hear the pain lacing his friend’s words and knew he wasn’t the only one living with regrets. “So if you had it to do over again, you wouldn’t have come here?”
“Man, some things are sacred.” Chase shrugged. “I love playing here. I’ve never been on a tighter team, or one with more talent. But when all of this is gone and my career is over, I’ll be alone. That’s a tough pill to swallow.”
Their team had gone all the way to the seventh game in the final last year, and everyone believed they’d take it this year, the big prize every ball player waited his whole life for. Like Chase, Ace’s teammates were his family because they spent so much time working toward a common goal. But Chase was right. When it was over, it was over. Teammates remained family only as long as they wore the same uniform. After that, it was every man for himself. But Chase was thirty-three and one of the fittest guys on the team. Upper management wanted him around for a good, long while.
“You’ve got a few years left to figure it out, right?”
“I don’t know about that.” Chase opened his locker and looked at a picture of himself with a little angel resting her chin on his shoulder, her tiny arms wrapped around his neck as she planted a kiss on his cheek. “We all think we have plenty of time. Then before we know it, we’re sitting around in some bar, washed-up has-beens boring people with stories about our glory days.”
Ace considered what would happen to him at the end of his career. Unlike Rowan, he didn’t have a good woman to go home to or the promise of a family to look forward to. He had an empty house and too much time on his hands.
“So here’s the deal,” Ace said, needing an objective opinion to help him decide if he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life. “You’ve probably heard I did time for manslaughter back in the day.” It wasn’t a secret amongst his teammates or management, but no one ever talked about it.
“Yeah, I heard something about that,” Chase said, reaching into his toiletries bag for a comb. “But I figured it was none of my business, so I didn’t ask.”
Ace appreciated his friend’s attempt to respect his privacy, but keeping the secret no longer felt right. “I was a dumbass kid driving drunk, and my best friend hopped in the car with me after a party.”
“I’m ashamed to admit I’ve been there,” Chase said. “I was drafted out of college. Those were some crazy days.”
It felt good to know he wasn’t the only one who’d made that mistake, but nothing would erase Ace’s guilt. It was a part of him now. “Needless to say, we crashed and my buddy died.”
“I’m sorry, Ace.”
Ace hung his head. No one could ever be as sorry as he was. “He wasn’t just my best friend,” he said, then cleared his throat. “He was my girlfriend’s twin brother too.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, it did.” Ace stared straight ahead at the closed locker doors. “My life changed that night. None of my plans mattered anymore. I’d taken a life. I didn’t feel I deserved to have one of my own.”
“What happened to change your mind?” Chase slipped into a button-down shirt after combing his damp hair. “I mean, you had to fight to get here. We all did. So how’d you get the will to fight back?”
“I guess I realized I owed it to Linc to at least try to live the dream.” Chase rubbed his palm with his thumb. “Baseball was his dream too. He wanted to be here more than anything. So sitting in that jail cell, I realized I had two choices: piss my talent away or make it count for something.”
“I heard about the scholarship you set up,” Chase said. “That was for your friend?”
“Yeah.”
But suddenly it wasn’t enough. Ace wanted people to know Linc’s name, to hear his story. He wanted to talk to high school kids who might make the same mistake he and Linc had made that night, to maybe reach them before it was too late. He wanted Linc’s face to flash across a huge screen in some gym so kids could see him, hear his story, and know that he had been just like them before he made that one mistake.
“I’m going to go public with my story. Talk about the fact that I drove drunk, did time, and what it cost the victim’s family.” He no longer needed to ask Chase whether it was the right call. He knew it was.
“That’s a brave thing to do. You gonna talk to management before you plan a press conference though?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell them.” But there was nothing anyone could say or do to talk him out of it. It was time for Ace to face his past.
Chapter Thirteen
Dani was sitting with a bowl of popcorn between her legs, watching her favorite sitcom, when her phone rang to let her know she had a visitor. She stared at her cordless, debating whether to answer. It was after ten o’clock and she didn’t feel like company, but she reached out, sensing she’d regret it if she didn’t.
“Hello?”
“Dani.”
Her heart hammered as she set the bowl on the table. She hadn’t heard his voice in weeks, but she’d know it anywhere. “Ace?”
“Can I come up? We need to talk.”
“Sure.”
Dani pushed the button on her phone to grant access as she reached for the remote to turn off the TV. Licking her lips, she bounded off the couch and ran to the antique mirror hanging by her door.
“Oh God,” she moaned, running her hands through her hair before swiping at the streaks of liner smudged under her eyes. “I’m a mess.”
Before she had time to run into the bedroom and change out of her cut-off sweats and pink tank, he was knocking on her door.
“Damn it,” she whispered, taking a deep breath as she squared her shoulders.
As soon as she opened the door, he said, “Hey, I’m sorry to stop by so late. We had an afternoon game and I had to hang back to talk to—”
“No worries,” she blurted, swallowing as she stepped back to invite him in. “I was just hanging out, watching some TV.”
He stepped inside, crowding her when she didn’t take a step back. “I’ve missed you, Dani.”
She closed her eyes, inhaling his painfully familiar scent. “I missed you too. It’s good to see you.” Even if she had no idea what he was doing there.
“How’ve you been?” His voice was a husky whisper as he continued invading her personal space.
She thought of lying, but heard herself admit the truth. “I’ve been better.”
“Me too.”
She found that hard to believe, since his team was on a season-high winning streak that had all the sports analysts talking about their chances to win the World Series this year.
“So…” She bit her lip, looking up at him as she tried to gauge whether he wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted to be kissed. “What brings you by?”
He glanced at her sofa, his eyes skimming the throw she’d laid across her bare legs to counteract the air conditioning. “Can we sit down f
or a minute? I won’t stay long.”
I wish you would. All night, maybe? “Sure, come on in. Can I get you a drink or—”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
She decided to take the couch after he settled in an armchair. “You guys have been playing so well. Congrats on the winning streak.”
“Thanks.” He smiled. “You’ve been watching the games?”
“Every chance I get. I forgot how much I missed it.”
“Anytime you want tickets, just let me know.”
“Thanks.” They were making small talk when it was clear he had something heavy weighing on him. “But I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk baseball.”
“No.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “Uh, I’ve decided to call a press conference tomorrow, and before it all goes down, I wanted you to know.”
She had a feeling she knew what he planned to reveal, but she had to hear him say the words. “If it’s about the accident—”
“It’s about the stupid mistake I made that night,” he said, looking her in the eye. “It’s about the people I hurt and the lives I changed. People think I’m some hero, and I’m not. It’s time they know the truth.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she said, grabbing his forearm. “You’ve done the time, Maceon. You don’t owe anyone anything.”
“Yes, I do.” He looked down at her hand. “I owe you and your parents a public apology for taking Linc from you. I owe it to every kid who looks up to me. I owe it to every high school or college kid who even thinks about getting behind the wheel after they’ve been drinking.”
If she’d had any doubts that Ace had learned from his mistakes, this would have obliterated them. But she knew his motive wasn’t to impress her. He was serious about making amends and making a difference, if he could.
“I think what you want to do is very admirable. But maybe you should wait until the off-season. You don’t need this kind of distraction during the regular season, and neither do your teammates.”
Hit and Run (Summer Rush #2) Page 12