Page 1 of On Merit Alone
Chapter One
Merit
A lot can happenover the span of an hour.
Great people have accomplished great things within minutes, hell, seconds. Sometimes with much more time to spare. So if they can do that, just think what us normal people could do with an entire hour.
I wasn't normally one to waste my hours. I knew they could be compounded. Knew they could be useful, broken apart and added together to make up the ever ticking clock that was our time here on earth. I knew they were valuable because that time here was never truly guaranteed.
I valued my hours. And right now, I was squandering them.
Biting my tongue, I only tipped my head back slightly to suppress my mounting groan.
The sound of the recorded video started up again. The slap of a newspaper hitting the table snapped through the room; Roberto Manzinni, the deliverer of such an assault.
Was this necessary? It wasn't even that bad…was it?
Chelsea Cherry’s voice was a familiar one as it filled the room from the other side of the recording, debating that fact. As thedesignated home interviewer for the Denver Dynamite, she was the sports reporter we trusted implicitly. There at every game and covering every hour at the Mountaineer Stadium. We sometimes even passed her on non-game days after practice… or extra practice or workouts.
She knew how hard we worked for this. How hard Ialwaysworked. Maybe that’s why her question made me so mad.
“Ms. Jones!” the digital version of Cherry said. “Do you think this is the last season for you with your knee not being what it used to be?”
No, that’sexactlywhy her question made me so mad. Because what kind of bullshit setup question was that?
Sheknewfirsthand how tough it was for us women to shine in this industry. She knew how “on” we had to be at all times. She had to be the same herself, yet she’d gone and asked it anyway.
So why the hell wasIgetting in trouble for answering with the same energy?
I watched as digital me turned Cherry’s way, a murderous look in her eyes.Oh, I hated this part. Did we really have to watch it again?
“Do you think this is your last interview with your due date coming up soon?” I asked.
NowI winced. The video paused. It was all very dramatic.
Poor Chelsea. That wasn't fair. She’d always been cutthroat when it came to her questioning, and I used to go toe-to-toe with her. Lately, however, my resolve had gotten weaker, along with my knee. But it was hypocritical of me to be coming at her about her candor when I used to admire her for it.
Fine, I shouldn’t have lashed out. Especially not on camera and not for someone who worked in the same organization as the rest of us—a woman fighting for a spot to exist in this male-dominated field. But being called to Rob Manzinni, the general manager of the Dynamite’s office, seemed a little overboard.
“Crass!” Rob’s palm slapped the table next, apparently out of newspapers to throw. Rounding the side of his desk, he started to pace the length of his carpeted officeagain. We’d been on the same loop for a while now.
Look, I got it, okay? It was only the third game of the season, and I had been a colossal bitch, but we had been in this room foran hour.
I had physical therapy sessions that lasted as long. Practices and workouts, film meetings and strength training all lasted an hour. But you know what all those things had in common? They were useful.
Thiswas not.
“Crass and unprofessional and bad, bad, bad for business, Jones. What has gotten into you?” Rob went on, and I barely found it in me not to groan as I leaned deeper into my seat.
I flicked a gaze upward, my team coming into view behind me. I mean, technically, Rob was a part of that team too, but truthfully, he was sort of like an overlord. Under the owner's instruction, he paid the bills, and the rest of us danced like puppets to appease him. When he was mad, we groveled to make it better. When he was happy, we slept easy.
He wasn’t overly terrible, especially compared to other GMs in the game. But the Dynamite was having a bad couple of years with my injury and our losing streak. He was simply too stressed to have a winning personality.
Or so I told myself so as not to pop off on him.
Truth was, Rob had the capacity of being an asshole with or without the stress. I’d never been on the immediate receiving end of it, but he just had that slimy look about him, you know?
I wasn’t doing myself any favors with my attitude. Something the pointed stare of my agent, Ryan, told me as he leaned a hip against the black leather office sofa behind me, his arms crossed and his face that block of ice-cold attitude I was so used to by now. Around the rest of the office were the makings of a real disciplinarynightmare, with my head coach, assistant coach, position coach, and the team PR manager all present for this impromptu meeting.
