Page 104 of On Merit Alone
“Then I’m not apologizing for shit,” he said. “I don’t have an exact answer on what we are yet, Six. I don’t want to rush you. I don’t want to pressure you. But I don’t want to give you up either. I know I like you around me and I know I like you needy for me. The Merit you’ve allowed me to see in the last few weeks is a far cry from the one who told me to mind my damn business while she was shooting. You’re revealing all your sides to me, little by little. I like them all and I want to keep getting to know the rest of them. If you want to keep figuring it out with me, that is.”
Tug, tug.
“What about my questions from earlier?” I asked.
“Do you have to know everything that’s going to happen before it does?” he asked back.
“If I can help it, yeah.”
He laughed. “Alright, well. You can expect just about what you think to expect from a god…”
“Ira, for the love of?—”
His lips fell to my jaw, staying put as he spoke. “And casual is just about the last thing I want with you, Merit. Don’t mistake my intentions, sweetheart. Slow is not casual. Slow is just our path.”
“And?” I asked, taking advantage of him answering all my questions in detail.
He watched me, his eyes matching the seriousness in mine now. “Andyou can act however you want with me.Yourselfis preferred, but I’ll take you in whatever version I can get of you, Mer. Or is it not obvious by the way I’m following you around like a dog on a leash that you totally have me?”
“Have you what?”
“Hooked, sweetheart.”
Ira’s words rang in my head for much longer than the moment he said them. They continued to bounce around in my mind after we broke apart and took in the view one last time, as we snapped a quick picture of the two of us (our first one), and as we made our way down considerably more tired than when we climbed up.
We didn’t talk on the way back. Mainly because I fell asleep, but also because what else was there to say? And the next day we were just as normal.
At least until he didn’t say he would meet me at my car like he always did. Instead, he said he would see me later, and gave me a pat on my shoulder before sauntering off.
A pat on the shoulder.
I would not think about how he hadn’t kissed me again. I would not, I would not.
I. Would. Not.
But I guess I could worry about how he seemed weird even for him as he raced away from me today. Like he had somewhere to be. Or I could worry about how we had a big game coming up soon.
All this time with Ira had been amazing. It was exactly what I needed to distract myself from the sudden swell of lonely sadness resulting from memories of my family resurfacing. More than distract me, but helping me to face some of them as well.
But time with Ira had also been distracting from the nerves I felt from our impending rivalry game with New York. The Dynamite were down a game, and constantly chasing the possibility of a lead. There was a good chance that we would win the game following New York, but with the Rebels themselves, it was a stretch.
If we lost we would be down two and fighting to merely stay alive. But if we won we would be on the cusp of a turning point. We would take a lead for the first time this season. For the first time since I’d gotten hurt.
And I could prove once and for all that I was back.
But now, as my feelings for Ira evolved and the things he was showing me about myself came more and more to light, I was wondering if I even wanted to be “back”. At least in the sense I had originally thought I did.
I didn’t want to be back to going home alone every day. I didn’t want to be back to having nothing on my mind but basketball and trying not to think of the hardships of my life. I didn’t want to be back to being alone. Yes basketball was important to me, it was still arguably one of the most important things in my life right now. It was my career and my family’s memory. That was never going to change.
But something else had changed. Because not long ago it hadbeenthemost important thing in my life and now… Now I was starting to see life in a different light.
Change didn’t happen immediately, though, which is precisely how I ended up sitting alone in my kitchen with my phone in my hand and my other hand in my mouth.
Biting my nails.
This scene has changed a lot from the start of the season. Instead of sitting around my kitchen impatiently waiting for court time, I was impatiently waiting for guidance on what to do with these mounting feelings that seemed so large and unknown. Unpracticed, yet uncontrollable in their nature.
Ira had been making his intentions clear. Or at least that's what I thought. But sometimes I still got a little confused.
