Page 110 of On Merit Alone
I blinked. She blinked. Iris heard everything by the sound of her muffled laughter. And after a few more moments of Merit subtly, but not so subtly telling me to beat it, I took Maddox and went to go find us both some clothes.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ira
“And that’swhy Uncle Ira is the cooled-est in the whole wide world!” Olivia finished just as we pulled up to our destination. Maddox agreed with an absolute screech from his spot in his car seat.
Merit gave me a long half-appalled, half-perplexed look before turning back to Liv with a gentle smile. “That was so good sweetie, thank you for the presentation. Is it time for questions now?”
“Yeah!” Liv said excitedly.
Merit nodded, leaning a shoulder into the back seat as she lowered her voice. “Did Uncle Ira teach you all that himself?”
“Yeah!” she said just as enthusiastically.
I turned in my seat too. “Zip it, kid, I only told you to say the part about my record. Everything else you added for flourish.”
“Flourish?” Liv tried, saying the word all wrong and with too much spit, ‘flowisht’ being the phonetic result.
“It means with extra on top, honey. Kind of like when you add sprinkles to your ice cream,” Merit said.
“Ice cream!” the little girl screeched, done with us and onto more interesting things.
I sat back upright in my seat. “Oh no, you said the dreaded‘I’word.”
Merit sat up too. “The only dreaded‘I’word I can think of right now is your name. I can’t believe you got your niece to lecture me on how great you are.”
I looked away from her, one side of my mouth twitching up in a smile. “Had to. You seemed to have forgotten.”
She laughed lightly, her head shaking. “You aren’t seriously jealous that I was excited to meet your sister?”
I shrugged. I wasn’tat first, but then she started getting all doe-eyed and nice and smiling and happy, and I remembered what a struggle it had been to get her to even look at me like she wanted to be around me when we first met and—okay, yeah, I got jealous.
To Merit, I sniffed, “You weren’t acting like yourself. I was just taken off guard.”
She guffawed but flipped her eyes up at the mirror sitting between us and just smiled tenderly. Reaching between us she slipped her pinky around my pinky and held. Then turning my way she said, “Alright then, what are we doing now? Something fun I hope after you put poor Olivia through that grueling display.”
“Actually,” I started as I turned to look at her. Glancing at her unsuspecting face then back at the kids, I winced. Tipping my head I gestured toward the window, “Meet me out back real quick.”
She gave me a slightly cautious look before nodding and getting out of the car. I watched her go, my chest tightening a little as she pressed her hand to the window to high-five Liv on her way past. When she was at the back of the car, I rolled the windows down and turned an elbow toward the back. “Guys, I’m going to step out around back for just a second. If there’s an emergency, holler real loud for me, alright? Liv, you’re in charge. Be good and we’ll get that ice cream I was talking about earlier.”
“Ice cream!” Was her shrieked response. Mr. Happy babyshrieking along with her and even mimicking the way she threw her arms in the air.
I laughed as I unbuckled myself and hopped out the car. Around back I ran into Merit, taking her elbows under my palms and rubbing up and down her bare arms. She’d pulled on one of my short sleeve shirts over her usual tank top and shorts, and she was swimming in the oversized garment like it was a dress. I didn’t care, I liked her in my things.
“Am I being kicked out for not being pro-Ira enough?” she asked as I met her.
I smiled. “No. But you are going to do something for me, alright?”
She stood up straighter. “Alright, what is it?”
“First tell me, what’s going on with the eye doctor, Six? Why do you hate it so much? They didn’t, like, put leeches on your eyelids when you were a kid or something, right?”
She fidgeted, her eyes going panicky as she darted them around her surroundings more aware now. “No… why?”
“What’s your problem with it then? Why don’t you want to go?” I pressed.
She made that face she did when she felt trapped. Like she wanted to turn tail and run. I rubbed her arms to soothe that panic I knew she was feeling. Coaxing her to just tell me. “Um, I… I just don’t like it.”
