Page 133 of On Merit Alone
“Thank you,” I sighed.
He looked at me for a long moment and then he dipped his face down to nuzzle me again. “Iamsorry I missed it by the way. I promise we’ll talk about why next chance we get.”
“I believe you. And I forgive you,” I said, feeling light and cherished andloved. Damn that was a hard pill to swallow. I hadn’t felt that in so long, I wasn’t sure I was categorizing it correctly. But no matter how I looked at it, that’s how Ira made me feel. I pushed the feeling away, not ready to analyze it yet. “Can we play at your house today? I don’t really want to see the stadium after being there all weekend.”
“Whatever you want,” he said easily. Meaning it. He truly would give me whatever I wanted. Laughing he added, “I’m pretty sure you own me now.”
I laughed too as I removed myself from his lap and started risingfor the day. I still needed to shower away the remnants of last night and thank Emily for taking me out.
Before he left the room though, with a promise to pack up Cash and a few of my things for the day, Ira turned and looked at me. And written all over his face was the very same thing I had speculated before.
The love thing.
I felt prickly with the anticipation and the dread that he might say it, because I wasn’t sure if I was ready to say it back. But in the end he just smiled softly, saying, “I trust you with every part of me, Six.”
And he might as well have said the damn words anyway.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ira
“Yo,where’d you find all the extra kids?”
Everyone’s eyes slid over to Stephens, expressions varying from confusion to bewilderment crossing their faces. McKivvey was the brave one to speak, “Could you please not say shit like that? You sound like a creep.”
Nobody disagreed which just made Stephens chuff. “What? I’m not trying totakeany of them. I just want to know how we scored so many.”
I covered my mouth with my fist, a cough stifling my laughter. Across the group I caught amused brown eyes, her soft smile feeling like a secret as she tucked it into her shoulder.
“You’re actually making it worse, Mike,” Merit added softly.
I smiled to myself. At the beginning of all this, when I first realized her propensity to shy away from social interactions, I had no idea how nice it would be to finally see her comfortable in a group of our peers. Now, as I watched her give away her laughs freely and smiles even looser than that, I only wanted to murder Stephens a little bit for having her address him so familiarly.
It had taken a little distance and a little heartache, but I couldsee now that Merit was blooming. Spreading her heart out wider; slow and carefully, like she always was—but trying. I could see it in the way that she was with her friends, Emily and Charlie, inviting them places and opening conversations with them more. The way she was with mine, laughing along with their antics or cracking soft jokes like the one she’d just made.
Merit was becoming comfortable with being Merit more than just in basketball. She was evolving in all the ways I hoped for her. At this point, I wasn’t sure I could continue to be awed by her. I wasn’t sure it was possible that she could make me prouder. But somehow she always found a way.
Coughing again, I cut my admiration of her short. There was something tight that always arose in my chest whenever I thought too hard about Merit’s resolve. Even though it had been misplaced for a long time, it was never out of weakness. It was out of pain. And as soon as she started to reroute that pain into something more hopeful, she hadn’t looked back.
Just like in all of her choices, when she decided to go for it, she went all in. It was admirable, the way she stuck to her guns. The way she fought for what she wanted. The way she just knew things about herself without having to second-guess them. And on top of wanting to be enough for her—to be everything for her I could be and give everything else that I couldn’t be on my own—I also wanted to belikeher. To know myself so well that when challenged and forced to grow, I too could make the decision to face things head on without looking back, like she seemed to have no problem doing.
Grand notions aside, however, none of it seemed to be working out that way for me at all. Even though I was sure speaking to Kimmy those weeks ago had actually done me some good, I still hadn’t been able to place what exactly that good was. It was like reading the middle chapter of a self-help book first. All the points resonated with me somehow, but I had missed the context of theprevious chapters to fully grasp what was right in front of my face.
I knew now that I wanted to play, but I didn’t know for how long. And after that, I knew in the future I wanted to be more than just a basketball player, yet somehow I wanted the game to remain in my life.
I’m just lucky nothing in my life required me to know more by now, because beyond those “miraculous realizations”, I was stumped.
“Alright big guy,” I cleared my throat as I slapped Stephens over the shoulder. “Tone it down. I think your cousin just showed up.”
“Niece,” he corrected. Looking over his shoulder at the quickly filling parking lot—Moms and kids and sisters and brothers all hopping out of minivans and SUVs and popping trunks and grabbing bags—he gave us a short salute before jogging away. “Lemme go tell them about the new setup.”
We were in the park today. More specifically, we were at the park beside the Denver Youth Recreation Center on the inner scape of town. This was originally supposed to be another one of our charity team practices, but after a long week of grueling games for the girls, we decided to give something different a shot.
Most of the credit had to go to Stephens. First for having a niece who played basketball for a “littles team” and second for having the idea that instead of practicing for a game that wasn’t even real, we put our time toward a worthy cause. Making children smile.
So we were putting on a small clinic. Working with boys and girls from the city in a camp style program for the day. I assume it was all an orchestration to get Merit to meet his niece, but it was also a great idea. One that no one on either charity game team opposed even for a second. Which is why we were all out here on a Sunday morning, watching as hordes of kids rushed down the hill toward the park.
The amount of kids though, Stephens was right. There were aton of them! And from the looks of the amount that were actually in some sort of uniform, not all of them were from the Littles Team.
