Page 30 of On Merit Alone
Of course I knew what this meant, hence the reason my stomach was suddenly flipping all over the place. But what didtheyknow? Testing the waters, I turned my gaze up at the women around me. “What's so exciting about an envelope?”
“We can see the tickets inside, Mer!” they said. “Who gave you the hookup for playoff tickets?Championship tickets!”
Lifting a shoulder, I said, “I dunno.” But inside, my body was rioting. Tickets? This was his idea of me owing him a favor? Giving me playoff tickets that were more than likely more expensive than some people’s rent?
Calm down, Merit. You don’t know for sure what they are.
Picking the envelope up, I reached in and in fact slid out four tickets to tonight’s game.
Well then. That settles that.
“Look, look. There’s a note,” Charlie said as she bent over and retrieved a fallen piece of paper. I could tell she read it even before I asked her not to by the wide look in her eyes. Passing it back to me, I didn’t even try to hide it from the rest of them as I read it. I didn’tmind. I knew whatever it said would just get around the group sooner or later.
On a ticket-sized strip of white paper, the note read:
Pay up, stalker.
-Ira
Quickly, I clutched the paper close to my body. I was wrong. I did care if someone saw. But as I looked around at everyone, I knew the damage had already been done. Silence stretched for way too long not to be awkward as we all just sort of looked at each other.
Then, finally, somebody called out, “I told you she was with him yesterday!”
And then the questioning began.
“You know him?”
“Are you two friends?”
“Are you guys dating?”
“Can we meet him?”
“Why is he giving you tickets?”
And a million more. I shook my head at it all, holding the tickets and the note out in front of me as my eyes scanned and scanned again. “Guys,guys. I don’t know. We’ve just shot around a couple times, and I owe him for some pointers he gave me about my knee. But I have no idea whatthisis.”
“They’re tickets, Merit.”
“Obviously,” I clipped. “But what does he want me to do with them?”
“Go to the game!” Emily laughed. “He gave you tickets to a game so you can go to it!”
“But why?” I asked, suddenly feeling my anxiety skyrocket. Because why would he want me at one of his games? And why would he give mefourtickets? That was way more than I knew what to do with. I didn't want to go alone.
And again, why would I go at all?
“Guys, I think she’s malfunctioning. I can almost hear her brain thinking itself into mush,” Charlie said dryly.
“Mer,” Emily called from far away, probably the doorway. “If you want to ask him, now’s your chance. They just showed up.”
My head snapped up. “Right now?”
“Yes, right now. Hurry, or you’ll miss him!”
Blame it on the urgency or excitement in her voice but without another question I was jogging out into the tunnel.
Em was right. The entire men’s team was currently filing into their locker room, probably coming in from film or some other meeting and getting ready for their day. Ira was taking up the back, smiling easily as his teammates talked animatedly around him. The taller guy was one I remembered seeing the day his teammates walked in on us practicing together. And the other one, who wasn’t much taller than me, was Rogers—Ira’s right-hand man.
