Page 4 of On Merit Alone
“Alright?” I’m pretty sure this was the first time I heard his deep, smooth voice. Or at least it was the first time without all the extra acoustics of a courtside interview. It seemed calm in a way I never imagined it would be. Calm in a way my beating heart was not.
Suspended.
I had almost gotten suspended because I was a lowly member of the Dynamite in a world that favored the Defenders.
I felt my jaw tighten once again as I straightened up, my hand retracting from his as I pulled it back to my side. Avoiding his face, a beautiful mix of golden skin, structured jaw lines, mauve lips, and bushy brows, I flicked a quick glance at him, nodding. “Fine, thanks.”
He straightened too, and for a second I wondered if he was six-seven instead, but I knew that wasn’t true. I knew his stats. He just seemed so much bigger up close. Bigger and so… steady?
Yeah, steady was the exact word I would use to describe the way he nodded easily and slipped his hands into his pockets.
“Alright,” he said again. He let his eyes remain on me for a few long seconds, surveying me before ultimately shrugging as he started his way into the offices. Over his shoulder, he added, “Easy, Six. Season’s just starting.”
Easy, Six.
The words sounded like a taunt when I repeated them to myself, rather than the melodic lull of concern from the man who came up with them. They were meant to be nice, but I couldn’t help the way they twisted in my gut.
Season’s just starting.
That’s right. My first comeback season was just starting, and I was already fucking it up.
And if I didn’t shape up soon, it could very well be my last.
Chapter Two
Ira
I didn’t knowhow we were pulling this off. I wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t all go south at any given moment, either. But I was also kind of digging it.
Typically, it would be impossible for a starting player on the Denver Defenders basketball team to go out to a bar this public during the season. As we officially just made it through the second round of playoffs (fourteen games later, might I add), I had assumed it would take a miracle to “go have a beer” out in the city like my brother-in-law suggested.
But here we were in the back room of a decently fixed-up bar on the outer side of town doing something else that was pretty hard to come by—watching a women’s basketball game while we were still in season.
Generally, the men’s and women’s seasons never ran into each other. It didn’t make much sense to host competing attractions in a place where money was the main objective. But an early start to the season on the women’s side and a triumphant but struggling stint in the playoffs on ours was stacking the two programs on top of each other in overlapping seasons for the first time in the city’s history.
Causing a real headache with practices and playing time, too.
The dirty looks the women had given us told us enough of what they thought of it. Truth be told, I didn’t blame them. It wasn’t our schedule that was being tossed around for accommodation’s sake, it was theirs.
“Arghhhh!” A wet smacking of lips and the gurgling sound of a milk-drunk baby pulled me out of my daze. I looked down my shoulder to meet the big brown eyes of my nephew, Maddox, in my arms. His weird little baby face caused my heart to ache a little, a dizzying mix of pride and envy I’d been getting acquainted with ever since this little blob was born.
“Are all babies this chill inside a bar?” I asked the short-haired infant. “Or are you just the coolest, Mads?”
He answered by smacking his forehead right into the side of my neck. When he worked up the strength to pick the big round thing back up, he looked at me so shocked that we both broke out in a laugh.
“Yo, dude!” Neil, the aforementioned brother-in-law who I had sort of forgotten about, clipped from the other side of our high-top table. He was motioning with outstretched hands and snapping fingers. “Hand him over.”
Call it a reflex, but I instantly cuddled Maddox closer to my chest and away from his father. “Why?”
He chuffed. “For starters, you insulted him.Of coursehe’s the coolest baby around. None of these other babies even come close, c’mon.”
“I know that’s right,” I said, lifting my hand and smoothing it under Mads’ until we were high fiving. Another giggle as big as he was tumbled out of his toothless mouth, and I smiled, absently flicking a glance at Neil. “And second?”
He crossed his arms, pouting. “Secondly, I hate that he likes you more than me. I’m his dad!”
I shrugged. “Kid’s got taste.”
Picking Mads up, I swung him around to my other hip. A silent message that I wasn’t giving him up. Then, I picked up my barely-touched beer and took another barely-there sip. I didn’t drink much during the season, especially not during a run as grueling as the playoffs. Call me old-fashioned, but I liked to give one hundred and ten percent on the job. My job just so happened to include my body, and alcohol did bad things to a body.
