Page 48 of On Merit Alone
Sliding her glasses up her nose again, she turned to me and raised a sassy little eyebrow. “Which is?”
I cocked my head toward the road in front of us. “You gonna drive this thing or what, sweetheart?”
“Well,sweetheart, I’m going home. So unless you start talking, we’ll be in this parking lot all day.”
“You don’t want to take me home?”
“Ira, for the love of God, what do you want?”
“Damn, rip my heart out,” I fake grumbled. Mostly fake, at least. “I just came to drop off your tickets.”
“Tickets?”
“To tomorrow’s game.”
“Um…why?”
“Because you need tickets to get in—Jesus, have you never been to a sporting event before, Merit? I swear I have to explain everything to you,” I poked.
She wasn’t biting, her joking mood seemed to have passed. Now she was looking at me over the rim of her glasses again. Blinking as if she didn’t understand something. I cocked my head, giving her a narrow-eyed stare.
“You’re coming to the game,” I said more than asked.
“I actually wasn’t planning on it. I travel the next morning early and?—”
“Don’t care. You’re coming.”
“Why?”
“Earth to Merit, weren’t you listening the last time I told you? We’ve won every time with you there. You’re like a part of the team now.”
She scoffed. “A part of that team? No. They think I’m?—”
I stopped her before she even went there. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“What?” She gave me a suspicious look. “Why?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I repeated.
“You didn’t say anything, did you?” she asked, sounding mortified.
I couldn’t help it then. I reached across to her side of the cab and brushed her braids behind her shoulder, letting my hand linger there and squeezing her. “I took care of it, alright? And if you have any more problems with those idiots, I’ll take care of that too.”
She didn’t answer, just held my eyes for a few extra seconds before turning to face the windshield again. “Did you watch the interview?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And I’m sorry about whatever you were going through that pushed you over the edge that day,” I said. When she looked at me, obviously shocked, I just shrugged and settled back into my own seat. “I know how those interviews are, especially after a loss. We’re human. We can’t be expected to keep it together all the time. And Cherry was digging that day. You dug back. If she can’t take it, she shouldn’t dish it.”
“Do you see the good in everyone and just ignore the bad?” she asked. Maybe she was unaware that this was a compliment; one that made me feel hot with embarrassment as I imagined the way she saw me.
“I see the good in you, Six. I feel it. And that’s why I need youon the sidelines tomorrow,” I said, taking the opportunity to explain this want for her to be around me in the best way I could right now. She opened her mouth to protest, but I beat her to it. Changing tactics. “You want us to lose? Is that it?”
“What? No!” she sputtered defensively.
“Then come,” I said. “Please, please, please?—”
