Page 6 of On Merit Alone
“No.” I shook my head. “Not at all.”
“Damn. I thought they would start doing better once Merit got back in.”
I grunted, repeating, “Takes more than one to make a team.”
While this was true, I still looked at the television screen with a degree of pity. It did take more than one to make a team. Way more. But they were doing so well until she got hurt. And without her, they struggled. I could only imagine how the pressure of everyone counting on her to raise them back up from the ashes was weighing on her now, judging by that stiff, unforgiving air about her I could recognize even from the other side of a screen. Not to mention when I ran into her the other day.
“Know much about her?” he asked.
“About who?”
“Merit Jones, what do you meanwho?” he said, chin jutting toward the TV.
“Oh,” I said, a flash memory of skin so smooth you would never know those hands were holding basketballs all day came and went through my brain. I shook my head. “Nah, not really.”
“That’s surprising. You two are like the two biggest names in the arena,” he said.
I shrugged. “Don’t know her. Only seen her once or twice, actually.”
“What was she like?”
“Sort of uptight.”
“So, like, the opposite of you.”
I slid him a glance. “Are you calling me loose, Neil?”
He grinned. “If I am?”
Leaning in, I covered the baby’s ears. “You watch your mouth around the baby.”
He laughed and I smiled, releasing Mads and wiping a little milk drool off his bottom lip. Looking back at the screen, I sighed. Another quick turnover against the Dynamite and a close-up of number six, who looked like one more tightening of her screws would crumble her all together.
Definitely uptight. And from what I could tell, sort of lost.
Maybe we did have something in common after all.
Chapter Three
Merit
One decision can often bethe judge of fate. One shot, one play, one second. It’s almost never the one you think it’ll be, either. Never the big moment or the split at the crossroads, but often the decisions you make before you even get to that great divide.
Today, my one was choosing to think about everything that could go wrong if I missed a free throw when I stepped up to the line. Grandpa told me not to think too much when I was up there. He said there was nothing my mind could tell me in that moment that my body and muscle memory didn’t already know.
‘Just let it fly, Mer. Ain’t nothing you can think about now that you haven’t already practiced.’
Lately, all I could do was think.Stress. The lessons Grandpa had taught me were the furthest thing from my mind. I guess he was officially gone long enough for me to start forgetting them.
I sure as hell hadn’t taken his advice when I needed it at the bottom of the second. Given a foul and two shots at the line to follow. Instead of‘letting it fly’, I’d let it sink, and though we’d kept it tight for the rest of the game, we were never able to get ahead, losing by two at the buzzer.
My hands fisted around the edges of my stool in a tight grip. I was sitting at the bar of my kitchen island stewing; ruminating on my bad decisions and missed opportunities and feeling helpless about them. The countless mistakes of the game were bouncing through my head as much as my knee bounced in impatience under the table. The game played like my own personal horror film behind my eyes. That last buzzer beater being the unsuspecting twist at the end.
That was stupid.Iwas stupid.
There was no twist. If I had done what I needed to do at the line before halftime, we wouldn’t have fallen behind, and we wouldn’t have lost by two. Sure, everyone else had moments where they could have tightened up too, but this was on me. It wasallon me.
“Damn,” I whispered to myself, spearing a glance at the clock on the oven.
