Page 68 of On Merit Alone
I suppose I should’ve felt childish or silly being called sweet while being comforted after losing a damn basketball game. But I didn’t. I felt okay. I felt right. Like I’d somehow, someway landed in the right spot for me without even trying.
I feltlucky.
“Are we going to have to watch you two circle each other for matingeverytime you’re in the same room?” I recognized McKivvey’s voice followed by a rumble of soft chuckles around us.
I didn’t move and Merit followed my lead. Apparently when she agreed to hug me, she agreed to do it on my terms. I liked that too. Iwas liking everything about this girl lately, which is why I wasn’t inclined to let her go just yet.
“Cut me some slack. I just lost a championship,” I grumbled to my teammate.
“You’ve slacked enough sitting your ass on the bench, Cap,” Kivvey said.
If I thought I was going to be sore about this, I’d better get my act together fast. Between my team not taking my mopey bullshit anymore and the girl in my arms shaking softly from laughter, I think it was about time I put my pity party to bed. So I let her go.
And giving Merit one more look, I noticed her pressing the backs of her hands to her apparently flushed face—a worthy parting gift.
“Alright team,” I said, turning to address the group with a sigh. “Let’s huddle up… for charity.”
An hour and an unnecessarily aggressive practice scrimmage later and everyone was right back where we started—sitting around our little corner of the practice gym. Only, they were all huffing, panting, or just plain laying there like a stone.
For a group of professional athletes that were supposed to be the highest caliber of athleticism, everyone looked exhausted for having just played half the time we usually did in our actual games. It may have something to do with the fact that there were no breaks and no subs… but I think it had more to do with the fact that as soon as both teams stepped out on the court, they had indeed tried to murder each other.
Illegal elbows, shirt grabbing, checks, and screens. Pushing, shoving, and some downright mean taunting. You would think the two teams hated each other. But actually…
“They aresuchassholes!” Stephens whined as he sprawled out on his back. Everyone else agreed grimly.
Yeah. The real problem was the other team was made up of a bunch of rabble-rousing tools who didn’t quite seem to grasp that this game was for charity. Which made it no better that my team was made up of a group of people who hated to lose. This was bound to get messy.
“Em’s not an asshole,” Martha, the tall quiet girl Merit had come in with, spoke up for maybe the third time this entire practice. All other displays of her personality had been isolated to the feral way she boxed out our small man on defense.
“Neither is Rog, but majority rules, babe.They’re assholes,” Stephens said.
Martha tucked her brown lips into her mouth and looked away, hugging her knees to her chest as she did. Pouting, I realized.Cute.
“Look, I’m not a real coach, so I wasn’t going to do anything like this, but I don’t think you guys should just get cold sitting around after…whatever that was. Us guys are done, but I’m sure your coaches would be pissed if you all got hurt mid-season over a charity game. So let’s get a quick stretch in.”
“Ooo, a man with a plan,” McKivvey cooed. “Sexy.”
“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes. Nodding to the only one sitting there with steady breathing, I said, “Mer, lead your band of idiots in a cool down, please.”
She got up immediately, but not without giving me a raised eyebrow. “Mine? I thought we were yours, coach.”
I raised an eyebrow too, my eyes sinking down her body and up again of their own accord. I couldn’t deny I liked the insinuation of her being mine, whether she meant it or not.
The sound of a throat clearing brought my eyes away from Merit to the rest of them. “Will you twopleasestop flirting? It’s gross.”
“We’re not—” Merit started.
“Going to stop. So get used to it,” I finished for her. “Now, follow Six and stretch. I’ve got positions for you.”
Merit gave me a glare but started leading them in basic stretching exercises as I pulled up the notes app on my phone. As much as we kept reminding ourselves this was only for charity, I can’t deny that coaching actually felt good. I loved watching the game, figuring out the puzzle pieces to make a team work and enjoyed being that motivating piece to help struggling players through a rough patch. That’s why I always gravitated toward captaining roles on my teams and that’s why I wasn't too mad that I didn’t get to play on court with Merit for this, even though the prospect did seem fun.
“Alright, so based on thefirst civil warof the Mountaineer Stadium out there, I’d say we’re good. We have a slight advantage over them because on average we’re biggerandfaster. Not always the case. And like you guys said, we’re not assholes. They sometimes started to cannibalize each other when they made mistakes. We’ll use all of that to our advantage... for charity.”
“For charity,” they all agreed, like it was a mantra.
I nodded. “Cool. Since we only have three of these practices, I need to choose the positions now. Based on the best five-minute run we had out there, this is who I want playing where, injuries and objections withstanding of course.”
They all sat and listened to me as if I was a real coach. I had to tamp down my crooked smile at how cool it was.How fun.
