Page 70 of On Merit Alone
She swallowed. “I think I should go… if you’re okay now, I mean.”
I smiled, my head dropping between my shoulders. Shot down again. Yet somehow with her, it still felt like progress—like something good. I didn’t mind her hesitation today, because I had a feeling I’d be back tomorrow.
So I just smiled. “Yeah. I should get going too.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Merit
I staredat the wall of my apartment. Distracted. Restless. Itching to do something with myself.
Today was another day of normalcy. I practiced, I watched film, and I practiced a second time with Ira watching and telling me what to do from his spot beside the court, stretching his knee.
It was a normal day, but for many reasons it wasn’t.
Starting with the fact that between my two warm-ups and two practices, I wasn’t able to get a groove for anything—not drills, not shots, not even the conditioning exercises that we did at the tail end of practice to keep our bodies in shape for the season. Everything was off, and I was looking forward to my routine practice with Ira, hoping that he’d see something that I didn’t, or have some kind of advice.
Spoiler, he didn’t. And as we waited for his knee to be cleared for activity, it wasn’t like he could jump in and drill with me either. So the whole time I practiced my shots, only getting worse as time went on, I also had those watchful eyes that made me squirm following me as well.
At least when he was coaching me it was worth it to have thatuncomfortably hot and unnerving gaze on me. I at least got something out of it. But when he didn’t have anything to say about basketball after watching me so intently for long minutes, it just felt… intimate. And I should not be feeling intimate with Ira King.
Should I?
I mean, I’d been to his house. He’d sat in my car. I'd cheered for him at his games… I’d hugged him. But that was all friendly, right? And something about the way his quiet eyes had followed me along the court all day was decidedly not friendly. It was… hungry.
That was probably what threw me off. Why I couldn’t make a shot to save my life. Why I’d spent most of practice casually checking over my shoulder to see if those soft grayish-brown eyes were still on me.
They were. They didn’t leave me the entire practice. And when he said goodbye, slipping arms around me and bringing me close to his body like this is just what we did now—hug each other goodbye! Yeah, I think that’s when my brain officially broke.
Or maybe it was when I hugged him back, feeling instantly better in his arms than I had the entire frustrating day.
“Ugh!”
Shooting up from my spot on the couch, I marched over to my front hallway and started lacing up my shoes. I needed to get out of here—do something to occupy my mind or else I’d just continue to fall subject to the memory of Ira’s strong arms banded around my back or his warm shoulder pressed into my cheek. Or the way he rumbled a soft chuckle as I protested slightly about him letting me go.
No. I didn’t need to keep thinking of his smile or his scent or the fact that I loved the way he wore his mostly curly hair. I didn’t need to keep thinking of any of it, especially not when it was starting to leak away from just basketball.
Like how I found myself daydreaming of actually driving my car somewhere the next time he decided to sit in it. Taking ussomewhere fun and sitting with him as we talked and possibly making him smile that small, surprised smile he sometimes gave me when I said something he didn’t expect. Or how I found myself staring at him a little too long when he raised his jersey to wipe sweat off his brow. Or when he made a shot that even he didn’t think he would, and the most brilliant cheeky smile would take over his face… when he complimented me and it felt like it was about more than just my game.
A soft sting resonated under my fingertips as I pulled my laces too hard, the fabric rubbing so quick it burned. “Shit!”
Quickly I sucked the digits into my mouth to try and alleviate the pain. As I did, I caught a glimpse of my whole family, their pictures on the wall staring at me. Judging.
“What?” I grumbled. Only because I knew exactly what my grandparents would say.
Grandpa would scoff and shake his head. “Can’t run from your own head, Mer. Face it before it faces you.”
Grammy would rub my shoulders and press her cheek to the top of my head in one of her quick hugs. “Don’t be so closed minded, Love Bug. There are a million different ways a situation can play out. It would be foolish of you to avoid the one you actually want from coming true. Lean into it. There’s no reason to be so scared.”
Which was wrong. The only truly foolish thing would be hoping for an outcome that wasn’t possible. Especially when I knew the most likely result.
Rising, I had my gym bag slung over my shoulder in a second. And even though I shunned the would-be words of advice I imagined from my grandparents, I still touched fingertips to their photos as I passed by toward the door. “I won’t be too late, promise. Love you.”
And maybe it was just my brain playing tricks on me, taking advantage of my turbulent feelings, but for a moment I foundmyself wishing I was saying the words to someone who could actually say them back.
My steps faltered as I rounded the corner to the court. There was someone there already. I could hear the bounce of the ball and the swish of the net just on the other side of the rocks.
That was strange. In all my years of coming to this place, I’d never once encountered anyone else here.
