Page 17 of On Merit Alone

Chapter Ten

Merit

The Denver Defenders won the third game of the playoff final series at home. And what did the star player, top scorer, and game MVP do when they got that win?

He turned toward the crowd, found where I was sitting, and saluted me like he’d done in the gym the other day. Smiling the entire time like he had not one care in the world.

The idiot.

But in my own more reserved way, I saluted him back.

I stared at Ryan as I tried to relay my discomfort with the current situation. He stared right back, not batting an eyelash. I’m not even sure his face moved. It was scary.

“Ryan, I don’t want to,” I said.

“I don’t remember asking you,” he said coolly, giving me those dark eyes.

“You didn’t, that’s precisely the problem. You’re my agent, yet you don’t ask when booking important appearances,” I said through my teeth. Usually, I trusted Ryan. I didn’t mind what he told me to do because, for the most part, what he told me to do was right.

I came into the organization at a pretty young age, having graduated with my degree but always being the youngest one on the team.

That coupled with the fact that I had no one else to champion my well-being, Ryan had always looked out for me.

He wasn’t that much older than I was, only about five years my senior, but he had a sort of presence about him that commanded respect.

He always used that respect to take care of his clients.

And he, being one of the only people in the organization to know the full story around my circumstances, often took my side on matters that might upset me.

Not this time, I guess. Especially as he leaned back in his chair with his ankle crossed over his knee. His eyes shifted to his phone and not me.

His voice was just as uninterested as his face as he deadpanned, “Don’t be a brat, Merit. You decided you wanted to tear the reporter a new one during a live interview. Now you have Captain Idiot on your ass and I have no other choice but to agree with him. Which I hate doing, by the way.”

I ground my teeth. “I didn’t tear her a new one.”

He flicked a look at me. It was not impressed. “She’s pregnant, Merit. Pregnant women, children, and veterans might as well be martyrs in the eyes of the press. They’ll always get a pass. Especially over cold, entitled professional athletes with bad attitudes.”

“I don’t like it when you parent, Ryan. I am a grown adult who pays you. Would it kill you to act like it?”

“Then try to refrain from acting like a child who doesn’t know how this business works. You act up, you have to make it up. End of story, Jones,” he clipped.

I chewed the inside of my mouth, irritated and not at all charmed by his attitude.

The silence I exuded must have been pointed enough to penetrate the wall because, after a while, he sighed heavily and clicked his phone shut.

Removing his ankle from his knee and setting his foot on the ground under him.

Leaning forward, he set his forearms along his thighs and watched me.

I stared back at him, unwavering. He sighed again, this time his fingers going up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Look, Merit. I know you’re going through a hard time. You don’t make trouble for me, ever. Which is why I am not just going to let that horrid excuse for a PR department take the lead on this. But we’ve got to work with them, at least for the start,” he said.

“Which means?”

“Which means doing a little bit of what you hate. Rob thinks you have an image problem. PR doesn’t know that the real image problem is if they put you in front of the wrong camera. I'm trying to work out a place for us all to meet in the middle.”

I glared. He had the nerve to glare back, adding, “What? You’re shit at interviews, and you know it.”

“I can do basketball interviews.”

“They don’t want basketball interviews. They want an explanation for your outburst,” he said.

“She asked rude questions. There’s your explanation.”

“Not good enough.”

I sputtered. “I literally saw one of the guys answer ‘how are you’ by saying ‘would be better with you on top of me, Cherry,’ yet I’m the bad guy?”

“That’s charming.”

I blinked.

He pressed his lips together. “They’re animals, yes.

But unfortunately, you aren’t one of the guys.

You can’t do whatever the hell you want out there.

” He held up his hand just as I was opening my mouth for protest. “And yes, I understand that it’s not fair, but that’s the business we’re in, Merit.

Now, it was my understanding that you wanted to play basketball , not start a war with your own General Manager.

I am trying to keep you where you want to be, as I’ve always done. Trust me on this, please ? ”

I crossed my arms over my chest, looking away. “I’m a top performer in the industry, Ry. I’m not a brat and I’m not entitled. I earned my spot. I shouldn’t have to grovel at his feet just because he gets hard off hoarding power over women.”

Silence followed my little rant and I peeked over to see Ryan stifling a smile. I’m glad he found this funny because I sure as hell did not. When I set my flat stare on him, he just reiterated, “ Trust me .”

I mumbled a halfhearted “Sure” and Ry rose, coming to sit in the chair in front of his desk. Patting the arm of the other one, he said, “Come sit by me. Your power hoarder will be here soon, and if we must pick sides, you’re on mine.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Funny, coming from a guy who just spent twenty minutes scolding me.”

“I already have a pain in the ass sister, Merit. Please don’t start acting like a pseudo one,” he said, pulling out his leather-bound book and flipping through it. His undivided attention was officially run out, though it never lasted long.

Despite my annoyance with this whole thing, a certain pull in my gut came with Ryan comparing me to a sister.

I wasn’t the biggest name in his account book by far.

He could probably drop me by now and still be just as successful, if not more.

But Ryan Carmen had been new to sports when I was.

He’d worked in entertainment before but decided to make a big shift, and on top of signing one other large account, he’d signed me.

A scared, barely twenty-one-year-old with no guidance and no clue how to protect herself in a cutthroat world.

I have no idea if it was my story or my ability that had won him over back then, but sometime in the forty minutes of our initial meeting, Ry had looked at me with earnest eyes and promised, “I’ll help” and he’s been doing just that ever since.

He wasn’t a soft man. I actually knew next to nothing about him outside of these walls—though it was his business to know about me.

But he was there. He was always there. Busy and splitting attention between his million and one deals now five years later, but there.

And now, in this isolated life I’d made for myself, I guess he was the closest thing I had to a brother.

He’d always looked out for me before. As much as you could trust another human being, I trusted Ryan.

Taking the seat he suggested, I speared him with sharp eyes. “I bet they don’t ask Ira King to jump through hoops like this.”

“Shit luck with that one, kid. Believe it or not, his GM is not an asshole.” He raised his eyes to pin me with a smartass look. “And he’s actually nice to the cameras. Try it, and we won’t have to go through this next time.”

I blinked at him. “You wouldn’t know nice if it hit you in the face, Carmen.”

“Did you truly wait until I’m stuck with you forever to start throwing temper tantrums?” he asked dryly.

I sighed. “I just want to know what I have to do. You’re right.

I just want to play basketball and I want to play basketball here .

I don’t want to get cut or traded for something stupid like not being an ‘agreeable lady’.

That’s not what I was brought here to do.

I was brought here to play, and I do my job.

I don’t want to have to do extra to prove my spot here. ”

Most people might soften or sympathize or even blink when someone poured their heart out. Nope, not Ry. What he did was pick up his wrist and glance at his watch, before returning his attention to whatever he was scribbling on his notepad.

“I’ll handle it,” he said. And without looking at me, he added, “Look alive, Jones. We’re on in three, two?—”

The door opened and in walked a round, huffing Rob, clad in an ill-fitting suit and red cheeks. I lifted the corners of my mouth to smile at him, and after a not-so-nice look from the man beside me, I rose to greet him.

Hand in his, I said, “Rob, good to see you.”

He nodded stiffly at me before offering Ryan one too—though Ry didn’t acknowledge his existence. He rolled his gaze back to me, and it wasn’t hard to see the annoyance there. “Hardly good circumstances, is it, Ms. Jones?”

I rolled my lips into my mouth and took a seat. Nothing I had to say could be beneficial to this meeting.

Ryan just continued on with the tirade that was his personality. “Rob, please sit.”

Rob looked from our seats to the empty space around him. “Where?”

Ryan looked up at him without raising his chin. Then he pointed with his pen. “On that couch over there in the corner.”

My GM made a show of looking pointedly at the distance between our seats and his allocated one in the corner twice before grumbling over to the discarded part of the room. “I don’t know why we had to meet here anyway if you didn’t have a proper place to sit.”

“No need for that. This will be quite quick,” Ryan said. He snapped his book closed and finally looked up at the man just as he was beginning to sit. Raising his eyebrows, he looked at Rob as if he’d been waiting all day. “Ready? Or do you need a minute?”

“No, I’m ready,” Manzinni grumbled.