Page 19 of On Merit Alone

Chapter Eleven

Ira

“So who was that cheeky little move for last night?” my dad asked as we sat around the couch at home. We were about to have dinner, watching basketball while we waited.

Women’s basketball—and more specifically, the Denver Dynamite as they took on Minnesota on the road.

I gave him a wry smile. “No one in particular.”

“Oh?” His gray eyebrow raised along his brown face, the wear of time and age visible in the wrinkles and smile lines of his expressions.

Glancing at me, he gave a look he’d been giving me since I was a boy no taller than his knee.

Even now that I was a man several inches taller than his six-foot four, I could tell his ‘bullshit’ face from a mile away.

“Now, you really expect me to believe that?”

“Pop, believe it,” I said as I leaned forward and stole a piece of popcorn from a bowl Mom set down for us. “Now shush, old man, I’m watching the game.”

“What you need to be watching is the clock. Cause time’s running out on you making a decision with that contract?” Dad said. “Know what you’re planning on doing yet?”

I grunted, and he huffed, shaking his head. “You’re not even thirty-five yet, Ira. If you retire now, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

Another grunt.

“Do you even have a plan?” he pressed, just like parents liked to.

I didn’t. I was still going off feelings alone, and the truth was, now that this season was going well, my feelings were strangely changing again. But for some reason, I didn’t want my dad to know about my indecisiveness.

So, instead of telling him what was on my mind, I grumbled, “I’ve been doing some coaching here and there. Trying things out.”

Dad blinked at me, shocked. Then he nodded his head a few times before looking over his shoulder for Mom. This is how I knew he was going to say something she wouldn’t approve of. He always checked first before leaning in and whispering, “No shit?”

“Yeah, Dad,” is all I said.

It almost felt wrong to call what Merit and I were doing “coaching”.

Yeah, I was giving her advice here and there, and yeah, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the feeling of satisfaction and gratification I got from her successes after having personally played a role in her training for them.

But still, we’d done those things together.

It felt wrong making it out to be some sort of transaction.

I contemplated correcting myself, but as I thought about it, in came the bustling of many voices.

“Uncle Ira!” Olivia, my four-year-old niece, outright banshee squealed as she charged me from the doorway.

I don’t know how she did it, but somehow she managed to take me, a six-foot, six-inch professional athlete, by surprise.

The way she ducked and dodged the living room furniture in order to tackle me on the couch had me thinking she had a future in football one day.

“Umph!” I grunted as she borderline attacked me.

Scooping her up, I swooped her little body behind my back and plopped her on top of my shoulders.

Then, raising to my feet, I jogged around the area in a slow trot, making propeller noises all the way.

Giggles and squeals assaulted my ears as Liv held on tight to my neck and enjoyed the ride, her little braided hairstyle smacking me in the face and her barrettes getting tangled in my curls.

Making my way around the room, I went around to my family in greeting.

First to my mom who was bringing shopping bags to the kitchen island.

I stole a kiss on the side of her face, bending low for Livy to steal one too, then I grabbed the bags from her hand to carry the rest of the way to the kitchen.

Next, I caught my brother Isaac coming in from the garage, gave him a fist bump before swerving out the way as he tried to steal his daughter back.

His wife Leah got a side hug from me and a sloppy kiss to the top of her head from her daughter.

And then we were on to our final targets.

When we arrived, Iris was just setting the baby carrier on the dining room table.

Bumping her hip, I immediately stole her place and started unfastening my new favorite dude.

To Olivia, I warned, “Gentle now, okay. We’re going to get a new passenger.”

Like a good pilot, she quieted down and watched mesmerized over my shoulder as I swooped little Maddox up and cradled him right up to my chest. He smelled like baby, and milk, and maybe as if he needed a diaper change.

And like I guessed, beside me Iris outstretched a diaper like she already knew. Stacked along with it were the baby wipes and powder. All the fixings for my sister's favorite sentence, which I uttered with excitement, “I’ll change him.”

Fifteen minutes and a changed diaper later, Livy was back on my shoulders after being a good little helper of course and Mads was snuggled up to my chest. Wide awake after having slept in the car ride over and currently fascinated with smacking his palms against my face as I blew raspberries against them.

Heart full .

And, apparently, family amused .

“Look at that boy. Somebody get him a family, quick!” My mom chuckled, passing behind me and swatting my free shoulder as she did.

I gave her a smile. “Nah, this is enough for me right now.”

Looking at Mads, I asked, “Right, Mads? You two are all Uncle Ira needs?”

“Right!” the little girl on my shoulders shouted, causing Mads to look up at her in glee and wonder. I swear his eyes were so big. I laughed, but my niece had different plans. Pointing straight ahead, she said, “Now fly, Uncle I! Go!”

Extending my palm in a salute, I said, “Yes, Captain!” And then I was off on my little airplane trot again.

“Ira, be careful!” Both Leah and Iris called after me, while Isaac and Neil just chuckled from the couch with Dad.

I played around with the kids until their little asses tired me out.

Liv could go all day, but Mads was starting to get fussy, and after a while, I could tell it was time for a bottle.

When I finally decided to return her baby, I also gave my sister a belated hug.

She laughed as she bounced Mads on her hip.

“Oh, hello, little brother. Nice to see you too,” she joked. “I thought for a second there you only tolerated me for access to my baby.”

I shrugged, not denying it, and she laughed harder. I laughed too, but I looked over my shoulder to see where the game was after my little intermission.

Mer—I mean, the Dynamite were up. It was tight, though, and it looked like they were playing Merit damn near every minute again.

Damn.

She couldn’t keep this up along with her constant extra practices. I’d hardly gotten her to start giving me those tentative laughs and almost smiles. I didn’t want them disappearing because she hurt herself from overdoing it.

I didn’t want to see her upset at all. I about killed Scottie for making her look like that in the tunnel the other day. Like she’d been slapped or something. And then the fact that she didn’t know what to do with a gift… something about the whole thing didn’t sit right with me.

I had wanted to talk to her after the game, when I could finally pull my focus away from basketball enough to think about what happened in the tunnel clearly.

But she was off to Minnesota by then and plus, I didn’t have her number.

And maybe I wanted to hold off on asking my questions until after her game, just like I’d held off on mentioning what I noticed about her hesitating on her injury.

I’d recognized the problem right off, but something told me that telling her directly before a game would throw her off.

“You know, Ira?” my sister started from beside me. She was moving around the kitchen counters while fixing up a bottle for her baby boy, but glancing at her, I could see her peeking over at me every so often. “I thought maybe you had a girl or something in the crowd yesterday?”

I slid her a glance. “Why?”

She shrugged and the hairs on my neck began to prickle.

The girl could find a needle in a haystack when she wanted to.

I wondered if she’d found Merit in the crowd of twenty thousand, but she wasn’t letting on to anything specific.

“I dunno. Just seemed that way, with that smile and wave you gave at the end of the game.”

“I did not wave,” I groaned, covering my face. “And I smile all the time. I swear you and Dad are crazy.”

“We saw it too!” just about everyone in the room called. Even Livy piped up from her spot on the living room rug where she played with her blocks. “We saw’d it, Uncle I.”

She was just copying everybody else, but it still landed right where it was supposed to.

I groaned but shot a look at my sister. “Did you see anything else, perchance? ”

Tipping her chin like she was thinking, she shook her dark head, her short, coily curls shaking along with it. “Hmm, no. What exactly should I be looking for?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. I hadn’t seen anything surface about the little two finger salute Merit had returned to me as she ducked her shoulders in a giggle.

I hoped I wouldn’t. For her sake mostly, because people loved to speculate and blow things out of proportion when it came to my life and my business.

But for my sake too, since that little motion had been only for me. And I wanted to keep it all to myself.

I also wanted to keep feeling the ghost of her fingers tugging on my shirt and telling me, “Good luck, Ira” even after she told the team the same thing. In her eyes, me and them were different somehow. While she was wishing them good luck, she was wishing something more for me.

It made me curious. It made me selfish. It made me want to see her again. Suddenly, I wanted to know what more Merit had in mind for me.