Page 30 of On Merit Alone

Chapter Seventeen

Merit

My eyes flickered upward at movement above my screen. Tucked away in the back of our bus as we made our way back to the Nashville airport after a road win, I was enjoying my rare moment of downtime before I had to be “on” again.

Usually, I liked to be present in these times.

Listening out for conversations around the bus, joining in at the outskirts of the celebration after a big win, or simply sitting and observing my team and the way they interacted with one another.

Sometimes I wished I could be a part of it too but I knew I had a place on this bus and it was not in the midst of the togetherness.

I was a mediator and a protector. If there was a problem, I would handle it.

If we were lacking, I would steer us in the right direction.

But to truly participate would be to fully belong.

And I’m not sure I fully belonged anywhere.

Most of the time I was happy enough observing from the sidelines, soaking in what cheerfulness and joy I could from around me.

But today I was tired. While we had won pretty decisively it had been another one of those exhausting games and we had an exhausting night of travel ahead of us.

It was already dark outside the bus windows.

The occasional streetlight or the whir of cars passing us was the only lively activity in the night.

We were still too far from the airport to start packing up, and too deep into our drive to still be amped up from our win.

So in a rare moment of true peace on trips like these, I’d slipped on my headphones and fired up some videos I’d been meaning to catch up on.

I was just watching as a floppy eared puppy bounded his way around the corner of his owner's living room with a toy the size of him in his mouth, when I noticed those eyes watching me.

And now they were joined by another’s.

“Um. Hi?” I said as I clicked my tablet closed. Pressing the large thing flat against my chest I inclined my chin to both the women. “What’s up guys?”

Both Emily and Charlie glanced at each other before turning their curious eyes to me.

“So, Cap…” Charlie started. Making her eyes go wide, I guess she thought I was supposed to know what that meant, because she didn’t elaborate further.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Well…” Emily offered, and again nothing else.

I blinked.

They blinked.

My nose wrinkled.

They mirrored me.

“What’s going on?” I finally asked.

Instantly, they popped up. Elbows going over the back of the seat they occupied in front of me. Charlie took the lead. “So what’s going on with you and King?”

The wrinkle in my nose just got deeper. I was halfway through my eye roll, moving to lean back in my seat, when Emily shot forward—her hand coming around my wrists in a soft hold. “No! Don’t blow us off please! We’re so curious, Mer. ”

I scoffed, blinking at them with sheer incredulity. “What is wrong with you two?”

“With us ?” Emily snorted. “Come on, you can’t honestly believe anyone is buying this ‘friends’ farce. What’s wrong with you is the more apt question?”

“I…I?—”

“I…I—” Charlie mocked, cutting me off. Slapping a hand down on the seat and making me jump, she said. “You like that man and something is going on and we want to know what. Come on, Cap. Everyone else is busy, just tell us.”

It was my turn to snort. Even as my heart began to race, and that smiling face appeared on the very outskirts of my mind, I couldn’t help but balk at the incredulity of their requests.

Tell them? Tell them what?

Whatever I already told them was the truth.

Me and Ira were friends. Yes, he sometimes made my face burn and unleashed butterflies in my stomach, but that stuff also happened before a big game or a particularly nerve-racking interview.

He wasn't special or anything. No. It wasn't him who was making me feel like this.

It was just the novelty of the situation. Of having a friend.

And I was going to tell Emily and Charlie as much, until the chorus of hisses shot through the air of the bus.

The sound was familiar, even without context.

Those were the sounds of spectators. And just as I suspected, as I popped my head above the seats and took a look around the bus, my eyes landed on a congregation of girls toward the right side, all huddled around one seat.

They were watching a game.

More than that, something had happened in the game they were watching.

Hair on the back of my neck prickled as awareness of the date and time came rushing to my mind.

Ira .

He was playing— They were. The Defenders were still playing in the tournament.

Another home game. I’d been following the live scoring on social media all night, but in the hustle and bustle of travel, I’d forgotten to turn on the livestream when we got settled on the bus.

Now I didn’t even take the time to turn on my own screen, instead opting to climb over the bus chairs to lean over the seats and get a closer view of my teammate’s tablet as it played the game.

Taking in the situation on the screen, I resisted the urge to groan.

They’d been down for most of the game, trailing right behind by two or three points.

The game was tied, and the pressure was high.

It was one of those games that you could almost tell was the big one.

They needed four games to win the series, but sometimes the series was really won in one momentum-setting decision.

This was that game. The game to turn the tide. The one to set the tone. And they were only a turnover, a shot, a hot streak away from pulling ahead or falling behind.

We were in it, and there was still hope. Yet, no one was breathing… because Ira had just gone down. Pushed a little too hard as he went up for a shot, he was now on the ground, where he had been for a considerable amount of time.

I’m pretty sure I could hear my own heartbeat, feel the rush of my blood through my body, and taste my breath as it iced over in my lungs.

My skin prickled with anxious awareness, and my brain felt fuzzy as all I seemed to be able to focus on was the little spot on the screen where such a big man was crumpled on the ground. Hurt and unable to get up.

He’d tried, oh, how he tried to get up. Pushing people away with his elbows and trying to lift up with his arms alone, but the trainer just pushed him back down firmly.

It was never good when the trainer made it out on court. Everyone knew that. Ira knew it. I could tell by the way his tightly clenched fist tapped slowly against the ground as if the repetitive motion could curb him from making any harsh movements.

Seconds, hours, days seemed to pass before, finally, the cluster was moving. He was moving, unfurling upward as he rose slowly to his feet. His profile showed in the camera screens as he wrapped an arm around his trainer and another around the assistant.

The crowd began to cheer, relieved to see he was up and breathing. Their cheers quickly turned into groans of confusion and panic as he began to limp with assistance toward the tunnel. Ira just waved to the crowd as he left.

But didn’t turn back.

Didn’t come back.

“He’s out,” someone whispered. It took me a while to register that it was one of us as a kaleidoscope of other things seemed to swirl in my mind.

He’s hurt.

He’s pissed.

He’s out.

Shit .

Detaching myself from the girls, I stumbled over to my own seat, yanking my phone from my backpack and quickly pulling up Ira’s contact.

Me

Hey…

That’s as far as I got was “Hey…”

I didn’t send it. I couldn’t. What if he didn’t want to hear from me?

What if it bothered him? What if he got back in the game and my text was the thing that distracted him?

I couldn’t be that—a distraction, a nuisance, more than he’d bargained for.

So instead, I pocketed the phone and rejoined my team as we watched the last quarter of the game play out in hope-filled horror.

Ira never rejoined the game. Defenders lost.

“You okay, Mer?” I heard Emily ask.

“Yeah, why?” I said over my shoulder, barely looking up as she peeked over the seat behind mine .

“Because you look like you’ve seen a ghost, and your guy went down,” Charlie’s voice came next.

Looking up, I was surprised to find the same two concerned faces again.

I shook my head. I didn’t know what to do with that.

What to do with anything. All I wanted to do was text Ira, but I couldn’t because we weren’t close like that.

And looking at these women, I sort of wanted to fall into them the same way but couldn’t for much of the same reasons.

We just weren’t like that.

No one was with me. I needed to remember that.

So I just shook my head and turned my shoulders. “Not my guy.”

It felt like a lie, but what could I do?

And after a while, I was forced to send the only message I’d come up with before our flight took off and I lost my chance.

Me

Hey… I’m here if you need me.

I was biting my nails. I haven’t bitten my nails since before the draft, when I knew I was going to have to do this big, scary, important thing all on my own and I had no idea how to act. But right now, alone in my kitchen, I was biting them. Why? Because Ira hadn’t answered me.

Ira wasn’t one of those guys who liked to play around with his messages. From what I’d learned of him, when you texted, he answered. The fact that he wasn’t answering me after I’d texted him multiple times started worrying me.

The news about King limping out of the game with an entire quarter left and never returning had spread everywhere. Speculation on what went wrong was running through the media like crazy, and the worst part was that the Defenders had yet to release any information on it.

What if he tore his ACL again? What if it was his other knee now? What if he was done for good?

My stomach roiled at the thought. For some reason the possibility of Ira being done with basketball was giving me the same reaction as the thought of me being done. I couldn’t accept it. He was too good and too special. He was still in his prime. He couldn’t be done.

If he was done then I’d no longer get to run into him, or play with him, or watch any games with him in it. If he was done, then I’d be all alone again…

I picked up my phone and texted him again. While my message before the plane took off had been calmer, more reasonable, all my messages since arriving home and still not hearing anything from him had been borderline frantic. Each going something like:

Me

Hey, I, just checking in on you…

Ira, could you let me know if you’re okay?

Ira, I know you probably don’t want to hear from me right now, but I’m worried.

There wasn’t so much as a text bubble.

Now I paced my kitchen with my phone clutched to my chest, biting my nails.

Waiting for it to buzz at any minute now.

It wasn’t. Minutes and minutes of waiting and absolutely nothing.

No one else used my number. I had no one to use it.

So I wasn’t worried that when it lit up it would be a false alarm. I just wanted it to ring, dammit.

I pulled up the text screen, my fingers hovering with intention.

Should I really text him again? Was I being too…

too much? I mean, sure he’d texted me and hung out with me at work, and talked to me in my car, and touched me like he wanted me around.

But he was an NBA player. He was used to acting like that, right?

He didn’t do any of that because I was anything special, he was just being himself.

And he probably had better people to talk to at a time like this.

He wasn’t like that, he wasn’t waiting around for someone, anyone, to come and show him an inkling of humanity.

He wasn’t stupid enough to take the first connection he’d felt in however long and latch onto it like a fish caught on a hook.

He wasn’t like me.

I knew he wasn’t like me. He wasn’t pathetic and alone… I felt myself swallow, the emotion of my situation compared to his playing through my brain. I knew he wasn’t like me, but I also knew that he went out of his way when I was feeling shitty more than a couple of times—alike or not.

So I would at least try once more. In case I’m the one he’s looking for right now. Since he was the one I didn’t know I was.

Me

Ira…Please?

Forcing myself, I set the phone down on the side table in the living room.

Then, I curled myself up in blankets as I watched the muted TV.

I didn’t want to hear this anymore. I’d heard them speculate about Ira all day.

Instead, I pulled my tablet into my lap and pulled up the link Ira had sent me the day before—a video edit of me and him.

Me at the game in his shoes, cheering for him with an excited look in my eye, and his cheeky ass telling the court-side reporter that he liked my shoes after the game. He’d sent it with one simple message:

Ira

See. I knew you were obsessed with me.

Yesterday, it made me groan in frustration and disbelief. Whoever had put the ridiculous thing together sure did take some creative liberties with Ira and I’s relationship.

But today, it just made me laugh and sort of made me miss him. I curled up with the stupid video and watched it on repeat. Slowly drifting from exhaustion and worry, I snuggled into the couch alone.

When I blinked my eyes open, who knows how much time later, it was to a message coming through on my falling tablet. A message from him.

Ira

Come over.