Page 7 of On Merit Alone

Chapter Five

Ira

The last thing I should have been doing on the morning of a game day, especially a game as big as this one, was heading up to the office to talk to my GM.

I know I’d put it off long enough, but it was a big decision to make.

Before the start of the season, I’d been offered a renewal of my contract with the Denver Defenders.

Over the years, I’d been renewed with the team numerous times.

Even when I was hurt and there were impossible odds stacked against me for a comeback, they wanted me.

And each time, I jumped at the opportunity to sign that contract.

This time was different.

“What do you mean you still don’t know?” my agent, Ryan Carmen, asked with a bite in his voice. There was almost always a bite in his voice, but this one was especially vicious. Especially fed up .

I’d had months to think about this deal.

Months in which the offer just kept going up.

The team thought I was playing hardball with them for more money.

Truthfully, I just didn’t know. The feeling I got in the bar with Neil and Mads the other night was one I’d been having a lot lately.

Like I was no longer where I was meant to be.

Then again, the other night in San Fran, when I played the game of my life, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

It was confusing, and confused was not the ideal feeling I wanted as I went into an official meeting with the GM of our team, not to mention one of the biggest games of my life. If we won today, the Defenders would be heading to the National Championship for the first time since the eighties.

And we could actually win .

It was safe to say that’s what I should be focused on right now. But here I was in an office unable to stop thinking about contracts and money and her .

I couldn’t explain what possessed me to stand over Merit Jones as she huffed and puffed from exhaustion the other day. The simplest answer was that I’d seen her and got curious. The complicated answer…

Well, I was still trying to wrap my head around that one.

I noticed her wheeling the cart of balls onto the court on my way into the training room for recovery.

My recovery sessions tended to run long.

I typically ran through maintenance and strengthening exercises for my knees, and I used compression recovery if I was really sore.

I stretched thoroughly and alternated between ice and warm bath intervals before hitting the showers.

Safe to say, I wasn’t expecting her to still be there shooting when I was done recovering. But she was. And even later, I thought for sure she’d be gone by the time I exited the locker room, showered and ready to go home. She wasn’t.

I could hear the bounce of her dribbles echoing down the hall of the tunnel.

She played no music and she hardly talked to herself, just some grunts here and there.

It was just her and the court. Her and the ball.

Her practicing all by herself at nine at night, between back-to-back game days, no less.

Sheer curiosity told me to peek down the tunnel to see if she was actually out there, and sheer mesmerization led me the rest of the way to her side.

She’d been counting shots. She was up to a hundred and ninety by the time I made it to her. But she was tired. Yet, even as her body depressed into the court, exhausted, she was trying to convince herself to get up and finish the set.

Who the hell shot hundreds of shots the night before a game? She was crazy. She needed to rest.

That’s all I meant to say. To suggest that she rest and take it a little easier. We’d suffered the same injury after all. Mine was far enough in the past that it didn’t sting emotionally as much as hers probably did. But it was still there, and I understood.

That’s it. I wanted to let her know I understood where she was coming from and assure her that she’d get there. She would get her groove back and do it without working herself to the bone. None of that half-ass coaching bullshit advice that I ended up giving her.

I mean, the advice wasn’t bullshit, but the fact that I’d opened my mouth to offer it was. I knew firsthand how frustrating it was to get unsolicited advice on your game, especially when it wasn’t at its best. I had no right to insert my opinion into whatever she was going through, but…

But… I don’t know. She just got to me in the moment, and I wasn’t able to hold my tongue.

I immediately regretted not trying harder. The way her face went from passively grumpy to absolutely pissed off let me know that I’d fucked up. I wanted to take it back, smooth it over, and explain myself right away. I tried, but I only ended up sounding like more of an ass.

“I’m sorry, are you waiting for something out here, or would you like to get to our meeting?” Ryan asked as I lingered awkwardly by the signature dome doors leading into the Mountaineer sports offices.

“Um,” I paused, running my eyes around the lobby again.

I could have sworn this is where I ran into her that one time.

There was no sign of her now, though. Figures.

Unless you were making a deal, you didn’t typically want to be in the big boss’s office all too often.

Still, I’d hoped to catch her again to apologize for overstepping.

I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Turning finally, I moved through the door Ryan held open for me.

“Yeah, sorry. Just spaced out for a sec.”

Ryan hummed, running a quick scan over me before leading the way in. “We’ll make this quick. You don’t need to be stressed out right now.”

I huffed. “Whose idea was it to have this meeting today anyway?”

He shrugged. “No one thought you would make it this far.”

Covering my chest with a hand, I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I didn’t think so either, but I wasn’t blunt enough to say it out loud. Carmen, though. Yeah. “Ouch, Ry. Say what you really feel.”

Yanking another set of glass doors open, he motioned me inside with a raised eyebrow. “I just did. Let’s go, superstar. I’ve got a busy day.”

I puffed out a laugh as I passed through the door.

Ryan F. Carmen always had a busy day. And he always talked to me like he was one moment away from giving me a smack on the back of my head.

I never had to worry that he would treat me differently because of the recognition my name and likeness gained.

The tone he took with me, just like with everyone else, closely resembled the one you would give the gum on the bottom of your shoe.

He was one of the most coveted sports agents in the city, the region, maybe in all of North America.

Cutthroat in the deals he negotiated, crazy in the risks he took, and infamous for his curt and dry delivery in the conversation department.

Speculations were that he was the heir to some insane foreign business conglomerate, so he didn’t care about what people thought of him because he didn’t have to.

I stopped being surprised by the frank way he spoke years ago.

I took comfort in the fact that I knew he meant exactly what he said.

Which is why, as he held up a hand to halt me just before we stepped into the office of the Defenders General Manager, Chip Norris, I complied.

There was a question in his sharp brown eyes, and I was determined to meet him with the same honesty.

I knew what he was going to say before he even said it. The fact still didn’t stop the slice of anxiety that cut through me as he said, “You didn't answer me before. What’s your decision?”

“I don’t know, Ry,” I breathed truthfully.

“You’ve had six months to figure it out, Ira. What am I supposed to tell them?” he grumbled, tone sharp and quite irritated.

I smiled. “I’m sure something will come to mind.”

He cut me a glance that could slice granite but leaned forward and opened the door for me anyway. “Get the hell in there, King. I have ten minutes.”

“You’ve waited as long as you can, Ira. We need a decision,” Chip said from the other side of his fancy desk. He wasn’t sitting. Instead, he was pacing.

Ryan, who was sitting comfortably in the leather office chair beside mine with his ankle crossed over his knee, said, “Wrong. He has plenty of time.”

Chip blew out a breath as he cut an annoyed glance at Ryan.

You couldn’t get any technicalities past him, and all the executive types like Chip hated him for it.

Placing his hands on his hips, he turned to face us.

“What I mean is, you’ve waited as long as Denver will allow.

We need a decision, Ira. What are you going to do? ”

I gave Ryan a look. Our conversation before had been brief—like two sentences brief.

But I was clear that I still hadn’t made a decision.

And though Ryan would tell me to shape up and get my shit together in private, he wouldn’t do it in front of others.

He wouldn’t let anyone mistake him for not having my back, not having control.

Meeting my glance from the corner of his eye, Ryan gave me three seconds of opportunity to change my mind. The simple shake of my head was all the answer he needed. I needed more time, and Ryan would get it for me. He opened his mouth to do just that when a voice from behind us cut in.

“ Iraaaa ,” he drew out the sound of my name annoyingly. “What even is there to think about, man? Is there ever a question when it comes to a multimillion-dollar contract?”

My eyes shut momentarily of their own accord.

They tended to do that whenever my manager, Tony, spoke.

My brain needed an extra second to ready itself for his nonsense.

I usually did so cordially and with as much grace as you can give a guy who once tried to book me for an erectile dysfunction ad solely because of the payout they were willing to cough up.

Ryan, however, gave no such grace.