Page 86 of On Merit Alone

Chapter Forty-Three

Merit

I pulled up short of Ira’s family as the sound of what sounded like stampeding feet coming my way stopped me in my tracks.

Turning sharply, I watched as the entryway suddenly became overrun with reporters, photographers, and the like.

They stormed in like they were on a mission, swarming the area in front of the stage and focusing their attention on the man of the night.

The one who’d been dropping bomb after bomb nonstop.

Starting with showing up at my place with gifts, then wining and dining me in the city, and now surprising me by supporting my organization.

There wasn't any doubt that I loved this man, but if there had been, it was officially shattered in the wake of his nurturing. He was one of a kind, and I loved him not because of the things he did for me—though they were vast and grand—but the mere presence of me on his mind. It’d been so long since someone had considered me first, if at all.

I was no one’s first priority… until Ira.

Which is exactly why him and his safety was the only thing on my mind when I turned back toward the crowd and demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

I started briskly toward the side of the stage where Ira was, wanting to shield him from whatever this was. But the moment my foot hit the bottom step of the stage, Ira’s hand extended in a motion to halt me. Across the other side of the stage, the MC’s voice came nervously over the speakers.

“Excuse me, everyone. You can’t be here. This is a private event,” he cautioned.

“The event is over at ten!” a guy toward the front of the crowd shouted.

“Yeah! This is legally a public space now!” someone else yelled.

The MC looked out toward the back of the room in a panic, probably searching for help from their directors.

“No, please,” Ira’s voice came over the speaker. Calm and sure, as if he… planned this? “Let them stay. My friends might be rude… and early. But they’re useful.”

Friends? These were reporters. Sports columnists. News anchors. Was he… was this a conference?

I felt my eyebrows pull together as I tried to find Ira’s eyes amongst the craziness. It wasn’t hard. They were steady on me. Staring, with that same strong surety etched into his features.

He knew what he was doing. I could tell by that look. It would be great if he would let the rest of us in on it too.

Hands came up to bracket my shoulders and I turned my head to see Iris behind me.

Ira’s mom was holding the baby right beside her.

I felt instantly supported, though I still didn’t know if it was going to be for Ira or against him.

The latter felt wrong in some way, like it should never even be able to cross my mind.

But somewhere deep down the fear that nothing ever worked out for me with love raged on.

Ira had mostly squashed it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have the power to make it a reality too.

“Now, what is that boy up to this time?” Lisa asked under her breath as she bounced the baby on her hip.

“You don’t know?” I asked, worried.

She shook her head. “We still don’t even know why we were invited, nice as this is. He doesn’t usually want us at his work events. It’s better for him if he doesn’t have to worry about us all night.”

I bit my lip. “What do you think he’s going to do? Something bad?”

Her face changed, going soft as she looked at me. “Oh, honey. I might not know what’s going on here, but I know my son. Has he ever treated you badly?”

I shook my head, though my palm went over my heart as nerves overtook me. I wanted him down here with me. I wanted to know what was on his mind. I wanted him to stop blindsiding me with all the ways he loved me without me being prepared enough to show him in return.

I wanted him, to my core I did. And he was out of my reach all the way up there. With a swarm of reporters around him, I suddenly remembered how out of my reach he truly was.

It had been a week since the instance in the tunnel with Rob. A week of trying to push the fact that he wanted to trade me out of my mind. That he wanted to pull me away from this place where I’d met the greatest person of my life.

I had tried to forget about it, but with this scene unfolding in front of us now, I realized that while I was replaceable in a city like this, he was not. The reality was like a slap in the face.

I was going to be sent away while he belonged right here.

Turning back to the crowd below him, Ira cleared his throat. “If we could get this going. I’m sure people have better things to do than look at me up here all night.”

Ha! Fat chance.

Ira smiled, all his charm issued into one look. Leaning down, he bracketed his palms along the sides of the podium and spoke into the mic. “Uh, unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m about to be a bit of an ass and make this meaningful night about me.”

A murmur of soft laughter and confused commentary filtered throughout the room.

But, like he’d done this before, Ira just waited for an opening to continue speaking.

“First of all, for anyone attending who didn’t sign up for basketball talk, please feel free to exit.

I wasn’t expecting my company until after the event. ”

I shook my head. His company? What the hell, I?

“To everyone else, The Mountaineer Organization included. Please stay.”

“Mr. King!” a reporter shouted from below. “We’re here about the Free Agency! Please comment on that.”

“Free what?” I hissed, looking over to Iris—who just shrugged, and his mother—who did the same.

“Yes, I know why you’re here. I invited you, remember?”

“Yeah! Wait your turn!”

“Yeah!”

Ira took a deep breath. “Normally this sort of thing isn’t really my style.

I would have rather quietly made my statement to a small press and handled my business alone, with the people who mean the most to me.

But recently, something very important to me has been put in jeopardy, and I don’t like waiting for the other shoe to drop before I make my moves. ”

Okay…

I looked to my two allies for any indication that they knew what the hell he was talking about. Their faces were as blank as any of my guesses.

“Since I started in the NBA, I’ve come to the end of a contract three other times, and recently, I came to my fourth.

After I got the opportunity to come back home, I swore to myself I wouldn’t move again.

And wasn’t planning on it. I was actually contemplating retirement for a while earlier in the season,” Ira continued after a brief stint of surprised murmuring about the room. “But it turns out I’m not retiring.”

Something in my chest loosened. He was going to play. Thank God he was going to play. Though nothing he chose would keep me from him if he wanted me, I was still relieved he wasn’t giving up the game, our game, so soon.

“But what are you doing?” a reporter asked. “This is the first time you’ve been in free agency since leaving New York. That can’t be a coincidence.”

Ira’s mouth tipped up, but it wasn’t a happy smile.

It was almost a tortured expression that had me taking a protective step in his direction.

What was he feeling? I still didn't understand. Iris’s hand at my elbow stopped me from going up there and wrapping my arms around him, putting an end to this whole thing.

“You’re right,” Ira said. “Since I signed onto the Defenders, I’ve never been a free agent. I’ve never been open to other contracts… until now.”

Silence.

And then an eruption of commotion from not only the press below him but everyone in the room. Suddenly, it wasn’t just us and the reporter he had brought in front of the stage, but Ryan was beside me and the rest of Ira’s organization close at his heels, demanding some sort of explanation for this.

“Where will you go?”

“Do you have any prospects?”

“Have you had any offers?”

“When will you decide?”

The questions came from all directions; it was a wonder how he stayed calm up there, patiently waiting for an opening to speak.

“I knew he would do something idiotic,” Ryan spat from beside me. But I couldn’t quite focus on the words, not when my heart was pounding so wildly I thought it might climb up my throat.

He was leaving?

He was leaving.

Ira was leaving… me.

I stepped back, but a strong arm banded behind my back. Ryan’s warm voice came over me reassuringly. “I wouldn’t run just yet. I believe I know where he’s going with this now.”

I must’ve looked stricken as I whipped my gaze up to him. Ryan just nodded a gesture up to the stage where I was met with a staring Ira.

A sea of people were vying for his attention, and it was me he gave it to.

Calmly, Ira leaned down to the mic and cleared his throat again.

He didn’t beg for everyone’s attention, and I think that was the precise reason why he gained it so easily.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t want to leave Denver.

My family is here, my team is here, my entire life is here.

But as I said before, this year I found something that I find irreplaceable.

Something that’s been threatened. I'm sorry to my team, to my management, to my family, and to my agent about the position that what I’m about to say may or may not put you in, but some opportunities only come once, and this one’s mine. ”

“So, to my team, to the world, and to the Denver Dynamite, Rob Manzinni in particular,” he said.

I held my breath at the sound of that name.

“Whether it be for an official NBA team or playing in a rec league, I’ve decided that I’ll be taking my next season to wherever Merit Jones goes.

And for the rest of my days as a player, I will not compete in a city that she isn’t also. ”

The room absolutely erupted.

I lost air completely, my knees going weak. My balance faltering so much that Ryan was the only thing able to hold me up. Quickly, he stretched out an arm toward the stage, glaring at Ira. “King, off the stage now .”

Ira smiled a boyishly devious smile at the crowd below. “Thank you all for coming. Please exit the way you came in.”

Then he was jogging off the stage and replacing Ryan’s arm around me like a support beam. I melted into him even as my body took over the job of reacting for me.

I didn’t understand what was going on. The only thing I could bring myself to think about were the facts.

The reality that Ira had pinned himself to me.

That he had stood up in front of an entire room of people and by way of their occupations, in front of the whole world and said that he and I were a ‘we’ .

And he wasn’t letting us be split up, not even for the largest amount of money in the world.

I whimpered, my knees buckling again. Ira kept me standing, his lips coming up to brace against my temple. “We’ve got to move, sweetheart.”

“Yes, and quickly, please,” Ryan said as he inserted himself between the two of us and the literal mob of people fighting to get Ira’s (and my) attention. “You two are coming with me. Kings, please leave with your family as soon as possible too. I don’t want them hounding you all, either.”

Looking over, I realized that Iris, Lisa, and I were joined by the rest of the Kings, who were now surrounding Ira and me.

Lisa and Isaiah looked both shocked and sort of…

amused. Isaac and Neil looked put out but unsurprised by the antics as they joined in with Ryan to put their backs to the mob and protect us and the kids from any shoving.

Iris and Leah were shuffling through with their babies on their hips as they tried to get away from the craziness while they laughed.

“Let’s go, little idiot brother,” Isaac said with an annoyed expression on his face. When his gaze fell on me, an apologetic look crossed it. I must have looked shocked or just plain terrible because he explained. “He’s always been a troublemaker. You’ll get used to it too. Welcome to the family.”

I didn’t even have time to touch that before we moved out of the room, exiting through a back door near the stage and bustling toward a portion of the station we did not enter from.

My legs were sluggish. My lungs felt both filled and empty at the same time, and a fog had settled over my brain as I let hands and bodies usher me blindly.

It wasn’t until we burst through some sort of back service door and I felt the cool of the night air on my misting skin that I finally snapped back to reality.

What the hell?

I think I said it out loud as I ripped away from Ira and turned toward him in search of answers. He turned to me too, unsurprised at my sudden outburst. He was just there. Ready and waiting for me to respond.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

My breath was loud in my ears, my thoughts running rampant as I tried to settle on one thing to say. I hate to admit that my voice was small and a little scared as I asked, “What’s going on, I?”

His face softened. Tender. Understanding. Gentle.

He stepped toward me, eating up the small distance I’d put between us. One hand cupped my cheek, the other coming to my waist and pulling me against him. Around us, others were watching, but for the life of me all I could hold onto was the look of sureness in Ira’s eyes.

“Why all this?” I pleaded, needing to know.

“Because Merit. I’ll be damned if, from here on out when I tell you I love you, your first reaction is to get scared that I’ll someday leave. It’s never going to happen, baby. I’ll give up anything to be right here.”

“Right where?”

He smiled. “Next to you.”