Page 8 of Wild Catch
“Thank you, Dave,” says Tom Waterman, the head of marketing and effectively everyone’s boss here. “Do we have all the preparations completed?”
The director of broadcasting, Julien Chen, joins in for the first time since the meeting started. “Everything’s confirmed on our end. I personally flew out earlier this week to make sure the contractors know what they’re doing, and I’m pretty satisfied with the quality of their equipment.”
“Excellent.” Tom nods before addressing everyone. “I trust you all know how significant it is that the league selected our team for the World Tour Mexico City series, right?”
I sit a little straighter after that, and I’m not the only one.
It’s a pretty big deal. Usually the teams that are selected tend to be popular abroad and?—
“It’s because of the lookers,” one of my coworkers murmurs, setting off a wave of giggles and coughs.
Tom breaks into a grin that takes him from a sixty-something-year-old man to fifty for a few seconds. “That’s right folks, make sure to get a lot of thirst traps in Mexico.”
After the wave of laughter ebbs away, the conversation moves to a new product sponsor we have to place. Aside from the ad board spaces they purchased, we have to make sure to incorporate it into media snippets. It shouldn’t be hard because it’s a sports drink—we can just have players drink from it during social media clips and fulfill the contractual requirements that way.
I take some notes on my iPad about how we can do this, while in my mind making a mental note about excluding Logan Kim. I’m sure followers would love to see more of Cade’s pretty face even if he’s now taken.
Some forty minutes later, we spill out of the meeting room to head back to our respective cubicles. My head’s buzzing with ideas for content when Dave catches up to me.
“Ready for Mexico?”
“I think so.” I slow down for him to catch up because I’m a tall girlie and my boss is a short king. “I got a bunch of cool facts from the team historian that I’m using for a series of videos to hype the match against the Miami Hurricanes.”
“They frankly couldn’t have chosen a more fun matchup, huh? Two regional rivals with history.” Dave chuckles and instead of stopping at his cubicle, he follows me to mine.
“Totally,” I agree with a smile. “I’ll send you the first three clips this afternoon.”
“Looking forward to it.” He leans back to glance up and down like he’s trying to ascertain that the coast is clear. Then he leans forward again and lowers his voice. “I need to ask you for a big favor, though.”
“Okay?”
He rubs the back of his head, his face scrunching into something that looks like embarrassment. Which is totally uncharacteristic. We’re talking about a guy who went so viral on Vine—RIP—that it basically landed him this job.
“I need you to cover for me and go to Mexico.”
I do a double take. “Dave, may I remind you that I’m on probation? I’m not even allowed to fly with the team right now.”
“I know, but it’s either you or I hire a freelancer who won’t know squat about the team, and may screw up even worse than you.”
“Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence.” I shake my head.
He lowers his voice even more. “The thing is, I need to have a little procedure done and it can only be next week.”
“Oh my gosh.” I also lower my voice after the initial spike of surprise. “Are you okay?”
“I think so but this is a better safe than sorry type of thing.” I don’t detect whiffs of fear, which makes me think this isn’t about something that could turn tragic any time. Going by his embarrassment a minute ago, I deduce we’re talking about something NSFW so I don’t prod.
“Well, I would love to sub in. But the fact is that I can’t.”
“I already talked with Tom.” He shrugs. “Listen, the reason we put you on probation was more about sending a message than it was about you. I personally enjoyed having another viral moment for our KPIs.”
Amused, I mumble, “Thanks?”
“The point is that he agreed to let you fly with the team and create content while keeping you on probation.”
My eyebrows rise. “How does that even work?”
“I take away your posting rights and do the posting myself up until my surgery, which is scheduled for the day the team flies back. And then Tom takes over.”
