“You don’t think that’s a little biased?” I cut in and she nudged me again.
“Shut up, he’s the only married guy on the team, of course he’s gonna give better advice than the rest.”
It wasn’t something I’d realized, but she was right. Most of the dudes were single, so they probably had a lot of problems they needed advice for with very few advisors on the team. Maybe there was something to that. I’m sure fans would find it amusing to ask the players advice and see them be stupidly relatable with how they answer.
“So how do you feel?” Rosa asked and all I could do was blink back at her because I didn’t hear the context of the question.
“I feel … good?”
“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
“Sorry.” I cringed. “I’ve been trying to come up with like … a sample plan for the team’s social media to give to Hansen to convince him to give me the social media manager job. But this whole thing with Kean is … distracting.”
“Oh, shit, that’d be so cool. Is that what you, like,wantto do? For your career?”
“Oh my god, yes.” I let my head hang back, staring at the ceiling. “Being a full-time social media manager is thedream. And being the manager for my favorite team? It’d be amazing.”
“But?” she prodded.
“But I — when did y’all move here?”
Her face scrunched, but she looked up at the ceiling, counting on her fingers. “I guess it’ll be three years soon.”
“Mmm. So five years ago, I came to a game and sorta kinda flashed the camera when it panned to fans.”
“Holy shit! Kodi!” She jumped off the desk and grabbed my hands. “The balls on you! That’s wild!”
“Well, I was a tad tipsy. My tits were also painted like soccer balls, so …”
Rosa threw her head back and laughed. “Please,pleasetell me you have pictures.”
“Obviously. But —”
“Show me, show me, show me,” she said, shaking me with both hands on my shoulders.
“Oh my god, why’re you so excited to see my tits?”
“Because they were painted like soccer balls! Who wouldn’t be excited to see that?”
“Well, you have to let me go for me to pull up the pics,” I grumbled and Rosa immediately let me go. I rolled my eyes and pulled out my phone to find my old,archivedpost from that incident. “But the reason I brought it up was because I applied for the social media manager position and was made Kean’s PAbecauseof this. Hansen didn’t wanna hire me for such an important position without me ‘proving’ that I’m more responsible and shit. And this whole thing with Kean and his general hot, grumpy ass being … hotandthe guys trying to get us together or whatever, isn’t helping.”
“Oh, right.” I handed my phone to Rosa and she set it down on the table without looking. “So like howdoyou feel about Kean? Because all the guys have clocked a vibe and, like, it’sKean. He never likes anybody, so they’re hyped and want it to work out for him. But also he’s kind of your boss, so if you feel at all pressured by — okay, stop with whatever that face is.”
Rosa stopped when my face scrunched up, mimicking the look in confusion.
“Sorry, it’s just … I guess I don’t view Kean as my bossat all. Like, the first week I worked with him, he ran from me like I had cooties and that kinda made me lose all respect for him as a higher-up. Like, I guesstechnicallyI report to him and I call him my pseudo-boss, but it feels more like a group project, but the project is making sure he’s the best player he can be.”
“What was that K word you said?” Rosa asked and it took me a second to figure out what word she meant.
“Oh, cooties, it’s like a childish, imaginary germ from the opposite sex.”
“Uh-huh,” she said skeptically then took her phone out and handed it to me. “Spell it for me. I know y’all mean well, but sometimes it’s just easier for me to Google the equivalent word, especially with slang.”
“By y’all, you mean me and Brooker?”
“Uh-huh. What’s the phrase? Bless his heart or something like that? He’s definitely trying, but he’s trying to learn, like, four dialects at once and that’s … not efficient.”
“Yeah, bless his heart indeed,” I said with a laugh, typing cooties into her phone then handing it back to her. She squinted at the screen, tapping and scrolling for a second before muttering something that I thought meant nonsense.
