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His words hit me, and I can’t keep the stupid grin off my face. He’s right. I love this shit.
“But I can’t like,doweird sports for a living.”
He leans onto his elbows over the table and nods his head. “But you could talk about them.”
“What?”
“Come on,” he says, raising a palm. “I’ve seen you give interviews. You’re solid.”
I arch an eyebrow and he raises his palms in surrender.
“I do my job well. I watch a lot of interviews looking for the next personality in sports. Someone who’s going to reach across demographics.”
“You’re saying I should give interviews about weird sports? Like, for a job?” The idea sounds unreal. And yet, it quickly solidifies in my head and feels less and less unreal the more he nods.
“I’m saying that if you were interested, hypothetically of course…”
“Of course,” I agree, because I’m very happy with my management. Very happy. Well, reasonably happy.
“I might have a lead on someone who wants to sponsor a web series about obscure sports around the world. Part travel show, part food, heavy on sports and sportsmanship. Telling the universal story of sportsmanship and how it builds community and fosters culture. Sort of like what Anthony Bourdain did for food and travel, but with weird sports.”
“That sounds fantastic,” I say, standing straighter. “I would watch the crap out of that.”
He laughs and lifts his beer to his lips, pausing. “Maybe you should host it?”
“Me?” I don’t have adequate words and I scrub my hand down my face again. “I, uh…”
“Look, I know the timing’s not right. Not right now. But I’ve got some irons in the fire. There’s a lot of potential for athletes to create their own lifestyle brand—”
“I’m not a lifestyle brand, man.”
“It’s a figure of speech. Look at Pat McAfee. Gronk? Their web shorts are buzz worthy and they’re earning more than their pensions pay out. Hell, even Shaq did it. Remember when he raced Michael Phelps?”
“It’s a cool idea,” I say, not finishing the thought.
“Look,” he says, reaching into his pocket and I know before he lays it on the table that I’m going to take his card and stuff it in my wallet and stare at it every few days before I finally throw it out. Or maybe not.
I reach for my phone and see three missed texts from Faye.
FAYE: Shooting family photos.
FAYE: Holding bouquets and other weird props while Edie takes ‘artsy’ photos.
FAYE: They just jumped in the air and her boob popped out. I don’t think that’s what she had in mind when she said ‘artsy.’
I chuckle to myself and quickly respond with,Hurry up. I miss you.
FAYE: She wants to go to the waterfall. It’ll be a while. I’ll meet you for dinner?
Dinner? I check the time, and it’s only twelve-thirty.
“Let me guess, you just realized you’re attending this wedding stag?” Mike says, pushing a longneck bottle across the table toward me. “You’re not alone. You’re one of us!”
The table cheers to that and I pick up the bottle and tap it against the others. I can switch to water after this. One drink won’t kill me.
45
zeke
