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I blew out a breath. How did I tell my agent that my fiancé had cheated on me and fucked up my life? That I barely had the motivation to atone for my wrongdoings, let alone impress sponsors with my dedication to training and sparkling personality?
“Ramp up your social media again. Post training videos on Instagram. Play up the small-town family-man story. Show off your wife and your workouts and footage of you climbing trees. Got it?”
My eye twitched. I should tell him Crystal was fucking other dudes behind my back. Tell him she left me for Cedric LeBlanc.
That asshole used to be my friend. His family was also in the logging business. We’d grown up in neighboring towns, but we’d played on the same peewee hockey team and had run into each other regularly over the years. Especially when we both got into timbersports. We usually grabbed a beer after competitions and shot the shit. He was an easygoing guy, and I’d enjoyed catching up with him often.
According to Crystal, they had been hooking up for months. Months. Behind my back. And he was in law school at UMaine and “sosmart andsoambitious.”
Her words. Not mine.
And he wasn’t the only guy she’d been seeing. She rubbed it in my face. All the others. The weekends she spent in Portland with her friends, or when she visited her parents in Florida during the winter while I was working from sunup to sundown, logging in the freezing, frigid cold to keep a roof over her ungrateful, bleach-blond head.
Every time I thought about it, nausea rolled in my gut and humiliation almost brought me to my knees all over again. How could I have been so dumb? So trusting of a woman I could now see had never earned it? How could I have fallen for someone so cold and evil?
“I mean it.” Tim droned on about branding and synergy, though I had zoned out. “Signing with Stihl would open a lot of doors for you. And I’m talking to Racine.”
That got my attention. Racine Trading Company was one of the largest manufactures of workwear in the country. Most of my crew wore Racine clothes day in and day out. Working with them would be a dream come true.
“Their models are all real, working people. They would go crazy for you. Small-town lumberjack from Maine, married to a hometown girl. All you need is a cute dog, and this shit will sell itself.”
Racine would be a game changer. They advertised during the Super Bowl, for Christ’s sake. This was the kind of sponsor I had to land if I wanted to leave my day job and be a full-time athlete.
“They’re hosting a charity event at n this year. It’s adorable. Wife carrying. Apparently, it’s a big deal in Finland. Man runs an obstacle course carrying his wife. Looking for competitors to volunteer. I’ll sign you up. Text me your girl’s name.”
“I’m not married,” I muttered, biting my lip. I would do anything to get Racine’s attention, but I couldn’t carry an imaginary woman through the woods.
“Doesn’t matter. Fiancé. Girlfriend. Whatever. It’ll be cute, and it’s for charity. Your followers will eat that shit up.” He chuckled. “I’ll sign you up.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, deliberately not correcting him. “I’ll think about it.”
Tim sighed. I had a feeling he spent a lot of his time giving pep talks to athletes. “Just stay focused. You’ve got talent, and this is a growing sport with an international audience. Opportunities are coming.”
“You think so?” This was all so foreign to me. I was just a guy from Maine who cut down trees for a living. I’d been competing my entire life, sure. Most people up here did it for fun. But the past couple of years had opened my eyes to the possibility of making this my career.
“You are on the cusp, dude. Keep training hard and get ready to go pro.”
Again, I said nothing. As of late, I’d only done the bare minimum to stay in shape. I needed more pushups and less pizza if I was going to qualify for nationals.
“And you gotta get back on the Gram, dude. Daily training videos. Showcase your life in rural Maine, the work you do in the field. Wear more plaid.”
I laughed at that, though the sound was foreign these days. While my brother Henri was a Paul Bunyan knockoff with a thick beard, thick shoulders, and the requisite flannel shirts, I was more of a jeans and T-shirt type.
“I’m serious. Focus on branding. We talked about this.”
“I know. I know. I’m on it,” I replied. “I’ll be ready. Sponsorship would be a dream come true. I want it.” The last thing I wanted to do was broadcast my life on social media. Crystal had loved that shit. Always seeking the validation of strangers. A few times, she posted videos of me chopping wood, and they had gone viral. Which was beyond embarrassing. All the guys at worked teased me mercilessly about it. I had accounts, but I never bothered to update, even before I had lost my motivation.
“I’ve worked with a lot of athletes over the years. And everyone wants to make it, but few have the grit to get there.”
“I’ll get there,” I vowed. I wasn’t sure how. But I wanted something different. Something more. And I was going to get past this mental roadblock. I had to.
“Good man. Now take some photos with the wife, go for a run, and climb. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
I stuffed my phone in my pocket and pushed the door open, the bell above me chiming. As I crossed the threshold, I plastered on a big smile and greeted the friendly faces around the diner. Behind what I hoped was an easygoing look, though, I was panicking. Why hadn’t I just told Tim that Crystal and I had broken up? It should have been easy. But shame about my mistakes, about Crystal, and about my own lack of motivation these days choked me.
Wallowing over a slice of pie seemed like a superb idea after that conversation. Strictly speaking, pie was off-limits while I was training, but I’d been half-assing it pretty spectacularly for months. If not for my brothers forcing me to train with them and Dylan showing up at my door for occasional runs, I’d be a wreck.
My bare-minimum activity was not going to be enough if I really wanted to compete at the highest levels in a few months. But one more slice of blueberry wouldn’t kill me. And there was a good chance it would make sitting behind a desk for the next few hours bearable.
