Chapter One

The monthly staff meeting, like every staff meeting, was stuffy, too long, and a waste of my time. The meeting stretched out like a vast desert of upbeat check-ins and catch-ups. By the time I'd started thinking maybe we were rounding third and heading toward the blessed relief of a well-deserved lunch break, my coffee, refilled right before the meeting for maximum volume and heat, had gone lukewarm.

It was inevitable: either you drank it while it was hot and tragically ran out midmeeting, or you tried to ration it for the purposes of morale and ended up sipping something roughly the temperature of a bottle of water left in the car on a warm day. Which was equally awful, but in the opposite direction.

I was staring into my mug in peak desultory fashion when, wrapping up the exhaustive updates, Vix Black—my direct supervisor, whom I actually liked, despite the fact that she worked in brand management —looked right at me as she began speaking.

That couldn't be good. My twenty-one-month stint at Innovations in Branding had been a matter of not drawing attention to myself and trying to turn, as I'd heard one of my colleagues term it, soap bubbles into hot-air balloons . We handled brand development for a lot of midrange companies ready to launch larger, longer campaigns, with a special emphasis on those that hadn't fully gathered all their social media into one cohesive package.

I didn't do anything too complicated, mostly drafting press releases off one-page summaries and handling brand voice—once someone else had told me what that voice was supposed to be. I wasn't even good at it. My attempts at press releases, which should have been easy, were always too long, and the notes I got back were usually like, "If you could just stick to the bullet points, Cleary, that would be GREAT." Sometimes the GREAT was underlined for effect.

I hunched low in my seat and did my damnedest to turn invisible. Maybe she hadn't really been looking at me. Maybe I'd imagined that. I liked Vix. She was that type of hard-assed-with-a-heart-of-gold old-school lesbian who always made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, like she was my fairy gaymother and I was her little queer hatchling. She was also the only other out queer person at the org, which aligned us in this silent, comforting way.

Most of the time.

Except now.

She was talking—I did a little mental rewind to catch up—about a campaign one of our brands wanted to launch in June. Pride Month, she clarified.

I sank lower in my office-posh black chair. Would they notice if I just sort of slid under the table?

The campaign, for a client called Kendall Athleisure—because of course it was called that—would be focused on getting LGBTQI+ kids to play sports, complete with a rainbow version of the logo, a new line of blah blah (my brain fritzed out because to be honest, whether it was TikTok-trend water bottles or the next bestselling wristband to track your mood or your metabolism or your caffeine intake, I broadly didn't give a flying flip), and most importantly, the campaign would need A Figure to head it.

Vix looked at me again. Maybe because we were the only queers in the room. But she couldn't ... be trying to land this thing on my head? Could she? What were the bullet points for this project?

Capitalist corporation that seeks to make more money:

chooses audience it previously ignored (while probably funding legislation against);

pretends to do an altruistic thing while actually carbon offsetting a bunch of terrible things;

plans to monetize activism while mainly benefiting the board of directors.

How could I make that pile of opportunistic crap smell good? Not that I should talk. Not with what I'd done. The damage I'd personally caused.

"Which brings me to the person I think is best suited to take on this project." Vix looked at me again, her gaze a knife blade to my throat.

Please let me die suddenly, please let me die suddenly, please let me discover a self-destruct button and deploy it right n—

"Des? You got this."

Then everyone in the room cheered, in the annoying way that I knew was supposed to feel fun and supportive like we were all in it together, but really just felt like pressure. This time when you fail, it'll be publicly. Again.

Somehow Vix had interpreted my urgent Can-I-please-speak-to-you? as an invitation to eat salads in her office, which might have been okay, except the first thing I saw when I sat down across from her wasn't the salad, but a headline, on a printout. A detached part of my brain noted that the cyan in the printer cartridge was going out, while the rest of my brain focused on not running away screaming.

"Whatever Happened to Orion Broderick?" Just beneath that, the subhead: "Soccer Legend in the Making Retired Early After His Personal Life Became Public."

That was one way of putting it. "Soccer Legend in the Making Retired Early After Some Absolute Jerkoff College Journalist Decided to Out Him to the World for the Sake of Bullshit Activist Principles" was how I would have written it.

"Okay, spill. What's troubling you, my dude?"

I cringed. "Oh my god, Vix, don't say that."

She smiled unrepentantly. "You love it when I appropriate the lingo of the youth."

"A) That's not ‘the lingo of the youth,' B) it's from a few years ago, and C) you know all that and are still just doing it to drive me crazy." I flushed. "Er, to drive me ... to make me ... um. I forget what word we're using instead of ‘crazy,' sorry."

"I am using it to predictably antagonize you in a playful way, yes." She gestured at the printout, then tapped it with her long gold nails. "I talked with the client, and Orion Broderick fits the bill for this campaign. He's so perfect I can practically see the marketing already. And the brand has a special interest in sports that haven't completely captured the national attention yet, which makes soccer an obvious contender. Besides which, it appeals across gender, and there's tremendous room for audience growth at all demographics."

I frowned, my initial arguments forestalled by what seemed to be a self-defeating approach. "They want the face of their campaign to belong to a sport that not everyone even knows exists?"

"People know soccer exists."

"Americans don't know we have a pro league!" I countered.

Vix raised her unibrow until it became a pronounced V shape, black against her dark skin. You gotta admire anyone who can really work a unibrow. "Plenty of Americans know about soccer. The entire southern continent, for example. And you, as another."

I shifted uneasily in my chair. Did she know I was the one who'd fucked up Orion Broderick's life? Surely she would have mentioned it. Vix wasn't the subtle type. "My dad was British, so yelling at me about my poor form was basically his love language. And I'm from Conquistos, up the coast. We have a team."

"I know all about the Conquistos Football Club," she said. "And LA has two teams."

"So our goal is to take a sport that hasn't become a fucked-up mess yet and really nudge it in that direction?"

She tossed a folder to me. "The CEO has a gay daughter. No, it's not a noble campaign to cure a disease, but I've talked to her—the CEO, not the daughter—and I think she's sincere. She wants to do something to help, and she's the CEO of a massive corporation, so this is what she's doing. Anyway, I believe the angle is not so much ‘Make soccer a fucked-up mess like other sports' as it is ‘Cash in on a lower-competition space and make it blow up.' Soccer is perfect for this. And Orion Broderick, who has appeal beyond the sport, is the exact person we need for it." She tapped the printout again. "Do you disagree?"

"I ..." It's complicated was probably not going to be the right answer, though it was certainly the honest one. Broderick, before I ruined his entire life, had been a joy on the pitch. Top scorer, incredible athleticism, the kind of player whose cleats never seemed to touch the ground for longer than a second as he moved upfield. As famous as you could be in the American League Soccer Association: that was how famous Orion Broderick had been.

Then I published that "investigative report" in the college paper, and suddenly Orion got more famous, though not for soccer. For being very publicly outed, for losing the boyfriend he'd been kissing in the picture, and then for losing the sponsorship deal he'd landed with a big fitness apparel brand, the kind with an iconic, internationally recognizable logo. In other words, he'd lost the thing that would have launched him into true sports celebrity.

Retiring after that was only the inevitable consequence of the rest of it. When people saw Orion Broderick, they no longer saw a beautiful, talented athlete, arms raised and grinning from his most recent goal. No. Now they saw a grainy photograph of him making out with a dude, arms around each other. And I'd done that. It was why I'd quit journalism completely and vowed to never go back to it. I'd killed Orion's career and sacrificed my own as penance.

That thing about how words couldn't hurt you was a lie. Words could, and had, hurt people. Words I'd written. And I'd never do that again.

Vix sat back in her seat, not even picking up a fork. "You've been hiding your light under a bushel, pal." A chin jerk in the direction of the printout.

"No. I haven't. I didn't. I don't." I lowered my eyes, glaring at that stupid headline. "I didn't write that."

"No. But you wrote the original article, didn't you?"

"I thought ... I was stupid. I thought it would be a good thing. The sport has a shit record for the guys, but times have changed, and women are allowed to be out and play and ... I just thought ..."

"The road to hell and all that," she suggested.

"It sounds stupid now. But yeah. I wanted to change the world." Shame heated my face. "It was so foolish. And I thought I was being a fucking hero ." The word tore out of me like I'd been waiting three years to confess my sins. This was, upon reflection, probably not the appropriate time for confession. Or the appropriate confessor.

Vix straightened up and started eating her salad. "Moving on," she said after a few bites, during which I remained frozen, wishing I could click my heels together three times and be transported literally anywhere else. "You're a bit wasted in the work you've been doing, so we're trying something new."

The penny had dropped. It should have dropped before, but I hadn't put the pieces together: a new project, Orion Broderick, me .

"Uh, no. You can't. I can't. Vix, I killed his career." It was a misstep; I could tell by her expression. Before she could swallow her bite of salad, I changed tack. "I just don't think I'm the right person for this account. Doesn't it bother you that every time there's something with even a whiff of queer in it, people run to you like you can rubber-stamp whatever they do and automatically justify it? Or anything with people of color, like you're the arbiter of what makes all these disparate communities buy stuff?"

"Okay, well, I don't see my role as rubber-stamping anything—"

I cringed again.

"—and hell no, would you rather they give something like this to one of those well-meaning but ultimately clueless straight people? Never forget the Skittles-does-Pride-all-in-gray stunt."

"I still don't think they earned nearly enough scorn for that."

"Agreed. And it's not that I don't take your point."

"Um, that I'd like to be seen as someone who can do my job well even when it's not directly related to Something Gay TM?"

She smiled. "I'm so happy there are so many Somethings Gay TM that we even have to have this conversation. But that's not what I'm proposing."

"Then what are you proposing? How can you possibly want me on Orion Broderick?" I heard the words as I said them and flushed even more, imagining all the different ways one could be on a hot, ripped soccer star.

After a longer-than-necessary pause, Vix continued, mercifully not mentioning any outside interpretations. "Do you think I picked you for this account because you're a queer-identified cis man? Seriously, Des?"

"Umm." I sighed. "Okay. No. I just. I ruined his entire career. Doesn't that make me the exact worst person to do this?"

"Don't take on more than what's yours, buttercup. You did something that changed his career, but you didn't force him to retire."

"I lost him a sponsorship deal!"

She pointed a finger at me. "The homophobia of the brand lost him a sponsorship deal, not gonzo journalist Des Cleary. You played a part, yes, but try not to take credit for an entire culture of toxic masculinity, hmm?"

I slumped. Artfully. I had always been an excellent slumper. I could communicate at least half a dozen sentiments via my slumps, and right now I was attempting to get through to Vix that while I acknowledged the validity of her point, I also wasn't agreeing to the idea that I should therefore be the one to approach a guy I'd seriously wronged and ask him if he wanted a job.

Was this supposed to be some kind of long shot at redemption? I couldn't be redeemed. It wasn't as if I could take back what I'd done, or give Orion Broderick back what he'd lost. "It's just, I still sorta think people should come out? Most of the time, when they're adults and have stable financial situations. I just don't think the way I went about, uh, facilitating that was ideal."

"Mm-hmm."

"But I'm pretty sure Orion Broderick has a very different opinion on the matter."

"So?"

"So? I mean . . ."

She squared her shoulders and gave me the most uncomfortably long look someone I respected had ever given me. It made me want to crumple up like an article I never should have written and throw myself away.

"Why me?" I finally asked, pitifully, when she absolutely refused to speak.

"Who would be better?"

"Literally anyone who didn't do what I did?"

"Is that true? It's been three years, and Orion Broderick went from being a star athlete to, if the story I hear is correct, living in obscurity. Think about that, Des. This deal could give him the opportunity to get back into sports, even if not quite the way he was involved before. But he'd be part of it again." She shrugged. "I don't know if you've spent a lot of time in rural areas, but they're not exactly great for queer people."

"No, but ... he might want to live like that. I guess."

"And he still could. But with more options and more money. If you really want to atone for your sins, this deal could at least make a start on that. It's not going to be Big Sneakers money, but it'll be something." She shook her head. "Look, you've been with us here for almost two years. It's time for you to spread your wings. If you can't do that, it will be much harder to keep you on."

I blinked at her, replaying her words, trying not to feel super hurt. "Are you saying if I don't do this you'll fire me? Oh my god."

"No. I'm saying that if you don't even try to do it, I'll be disappointed in you."

I gasped out loud. "That's worse ."

She leaned in. "Des, I read that article. You have real talent, a gift for connecting to people's stories. It wasn't a hit piece; it was very compassionately written, for nonconsensually outing someone."

I grimaced and hid my face for half a second, until she said her next words.

"What the hell are you doing writing press releases about how"—aggressive hand-wave—"some sock company gave away free socks to everyone helping clear litter off a beach?"

"Can't hurt anyone doing that," I mumbled.

"I see. So you have gone out of your way to make yourself irrelevant." She sounded profoundly unimpressed with my logic. "Well, in any case, I have some information about how to get in touch with Orion Broderick, and you have a job to do."

"Or you're going to fire me."

"Correction: I will not fire you. I will keep you working here under the terrible strain of my disappointment and give the job to some hipster straight guy."

"Oh my god, that's so unfair. You're—emotionally blackmailing me! With your threats of disappointment hitting me right in the parental figure issues and your threats of hipsters hitting me right in the—in my—argh! It's not fair, Vix."

"No. But fairness is a myth. So what do you say?"

What could I say? I wanted my job. I wanted to be successful. I wanted to impress Vix. I thought she'd meant it when she said I was talented, and it had been so long since anyone had said that. It was almost painful to hear.

I'd barred myself from journalism and ended up at a brand management firm where I was, at best, mediocre. I didn't love being mediocre. But at least I was in a role that couldn't screw anything up too badly. Even if the loss of that dream—of making a difference, of writing something that changed lives in a good way, of getting a Pulitzer even—kept me up nights with a vape pen and a big bag of potato chips while binge-watching Catfish .

"But what if I die of shame?" I asked, sounding every bit as pathetic as I felt.

"You won't." She smiled triumphantly and shuffled some papers together before clipping them and pushing them toward me across her desk. "It's worth trying, Des. The worst thing that can happen is he says no."

Or I die of shame.

As it turned out, both of us were wrong. There were way worse things.