Page 3 of Geeky Pucking Orc

Graham glanced down at the papers in front of him. “You’ve built out projections.”

I picked up my coffee mug and gripped it tight, almost afraid to hope. “I have.”

“Ambitious projections,” the owner added.

“Yes.” I held my breath while he paged through the handout.

“Very ambitious ones.”

I forced a smile, willing my hands not to shake.” I have a history of delivering on even my very ambitious projections. This won’t be any different..”

William snorted into his water at my bravado. But Graham was not amused.

“Abigail, this is not a boutique experiment. If we take them on, the account needs to justify the resources. Walk me through how this succeeds when every person in this room including you knows it’s a huge gamble.”

I took a breath and clicked to my final run of slides: audience growth potential, sponsorship upside, comparative performance across sports verticals, potential supernatural-athlete engagement clusters, regional merchandising data. The polished edge of the whole thing. The place where the huge gamble was broken down into numbers. They were big numbers, but they were achievable with hard work, and talent. And luck, but I wasn’t going to bank on luck, not in front of a group that never wanted to rely on fate for success.

As I finished the room went quiet. They were one hundred percent convinced, but I could tell the payoff was tempting. Hopefully it was tempting enough to mitigate the risk of failure.

“This works,” I said, more softly now. “Not because the Tusks are easy, but because they aren’t. Everyone else sees chaos and flash-in-the-pan appeal, and risk, and I see opportunity. The Tusks don’t need a PR firm to make them into something sleek and forgettable. They need a PR firm who knows how to shape what’s already there into a story people can’t stop watching.”

Graham regarded me for a long moment. “And you would be the Account Manager for the client.”

“Yes.” I knew he was thinking that perhaps an account this significant should go to a more senior AM. “The Senior Account Managers wouldn’t have the bandwidth to add this to their client base. I’ve just finished up with the McCormick campaign, and with the help of a small team, I can manage this myself. Plus, there is risk.”

I let that settle in, knowing that Graham wouldn’t want his top Account Managers, who were the face of the company, to take on that risk. If this failed, it would be better to shrug and say it was a test project, and not indicative of the solid and reliable work the company was known for. Reputation still intact. Except for me, that is.

Jerome shifted in his chair. “Let’s say we agree. What exactly are you asking for?”

“A six-month lead on the account under my direction,” I said. “A lean cross-functional team. One content strategist who can also act as my social editor, and one graphic designer with website skills. I’d also need the discretion to work at the client site with the team full time.”

Ted nearly choked. “Six months?”

I held back an epic eye roll, because those legacy accounts they were so fond of had taken years to build. Years. And I was proposing far more in less than half the time.

“Six months,” I repeated.

Graham pursed his lips. “And your benchmark for success?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Establishment of social media accounts with consistent follower growth and engagement across all major platforms. Dramatically increased attendance at local games. Profitable earnings from merchandising. Earned media pickup outside usual sports coverage. At least one national viral moment with positive sentiment. Sponsor re-engagement within the first quarter.”

Mike blinked. “One national viral moment.”

“Yes. That’s my six-month plan. I’ve put together a one- and three-year plan, although the milestones need to remain flexible depending on what generates the highest level of success in our six-month plan.”

“Seems ambitious.” Sergio frowned, making it clear that he thought I was writing checks I could not cash.

“It is ambitious,” I replied. “But doable with focus and hard work. This is something I can engineer by understanding the audience, shaping the conditions, and giving followers a story they want to share.”

I could feel it then—that internal buzz I got when I was fully in it, when my brain sharpened and the rest of the world fell away. This was what I was good at. Strategy. Pattern identification. Persuasion. Seeing the line between what people said they wanted and what they actually responded to. Most people stumbled through their careers hoping not to embarrass themselves. I preferred to face things head on, take risks, and hopefully reap huge rewards. Conquest.

Professional conquest, not romantic conquest. God, no. I’d long since accepted that I was mysteriously defective in anything involving candlelight and smoldering glances. But professional conquest? That, I could do.

My love life was a mess. After college I’d dated any man who seemed reasonably likely to stick around, unlike my father. I’d felt fondness. Appreciation. Mild interest in whether they’d safely made it home after dinner. But yearning? Fire? Compulsion? There’d been none of that, so I’d switched gears and refused to date anyone without an initial spark of sexual attraction.

Which meant, in the past three years, I’d dated a sexy software engineer, a sexy financial advisor, and a sexy environmental lawyer. Sexy in the way that the heroes in the books set my heart to racing. They were brooding. They were intense. They had emotional wounds. But unlike the heroines in the books, I didn’t seem to be able to fix these guys or endure their mood swings either inside or outside of the bedroom. After a few months I always decided I’d rather stay home and read a book than spend another hour dealing with their bullshit.

I wanted love. I wanted what I saw in Jordan’s expression when she talked about Ozar. I desperately wanted that spark, that flutter, that dizzy, breathless certainty. That whatever-it-was romance novels said arrived with the first instance of eye contact and proximity to a broad chest. It had happened, but it always vanished with prolonged exposure.