Chapter 12
A Game Plan
Kodi
Despite knowing Kean’s attitude was going to be shit, I was excited to get started on his socials. I half expected him to have an old page he’d forgotten about, but I searched high and low last night and found nothing. Not even an old high school account.
This was truly a clean slate and I’d never get this kind of opportunity again.
And while I was excited, I was also prepared for Kean’s general assholeness.
To make this not feel like pulling teeth for him, I mapped out three simple social media plans.
Focusing on Kean as a person, as a player, or as a member of the Dastards.
They each came with their own advantages, as far as career growth, but my guess was he’d take the path of least resistance and focus on his team.
That way the most he’d have to do on a regular basis is pose with teammates and maybe say a couple of nice things about them.
I don’t imagine either of those things come naturally to him, but I’m sure he could handle it.
And if he didn’t … well, our hallway talk made me think I could get away with being a little rude to him.
Maybe not chase him around the sidelines rude, but still.
He … valued me, to some extent, valued the work I’d done for him so far.
And he damn well should. I worked my ass off to get his insane list of tasks done within the week.
I bet it was the meal plan service I found that really won him over.
I was able to talk the owner to make an athlete plan and it’s gotten so many sign-ups he gave me a free plan so long as I’m under Kean’s account.
It was another athlete meal of chicken, rice, and broccoli, but I wasn’t gonna turn down free food.
“Morning, Kodi,” Kean said, voice a grumbly mess like he’d just gotten up.
He walked into the shared office space and swiveled the chair from the desk in front of mine around to sit.
He was wearing gray sweats, rude, and the lilac sun shirt I’d gotten him.
I’d expected the color to look silly on him.
And honestly, if I was in a better mood, I would’ve gotten him something in maroon to make his eyes pop.
But the purple actually looked pretty good against his tanned skin. Also rude.
“Kodi?” Kean repeated my name after I stared at him for a beat too long.
“Right. Good morning. How’re you?” I asked, fumbling with the front page of my notepad. His eyebrows pinched together, eyes focused on my desk.
“Uh, yeah, I’m … good.”
Well, at least we were both being awkward.
“Good, good.”
“And … uh, you?” he asked, eyes still down, jaw tight.
“Oh, yeah, good. I got the last thing on your list done last night, except for the internet appointment. Obviously. And then —”
“Seriously?” he asked, finally looking me in the eyes.
“Uh, yeah. You wanted me to get it all done in a week, so I did. I forwarded all the confirmation details and receipts for everything. But if you’re missing something, let me know.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he grumbled, running a hand over his chin. “I didn’t think you could get it all done that fast.”
“Well.” I squared my shoulders. “I’m good at my job.”
Kean hummed in response before nodding at the notes scattered across my desk. “Is that your grand plan?”
“Well, plans, actually. While I 100 percent believe this will be beneficial for your career long term, I understand it’s not something you’re actually interested in. So I’ve drafted up a couple strategies for you to choose from.”
“You’re really … into all this stuff, aren’t you?” he asked, picking up one of my sticky notes with username ideas.
“Into it is one way to put it. I went to school for this.”
“They have social media majors now?”
I snatched the sticky out of his hands.
“It’s a focus under marketing.”
Kean stared at his empty hand for a beat longer before settling back into his chair.
“Okay.” He sucked in a deep breath, all that big, lean muscle tense and awkward in a tiny office chair. “Where do we start?”
I hadn’t realized I was braced for an attack until my shoulders dropped at his words.
In the business of social media marketing, a business predominantly run by and consumed by women, my job was regularly belittled, even by the people who hired me.
And since Kean wasn’t interested, it stood to reason he’d undermine it, too.
But that’s not what was happening. His body language was tense, sure, but I got the feeling that came from his social awkwardness. Or awkwardness with me. Otherwise, he was attentive, eyes focused on the papers, hands laced together, elbows on his knees to lean close.
He was giving this an earnest shot.
And I wasn’t going to waste that.
“Right, so I’ve got three focal points for your accounts, that I’ll —”
“Accounts?” he repeated, mouth twisting.
“Yes, accounts for different platforms. It won’t be more work for you, though. We’ll cross post content.”
“I don’t …” He paused, eyes shifting to the side. “I don’t understand what that means.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip to keep from gaping at him. I know he said he didn’t use social media, but just how ignorant was he? And how did I ask that without sounding like a dick?
“When social shit became a thing when we were kids, I was too busy playing soccer to get into it. And it just … kept being like that.”
Well, damn. That might be the longest, most personal thing Kean’s ever said to me.
“Right, so quick crash course then.” I opened up my personal Instagram on my laptop and turned it for him to see.
“So basically how most platforms work is you have an account, you post images, videos, or text and all of those will be posted under your name. So like, if people want to see just your content, they’d go to your page.
But most people look at content on their ‘for you page’ or whatever the platform’s equivalent is. ”
I paused to give Kean a chance to ask questions, but based on his furrowed brow, I was already losing him. What kind of analogy would make this make sense to him?
“The FYP is sorta like flipping through TV channels before streaming? But personalized. Like if the channels reorganized every time based on what they think you want to watch.” Was it a weird analogy?
Absolutely. But given that Kean’s technology knowledge stopped somewhere before we were teenagers, it was the best I had.
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “But how does it know what I’d want to see?”
“Oh, fuck,” I murmured. How the hell could I explain algorithms to this dude? “Um, it’s a combination of a lot of things. But one of the simplest ones is based on the accounts you follow. So if you’re only following soccer players, your FYP will be focused on soccer.”
Kean leaned back and nodded. Phew.
“Great. So then each platform, Instagram, TikTok, X, Threads, Facebook, all of those have different focuses, content types that do better on them. But that doesn’t mean you have to do all of it, especially in this stage of building your platform.
So we’ll be posting the same content across all those pages. ”
“Content being …”
“Oh, sorry. In your case, mostly photos and videos. Text posts are probably … not your strong point.” Kean grunted in response, so I quickly moved on before he could get offended by that comment.
“So with that in mind, I’d suggest we focus on making content around one of the following: the team, your —”
“Not the team,” he said immediately with a huff.
“Why’s that? If we focus on team content, I can repurpose posts from the team’s page and you don’t have to spend as much time on this.”
“Yeah, but then you’ll end up talking to Brooker and —” He stopped talking abruptly and looked away from me. It took a few seconds, a good number of finger taps, but he finally said, “They’re annoying. I don’t like dealing with them most days, so I don’t wanna put you through that, too.”
“Okay. Well … the other two options would be content that focuses on you as a player or you as a person. Both of those would require us to … talk a lot more than we have so far.”
“We can talk,” he said, shrugging.
“Really?” I gaped. “For this to work, I’ll actually need to get to know you, like know more than your favorite color. It’ll essentially be an interview and I know for a fact you don’t do those. Are you really okay with that?”
“With you getting to know me? Yeah, that’s all right.” He leaned farther into his seat, sinking so he was curved into it.
“Really?”
“Is it that really so hard to believe?”
“Well … yeah. You aren’t exactly what I’d call … extroverted. Or even friendly.”
Kean just shrugged in response. I waited a beat to see if I’d get anything more out of him. But when it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen, I reorganized the notes on my desk.
I’d been so sure Kean would take the easy way out that the plans I made for the other two options weren’t as thorough as I’d like. Though given his lack of social media knowledge, I doubted he’d notice.
“Okay, so we’ll do a more traditional profile for you. Next step is username.”
“Can’t you just use my name?” he asked, sitting up straight again.
“Oh, no. Your name’s already taken by a fan account.”
“Okay, can’t you just take it back? It’s my name. And what’s a fan account?”
“Oh, boy. Okay, so we could contact a platform’s staff or even the user to get that name back, but it can be complicated and make you look like an entitled prick.”
“For wanting to use my name?”
“Yes. And a fan account is somebody that posts about one topic. In this case, you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” I laughed. “You might have shit presence online, but there are still a few people who love you as a player. I mean, not as many people as I think you could have, but still.”
“Me?” he repeated, brow furrowed as he looked down at the floor.
I flipped my laptop back around and pulled up the fan account. But before I turned it to Kean, I set up my mini tripod and phone to film his response. The lighting in here wasn’t the best, but I’d rather have something to work with, even if only the audio is usable.
“I know it’s hard to believe your grumpy ass has fans, but check it out.
” I clicked on the most recent post and turned the screen to Kean.
He leaned forward, eyes glistening as the fan went on and on about the last game.
This guy, Liam, has followed Kean’s career since he was first signed to Huntsville.
And since then, he’s decided to be Kean’s champion, proclaiming he was an underrated player and deserved more attention if only because his stats were so good.
“If you hit the right arrow, you’ll go to the next post.”
Kean did and a video about a game from a month ago played. The Bustas’ center forward pulled off this crazy feint and curveball that Kean just barely saved, having to jump and stretch his whole body to block it. It was absolutely insane to watch and this fan was rightfully singing Kean’s praises.
“I was scared shitless when the ball started to curve like that, I didn’t think I’d make the save.” His voice was low, full of wonder as he watched someone care about his playing.
“But Liam believed you could.”
“Yeah. That’s …” He sat back and ran a hand over his face. “That’s incredible.”
There was a softness in his voice I hadn’t heard before and it warmed my heart. Yesterday, Kean said his track record spoke for him, but hearing somebody else say that probably hit different.
I turned off the recording and set my phone aside.
“That’s what social media can do. And imagine how much that guy would like to know more about you. Nothing big, just little things, like how you train, your thoughts on different strategies, stuff like that.”
“Yeah. I … uh, I think I get it now.”
“Good. Then let’s get into it.”