22. A Pair of Troublemakers
A Pair of Troublemakers
Olli
After such a successful charity game, I was so excited to get back to practice, I’d completely forgotten about the whole Hansen thing until I pulled up to the stadium staff parking lot and saw Kodi waiting by the door in a skirt suit.
Then it hit me like a brick, Kodi’s instant anxiety when we got that email, the panic in her eyes, the way she was convinced I wouldn’t be able to save her job.
That shit should’ve kept me up all night and I was ashamed it hadn’t.
“Kodi.” I nodded to her as I made it to the staff door, trying to act like I didn’t sprint here from my car.
“You ready?” she asked, voice tense.
“Kodi, I promise, Hansen won’t fire you over this,” I tried to reassure her, but she shook her head.
“I know you mean well, but my anxiety has had a solid twenty-four hours to mull this over and I really don’t think your word is gonna outweigh past … crimes.”
“Crimes?” I repeated. Kodi waved me off and turned to open the door.
“Hansen’s car is already here, so we should hurry.”
“Kodi, what crimes?” I followed after her. “Do you have a record?”
My mind was racing now. Sure, I hadn’t seen Kodi in several years, but to think she had a criminal record was insane. I couldn’t fathom what kind of crime she’d commit.
“Record?” Her steps slowed for a beat as she thought, then she rolled her eyes and sped right back up. “No, not that kind of crime. Jeez. It was a — it was something stupid I did when I was a kid.”
“Kid? Is it related to when you caught the ball?”
“No, not kid like child, kid like … college kid.”
That made things even more confusing. What could she have done in college that she’d label a crime?
Before I could come up with any possibilities, we reached Hansen’s office and Kodi immediately knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Hansen shouted from the other side. Kodi took a shaky breath before opening the door.
“Good morning, Mr. Hansen.”
“Morning,” I said, pulling out one of the chairs in front of his desk and gesturing for Kodi to sit there. She gave me an odd look, but eventually took the seat.
“Mr. Hansen, I know you’re upset about the meme, but —”
“Ms. Davey,” Hansen said with a warning tone and Kodi shrunk back. And damn, I really didn’t like seeing her like that.
“Hansen, I know the internet shit can be bad for image or whatever. But its not like its something we can control and people’ll forget about it soon enough. Nothing happened that Kodi should be held accountable for.”
“Why’re you saying so many words?” Hansen asked with a raised eyebrow and I shrugged in response. “Okay, then maybe you can tell me why you’re not upset that your PA’s been caught yelling at you in public twice now?”
“I deserved to be yelled at,” I said, shrugging again, crossing my arms so I didn’t nervously scratch at my beard.
“You deserved it?” Hansen repeated. “How so?”
“I was being an ass.”
“You’re gonna have to give me more than that, Kean. From where I’m standing, it looks like you’re letting her disrespect you.”
“I never meant to —” Kodi started but Hansen held up a hand.
“Don’t interrupt her.” I took a step closer to Kodi’s chair, standing right behind her to make it clear I was on her side. “I don’t feel disrespected. So there’s no issue, right?”
“What you think only matters so much, Kean. The owners don’t want drama associated with the team’s image. And these incidents could very well create drama. You’ve gone from being unnoticed to being a meme.”
“Sir?” Kodi piped up, voice small. “Can I point out something?”
“Look, Ms. Davey, I understand you want to defend yourself, but the fact remains that —”
“The fact is she’s my PA and I’m not letting her go.”
Hansen’s eyes snapped to mine and my whole body stiffened as I realized how that sounded.
“She’s done an incredible amount of work for me already. And done it well.” I scratched at my beard, feeling my jaw tense underneath it. “Even when she has to deal with an asshole like me.”
Hansen leaned back in his seat, staring at me for a long moment before turning to Kodi. “Would you call him an asshole?”
“Overall?”
Hansen chuckled and sat up, lancing his fingers together and resting his elbows on his desk.
“Look, I understand butting heads, especially when you’re pushing Kean to do something outside his comfort zone. But this conduct doesn’t exactly assuage my fears about your professionalism.”
Kodi bit her lip and looked down at her lap.
“Have you not seen Kodi’s work?” I asked, shoulders stiffening. “She took my zero social presence to trending. I might not know what that means, but I know enough to say it’s impressive.”
I set a hand on Kodi’s shoulder and gave her a light squeeze before quickly pulling away. She straightened up and pulled her laptop from her bag.
“What I wanted to point out was that while yes, the meme got Kean’s name trending, so did this.” She turned her screen to Hansen. “This post has more engagement than the most popular version of the meme. So while I definitely shouldn’t have pointed a finger at Kean like that —”
“I deserved it.”
“— it didn’t cause any damage and it certainly didn’t outweigh all the good he did at the Cup.”
I shifted to the side of Hansen’s desk to look at what she showed him.
It was a photo of Lindsey scoring on me, her hands up in the air, my hand just missing the ball.
You couldn’t see her face, but you could feel Lindsey’s joy.
And the comments just reinforced that, though a lot of them were about how I might be an asshole but was still good with kids. Notably from my teammate’s profiles.
“The team’s page gained nearly 2k followers across all platforms and Whip Snap had record-breaking ticket sales.”
“See? Completely professional,” I murmured, in awe at the numbers she achieved. Checking ticket sales and donations wasn’t something I’d thought to follow up on, but I should have. Especially after Kodi put so much effort into promoting it over the last week.
“I can’t deny you get results,” Hansen said, rubbing his eyes. “But you’ve got to stop going viral, Kodi. And stay out of the announcer booth.”
Kodi went pink. “Marshall insisted.”
“Yeah, well, maybe don’t let all these guys behavior dictate what you do?”
“Yes, sir,” Kodi said, eyes down.
“You’re a good kid, Kodi. You just gotta stop getting swept up in these things,” he said with a sigh before shaking his head. “All right, you two can go about your business then. Try and go a week without catching my attention, please.”
Kodi gave him a tight nod, shoving her laptop back in her bag before skittering out the room. I hung back, turning to Hansen when she left.
“She’s the same age as I am. She’s not a kid.”
Hansen turned to me, eyebrow raised again. “Is that so? Well, I’m not sure you two being the same age means much since I think you’re both acting childish.”
I couldn’t exactly argue with that. I wasn’t proud of how I behaved recently. And while Kodi was the cause of my poor behavior, she wasn’t the problem. I was.
“She’s matching my behavior, not the other way around. I’ll do better.” Before he could respond, I walked out, closing the door behind me.
Safe in the hallway, I tilted my head up and sighed.
“I heard what you said there,” Kodi said, voice so close I jumped.
“What?” Apparently when she left the room, she needed to do something similar to me, and had her back resting against the wall to the left of the door, staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t get it, though. Why are you trying to take all the blame?”
“Well.” I paused to clear my throat. “You’ve only acted up when I’ve been stubborn.”
“But you weren’t causing trouble before I got here, right? So why stick up for me?” Kodi tilted her head to look at me, brown eyes glistening.
“You’re good at your job,” I said, biting my lip to keep from telling the truth. At this point, I wasn’t telling her because it was embarrassing. The anger at being forgotten was gone and in its place was the hurt of it.
“Ha. I mean, I am. But I don’t think that’s worth sticking up for. Especially since the thing I’m really good at is something you hate.”
“I don’t hate it.”
“Oh, come on,” she scoffed. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I don’t,” I repeated. “Honestly. I … I see its appeal now. And I never would have if not for you.”
I chanced a glance at Kodi, worried I went too far. She was staring at me, mouth slightly ajar. And since I couldn’t tell if that was awe or shock or distrust, I turned away and started down the hallway, towards the locker room.
“I gotta go warm up. I’ll send you this week’s errand list after practice.”
I got about ten feet away before Kodi called out, “Kean!”
Shoulders stiff, I turned back to her.
“Thank you. Seriously. I — a lot of folks I’ve worked with undermine what I do, so I appreciate you sticking up for me.”
“They were dicks,” I said, trying to shrug off how her words made me feel.
“Right. Go practice, I won’t bother you with any more platitudes,” she said, rolling her eyes before turning to head to the open office.
Despite my better judgment, I stood there and watched her go.