“Yes?”
“You’re going to look back at this call and feel sick about it.”
A long pause. “I know,” he says. “I’ll take it.”
We hang up.
I sit with it for a minute. Don’t write it down. Don’t tell anyone. I have Maya and Kennedy and three manufacturers; I have Julian putting Frost on the line; I have Sloane about to walk through my door. The ledger says yes more than no. I don’t have to count Cole.
I open the next number on my list and dial.
Sloane arrives at one with two coffees, a laptop, and the kind of expression that tells me she has already drafted three different press strategies in the car ride over.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” She sets the coffee on the dining table, opens the laptop without sitting. “Tell me what you’ve already done.”
I run through it. Maya at Pride Sports said yes. Kennedy at OutSports is already drafting. Three manufacturers. Cole atVault—I tell her he’s a no. Julian is getting Frost Capital ready. She nods through all of it, takes one note.
“Okay. Sit down.”
I sit.
“I want to argue with you about something before we do anything else.”
My brow furrows. “Go ahead.”
“You’re going to want to lead with the relationship,” she states.
“Yes.”
“I want to lead with the sport.”
I open my mouth. She raises one finger.
“I know what you’re going to say. The relationship is a sympathetic story. Public hearts move. Brand resilience comes from people falling in love with the love story. Yes. I’ve worked that play a hundred times. It’s a good play. It’s the wrong one for him.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he’s a fighter. Two days ago, he was a fighter. The thing under attack is his professional credibility, not his personal relationships. If we lead with the love story, we hand his enemies the frame they want—a coach who lost his career to a relationship. If we lead with the sport, the relationship becomes context. Background. We protect the asset that’s being attacked.”
I think about this. She watches me think.
“You’re right,” I say.
“I know I am.”
I run a hand through my hair. “But the love story is the human texture. We can’t lose it.”
“I’m not saying lose it. I’m saying don’t lead with it. Bury it in the fifth paragraph, not the first. Kennedy at OutSports gets the long-form interview where it lives in the human texture.BrawlZone gets a press release that talks about championship records and southern-region rankings and doesn’t mention you at all.”
“You’re telling me to bore BrawlZone.”
“I’m telling you to give them nothing they can clip into a bigotry segment. Two paragraphs about win-loss. They print the win-loss. The win-loss does work that no rage clip can touch.”
I sit with it. She’s right. She’s always freaking right.
“Fine.” I nod in reply. “You’re running the strategy. Tell me what I do.”