Adrian
Three question marks in the email subject line:Thunder Bay? 3–5 Days? Possible Series?
I stared at it for a full thirty seconds before I clicked.
I'd opened my laptop expecting the usual overnight spam: newsletters I'd never unsubscribed from, LinkedIn notifications from people I'd worked with once in 2019, and the occasional pitch from a brand wanting me to film its product for "exposure."
This message was not that.
Adrian—
We've got something that might be up your alley. Small-town hockey doc. Human interest angle on a Shark Tank success story out of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The segment aired last night and the internet's already losing its mind over the boyfriend.
Fly to Thunder Bay today. Shoot 3–5 days. We might have something bigger here. Naomi vouched for you.
Call me.
I read it three times. Then a fourth, because my brain kept snagging onNaomi vouched for youlike a hangnail catching on fabric.
Naomi. We'd been out of touch for eight months. She'd watched me torch my last network deal over "creative differences"—industry code forAdrian Richter is a stubborn prick who won't let us turn his documentary subjects into clickbait—and said nothing exceptI hope you know what you're doing.
She'd vouched for me anyway. Called in a favor I hadn't asked for, couldn't repay, and would absolutely hate myself for needing.
My pulse kicked up. I refused to call it hope.
Hope was for people who hadn't learned better. Hope was for twenty-nine-year-old Adrian, the one who thought love and work could coexist without one of them bleeding out on the floor. That Adrian had been wrong about a lot of things.
I checked the sender again. Mid-tier prestige streamer—the kind with more ambition than budget, which usually meant creative freedom or spectacular failure, sometimes both. They'd done a series on rural veterinarians last year. Solid work. Not exploitative.
Three to five days, I thought.Survivable.
I scrolled through the rest of the email. Attachment: a clip from last night'sShark Tankepisode. I clicked play.
Two men walked into the tank. The first was polished, confident, the kind of steady that reads well on camera. The second was enormous—bearded, broad, visibly uncomfortable in a way that made him immediately more interesting than his partner.
I watched them pitch. Watched the boyfriend's hands shake once, then steady. Watched the big one's face when his partnercalled him "my partner" on national television—that split-second crack in the armor, surprise, and pride.
There, I thought.That's the shot.
I paused the video. Studied the composition like I was already framing it.
Then I closed my laptop and pressed my palms flat against the desk.
It's just a job. Paycheck. Résumé filler. Three days in a town I've never heard of, filming people I'll never see again.
The radiator ticked.
I hit reply.
I'm in. Send me the details.
I packed the way I'd learned to pack after a decade of last-minute assignments: gear first, clothes second, dignity optional.
Camera body. Backup body. Three lenses in foam-lined cases. Lavalier mics. Enough memory cards to film a small war. The equipment bag was heavy and familiar.
I was halfway through rolling a third flannel when I saw the lens case I'd been avoiding.
The 85mm f/1.4. My prime portrait lens. The one that could blur a background into watercolor and make a subject look like the only solid thing in the universe.
