Great. Why did I have a terrible feeling about events from the night before?
“Any hints how to handle her?”
“Just agree. She’s good at what she does and from what I understand, you need a little help in the social media department.”
While I wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, on this morning I needed a little pick me up. I was dragging my ass something fierce. By the time I made it back to his office, a projector had been set up, a screen already pulled and there were whiteboards near his desk.
“Mr. Masters. Please take a seat.” Her voice was crisp, cold, and calculating.
I don’t know what I’d expected, but while a tiny woman, barely standing five foot tall, her voice packed a punch. I had a feeling she was a take no shit kind of woman.
Maybe there was something in the water. While I sat down, my thoughts drifted to Christine.
“I’m Ansley Adams. We met the other day.”
She didn’t offer her hand for a shake, nor did she smile. In fact, her eyebrows were knitted together as if she was disgusted with what she was seeing.
Self-conscious, I looked down at my clothing. Only then did I realize I’d found mismatched socks. Great. I must look like some disheveled idiot. If she was all of twenty-two years old, I’d be surprised, but her button-down shirt under a crisp, boring suit reaffirmed she was a take no shit kind of girl.
“Yes, ma’am. We did. What can I do for you?”
“I see you once broke a reporter’s jaw for annoying you.” She tipped her head, her expression droll.
“He had a microphone in my face and refused to back off even after I told him three times.”
“So you broke his jaw.”
Shrugging, I tried to act as if the event had been no big deal. “He had it coming.”
“I see,” she breathed. “And the naked girls all over several posts from a few weeks ago?”
“Hey, I don’t control what they do.” My answer hung in the air with silence following.
“Are you aware your social media accounts are atrocious?”
Well, she didn’t mince words. Just like someone else I knew. “I’ve been a little busy to worry about them.”
“Well, you need to start. Those issues aside, you have a measly ten thousand followers on your Instagram, no TikTok account, and let’s not discuss the atrocity that is your Facebook account. Obviously, you don’t pay attention because it’s apparently been hacked.”
“Hacked? I was just on it the other day. Although for the first time in a little while.”
She grumbled under her breath while flicking on the projector. She found my page, showing a hot sports car first then another one. Then another. I could clearly tell she was exasperated. “What is this?”
“They’re mine. I mean I don’t own the cars. I just posted them because I like them. See, I have a Trans Am as well.”
She looked at me as if I had two heads. “Well, these are the decent pictures, the ones that can be shown to with children in the room. The others? Well, I’m shocked you haven’t gotten kicked off Facebook.”
“What are you talking about?” Now I was getting annoyed.
Perhaps Ansley could tell, which was why the look she gave me was brutal. When she flicked to a series of photos I’d taken after a big win a few months later, my skin started to crawl.
“Where was this?” she demanded.
“A party after the game, but that was months ago.”
“Uh-huh. A topless party with beer bongs?”
The tone of her voice had heat building in my face. I was slouching down even further into the seat. “I didn’t know the girls were going to be there. They just showed up. Like I said. That was months ago.”
