Page 27 of Don't Brake My Heart
‘Do you think we should kiss, Kubicka?’
Chapter 11
Leesa
When the first of my reels hit a new client record, I had to admit there were some advantages to my reluctant return to the cycling world. Morgan had been sceptical when I’d shown them the footage I’d taken. If I hadn’t been entirely certain the target audience would soak it up, I wouldn’t have pushed to release it. But if there is a truth universally acknowledged among cyclists, it’s that tech is like a religion.
I’d flagged Colin down in the car park with the quaint hotel and the mountain landscape in the background and asked him to show me his bike after a training ride. The result was a striking video of a sweaty and rumpled Colin pointing out the different gears and cassettes with his oil-stained hands, all while saying words like ‘derailleur’ and ‘electronic drivetrain’ in his lazy, deep voice and casually swearing.
At the end, he’d looked right into the camera and said, ‘I can’t tell you the exact gear set-up for each stage of the Tour or I’d have to kill you.’ Then he’d winked and held a finger to his lips and I could still hear the swooning over the internet – especially from the bike tech nerds – as the clip garnered more and more views.
I’d edited out the part at the end where he’d accused me of drooling over the sleek aero bike with all the latest gear. While it was unfortunately true that I still remembered the feeling of the gear shifters under my fingertips, the ultimate cooperation between engineering, physics and biology, that hadn’t been the reason for my open-mouthed staring.
Because no matter how much like an overgrown child he behaved – pulling stunts like walking off with my tablet and coming up with flimsy excuses not to give it back – I couldn’t pretend that Colin Gallagher wasn’t utterly compelling in just about every situation. Even after I’d overheard him criticising myboobs, he’d still made my skin tingle moments later, when he’d looked into my eyes and spoken in his soft drawl.
The clips from the lab with the stationary bike had felt incriminating when I’d finally uploaded them, even though I’d spent an hour editing out the worst parts. I was nervous about what Morgan would say. But riding high on the unequivocal success of my first reel – and the butt prank Colin had swallowed whole – I was in a positive mood as I reported back to my supervisor.
‘I think the combination of content for the bike nerds and things with wider appeal is going to have the best outcomes for the client,’ I was saying into my laptop.
I was perched cross-legged on the chair in my tiny room, Morgan’s face on the screen. On my top half, I wore a nice pale green blouse, but off-screen were my favourite nasty old shorts. The enthusiasm I’d expected from my colleague wasn’t forthcoming and the silence stretched for long enough to tease out the prickles at my hairline.
‘He’s good on camera, at least,’ Morgan commented. ‘Gallagher doesn’t have the best name recognition, according to the latest reports. We have to keep things punchy.’
‘He’s got form. His name is being mentioned in connection with a top-five spot and I saw his stats—’
Morgan’s eyes glazed over and I shook myself inwardly. We were talking about sportsmarketing, not actual sport.
‘To be honest, I think PowerFuel got lucky.’
I wanted to reel those words back in when Morgan’s gaze flickered to mine with a hint of curiosity.
‘They’re a manufacturer of energy gels. Only people who are super into sport will buy them,’ I continued defensively. Your average punter wouldn’t want to hit themselves with a meal’s worth of calories in the form of congealed, cat-piss-flavoured carbohydrates.
‘What about runners?’ Morgan countered. ‘They won’t care about the biking side of things. We need wider appeal.’
‘I’ve been thinking of doing some coffee-related stuff,’ I rushed to say. Coffee was the other religion cyclists subscribed to.
‘That’s great, but we need to get more personal. Sit him down for an interview. We can use sound bites and then release it as a whole on the YouTube channel at a later stage. You’ve got some great action shots, but there’s nostory, is there?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Like, does he have a girlfriend or a boyfriend?’ Morgan asked.
‘No,’ I answered reflexively, but I choked on my reaction. Iassumedhe didn’t have a girlfriend. Wil wouldn’t have said that stuff to me on the first day if he did, right? He hadn’t had a girlfriend in September.
At least, I thought not. I hadn’t actually asked.
‘Then why not?’ Morgan asked. It took me far too long to realise it was a rhetorical question. ‘What drives him to the edge of endurance? Is he really friends with the guys in his team, or are they rivals? We want the Netflix documentary and not the real sport.’
Morgan was right. Remembering Colin strapped to the equipment, the sad dragon on his back, I wanted to know what was under his skin too. I just wasn’t certain he would share that stuff – not without extracting a price from me.
‘Sports marketing is all about the narrative,’ Morgan reminded me.
Green graduate me had not shut up about building narratives for the entirety of my internship, even as my responsibilities never got me within striking range of forming one. But making a narrative about Colin sounded dangerous. Either I took him at face value and presented him to the world as a prankster – in some magical, sympathetic way – or I dug deeper and askedwhyhe welcomed new members of the team with ribbing and reverted to superficial flirting with me.
‘Good idea,’ I grated out, pulling myself together. ‘I’ll stick to him like glue.’
In a non-literal way. Not like the thoughts that had swum in my head as I’d filmed that tech video.
