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Matt
It was lovely being in the honeymoon period of a relationship – that time when every second you spent together felt like a combination of rough sexual tension and innocent fairy-tale bliss, and you couldn’t bear to be apart from one another for extended lengths of time, even when you had to be.
Like right now, as Matt sat behind a desk at the New York office of Sports Illustrated.
Just a few weeks ago, he’d been assuring himself that Chris Knoll wasn’t gay, but that it was still okay to look. Now, he was fighting the urge to google his own boyfriend just to get another look at him. Granted, he was probably allowed to do that; he was writing about Chris for this profile, after all. Still, it’d be a tough battle to win. No matter how he tried to argue that looking at Chris in his tight workout clothes and charity gala tuxedos was ‘helping’, he doubted it would fly.
Shame, though. It’d be a nice view, and a motivational one.
He drummed his fingers on the keyboard, still fleshing out a paragraph about Chris’s childhood and early introduction to the sport. It was definitely difficult to focus, but at least he was getting some things done. Slowly, yes – but still.
In fact, he was just getting into a good rhythm when the phone on his desk rang. This was a surprise to him; unlike most people in this office, Matt didn’t usually sit here. On top of that, he was only working on this one piece as a freelancer, so there was nothing he could really do to help out the other writers around him. Maybe somebody had dialed his extension by mistake? But when he picked it up, he heard the sound of the editor’s voice before he could even say ‘hello’.
“Tucker,” said Mr. Boseman. “My office ASAP, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
It wasn’t unusual to be spoken to so brusquely. Carter Boseman was notorious for being an extremely efficient man, never wasting time or words on anything. He had been good for Sports Illustrated in fiscal terms – or at least, so Matt had heard. It didn’t seem that the staff liked him very much, though.
Still, Matt couldn’t ignore a direct request, and nor did he want to keep his commissioning editor waiting. Instead, he locked his screen and packed up his notes, just hoping that he could stroll back into the same steady pace once this impromptu meeting was over.
Probably not, of course. Getting a good momentum going as a writer could be about as rare as a rainbow – but he could hope.
Matt knocked on Mr. Boseman’s door as soon as he arrived at it, absent of the nervousness that might infect some of his more twitchy colleagues. As intimidating as some people found the editor, Matt wasn’t fussed. The worst this man could do to Matt was cancel his article – and frankly, Boseman would only be hurting himself and his magazine if he did so. He was smart enough that he probably knew that.
“Come in.”
Stepping through the door, Matt wore a respectful smile, and offered his hand to Boseman for a predictably quick and firm shake.
“Morning, sir,” said Matt, smoothing down his tie as he took a seat at the desk. “How can I help?”
“This story about you and Knoll is in just about every publication known to me,” said Mr. Boseman. It didn’t surprise Matt that he didn’t say ‘morning’ in return. Honestly, it would’ve been more surprising if he had. “The New York Times. Fucking Buzzfeed. Even Vanity Fair managed to squeeze something out on it, for Christ’s sake; how they managed to do that before their print deadline, I’ll never know.”
He stopped there, perhaps assuming that Matt already knew what he was driving at – but that wasn’t the case. Matt blinked, still waiting for the point. Only a few moments later did Boseman press on and enlighten him.
“Well?” he said. “Why didn’t you give it to us first?”
“With respect, sir, I didn’t give it to anyone,” said Matt, perfectly relaxed with his hands folded in his lap. “Somebody saw us heading into his apartment building, and the story sold itself.”
“But you could have given it to us beforehand,” said Mr. Boseman. “You could have come to us and said – hey, this profile I’m writing? I’d like to mention I’ve started fucking the athlete I’m studying.”
“Maybe I might have, if I had a chance,” Matt insisted, not budging an inch. “As things stood, he didn’t want to come out, and then... he didn’t have a choice. There was no moment where I even considered bringing the story to anybody in particular.”
“This is our profile,” said Mr. Boseman, tapping the desk. “I think we had a right.”
“Not at all,” said Matt, smoothly. “The story is about Chris as an athlete, sir. His sexuality played no part in that aspect of his life. Perhaps it might now, but...”
“I’m assuming it will feature heavily in your piece.”
“That’s not really my intention, no.”
Boseman eyed Matt, hard-faced. “It should be. I wanted a story about an up-and-coming athlete that nobody else had profiled yet. Now everyone and their aunt is writing about him. If this article is to have anywhere near the impact that I intended, it needs to go further. Something more – something nobody else has.”
“It’s written by his boyfriend,” Matt said. “That’s an angle in and of itself.”
“Not enough,” said Boseman, waving a hand at him. “Not on its own. If you can turn it into an intimate portrait of who you are together, then... fine. Boudoir shoot and all.”
“I don’t think that’s something he’d be comfor-”
“You can ask,” said Mr. Boseman. “You’re close enough now, clearly. I don’t want a professional profile anymore; I want a personal portrait. Give me that.”
Matt met his eyes. He didn’t like what he saw there – the pragmatism, aimed directly at making money out of his relationship. Still, Boseman clearly had no shame. He wasn’t going to change his mind from Matt’s steely glare any more than the reverse would happen.
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Matt.
Admittedly, it didn’t give him much pleasure or motivation to progress with the piece – but hey. He wanted his paycheck. He certainly wasn’t about to say that...
