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bluewatersfairy · 3 months ago

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after hours - j.p.

Read part one here

a/n: sorry this took 8 million years to publish, post-grad lowkey kicking my ass rn.

synopsis: reader is given the green light on a series with Jordan on a trial basis and is determined to show her higher ups that she has what it takes to make a difference in their media engagement.

warnings: none! look at me go 🤠

word count: 2.7k

•••

The next morning, you gave a 30-minute pitch including the “superhero” type story and graphic you’d been working on the night before, and bringing back the mini mic series with Jordan Poole. Everyone took the superhero story well and you were told to make it into a graphic that could be used for home games, and the season opener. This was a big deal and you were still riding that high when your boss broke the rather shitty news regarding the mini mic series.

It turns out the reason they didn’t pursue it further the previous season was because it took up a lot of time. Editing it together, getting footage for it and finding stuff that would engage Jordan past his introduction – it was all too much. Some members of the team agreed that it was good publicity, but it was a lot of work. Instead of saying yes or no, your boss gave you a proposal because they could tell how much this idea meant to you.

You had a one-month-trial to run the series. In that time, you would have to produce at least six videos. If they did well and you still wanted to continue doing them at the end of the month, they would allow that. But for this one-month-trial, you would not be paid overtime for the extra work you would put in for the series, and everyone was pretty sure that you were going to have to work overtime.

Perhaps it wasn’t your smartest move, but you accepted it. One month and six videos didn’t seem like all that much work, plus they’d just said they loved your superhero story. This was bound to be an even bigger hit. If anything, the Jordan Poole stans would eat it up, and he actually talked openly with you. At least he had at midnight the night before. You were set.

You didn’t see Jordan until you were on your way out for the day. You’d been sent home early because they had found out how late you’d stayed the night before and no one was exactly happy with you. It turns out it wasn’t just the overtime you’d be working on the mini-mic project that would go unpaid, but all of it.

“Oh, I have good news,” you said to Jordan, grabbing his hand and pulling him into your office. He visibly lit up seeing you and you took this as a sign of friendship and let your excitement kind of take over.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Jordan smiled down at you.

He was glad to see you were more put together when the sun was up. As much as he’d enjoyed talking to you, you had left clearly giddy in your own head. He went as far as calling it cute before shoving the thought elsewhere. Not appropriate, he reminded himself.

“They’re gonna let me do a mini-mic series with you, if you’re in?” you smiled hopefully up at him and the hand behind your back had your fingers crossed.

“Hell yeah,” Jordan said with a massive smile on his face, “I miss them mini mics.”

Your excitement was so clear in that moment and Jordan thought you might actually burst, or hug him. Instead, you got him to sit down in your chair and pulled up a document you’d spent a majority of the day working on.

You bent down so you were eye level with the screen and started explaining everything to Jordan. He took turns between watching your face as you spoke and looking at the screen to see what you were pointing at. The less professional part of him was hyper aware of how close together you both were. He could smell your perfume and the shampoo you used and it was something like a spell. Again, he felt like he’d met you before, more than just seeing you at a game. Even your voice sounded familiar. He just couldn’t shake it.

“So,” Jordan started talking after you’d finished your whole breakdown, “we’re gonna do six videos in the next month and if they do well, we get to do them for the rest of the season?”

“Exactly,” you nodded your head, “these are some of the topics I think would catch people's attention,” you pointed to a small section of the screen, “and these are the dates I think they’ll be more likely to do well on.”

“You’ve thought this all out, huh?” he turned to face you just as you did and your eyes met. Your eyes were bright with promise and hope, he felt like he owed you its success.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night,” you confessed with a shrug of your shoulders, “you lit up talking about the mini-mic interviews and we sort of owe you some good publicity. As much as this is me trying to leave a good impression on my boss, this is me trying to give you something good too.”

Jordan’s smile was genuine and big. He stood up without thinking it through and wrapped his arms around you. It surprised you but you returned the hug without a second thought.

“Thank you,” he mumbled quietly, “it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen someone in the media be so on my side.”

“Always,” you found yourself saying without a second thought, “you’ve got a say in this too.” You pulled out of his hug and took a step back and glanced at the wall clock quickly.

“If there’s ever a topic or question you don’t want to answer, you say the word and I’ll make something up out of thin air if I have to.”

Slowly, Jordan nodded his head. What you’d shown him seemed pretty tame and he was open to most questions, especially if they let him have a bit of fun in front of the camera again. He did enjoy being in front of the camera. He was pretty sure if this whole basketball thing didn’t work out he could make something of himself as a media personality.

“When do you want to shoot the first video?”

The first video came out three days later at 1:24pm. The general theme was the return of the mic and Jordan’s summer. You asked questions about his travels and he gave a funny story that you were able to add picture evidence of to the video. He was smiley and his happy, goofy self, so naturally, the video took off.

For things to be somewhat successful, you had decided, the first video needed to blow up and reach as many corners of the internet as possible, not just the basketball community. As it had been a summer of edits of just about anyone to ever exist, basketball player or not, you made sure to get some “edit-worthy” clips of Jordan in there. When you asked him what the first thing he did when he got back to the facility, you made sure to have a clip of him shirtless, sweaty, and yummy to accompany it.

Respectfully, Jordan was one of the most beautiful men you’d had the pleasure of meeting, and anything you captured on camera didn’t do him justice. Not only did he look good, his natural charm pulled you in in a way that can only be thought of as primal. It wasn’t so much that you wanted to do things to and with him, but more than you felt wanted and desired under his gaze. Like he was actually looking at you and taking you in, rather than someone you see in passing.

You’d hoped you’d captured all that on camera, and it seemed you had. Literally, the first comment you saw when you opened up Tik Tok when you got home was ‘I need him in a biblical way.’ That was the type of response that was gonna keep people coming back and it was for sure, going to make people want to watch.

Over the next 24 hours, you watched the comments, likes, and views come in. The Wizards following was going up and the views on the recent videos were more than triple the previous ones. More importantly, people wanted more of Jordan and the mini-mic. This type of response was going to guarantee you a season long series. You were so excited.

The following video did just as well. Jordan talked about his cats and what they’re like and a bit about his Mum and how she had told him that there was no excuse for missing from the free throw line because there was no one guarding him. You’d stayed late one night with Jordan to get shots of him practising and had made sure to get some thirst-trap worthy footage when he was at the free throw line.

“Respectfully,” Jordan grinned as you’d scrolled through the photos and videos with him after the fact, “no one has ever captured me like this. Whatever you’re doing is working.”

The first time a Jordan-edit crossed your FYP with footage from your videos, you’d jumped up and screamed. Your roommate had actually come running from the kitchen with a shoe in hand, assuming there was a bug somewhere. When you’d told them why you’d screamed, still jumping around happily with your phone replaying the same part of ‘heartbreaker’ by Justin Bieber, they’d just thrown the shoe at you and left. This felt like things were working out how you wanted them too and your dreams were coming true.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jordan had said one day when he’d come into your office to approve of the third video you wanted to put out. You were going for a different vibe with this one to switch it up and hopefully show that you had variety.

“What’s up?” you asked in return as you turned to face him in your chair.

He smiled at you and turned to look over your whiteboard quickly. His eyes were cast to his shoes for a second, his hands shoved in his short pockets.

“What is the job you actually want to be in?” he asked, only looking up to meet your eyes after he finished his sentence. “You’ve put too much into this to just want to be a photographer.”

You smiled at him and chewed at your bottom lip nervously, “I went to school for political journalism, so you would be right.”

“So why are you here?” he leant forward as he asked and you felt yourself grow warm. You weren’t sure if it was his question or the way he was looking at you but it was a pleasant type of warmth – like getting into a warm bed in a freezing cold room.

“When it popped up, it felt like it was meant to be,” you shrugged, answering honestly, “the way I feel about this team, it never mattered if we were losing or bottom of the league. I was happy to be here and I was gonna keep supporting, regardless. I figured that’d be a good quality for someone on the media team, so I applied without really thinking too much about it.”

“I’m glad you did,” Jordan responded quietly, sincerely. He nodded his head at you before standing up properly and taking a step closer to you.

“How did the ASMR turn out?”

You turned back to face your computer screen and handed him your earphones. You’d spent a lot of time on this asmr segment of the mini-mic series – you even recorded some extra sounds for the layered effect. You wanted it to be relaxing, but to also highlight the smoothness of Jordan’s voice. You’d edited a separate bloopers video for it as well so it would count as one of the six for the month. Depending how it performed, you thought I’d be a fun thing to do once a month.

“You might be a lil too good at all this,” Jordan grinned as he took the earphones out, “I don’t even know how you can pull all this shit together so quickly.” He shook his head and you looked up at him smiling.

“You make it so easy,” you shrugged, “most people have some awkward habits in front of the camera, but you make it all look like second nature. If I did this with any other player, it wouldn’t be this good, I promise you.”

“I feel like Kyle would be smooth,” he countered, “he’s slick on camera.”

“Nah,” you shook your head, “he’s not like you and me though. That’s part of the magic, y’know? Our chemistry. It makes everything that much better.”

Chemistry, Jordan turned the word over in his head a few times. You were aware of the chemistry you had with one another. It wasn’t something he was making up in his head.

“You and me,” he agreed slowly with a smile, “we’re the dream team.”

“Exactly!” you exclaimed with a smile that would have melted the ice caps. “That’s why this has got to be a season-long series. You’re too good of a person and ball player to get buried under criticism.” You nudged him with your shoulder as you complimented him and you watched as his ears got red. Were you really making him shy?

“Y/N,” your boss boomed from your doorway, forcing both you and Jordan to return to serious faces, “can I speak to you in my office please?” They walked off before you could answer and you and Jordan shared a look.

“It could be good news,” he tried to reassure you with a hopeful smile. You shrugged, took a deep breath and started to shoo him out of your office.

“Go do your job,” you ushered him off and he playfully acted hurt before winking at you and jogging off towards the locker rooms.

“This isn’t an easy conversation to have,” your boss said as you sat down across from her. You were more nervous now than before but you knew you hadn’t done anything wrong, whatever it was, it was a word of warning or caution. You were okay.

“We have strict rules here that there is to be no romantic relationships between our media staff and the players. Technically, we are separate from them but everything we do revolves around them.” She paused and you took that as the moment to defend yourself.

“I promise, ma’am, there’s nothing going on between me and any of the players-”

“This isn’t just about what is currently happening,” she cut you off, “it’s what is ultimately going to happen if you continue to have such close relationships with the players.”

Players, plural, but you knew where this was going. How could you not? Jordan was in your office every day and you were constantly editing videos of him. Truthfully, you were rarely not thinking about Jordan. When you weren’t editing, you were planning and if you weren’t planning, you were checking on how the videos were doing, and when you weren’t doing all that, sometimes you really were just thinking about Jordan.

“I like you, Y/N,” your boss interrupted your thoughts, “you are incredibly creative and have made it clear that you’re here to make this team better, not just to work. But you and I both know this isn’t the job you see yourself doing in 20 years, and I don’t want something to happen that will affect the rest of your career. Politics is a lot more cutthroat than sports, and it’s even worse when you’re a woman. I’m saying this as someone who has been in your shoes, not as your boss,” she reached her hand out to grab yours.

“Be smart and put your career first. He’s just a basketball player.”

Except he wasn’t just a basketball player, you thought to yourself as you walked out of the office, he was your friend. Beyond that, he was a man that actually looked at you, and saw you. He could read your moods and always knew the right thing to say. Worst of all, you’d only known him for a few weeks. Imagining how much closer the two of you would get over this season, after that conversation, made you feel sick.

Maybe this all wasn’t such a good idea.

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