Not the guy. That was the first thing the man said to me.

  Right. Fair enough. I almost smiled, because there was something impressively efficient about it. Just straight to the bin I went. I’d been written off faster than a trialist on a wet Tuesday, and it annoyed me more than I wanted to admit.

  “Oh, right. How d’you mean?” Should I have worded my reply like that? I was going for an ‘espresso and money’ vibe, and it might’ve ended up as ‘worksite foreman’.

  “I’m a players’ agent,” Harding said, flat as anything. “Not lookin’ to mentor staff. I don’t know what Maisie’s been telling ya. She said you were . . . analytical, which is fine. But that’s not summat I need. Though, thanks for picking up my notebook. Would’ve been in a pickle if you hadn’t.”

  I didn’t rush to fill the silence. Justifying my presence was an old reflex that I’d grown out of.

  “Right. Fair enough. I thought you wanted to talk because Maisie thought there might be overlap. If there isn’t, that’s fine.” I nodded.

  Harding just stared at me. Maybe he’d expected some negotiations; I didn’t know. He was the agent, not me.

  Harding studied me again, this time less like an inconvenience and more like an odd data point.

  “Huh,” he said. “Fine then.”

  We said our goodbye, and he drifted off toward a group by the windows.

  For half a second, the system part of my brain kicked in. That was an excellent quest reward. I could’ve chased him. I should definitely have chased him, dropped buzzwords, pretended I knew the agency side. But that would’ve been the wrong kind of fight.

  I had to approach this with my brain, not with shit outta my mouth.

  I scanned the room and spotted Maisie near the panel doors, laughing with someone wearing a lanyard that screamed decision-maker. She looked busy in the way that meant she’d just finished being useful.

  I threaded my way over the moment she disengaged.

  She even looked surprised when she saw my face. “That was quick,” she said.

  “He said I wasn’t the guy, flat out. He wasn’t looking to rep coaches. So what did you tell him?”

  She blinked rapidly, then again, slower, like she was rewinding the last thirty seconds in her head. “What?” she said. “He knows you’re a coach. It’s not new information. He didn’t decline then.”

  I frowned. “He said he’s a players’ agent. Not looking to mentor staff.”

  “I told him you’re doing first-team analysis at a local team, looking to move sideways before you move up. He just said, ‘Bring him over,’ and wandered off toward the bar.”

  “So what changed?”

  Maisie scrunched her nose then huffed. “Honestly? Probably nothing. Tom’s like that. He decides in about three seconds whether he likes someone, and if he doesn’t, he skips the dance and goes straight to the exit.”

  Sounds like a cracking way to be an agent, I thought. Profile your entire professional worldview off whether someone passes the pub test in under five seconds.

  Then I saw Maisie stiffening, and I followed her gaze to see the man she was watching. He was maybe early forties, neat suit, open collar, standing with two people near the windows.

  “Oh,” she said. Then again, quieter, “Oh. That’s Alex Hurst.”

  “Who?”

  Her mouth twisted. “Tom’s least favourite person in football.”

  That got my attention.

  “Why does Tom hate him?” I asked.

  “According to Tom? Because Hurst is a parasite with a spreadsheet. He poaches late bloomers, flips them at the first sniff of value, doesn’t care if they rot on a bench as long as the commission clears. According to everyone else? Because Hurst’s very good at his job and Tom keeps losing players to him.”

  I watched Hurst laugh at something, touching someone’s elbow as if sealing a deal that had already been done.

  “And they’re rivals?” I said.

  “Arch,” Maisie replied. “Same age bracket, same territory, completely opposite styles. Tom thinks Hurst represents everything wrong with modern agency culture. Hurst thinks Tom’s a dinosaur who gets sentimental about lads who can’t make him money.” She looked back at me, and suddenly her eyes were twinkling with mischief and intent. “We can do this.”

  “We? Do what?”

  She leaned in. “You go talk to Hurst.”

  “You want me to—”

  “Listen. You just be competent and interesting for five minutes. If you convince Hurst to take your contact, great. Worst case, you lose nothing.”

  “And best case?”

  She smiled, the kind that usually preceded trouble. “Best case, Tom sees you in Hurst’s orbit.”

  Ah. I saw what she was getting at now. She was weaponizing Tom’s spite.

  Maisie continued, “ Tom has the single worst competitive streak I’ve ever seen in a grown man. If he thinks Hurst’s about to get something he passed on, he won’t be able to stand it.”

  “That . . . that’s pretty damn clever. Deeply unpleasant, but clever.”

  “Well, of course.” Maisie’s mouth curved immediately, like she’d been waiting for my verdict. She rolled one shoulder, casual, but I caught the microsecond of satisfaction before she smothered it. File that away, then. Praise lands. I could heap praises on her at the right time later if I needed a favor.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  “Alright,” I said, exhaling once, steadying. “Point me at Hurst.”

  Maisie adjusted my collar without asking. “Stand near the windows. Don’t crowd him. Let him finish a sentence before you speak. And whatever you do—”

  “Yes?”

  “Do not say the word process unless he says it first.”

  I nodded. “You’re enjoying this.”

  She grinned. “Immensely.”

  I approached him as casually as I could. He glanced once, clocked me, then kept going—good sign. When he finished, there was the usual half-second vacuum where someone rushed to fill the space.

  I didn’t.

  That did it. He turned to me instead of back to his original audience.

  “You were going to say something,” he said.

  “Only if you’d finished,” I replied. “Sounded like a loan deal that behaved like a sale.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “It was supposed to be the other way round.”

  “I figured,” I said. “Sell-on’s doing more work than the minutes.”

  He angled his body a few degrees toward me, which in this room was basically a handshake.

  “Alex,” he said, offering it anyway.

  “Jamie.” This was doing miles better than with Tom already.

  “You with a club?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “And before you ask, not one that can outbid anyone in this room.”

  He laughed. It sounded genuine enough. “That narrows it down to about seventy percent of football.”

  I felt the conversation slide, smooth as a well-weighted pass. I talked about constraints instead of ambitions, about why certain players stall between nineteen and twenty-two when the physical gap closes and the decision-making doesn’t. I didn’t pitch myself. I didn’t ask him for anything. I just spoke like someone who’d watched a lot of lads miss by inches and wanted to know why.

  Hurst nodded along, occasionally interjecting with questions that weren’t traps so much as feelers. Where had I worked before? What level was the data actually coming from? How much of it survived contact with a gaffer on a three-game skid?

  It didn’t take long to clock his range. National League to Championship, and players he’d taken himself from National League TO Championship. Which meant I knew, just as clearly, that he wasn’t going to consider me. I was background noise at his altitude.

  Oddly, that took the pressure off. I didn’t need to sell myself.

  “I’ve just started at a semi-pro side,” I said, like it was incidental. “Short-term thing. They’re . . . slow. Painfully. Fullbacks can’t overlap, wide players want the ball to feet every time, and by the time they’ve turned, the window’s gone.”

  He tilted his head.

  “We’re not talking tricks-for-Instagram dribblers,” I went on. “I mean proper chalk-on-the-boots pace. Someone who can receive on the run, go past a man, still pick a pass.”

  “What you’re asking for is a Championship profile on a beer-money budget.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

  “But,” he held up his hand, “that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You can get a watered-down version with the same profile. I’d start with two places you’re probably not looking. First: lads who were quick before they filled out. Late physical developers. Seventeen, eighteen, they’re electric. Nineteen, twenty, they get heavy, lose half a yard, and suddenly no one wants them.” He tapped his temple. “Some of them get it back. Not all. But the ones who do? They’re furious. That’s useful.”

  I nodded, filing it away.

  “Second,” he continued, “full-backs who’ve been told they’re not defenders. Wingers who’ve been told they’re not clever enough. You want the ones who’ve been mislabelled. Pace plus resentment is a powerful thing.”

  “That sounds familiar,” I said.

  He smiled at that, properly this time.

  “Look at university sides,” he added. “Not the top BUCS teams, but the second tier. Lads who chose education because the pathway stalled, not because the ambition died. And don’t just watch matches. Watch warm-ups. Who moves differently when it doesn’t matter yet.”

  That was . . . good. Annoyingly good. I wanted this guy as my agent. He KNEW what most scouts my level didn’t.

  “And one more thing,” Hurst said. “Don’t ask for pace. Ask for repeatability. Anyone can run fast once. You want someone who still does it in the eighty-second minute after losing the ball twice.”

  “Appreciate that,” I said. “That’s more than I expected.”

  “Well,” he said, glancing at his watch now. That was a sign for me to back out. “good luck with it. Semi-pro’s a tough place to build anything.”

  “I’m learning that fast.”

  He gave a short nod, already half gone. “Aren’t we all.”

  Hurst turned back to the window crowd. And as he did, I caught movement in my peripheral vision.

  Tom Harding, a few metres away now, watching us over the rim of his glass. He was smiling.

  I knew better than to turn around. The instinct was there, but I let it burn out. If Tom Harding wanted me, Tom Harding would cross the space. So I took a glass of water I didn’t need and listened to half a conversation about training loads without joining it. Let the moment cool.

  I counted to thirty. Then to sixty.

  “Enjoying the view?” Harding said, appearing at my shoulder like he’d always been there.

  “It’s educational,” I said, trying to hide a smile.

  Harding snorted. “You’ve got a talent for understatement.” He tipped his glass back, glancing toward the windows where Hurst still held court. “So. Tell me something.”

  “Depends what,” I said.

  “What do you want out of an agent?”

  There it was: the next square on the board.

  “A better deal before a better team,” I said. “Preferably with terms that don’t make me desperate in six months.”

  “Reasonable,” Harding said at last. “I can get you short contracts, clean clauses, no bullshit add-ons. We can keep it basic; non-exclusive to start. I open doors, you don’t embarrass me by walking through the wrong ones. If it works, we formalize it.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?” I asked.

  Harding shrugged. “Then we shake hands and move on. I don’t trap people.”

  I held his gaze, then nodded once. “Alright.”

  “If you fancy it, that’s my number. We’ll talk properly when there’s time to talk properly.”

  “Cheers.”

  Harding paused, then smiled, satisfied. “By the way,” he said. “Good chat with Hurst.”

  And then he was gone.

  Ah, the power of social engineering.

  I exhaled slowly, only when the space had closed behind him. Slipping around a pillar, I checked the card and typed the number into my phone before I could overthink it.

  Across the room, Maisie caught my eye. Then we both smiled.

  She dipped her head, looked down, and pulled her phone from her bag with deliberate casualness. A second later, my phone buzzed.

  You owe me a drink :) – came the text.

  Two invitations in one day.

  It didn’t get better than this.

  Now, the only question left was . . . which node to unlock?