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He slept in my room with me but snuck out sometime before dawn, and as my alarm wakes me to a new day, I feel like everything has changed.

I dreaded getting up to go to work last week. It meant I might have to shadow Cooper while pretending like I wasn’t totally head over heels in love with him, but today I’m hopeful I’ll get to shadow him since it means more time we get to spend together.

I find a text from him when I turn on my phone.

Cooper: Thank you for one of the best nights of my life. Really enjoyed the movie. [wink emoji] Hoping to make one with you soon. Leaving for early workouts, hope to see you at the stadium. Also might want to change my contact name in your phone just in case.

Me: You’re now Captain in my phone, and I enjoyed the movie, too.

Captain: You’re Sunshine in mine. And you just let the captain know any time he needs to deliver the goods.

I melt a little at the fact that he calls me Sunshine. I think about his words about me being his first for so many things, and he is so many firsts for me, too. First secret relationship, first guy who has ever managed to give me multiple orgasms in one night, first guy who I’ve ever really felt connected to. First guy I’ve ever really loved. I feel a little giddy as I think he’ll be my last, too.

My morning classes seem to drag on even though I’m done before one, and I head straight for Joanie’s office once I get to the stadium for our Monday post-lunch meeting.

Once all the interns arrive, she starts the meeting. “We’re switching things up, and I’m really excited about the new plan. And our newest intern has been with HR filling out paperwork all morning.”

“Who is it?” Justin asks.

“He’ll be here any minute,” she says.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s Dylan, and then he walks in a minute later.

“Here he is,” she says. “Dylan Fisher, meet the interns.”

I wave, excited to work with Mia’s boyfriend. If he’s good enough for her, he’s good enough to be a friend here with me…even if I’m a little concerned since he knows about the history between Cooper and me.

She eyes us each individually. “Is anyone here interested in a full-time job here with the Heat after graduation?”

A few hands go up while others nod their heads. The only one who doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic about it is Justin, and Dylan looks a little shell-shocked considering he was just hired for this internship and has no idea what’s going on.

“The woman we hired to be our social media manager isn’t going to pan out, so we’re looking to fill that position. Zelda will still be here to train her successor, but as she’s pregnant, she won’t be able to be at the stadium as much as she thought she would be. We’ll be keeping her on as a content creator, but we need someone dedicated to the team, someone who’s willing to travel to away games to take footage and post to different social networks. After speaking with some of the department heads here in the office, we agreed that grabbing someone with a little experience with the team might be a great start, and with Zelda by your side, we all know one of you will excel in this position. We may be interested in hiring on more content creators as well, and so in that vein, we’ve decided to institute a competition between our interns.”

“A competition?” Chloe asks.

Joanie nods. “You’ll earn points over the next few months for different challenges, and we’ll be keeping tally of all the points. We’ll take our top three interns with the most points earned at the end and you’ll each interview for the position. If the rest of you score high enough, you might be in contention for additional content creator positions. Any questions so far?”

She glances around the table at each of us, and we’re all shaking our heads. Excitement blooms within me. I may not be the athlete Cooper is, but I still love a good competition…and I’m more and more interested in working here at the stadium with my dad and my boyfriend full-time once I graduate this spring.

“For our first challenge, I’ll be pairing you up and giving you a general topic. You’ll film a ten second video to be uploaded to social media, and I have a handful of judges who will decide which of the three videos will be posted. The winning team will receive one point each.”

She looks around the room, and we’re all listening.

“The topic for the first challenge is an inside look at the stadium. Take that however you want, and you have until lunch today to work with your partner on this challenge. In three hours, we’ll view all three videos together and choose a winner to post.” She pulls a slip of paper from a little bowl in front of her. “Justin,” she begins, and she grabs another slip of paper. “Your partner is Mackenzie.”

They look at each other and smile slyly as if they’re already conspiring how they’re going to win.

“Chloe,” she says after grabbing the next slip of paper. She takes another one out. “You’ll be with Gabby. That leaves Brian, Chase, and Dylan, and you three will work together.” She offers Dylan a smile. “Nothing like jumping right in, am I right?”

The boys first bump while Chloe and I lock pinkies.

“If you finish before the time is up, come see me. Now get to it, teams, and good luck!” Joanie says, and we all stand and head in separate directions.

“An inside look at the stadium,” Chloe says, tapping her chin once we find a seat in the back row of some seats in a section of the Heart Level.

We brainstorm what we think fans would most want to see, and we take some raw footage of the dugout, the stadium seats, and the view of the field.

And then I get an idea. “Follow me,” I say, and we head down to the weight room.

We find a very hot and sexy Cooper as he works on the rowing machine. Danny Brewer is on a squat machine nearby, and Rush Ross is lifting what looks like a fairly heavy weight on the bench press with Nick, the trainer, spotting him from above. We take some footage of the guys doing their thing since it is, after all, part of what happens in this stadium.

And as I take a video of Cooper on the rowing machine, I can’t help but think part of me is taking it for my own personal use.

He wears a hat backward on his head, and he glances up at me as I take the video. His eyes flick from my chest up to my lips before landing on my eyes, and a salacious smile lifts his lips as he narrows his eyes at me a little. The sheen of sweat makes him somehow glow even hotter than usual. He isn’t wearing a shirt, and I don’t think our female judges are going to complain about the view.

In fact, I think the way he just looked at me and shot me that sexy little smile—as caught on camera…that’s what’s going to help us win the challenge.

I make sure to get a little footage of Rush and Danny, too, and then we head back toward the offices to find a quiet place to share footage and edit it into one amazing video.

We meet back in Joanie’s office at the end of our time limit. “I’d like to introduce you to the judges,” she says as we all wait patiently to showcase our videos. “First is me, of course. And then we have Zelda,” she pauses dramatically as Zelda walks in the room, waving to us all. “Caitlin,” she calls, and Caitlin from marketing walks in with a wide smile. “Trainer Nick,” she says, and the man from the weight room comes in. “And finally, third baseman Mr. Cooper Noah.”

My chest races at the mention of his name, and his eyes find mine when he walks in. He glances away quickly, but after we made him the star of our video, I feel like we’ve got a pretty good shot to win.

We watch Justin and Mackenzie’s video first, though Joanie doesn’t say which video belongs to which team. It’s pretty obvious by the way Justin preens thinking how great it is. Theirs is mostly shots of the stadium from the outside, and they tell a story of what it would be like to walk through the doors on game day as a fan.

Brian, Chase, and Dylan’s video is next, and they show snippets of different parts of the stadium, focusing on the dugout and the locker room.

Our video is last.

We start with the outside of the stadium, and then we have a few shots inside, too—the seats, the field, the dugout. We head into the locker room for a few sweeping shots, and then we show the batting cages and finally, the weight room. We end with shots of the players. Rush first, then Danny, and then that gorgeous look Cooper gave me, the smile lifting his lips the final image on the screen.

The image that will stick in my mind for days.

Cooper chuckles a little at the end, but he has to know how freaking sexy he is.

“Wow,” Caitlin says, clearing her throat as our video wraps.

Nobody said anything like that after the other two videos.

“The judges will now write down a one, two, or three to indicate which video they think is the best.” The judges hide their papers as they write, and then Joanie collects the papers and reads them.

I catch Cooper’s eye, and he nods a little as if to tell me he voted for mine.

Joanie clears her throat. “Well, it’s unanimous. All five judges chose video three, so congratulations to Chloe and Gabby for earning a point for this first challenge.”

I hear Mackenzie scoff a little, but that’s the only reaction from the group other than Chloe and me high fiving.

The judges head out, and when Cooper passes by me, he says, “Congratulations.”

I melt.

I don’t even know why, but hearing that single word that feels like praise coming from him means everything to me.

I can’t wait to do more things to earn his praise.