Page 36 of The Interns

“Thanks,” he said. “So are you gonna be working late tonight then?”

“No, I’ll probably head home around five and finish up whatever I don’t get to after the gym and dinner. You?”

He grinned sheepishly and shook his head. “The Braves game starts in,” he glanced down at his watch, “about twenty minutes, and I was thinking it’d be nice to get to a game since it’s one of the last home games before we’re done for the summer. I mean, it’s just right down the street.”

They could literally see the stadium from their office window. It was a fifteen-minute walk at most, so it only made sense to take advantage of their proximity to catch an afternoon game. “You’re obsessed, but I won’t tell if that’s what you’re getting at,” she promised.

He shook his head again. “What I’m getting at is that we should go.”

Well. That caught her off guard. She assumed he had already planned on meeting up with Dev. She looked back at her desk. She had a ton to do, but she really wanted to say yes. If anything, she’d get to see Reed at a ball game instead of dreaming up another image of him.

“So you mean, like, work off site, right?” she asked.

He smiled back. “Sure, if that makes you feel better.”

“Yeah, I’m in then.”

14

Reed

Growing up, there were a few things that were essential for the summer: weekends at the lake with his brothers, fresh corn on the cob from his grandad’s farm, ice cream sandwiches, and baseball. And even though he was a full-fledged adult now, Reed still upheld these traditions.

Summer out in the country was a much more pleasant experience than summer in the city. The concrete and crowding of downtown intensified the already stifling heat and humidity, never mind the fact that you had to face it all buttoned up from head to toe in a suit. The city had one clear advantage, though: being able to walk to an afternoon Braves game on a whim. And being accompanied by Maya Hendricks only sweetened the deal, even if she did have her nose buried in the stack of papers she’d brought with her. He glanced over at her and smiled.

She was a vision. Hair pinned back, oversized sunglasses, and her sleeveless shirt with one more button undone than when she was in the office. It gave him a peek of the dip between her breasts which felt highly inappropriate to notice. The sun made the light sheen of sweat on her brown skin glisten. Her skirt tapered over her shapely thighs giving way to her bare legs that were bent and propped on the seat in front of her.

He had to admit that he wasn’t paying much attention to the game either, thanks to her. There was a difference between finding someone attractive and being attracted to someone. Maya was an objectively beautiful woman, but there were tons of beautiful women he wouldn’t look twice at. He couldn’t get enough of all the little details he noticed after spending so much time in close proximity with her. The deep Cupid’s bow on her upper lip. The elegant angles of her collar bones. The defined line that ran down the side of her toned calves. It was also beyond the superficial. Things like the way she snorted a little when she found something genuinely funny. Her ability to explain complex laws in the simplest ways. The way she got a little nerdy when it came to learning new things through their case.

He brought her out today, though, hoping to have some fun just for the sake of having fun. No work involved. “I didn’t think you’d actually work through the whole game. You’re missing everything.”

She smiled and flipped the page. “No, I’m not. It’s top of the third, one out, Acuna is up at bat with a full count and there are runners on first and third.”

What the hell? Maya Hendricks was no rookie at all.

“You told me you didn’t follow baseball back at that luncheon thing at the beginning of the summer.” He remembered because of how she’d tried to shut him down. It had left a mark, for sure.

“I don’t follow baseball.” She finished highlighting a sentence then popped the cap back on the highlighter and looked up at him with a wide smile. “Anymore, but my father is a diehard Braves fan.”

“You mean we could have been doing this all summer? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wasn’t sure about you at first.”

“You don’t say.”

“You stole my associateship, Stanton.” She shrugged flippantly, like they were still joking around, but this wasn’t a joke to him anymore.

“I did not.”

“Yes. You did,” she insisted.

The soundtrack to his perfect summer day came screeching to a stop in his head. “How?”

“Everyone knows King and Associates only accepts one student per summer. That’s always how it’s been, and then I show up and you’re there and you’re calling our boss by his nickname. I figured Al and your dad were buddies from the country club or something.”

Apparently he was the one asshole who didn’t know. While his classmates were obsessing over summer associate positions, he unceremoniously walked down to the Carter County District Attorney’s office one day and asked if he could work with them over the summer to which they said yes. If it wasn’t for Al persuading him to expand his horizons and earn a little cash to make a dent in his student loans before settling down in that position, he wouldn’t have been here. He had always known Al was a big deal, but he never realized he was that big of a deal. Reed wiped the sweat beading above his brow.

“Shit, Maya, I had no idea. When he asked me, I didn’t think anything of it.”

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