Page 132 of Vegas Heat

CHAPTER 9: GABBY

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 myboyfriendfull-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.

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