𝐢𝐢.

Dodger padded into the living room with his beloved stuffed lion in tow, lying at his dad's feet with a lazy snort. Chris reached down and scratched behind his dog's ears briefly before redirecting his attention to his laptop. Surrounding it on the desk was a flurry of documents and a few post-it notes containing near illegible scribbles. To the untrained eye, it may have appeared like it'd been a long time since he'd done any tidying up—but to Chris, it was far more than that.

It was the beginnings of his first screenplay.

A daunting venture, to say the least. He'd always loved acting; it was a part of him that he didn't see waning anytime soon. But being behind the camera was a totally different experience, one Chris felt he could make just as deep an impact as he had in front of the camera. Even though the first film he'd directed in 2014 hadn't been well received commercially, that hadn't deterred him from wanting to try again.

Acting had been his bread and butter for so many years, but Chris knew he was bound to want to venture into other waters sooner than later. What better way than to pick up the proverbial pen and start writing?

A desktop Gmail notification caught his attention, and Chris clicked on it once he recognized it as an update on the Oscars date contest. The initial announcement was sort of late in the grand scheme of things, but the selection process was starting to wind down and Chris knew that it was getting closer to the time of announcing a winner.

Three Finalists read the subject line from his agent. Chris skimmed over the message content until he reached the bottom where the finalists' names were listed: Drew Rhodes, Hailey Armstead, and Faith Beaumont.

Chris' eyebrows knitted together as he read the last person's name again. Where had he seen it before? It sounded so familiar, and yet it bugged him that he couldn't recall right away.

Under each person's name was a link to a social media profile, so Chris clicked on the permalink for Faith's, waiting a few seconds as it loaded. The moment her Twitter page stared back at him, it clicked. She was the Celtics beat writer that he'd replied to a couple weeks ago. The very same one whose beauty had almost knocked the wind out of him.

If he was being honest with himself, Chris was happy that Faith had made it to the final stages. He naturally didn't know as much about her as he would've preferred but having an affinity for any Boston team was an automatic thumbs up in his mind.

Though the whole thing was for charity and it wasn't the best idea to play favorites, Chris had his fingers crossed that Faith would end up being chosen. Although Omaze picked the winner based off the amount of donations the individual had made, he wished that this one time they'd let the celeb make the choice themselves.

Calm down, sparky. Chris thought to himself as he closed the tab and refocused his attention back to working on his screenplay. You don't even know her, and the chances of her winning the contest aren't guaranteed.

Still...couldn't hurt a guy to dream, could it?

• • • •

Faith had made it to TD Garden a couple hours ahead of game time in order to save a good spot for herself on press row. Even though she was relatively well known within the Boston sports circuit, there were always the big heads who traipsed around like they owned the place and tried getting territorial with something as simple as a seat. Faith had zero tolerance for folks like that, especially white men. Cass always teased her though because despite that, Faith was the biggest simp for a white man aka Chris. In Faith's mind it was different, though.

A few of the Celtics players had come out for stretches or warm-ups. Faith set her notebook down on the seat beside her and got out her phone, walking over to an area close to the away rim in order to capture some video to tweet out.

"...And down here is usually where the press sits. Radio, online publications and stuff like that. Broadcasters are on the opposite side."

Faith was only half paying attention to the voices descending the set of stairs behind her. In fact, she barely paid it mind at all because it sounded like a tour, which employees often did for family members or friends pregame.

Her iPhone was refusing to cooperate with the angle she was trying to get. Faith huffed in annoyance, taking a few steps backwards in the hopes that it would help capture everything in frame. The only thing that ended up doing was cause her to bump into someone and lose her footing.

She would've face planted had it not been for a strong arm wrapping around her waist and holding her steady. The sudden motion caused Faith to drop her phone, but as she turned to look at the person and possibly cuss them out, the words got lodged in her throat.

There, standing in front of her with a somewhat amused expression on his face, was Chris Evans.

• • • •

so this was short but i wanted to get something out since it's been so long since chapter one! hope you all are excited for our babies to get to know each other 🥰