The next morning, Julie was relieved to make it to her meeting at work not only on time, but with a few extra minutes to spare. After grabbing a steaming cup of coffee in the break room, she made her way into the conference room where her coworkers were starting to assemble around the large table.

"Hey Jules," Daphne, her favorite coworker said when she sat down next to her.

Raising her coffee cup to greet her friend, Julie smiled before she answered, "Hey."

"Long night?" Daphne's eyebrows wiggled suggestively.

"Yeah, right," Julie chuckled. "No, I just ran into a friend at that thing I had to go to and lost track of time," she explained.

"Alright, ladies, let's get down to business," Kate, the editor in chief, announced, cutting the brief conversation short and quieting the room from her post at the head of the table. "As you all know by now, the first Friday of every month is reserved to start planning next month's issue. Emily, what do you have for me?" she asked, turning to the blond closest to her. The girl began rattling off something about hair products and Julie zoned out.

"Miss Taylor, do you have your notes from last night?" Kate asked, shaking Julie from her thoughts.

Shifting her posture to a more upright position, Julie began shuffling the papers in front of her. "I, uh, no I haven't had a chance to jot them down yet, but come back to me," she answered before turning to her notepad and jotting down the players she had been in contact with the night before. With a sneaky smile, she wrote Tim's name at the top of the list, followed by a few others that she had briefly chatted with that she thought might be acceptable candidates for the article. She tried to convince herself that Tim really was the best eye candy on the team and that that was the only reason she included him.

Eventually, the discussion rounded the table and came back to Julie and she passed the sheet filled with her notes back to Kate. "Hm," Kate said as she pondered the scribbled words. "Sasha," she beckoned her assistant, "bring up the pictures of the top five and bring them back to me ASAP." The young girl nodded and quickly exited the room. Returning a few minutes later, copies in hand, she placed them in front of Kate to analyze.

"Let's see," Kate said as she started to flip through them, making comments about each one as she went. "Okay, let's go with this Tim Riggins, and these other two," she said before passing the pictures down the table to Julie.

Julie nodded in agreement before stuffing the printed pictures into her folder, arranging it so that Tim was on top. Chiding herself, she took them out and shuffled them around, putting a different player on the top of the pile. The meeting continued for thirty more minutes before Kate dismissed them to begin researching their individual assignments.

When Julie got back to her desk, she barely had time to breath before Daphne appeared in front of her. "You are so lucky," she commented once she sat down.

"Why's that?" Julie asked.

"Because," Daphne gave an exasperated sigh, "you get to interview these fine, eligible men and get paid to do it." She pointed to the stack of photos that Julie had arranged on the top of her desk.

Julie laughed at this; if Daphne only knew what most of these athletic types were like. "Oh come on, don't tell me you aren't excited at least a little bit," Daphne said in response to Julie's laughter.

"I'm not in the least bit excited about this," Julie tried to make her voice sound convincing, for both her sake and Daphne's. In truth, she was kind of excited about getting to see Tim again, if only to spend time around a familiar face.

"Not even for that one you put on top of the stack then shuffled to the bottom?" Julie blushed; Daphne had witnessed that?

She blinked, trying to form a response that didn't sound like a five year old's with little luck. "Nope," was the best she could come up with.

"I guess that means it's okay if I come to the photo shoot and interview then? I do love football players," Daphne was only kind of joking, but Julie didn't know that.

"Of course not," she said, suddenly defensive and slightly blushing.

"See," Daphne pointed out," you are interested."

"Am not," she said in another elementary response. "Shoo, I have work to do," she finally said in an attempt to rid her desk area of Daphne and her pressuring comments.

"Fine, fine," Daphne stood while rolling her eyes before making her way back to her desk area at the other side of the large room.

An hour later, the only work Julie had managed to get done was to schedule a date and time for the photo shoot and interviews. She had yet to get in contact with any of the player's agents because, honestly, she hated dealing with those men. Finally, though, she ran out of other menial tasks to do so she decided to break out the sheet of paper listing the agent's names and numbers that Sasha had brought to her shortly after the group meeting. Scanning the sheet, she was relieved to see that Tim's manager was Jason Street.

Julie had seen Jason a few times after moving to the city, most recently when her parents were in town in May for her graduation from Columbia. Eric had insisted on meeting up with one of his favorite former players, so one night while the Taylor's were in town, Jason met with them for dinner. At the time, she had already been offered her job at Cosmopolitan, so luckily the phone call she was fixing to make would be without the formal introductions and crude jokes that typically followed the announcement of the publications she was calling for.

"Jason Street," he answered on the third ring, the background noise indicating he was in a busy location. A quick glance at the clock told Julie it was around lunchtime which meant she was probably interrupting his meal.

"Jason, hey it's Julie Taylor. I'm not interrupting your lunch or anything am I?"

"No, no I'm just grabbing a quick bite with Timmy. What can I do for ya?" Perfect; two birds with one stone.

"Actually, I was calling about Tim. You see, my editor is insisting that we do a feature on him next month, but I don't really have a way to get in touch with him and technically we're supposed to go through agents first anyway," she explained, only rambling a little bit towards the end.

"Here, why don't you just ask him yourself?" Jason offered.

"Um, okay," Julie wasn't expecting this; maybe calling Jason first had been a mistake. She heard the phone being handed over while Jason informed Tim of who was calling.

"What's up Taylor?"

"Oh, nothing, just, uh, working," she stammered. Who am I? Matt Saracen?

"That's nice," he commented as if he wasn't sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant with Jason.

"Yeah," she was speaking like a child again. "Oh, right, I actually do have a reason for my call." Finally she was able to gather her thoughts.

"Alright," he drawled, "shoot."

"Well, the thing is...my, uh, editor picked you for this feature in next month's issue," she explained.

"What kind of feature?" He sounded intrigued.

"Just a standard interview and photo shoot thing. Apparently, you and a few of your teammates were dubbed 'eye candy' by my editor," she explained.

"And what about you?"

"What, uh, what about me?"

"You think I'm eye candy?" Ugh, he was enjoying this, wasn't he?

"I guess so?" she mumbled. Of course she thought he was eye candy; he was Tim Riggins. Everyone thought he was eye candy.

He chuckled. "I'm just playin' with you, Jules. I'll do it," he paused, "on one condition."

"Sure, anything," she answered without thinking. Please, please be something normal.

"Have dinner with me tonight."

Author's note: How about a little morning update for ya'll? Sorry that this one is a little shorter than the last, I guess it's more of a filler than anything. Thanks for the reviews and keep them coming!!!! Also, anything specific you guys want to happen as the story progresses?