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47
“So, I understand that there’s a new woman in your life. Can we meet her?” Shane Aspen asked as the camera panned away revealing Cara Knox seated next to Coop on the couch, holding his hand.
In a matter of five hours, Todd “T-Squared” Taylor arranged for his young ESPN anchor client to arrive in Cleveland with a camera crew for the exclusive interview of his young career.
The first few minutes of the interview revolved strictly around Coop, his move to Cleveland, and whether or not he would return to baseball for the last stretch of the season with the Cubs. Coop ruled the latter out, for now.
Shane Aspen had been with the Worldwide Leader in Sports for almost five years, mostly as a reporter and fill-in anchor. The network wanted to send one of their veteran reporters out for the story, but Todd Taylor was calling the shots today, and his guy was about to get his big break.
“Yes, I certainly do, Shane. This is Cara Knox, and she’s a native Clevelander,” Coop said, just as he had rehearsed in his head multiple times.
“Cara, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I understand that you and Coop met in an unusual way. Would you like to share?” Shane prompted.
“Uh… yeah, you can say that it was definitely not how I ever anticipated meeting a guy…” Cara responded.
“Not to mention a famous athlete,” Shane interjected.
“Well, in reality, I had no idea who he was. I’m not a big baseball fan and I actually had to look him up on the internet,” Cara laughed, looking at Coop.
“It was a bit of a blow to the old ego, Shane,” Coop chuckled.
“Are you serious? No clue?” Shane said incredulously.
“None. Zero. If I didn’t know his name from the order slip, I wouldn’t have even known what name to look up.”
“Okay, let’s backtrack here a second. What order slip?” Shane led Cara, just as they had discussed he would.
“Well, in addition to attending Cleveland State University I also work for a restaurant called Stucky’s Place as a delivery driver. Earlier last week this guy ordered some food and I delivered it to him.”
“And you really had no idea who he was?”
“Nope. I just thought he was some kind of an eccentric rich guy living in a penthouse.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Well, because he never opened the door for me to see him…”
“Coop, is this true?”
“Sadly, yes… since I’ve moved to Cleveland, I’ve really tried to keep a low profile. I’ve had a rough year, to be honest, and I was really just trying to escape, well everything… you know, to regroup I guess.”
“So, Cara, if he never opened the door, how’d you two meet?”
“Well, he ordered from Stucky’s again on Friday,” Cara answered.
“The food must be really good at Stucky’s, Coop!”
“It really is, Shane. You need to stop there whenever you’re in town,” Coop replied, making good on his promise to Cara that he’d throw Stucky a bone.
“So did you open the door for her this time, Coop?” Shane asked.
Coop replayed the scene from Friday where he slipped and fell while running to get the door when Cara arrived with his order. Cara interjected her point of view and Shane made sure to throw in little quips and questions to help tie the whole thing together.
The couple then relayed their versions of Friday night and Saturday: Coop’s seafood boil, the car ride around town, the ill-fated fishing trip on Saturday, and even Gabby’s party.
“So, in reality, this relationship is only a few days old, but it certainly sounds like it has been a whirlwind few days at that,” Shane continued, “I say that only because of what happened after the CMZ story originally broke.”
Next, Shane referenced the original CMZ story and subsequent follow-up article that her ex-boyfriend Kenny had peddled. Shane did his best to discredit Kenny as a jealous ex looking for his fifteen minutes of fame and even provided Cara with a chance to speak about the betrayal she felt from him.
