by K. A. Linde
“Thank you.”
“How did you get a job like that?” Erin asked.
Liz cleared her throat. “Last summer when I was following the campaign, I worked with my major professor to improve my writing. She liked the transformation I made over the summer so much that she offered me the job.”
A muscle in Brady’s jaw tensed at the mention of last summer. She didn’t blame him. She hadn’t even meant to bring it up, but it had just slipped out.
“What do you do, Erin?” Liz asked quickly as the rest of the table broke into their own side conversations. She would do anything not to directly address Brady again.
“I’m a morning anchor for Baltimore Mornings on channel 11,” Erin said with a smile that showed exactly why she was an anchor at such a young age.
Broadcast news. Not something Liz had ever been interested in. Of course, Baltimore Mornings sounded more like a morning talk show than a news program.
“That’s how we met, actually,” Erin said, placing her hand on top of Brady’s and lacing their fingers together.
Liz sat ramrod straight as she watched Brady turn to look at Erin and smile. Liz didn’t know how to deal with all of this. She was just ready to leave. Her wine couldn’t have come at a better time. She took a long gulp to avoid speaking further.
Erin seemed to want to tell the story anyway. “Brady worked with my father in the North Carolina state legislature, which is how I got the contact to interview him over Christmas on my morning talk show.” Erin’s smile brightened as she talked. Liz’s diminished.
“Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t a newsworthy story?” Savannah said, nudging Liz. Liz hadn’t even realized that Savannah had been paying attention. She had been talking to Lucas nonstop.
Brady arched an eyebrow, and Liz just opened and closed her mouth like a fish flopping around out of the water.
“Definitely a story we don’t want in the news!” Erin said with a giggle. “It seems everything is in the news. I feel like relationships should kind of be off-limits. I don’t see why it matters that Brady and I are together. But I don’t think it’s been too bad. Do you?”
“No,” Brady said. His voice came out easy and confident. Another mask. “I don’t think it’s been too bad being out in the open like this. I’d never want to hide a relationship anyway.”
Liz’s blood boiled at the blatant lie. She wanted to stab him with her fork. He was the one who had wanted to hide their fucking relationship in the first place.
He could probably see her seething at the comment, because he sent her the first fucking gorgeous smirk since they had seen each other this afternoon. It only made her want to lunge across the table more. She would throttle him before the end of the night. She was sure of it.
“Erin handles the spotlight like a pro. Don’t you, baby?”
Oh, fuck, no! Was he using the name that he used for Liz on purpose? Two could play at this game.
“I love the spotlight,” Erin said again with a smile. “I think I always wanted to be an anchor, just like you always wanted to be a reporter, Liz.”
“That’s wonderful,” Liz said, finishing off her first glass of wine. “Did you two fly here?”
“Oh, yeah. Into Raleigh,” Erin confirmed.
“How was the flight? I know there’s been some nasty weather lately. I sometimes get freaked out flying into that,” Liz said boldly.
Savannah giggled. “Brady has the worst time flying. So I hope that there weren’t any storms.”
“You have a hard time flying?” Erin asked. Her eyebrows crinkled together in confusion. “I didn’t know that.”
“I used to have trouble,” Brady corrected quickly. “I don’t have trouble with airplanes anymore. That time in my life has passed.”
That time in his life had passed. Meaning Liz was out of his life. She understood. She wished it were all that easy. It had taken her forever just to feel as if she could move on to dating . . . let alone to anything else with Hayden. God, she hadn’t thought of Hayden since she had walked into the building.
As frustrated as she was with Brady for goading her, she didn’t want to continue to have painful conversations with him. She would rather pretend he didn’t exist again than to have this pain rush through her body.
Liz let Savannah and Erin guide the conversation from there. Both she and Brady were relatively quiet, answering questions only when they were asked them. He seemed to have the same idea as Liz. They always had been in tune.
As much as Liz wanted to hate Erin, the other woman did seem genuinely nice. Besides her work as a morning anchor, she also helped run a charity that benefited inner-city schools in the Baltimore and D.C. area. She had claimed to be a philanthropist at heart, something she said she had cultivated at her time at Brown.
For all intents and purposes, Erin was exactly the kind of person a young up-and-coming politician should be dating. She was smart, outgoing, successful, charitable, beautiful.
Dinner was expensive and rather extravagant for a small location in Chapel Hill, but the Maxwells insisted on picking up the entire tab. They ordered another round of wine for the table before finishing up, but Liz declined the drink. She had promised herself only one. Brady still had a glass sitting in front of him untouched, and Erin was on her third or fourth.
“Savannah,” Liz said, tapping her friend on the shoulder. She was talking to Lucas again feverishly.
“Yeah?”
“I have to get home.”
“Oh, damn, really?” she asked, glancing back at Lucas and biting her lip.
Shit. How hadn’t Liz noticed before? Savannah liked Chris’s brother. That was what that look meant. Of course, Liz had been a little hung up on Brady, so she hadn’t been paying all that much attention.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Do you think you could call Hayden to get you?” Savannah asked. “Oh, wait—damn, he’s not supposed to know you’re here.”
Liz’s eyes found Brady at Savannah’s comment. She could see his ears had perked up at the comment, but he just stared forward as if it didn’t matter to him.
“I guess we could call a cab or something. I’m not ready to go just yet,” Savannah said, her eyes pleading for understanding.
“No problem. I’ll just take a cab.”
“Maybe Brady could take you,” Savannah said, sending her brown eyes over to Brady’s direction.
Liz’s head snapped to the side. Brady could not drive her home. This was a terrible idea. She couldn’t be alone with him.
Brady raised his eyebrows at his sister. “Me?”
“Well, you’re the only one who hasn’t been drinking, and I feel bad making her take a cab,” Savannah said, adding a pouty lip for good measure.
Brady cleared his throat and turned his attention to Liz. “How far do you live from here?” He already knew the answer.
Liz bit her lip. What the hell was he thinking? Why would he even act as if he was going to agree? The worst part was she couldn’t even object to him driving her without looking suspicious. “Ten minutes. But really, it’s not necessary. I don’t mind taking a cab.”
Brady shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s not a problem. I could take you home if you want and then swing back by the restaurant.”
“Yes!” Savannah rushed out. “That would be perfect. You’re the best older brother ever!”
Liz opened her mouth to say something and then closed it. Alone with Brady. This could be interesting.
“Um . . . thank you,” she said.
Brady kissed Erin on the top of her head, and then walked right out of the restaurant with Liz. In public. Together.
But not together.
Liz should have picked out his Lexus in the parking lot on the way in, but she hadn’t been paying attention. She walked over to it without his directing her. Her heart was thudding in her chest, and she wasn’t sure what the fuck she was supposed to do. Today was the first day in seven months that she had seen Brady and now she was going to b
e completely alone with him. Her hands shook as she reached for the door handle. She needed to get herself together if she wanted to get through this car ride.
After they piled into the car, Brady peeled out of the parking lot. He sat ramrod straight as he turned back toward campus. He didn’t glance in her direction once, but it was clear that there was something on his mind. He hadn’t agreed to drive her home for no reason. She was terrified to know where this was going.
Liz shifted her gaze to Brady’s face, trying to read him. He was completely stoic and blatantly ignoring her. She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it. She didn’t know what to say. Before today, they hadn’t spoken or seen each other since the day that she had walked out of his primary victory party. Her body was itching to be closer to him, to run her fingers through his hair and feel his lips against her skin. But she knew she couldn’t have any of those things and that she shouldn’t want them.
And even though they had only the ten minutes alone . . . the first ten minutes they’d had alone since August . . . neither of them spoke. Liz remembered the time he had come and picked her up to talk about finding her and Hayden on the cover of the newspaper. And if it’s not you, then it doesn’t matter. That was the last time they had been in a car together. Her heart ached just thinking about it. No matter what she did, thinking about Brady and their time together always hurt.
Brady pulled up in front of her house and put the car into park. The car idled quietly beneath them and still Liz didn’t get out. She knew she needed to say something. Anything. She took a deep breath and drummed up the courage to speak.
“Brady . . . ,” she whispered, finding her voice.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish by coming here tonight,” Brady said gruffly, not looking at her across the car.
“I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything. Savannah just invited me.”
“Look.” He finally turned and faced her. His eyes were hard, his campaign mask firmly in place. “I don’t know what you thought you could get out of seeing me today, but please don’t come back. You already walked out once. It shouldn’t be hard to do it again.”
Liz felt the knife twist in her chest as his words issued a death strike. She put her hand over her heart as she felt her body collapse in on itself. Walking out on Brady had been the absolute hardest thing she had ever done in her life. She still couldn’t believe that she had actually done it. But she had. It killed her to hear him say things like that to her.
It also pissed her off. Those words combined with everything that he had said at dinner tonight just made all of the pent-up anger burst out.
“I didn’t even fucking know that you were going to be here tonight. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come at all,” Liz snapped. “Okay? Does that make you feel better?”
“Much,” he growled.
“Good. Because the bullshit comments about being happy with having a public relationship and being over airplanes were really just unnecessary.”
“Oh, and kissing your boyfriend in front of me and bringing up airplanes in the first place wasn’t unnecessary, Liz?” he demanded.
“You called her baby!”
“You’re dating the guy you left me for!” he said, reaching out and grasping her shoulders roughly between his hands. Her mouth popped open. She stared up into his big brown eyes and felt her whole world narrow down to this one second. That face, those eyes, those lips. Only inches separating them. It would be so easy to just get swept away by their mounting anger.
And then the second passed.
“You should go,” he said, dropping his hands.
“You’re right.” Her breathing was uneven and her whole body was warm. The places where he had touched her were on fire.
Liz cracked the door open, stepped out, and turned to go. But then she thought better of it. She turned back around to face Brady.
“I didn’t leave you for him,” she said softly. “The moment Heather and Elliott told you that you had to ditch me, you left me for the campaign.”
Brady opened his mouth to contradict her, but she shook her head.
“Because while you might have told them that you loved me, you never actually told me.”
Chapter 11
INTERVIEW
The weeks following the conversation with Brady outside of her house almost made Liz feel as if it were August again. Her heartbreak was still prominent all these months later, and she had only spent a few hours with Brady. Only fifteen precious minutes alone. Seeing him, talking to him, having him touch her, she felt the rush of lingering emotions once more. And everything was just as fresh as if she had just walked out of that primary all over again.
Hayden didn’t say anything. But Victoria told her that she was acting weird frequently enough that Liz knew he would have to be an idiot not to notice. And Hayden was anything but an idiot. He had been the one to spot his girlfriend being looked at by Brady in a way that he didn’t particularly like in the first place.
At least he didn’t ask about her change in behavior. It was the only good thing coming out of the situation. Because if he had asked, she didn’t know what she would do. She didn’t want to have to lie to him. She didn’t like lying to him. It made her feel dirty . . . dirtier than she was already feeling about how easily she had allowed Brady to seep back in.
And it was hard enough keeping Savannah’s secret about dinner; it felt like a lie of omission. A part of her just wanted to tell Hayden everything that had happened. She didn’t know how he would react. She knew how she had reacted to his dating Calleigh, and those two had broken up because Hayden wasn’t interested anymore. That most certainly was not the reason she and Brady had stopped seeing each other.
“Hey, gorgeous, are you even listening?” Hayden asked, waving his hand in front of her face from his seat next to her on his couch.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry,” Liz said. She shook her head and tried to bring herself back to reality. She had been lost in Brady Maxwell once again. She wished it wasn’t so difficult to get him out of her head. She hadn’t seen Brady in weeks, and it wasn’t as if she was going to run back to him or anything. He had made himself perfectly clear: he didn’t want her to come back.
“I was just asking what you had planned for your birthday this weekend,” Hayden said.
Her birthday. Was it April already? When had that happened? School was almost over. Hayden would be graduating soon. She didn’t want to think about that either.
“Oh, um . . . no plans. I’d forgotten.”
“Your twenty-first birthday?”
Liz shrugged and forced a smile on her face. Shit! Had she actually forgotten her own twenty-first birthday? She had been so looking forward to it before Brady had strolled back into her life. She needed to get her shit together. “I guess I’ve been busy. I haven’t had a chance to plan anything. I’m sure Victoria will want to take me out and get me trashed.”
“When doesn’t she want to go out?” Hayden asked, slinging an arm over her shoulders and pulling her into him on his couch.
“The girl doesn’t need an excuse to celebrate. That’s for sure.”
“So, I was thinking,” Hayden began, planting a kiss on her cheek softly.
“Dangerous habit.”
He laughed and tickled her side. She jumped and giggled, pulling away from him as she straightened. She might be torn up about what had happened with Brady, but Hayden seemed to be able to put the smile back on her face.
“I thought we could go to Charlotte on Thursday.”
Liz tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. What did Hayden have up his sleeve? “I have class Friday morning.”
“I know. I thought you could skip.”
She gasped and reached her hand out to his forehead to feel his temperature. “Are you sick? You’re telling me to skip school?”
“It’s just one class, and it’s near the end of the semester,” he said, rattling off excuses. “It won’t be a big deal.”
Liz laughed, placing her hand over his lips. It was nice to forget about Brady and just get caught up in being around Hayden. “I’ll skip school for you.”
He kissed her hand before taking it into his own and lacing their fingers together. “Good. I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh?” Liz asked, raising her eyebrows. “What is it?”
“Not much of a surprise if I tell you, silly.”
“So.”
“I’m not telling.”
“What are we doing in Charlotte? Is that part of the surprise? We could always go to the coast instead,” Liz suggested. Not that she wanted to think about the time she had flown to Hilton Head to see Brady, but she preferred the ocean to, well . . . everything. Maybe if she went to the beach with Hayden, she could make new memories that didn’t hurt as much as the ones about Brady.
“Well . . . it’s part of the surprise, but I’ll tell you now,” he said, beaming at her. “I have a final interview at Charlotte Times for an entry-level reporting position.”
“Oh my God, that’s great!” Liz said, bouncing up and down with excitement.
Hayden had applied to positions at newspapers all over the country. She knew that he wanted to be at a top paper, but those positions were few and far between. He’d had a phone interview with the Washington Post, but he had heard earlier this week that he hadn’t gotten the job. He had received an offer to work in the press office where he had interned over the summer, but it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do. So he was keeping his options open until then. He would always prefer a reporting job, and as he told her over and over again, he wasn’t moving that far away from her for anything less.
“When is the interview?” Liz asked.
“It’s Friday morning. I thought we could drive down Thursday afternoon and get a hotel in the city. I’ll have my interview and then we can go out after for dinner for your birthday.”
And that was how she ended up in Charlotte that Thursday. Her birthday was technically Saturday, but she liked that they were going to go out in Charlotte, far removed from all of her memories in Chapel Hill. Maybe she would actually jolt herself out of her Brady Maxwell stupor.