Off the Record (Record #1)(58)

She knew Brady wasn’t going to be happy with her going to D.C. to hang out with another guy. He hadn’t been happy at the lake house when she had mentioned she was seeing someone, and she had been jokingly talking about him. Then with the incident with Justin…it was asking for trouble. She was playing this game on Brady’s terms. That was the agreement.

But she still wanted to see Hayden even though she knew it would make Brady angry with her. She and Hayden were friends after all. She was allowed to visit friends if she wanted.

“Yeah, I do. Last weekend in July, right?”

“I think exactly a month from today. Let me check.” She heard noise on the other end of the phone as he checked the date for her. “Yeah. I was right. One month. July twenty-sixth is when I get to see you. Are you driving?”

“Yep. It’s not that far.”

“Cool. I’ll have to find you parking. There isn’t much up here. But let me worry about that; tell me how you are. Tell me about the paper.”

She could hear a smile in his voice. The paper was his baby, and he was probably dying being away from it for so long. She proceeded to fill him in on everything. She informed him about her articles and what she was doing in her class to improve them. He thought that it was good for her, even if he still liked her subjective articles too. They agreed too much on the politics of the matters for him not to like them.

By the time she was getting off of the phone with him, she realized an hour had passed. Where had the time gone? And how had he been able to get away from his busy schedule for a whole hour to talk to her? She certainly hadn’t meant to distract him so thoroughly, but damn, it had been good to talk to him. Their conversation had flowed so easily. It actually made her want to call and talk to him more. Maybe she would…

“I hate to cut this short, but I really have to get back to work now. Great talking to you, Liz,” he said. She nearly corrected him about the amount of time they had been talking, but then she stopped herself. He clearly hadn’t noticed the time passing either.

“It was great talking to you too. Good luck with work. I’m sure I’ll talk to you again before I come up there.”

“I hope so.”

When they hung up, Liz stood and walked back out into the living room. Victoria looked up at her smugly, as if she knew what had happened before Liz had even opened her mouth.

“So, I guess you’re still going to D.C., huh?” she asked.

“I guess I am.”

“That’s what I thought,” Victoria said, turning back to face the television.

Liz stared at the screen, not really seeing it at the moment. Her mind was elsewhere, racing back to the conversation she’d had with Hayden. They had talked so thoroughly about his job, the paper, her articles, the campaign, and now her mind was working. She enjoyed having someone to discuss her work and what she loved most. She had missed that. She and Brady talked, but it was usually sex first, talk later. They tiptoed a lot around politics, which she didn’t have to do with Hayden. It was a nice change of pace.

In fact, Hayden had given her a good idea for the next feature. It was broader than her last article, as Professor Mires had suggested. If she could tie it back to the students, then they would be more interested in who was running for the state legislature.

She smiled, walked back into her room, and started writing.

Chapter 17

WATCHING YOU WORK

Liz spent all afternoon researching the article she was working on for the paper. Victoria complained enough about Liz’s obsessive behavior that she finally took a break from the computer to get some dinner. But even when she was away from her work, she was still thinking about it. She wanted to make sure she had all of her facts right first, but she was itching to start writing it.

Even after dinner, Victoria was insufferable. Liz had missed her while she was gone, but it had been nice having the house to herself to work. The girls sat around and watched a movie into the evening, and Liz was bouncing with jitters the whole time. Victoria finally rolled her eyes about three-quarters of the way through and told her to leave.

“Just get out of here. You’re making me nervous, and I’m not going into the lab until tomorrow,” she said, turning back to the movie.

“I love you,” Liz said, bolting out of the living room.

She grabbed her laptop off of her desk and was on her way to the office a few minutes later. Hayden had had a brilliant idea about comparing candidate platforms to the student government initiatives. Every spring semester, candidates ran for student government on campaign platforms as wide-ranging as implementing a bicycle-rental facility on campus to decreasing in-state tuition and fees. Hayden thought it would be an interesting article if she could string the two together. Show all of the policies and procedures that mirrored general governmental policies happening within the state and federally. Basically showing the campus that what they cared about here, mattered out there.

It was brilliant. She had always known why Hayden had been chosen editor, but he continued to reinforce it.

When Liz walked into the building, Meagan was sitting at her desk, which was covered in hot-pink Post-its and a collection of brightly colored candies. Liz scrunched her eyes at the display.

“Liz!” Meagan said, whirling around in her chair. “I didn’t know you were going to be in tonight. Are you hungry? Have you eaten? I’m kind of starved, and I can’t stop eating candy. We could go get something.”