Off the Record (Record #1)(72)

Liz fluttered her eyes open and yawned. She hadn’t even realized that she had fallen asleep, but she had been completely out of it for the entire car ride.

They rounded a corner into a complex of brick townhomes. This was a nice area with well-groomed lawns, a gate around the entrance, and rows of clean cars. This certainly wasn’t student housing. Brady pulled into a spot in front of one of the buildings and cut the engine. Liz looked around, suddenly feeling much more sober than she had when she had first gotten into the car.

Liz looked at Brady in confusion. “Where are we?”

Brady was smiling from ear to ear. He was beyond happy at the moment, and she didn’t know why.

“I’ll show you,” Brady said, exiting the car and coming around the side to help her out.

Brady opened the door for her and she took his hand as she stood. Seemed that the car ride had helped sober her up more than she thought. She wasn’t even that wobbly on her feet. She could still use some water, though. She didn’t want to get sick later.

He slid her hand in the crook of his elbow. Liz looked down in surprise, then around the apartment complex, as if she was worried they might be watched. “Brady, is this all right?” she asked, knowing he would get what she meant.

“Right now. It’s fine. Calm down,” he said with a smile.

Liz walked with him up the stairs to the second floor of one of the buildings. Her earlier buzz had dissipated, and she didn’t like not knowing what she was getting herself into.

Brady knocked on the door twice, and they waited there for someone to answer.

A couple minutes later, the door swung inward and a tall guy with sandy brown hair answered the door. He was wearing a UNC T-shirt and khaki shorts despite the late hour. He smiled when he saw who was at the door. “Brady! Man, I thought you were never going to show!” the guy said as the two hugged each other with pats on the back.

“Sorry. Had to pick up someone along the way,” Brady told him.

Liz was thoroughly confused. Wasn’t Brady going to freak out? Who was this guy? And why was Brady allowing them to be seen together? It felt odd standing there as the two guys acted completely normal.

“Come on inside,” the guy said, ushering them through the door, closing it firmly behind them, and locking it.

Liz walked down a hallway and into a modern-looking living room with an enormous flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. His furniture was low to the ground in blacks and whites and a splash of blue here and there.

Brady smiled big and pulled her into his arms as the guy walked into the kitchen. She complied, though she was sure she looked thoroughly confused. What about their closely guarded secret? “Liz,” he said, bending and kissing her lips lightly, “this is my surprise.”

“Um…” she said, not sure what to say.

He released her as the guy walked back into the room with a glass of water. “Brady said you might need this.”

Liz took it out of his hand. “Thank you.”

“Liz, I’d like to introduce you to my best friend, Chris. Chris, this is Liz, the girl I was telling you about,” Brady said.

She was meeting someone. She was actually meeting someone in Brady’s life—even if they were meeting in secret, in the middle of the night, at his place so that no one would know about it. This was good. This was a step. That meant that someone knew about her…someone important in his life. That must make her important in his life too.

“So nice to meet you,” she said, switching the glass over to her left hand and shaking with her right.

“Nice to meet you too.”

“He mentions you in his speeches,” she said, dropping her hand and thinking of the only time Brady had mentioned Chris around her.

Chris pinned Brady with a glare. “You’re still using that same old shit? Can’t you come up with something original? I moved to New York, just get over it,” he said, shaking his head, then turning back to Liz. “He’s such a sap.”

A sap. Liz would have never in a million years described Brady as sappy.

“People like to hear that I made the right choice by sticking around. You’re a good emotional trigger, or so the speechwriter tells me. Plus, you shouldn’t have moved so far away.”

“If I hadn’t moved, what would you have talked about?” Chris asked.

Brady shrugged. “I’m sure I could have thought of something else to make fun of you for.”

Liz stared between the two guys. She had never seen Brady act like this. Was he actually cracking jokes and laughing at himself? She had always thought he was pretty serious. Sometimes he was sarcastic with her, but that was dry humor…totally different from this.

“Seriously, convince your speechwriter to come up with new material. People are going to start noticing how full of shit you are,” Chris said as he walked past Brady and took a seat on the couch. Liz giggled and then covered her mouth quickly.

“I’ll pass along the message,” Brady said, shaking his head. He turned back to Liz with a bright, breathtaking smile on his face. He looked so happy and relaxed. “What were you laughing at, huh?”

“Oh nothing,” she said, unable to hold back her smile.

“That’s what I thought.” He reached out for her. “See what I have to deal with? Both of you thinking I’m full of shit.”