The questions went on and on and Liz just listened, answering as best she could. The only thing that she knew for certain was that they wouldn’t have any time to plan until after the election. November 3 was Election Day and then after that . . . they would have the rest of their lives.

Liz’s first day of school at Maryland in the journalism program was on Monday. She met with her advisor that morning for the first time. She took a seat in an oak chair facing his desk.

“Welcome, Liz. We’re pleased to have you in Maryland’s Journalism Department.”

“It’s a pleasure to be here, sir.”

“Feel free to call me Terry. We’re colleagues now,” he said with a warm smile. “Lynda spoke wonderfully of you when I spoke to her. She said you were hardworking, and we’re always glad to have students like that here.”

Liz smiled and imagined the conversation between Terry and Professor Mires.

“I went ahead and got together your class schedule as well as your teaching assignment for the semester. We put you with Dr. Mary Whitley’s Tuesday/Thursday ten a.m. section and you’ll have a breakout Thursday afternoons at two.”

“That sounds great,” she said, relieved. She didn’t want to have any Friday classes so that she could be with Brady during the campaign as much as possible.

“I placed you in the four prerequisite classes as you can see here,” he said, passing her a sheet of paper. Four classes starting at three thirty in the afternoon Monday through Wednesday and Friday. Her stomach dropped. She knew that she would have a heavy load, but she hadn’t anticipated a Monday and Friday class.

“Sir . . .”

“Terry, please.”

“Terry,” she corrected herself. “Is there any way that I can take the Friday editing class next semester? As you might be aware, my fiancé is running for Congress in Chapel Hill.”

He nodded. “Yes, I think I heard that. Maxwell?”

“Yes. Well, if it doesn’t disrupt my entire schedule, I’d like to be able to be helping on the campaign as much as possible.”

Terry looked through his notes and started reading a piece of paper. “Ah. You do have an interest in political journalism. Well, I’ll check with the head of department to verify that we can make an exception, but I don’t see why not. We like to tailor curriculum to our students.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Terry smiled again and laughed. “Please call me Terry.”

With her schedule arranged and everything seemingly in order, Liz moved easily back into the academic setting. Her classes were small and the classwork rigorous, but she found that, as she always had, she enjoyed the work. It kept her focused and motivated. It did make juggling her Dear Congress articles and Justin’s blog, which she’d resumed writing after the convention, much more difficult.

Sometimes as she was writing a new article, she found that she actually wished that she could be interacting on the blog. It was a strange new dynamic. Her journalism work still had followers, but it was hardly as interactive as Justin’s blog. She worked more or less as a moderator for the social media rating platform, which was Pinterest meets Goodreads for movie and YouTube addicts. She would start topics and write posts based on her conversations with others on the site. It was . . . fun. A good hobby that paid well without the stress of her career.

But she was determined to be dedicated to both as best she could without stretching herself too thin with the campaign, the engagement, graduate school, and her charity work with Barbara. Her nerves were shot just thinking about it. And two weeks after school started, when she was overwhelmed with a pile of work, Brady dragged her away.

“Come with me to New York this weekend.”

“What?” she asked, glancing back at her work.

“Just for Saturday. We’re shooting the commercial and I’d like to celebrate the engagement with Chris. Better yet, bring Victoria. Then we’ll have the maid of honor and the best man all in one place.”

“Brady . . . I have so much work.”

He stroked a hand back through her hair. “You’ll get it all done, but stressing about it every second of every day isn’t productive.”

“Kind of like you and the campaign.”

“The campaign has an expiration date.”

“A new one every two years,” she teased.

“You’re frazzled. There’s so much you want to do and not enough hours to do it all. It’s making you be less productive. Take a day off. Come with me,” he pleaded. “I want my fiancé at my side.”

God, the way he said that word. Fiancé. It rolled off the tip of his tongue, circled around her, and drew her toward him. She just wanted to sink herself into the word.

Brady, Liz, and Victoria arrived in New York City at an ungodly early hour on Saturday morning. Liz had dozed on the plane, but Brady, as usual, was unable to relax for much of the flight. A town car carried them across town to Chris’s apartment. He slid into the car with them with a yawn as a greeting.

The car pulled away from the curb and started driving them toward the studio where Brady was filming his campaign spot today.

“So, you’re finally getting hitched,” Chris said.

“One of us had to,” Brady said. He was rubbing circles into Liz’s hand, which he held in his lap.

“Well, if you knew Liz then you wouldn’t be surprised,” Victoria said. “She’s a long-term-commitment kind of person.”

“Am I?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“You are.”

“I’m glad for that,” Brady said.

“My bestie is a keeper,” Victoria said, patting her arm. “She didn’t do any of the wild and crazy things I did. Though she did fuck a senator once.”

Everyone in the car started laughing.

“More than once, I’ve heard,” Chris said.

“Oh, don’t y’all know the gossip? I’m a slutty home wrecker who caught the guy by getting pregnant.” She placed her hand on her stomach. “I’m at least six months now and not even showing. Such a mystery.”

“Well, obviously you got rid of it once you trapped him. That’s a thing,” Victoria said dismissively.

“That’s how I trapped him, after all,” Chris said, fluttering his eyelashes.