“Yeah. Not that often, though.”

“I love tennis,” he told her.

“Maybe we could play together sometime!” Then she remembered; they couldn’t be seen in public. Her face fell with disappointment. It would have been fun.

Brady leveled her with a look that said the same thing she was already thinking and moved on.

“I’m just saying that this is a basketball school. And think about it like this,” he said, warming to his pitch. “Everyone here likes basketball, but not everyone can play. We want to win. We want to make our school look good. So we recruit great players to represent our school, like voting for representatives in politics. We all have a common goal, and we help achieve that goal through various means—participation at games, donating money, tutoring players to help keep them academically eligible, etc. We’re all working toward the common good here, and if students took an interest in the game, in this case politics, and helped us achieve our mutual goals, then we might all come out on top.”

He had a damn good point. She had never really thought about it like that. She knew that if she wrote that article, though, she would have to start over. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would take a while.

“I see your point. It would make a great article,” she said. She was sure of it. She just had to decide whether or not that was her article. The students would probably love it…

“Well, good,” he said, tossing the papers back on the desk. “That’s my suggestion. I would have been interested in it when I was in college.”

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back into him.

“Are you finished lecturing me?” she teased.

“Baby, not even close,” he said, kissing her slowly and demandingly, until all the tension from their conversation melted from her shoulders. “I think we should go now.”

“Yeah. Like right now.” She grabbed her bag quickly and followed him out of the building.

Chapter 18

BLACK & WHITE

Her article ran the week of the Fourth of July, with only a couple weeks left before the end of the summer semester. Students were packing their bags for the long holiday, but that article still drove a high volume of readers, especially for the summer. The website went crazy with it, and Hayden called to congratulate her. Despite being so busy up in D.C., he had still been calling her more frequently, sometimes to talk about the paper, but more recently just to chat. She didn’t know whether it was because of the article she was writing, or because her planned visit was fast approaching.

Still, it was nice to get positive feedback about her work. She couldn’t wait to get this paper back from her professor. She thought it was the one that would be the tipping point for her grade.

Brady was going away with his family for the Fourth of July holiday, and she wouldn’t get to see him at all this weekend. Every year the Maxwells went to Hilton Head on the South Carolina coast after the Fourth of July rallies and events that were mandated for them to attend.

The one Brady had asked her to go to was in the early afternoon in downtown Raleigh just off the parade route. He had been extra busy ever since their rendezvous in the newspaper office. The Fourth was a heyday of activity for Brady and his father, who was in North Carolina for the long weekend. He wasn’t up for reelection this cycle, but he was there to support Brady. It made them look good having a solid family unit, especially since Brady wasn’t married. Liz cringed at the thought.

Finding parking in the middle of the afternoon on the Fourth of July was pretty much the worst experience of her life. It was blistering hot, the hottest day of the year. The air-conditioning in her car wasn’t used to handling such extreme temperatures and was having spurts of dysfunction. Luckily, she had opted for white-cuffed shorts and a slouchy red-and-white tank instead of her skinnies. She was just thankful that she had on sandals rather than heels, because by the time she found parking, she had to trek more than a mile to the rally area. She was hot and sweaty when she finally arrived.

The biggest relief was that if she was going to see Brady at all, it wouldn’t be until after the event was over. Her hair was already swept up into a high ponytail off of her neck, but she didn’t want to think about what her makeup looked like. Maybe she would have time to fix herself up.

Liz entered the park from the southernmost entrance and already found the crowd closing in. Food trucks and various activities for children lined the sidewalks. Ponies tramped in a circle with excited kids on their backs. Local high schools and Scout troops were selling American flags and red-white-and-blue headbands. She could hear a marching band in the distance and the sound of laughter and festivity all around her. She couldn’t stop smiling as she walked past a group of people carving up a watermelon. The atmosphere was contagious.

She walked to the center of the park where a stage had been constructed. A band was playing, and people had set up foldout chairs and blankets to cover the lawn in front of the stage. The local band Delta Rae was set as the concert for the evening before the fireworks display.

Liz let her eyes roam the area around the stage for where she thought the Maxwell family might be. She had yet to see the illustrious Savannah, and Brady’s younger brother, Clay, was supposed to be in town today too. Their father kept his family so under wraps; she still hadn’t been able to dig up much more than elementary school pictures of his siblings. And when she had last tried to look, she had felt creepy, as if she actually was stalking him.

As Liz walked the perimeter, she took a bunch of shots of the festivities. She could picture-catalog her activity on site. Students seemed to like that kind of thing. She slid her phone into her back pocket as she approached the stage. A gate was set up so that no one other than staff and guests could wander backstage. Liz wished she had requested a press pass, and then she could have roamed around freely.

She avoided the security guard, found a stretch of unobscured fence, and leaned over the railing to see whether she could see anything. It wasn’t exactly stealthy, but she was just curious. What she saw made her grind her teeth.

Lush red hair swished over Calleigh’s shoulder as she laughed at something a guy said in front of her. She held a microphone loosely in her hand, but she didn’t seem as if she was working at the moment. Liz hadn’t been following her work too closely, but she knew that Calleigh was working in the political division of the paper. She didn’t have her own column or anything yet, which probably explained why she was in Raleigh for the Fourth instead of Charlotte. Whoever was working above her probably sent her here because they didn’t want to make the drive. Or at least that was Liz’s guess.

Ever since that incident with Hayden at the end of the spring semester, she’d had a negative reaction to Calleigh. It was strange, considering she had always looked up to her for her work at the paper. Still, she couldn’t get over the feeling that Calleigh had snubbed her on purpose. It felt personal.

Calleigh glanced off in Liz’s direction, and Liz snapped her head back over the fence. She hoped Calleigh hadn’t seen her, but she was pretty sure she had. This was not what she needed.

“Liz!” Calleigh called. Liz sighed and turned back to look over the fence. Calleigh was walking toward her with a smile on her face. She was in professional attire, with a white flouncy blouse tucked into a red pencil skirt and heels that kept sinking into the soft ground.

“Hey, Calleigh,” Liz said.

“Surprise seeing you here! I thought you would be in Chapel Hill, or home for the summer,” she said, standing against the fence.

“I stayed in Chapel Hill. I’m taking a class and writing my own column at the paper, but I came to town for the rally,” Liz told her.

“How nice! I was talking to Hayden the other day and he said someone was covering the information, but he never mentioned it was you,” she said with a big bright smile, setting her manicured hand down on the railing.

Liz had talked to Hayden only yesterday, and he hadn’t mentioned speaking with Calleigh. Though, why would he? It was none of Liz’s business, but she was damn curious as to why he was still talking to Calleigh, when he had said that it was over between them.

“Nice. I’m sure he’s so busy with his internship, it just slipped his mind. I’ll ask him when I go visit,” Liz said, trying not to bat an eyelash or crack a smile.

“Oh, you’re going to D.C.?” Calleigh asked, her fingers curling over the fence.

“Yeah, in a couple of weeks.”

“Interesting.”

“Ma’am,” a security guard called, walking over to them, “you’re going to have to step away from the fence.”

“Oh, she’s with me,” Calleigh said, flashing her press badge.

“Does she have one of those?” he asked.

“I have hers in my bag,” Calleigh said. She gestured to the cameraman standing next to her. Calleigh walked over to her bag and produced a second press pass swinging on a lanyard.

“Make sure she wears it next time,” he grumbled. “Now, move quickly. We have to clear the area.”

“Yes, sir,” Calleigh said sweetly. She handed Liz her extra pass.

“Thanks.” Liz slipped the badge around her neck. “That was fortunate,” she said as she walked to the other side of the fence.

“Yeah. We always get one extra just in case they throw someone else on the case or we need an additional photographer,” she said with a shrug. “You can keep it.”

Liz didn’t know why she followed Calleigh. She didn’t want to be near the woman, but she had given her the pass. It would be rude to walk away now. Also, deep down she knew that this put her one step closer to Brady.

“If they’re clearing the area, that must mean the Maxwell family has arrived,” Calleigh said, stalking over to her cameraman.

Liz smiled. Brady.

“I can’t wait to see Brady’s speech. Every time he opens his mouth…” Calleigh said. “Well, he’s hot.”

Liz almost laughed. For a long time she would have never thought that anyone in his or her right mind would turn down Calleigh Hollingsworth, let alone pick Liz over Calleigh. But now, as Calleigh talked about Brady like that, Liz knew that Calleigh stood no chance next to her. It was a damn good feeling.

“Don’t you think so?” Calleigh asked.

“Up until he opens his mouth,” Liz told her with a condescending smile.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to agree with him to appreciate his good looks. He was just rated North Carolina’s most eligible bachelor,” she told Liz.

She wasn’t aware of that, but she also wasn’t surprised. He was gorgeous, ambitious, driven. Liz tried not to think too much about it. It was only a matter of time before women started trying harder to get his attention. And she didn’t want his attention diverted anywhere else.

“I’m sure someone will scoop him up soon,” Liz said wistfully.

“I can’t wait to find out who it is.” Calleigh raised her eyebrows at Liz. Calleigh seemed so confident all the time, as if she half expected Brady to find her in the crowd and start making out with her.

Before Liz had to reply, she heard a commotion behind her. She turned back to the gate she had entered, saw it open, and a pair of security guards in slick black suits walked through. The press flocked forward, pressing inward as Brady’s family filed into a private holding space.

Liz followed Calleigh through the crowd as Brady’s father walked past her. He looked dignified in a black suit, with salt and pepper sprinkled in his hair. Brady was going to age well. The smile left her face at the thought. She couldn’t think like that. Senator Maxwell’s wife was at his side, but Liz couldn’t make out much more than a short bob of blond hair before they disappeared.

Someone shoved Liz out of the way and she missed whoever walked past after them, but found a space to look through a second later. And there was Savannah Maxwell—the girl Brady had been with at the town hall meeting in Carrboro. She was dressed professional chic, in straight black pants, a red fitted tank, and a blue blazer with white buttons. Her dark hair fell stick straight to her shoulders. She looked a lot like a feminine version of Brady.