On the Record (Record #2)(82)
Author: K.A. Linde

“Brady,” she began as they turned off of I-40 toward her house.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I’m going to see you again, right?”

His eyes left the road to look at her. “Of course. Why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know,” Liz said. She really didn’t. Fears ate at her from every angle. She didn’t want to worry about how they were going to make this work, but she couldn’t keep those feelings from crowding in on her.

“There are a lot of unknowns going forward, Liz. But I’ll always be your airplane, and you’ll always be mine.” Liz smiled at the reference. She had said the same thing to him on the day of his primary. “You meant it then, and I mean it now.”

“Okay. You’re right,” she said.

She needed to trust Brady and trust what they had. They would let the storm blow over, and then come to terms with what they were going to do. Thrusting them into the spotlight and expecting everything to be all right sounded to her like a recipe for disaster.

Reporters fed on stories like this. Liz hadn’t wanted to jeopardize Brady’s career before and she didn’t want to do it now. She knew he cared about her, and for now that was enough. They had been apart for a year and a half, so the last thing she wanted to do was be away from him again. However, she knew logically that it would be better for them to wait. Plus she probably needed the time away. After Hayden’s deception, jumping directly into a full-on, public relationship with Brady sounded drastic. Everything would work itself out with time.

Brady turned down her street, and Liz’s head jerked at the sight in front of her. “Keep driving,” she barked.

“What?” Brady asked.

“Just keep driving. Don’t stop. Drive around the block.”

“Okay,” he said, continuing to the end of the street and taking a left turn. “What’s going on?”

“That Audi was Hayden’s.”

Brady slammed on his brakes and they came to an abrupt halt. Liz jerked forward against her seat belt and grunted as it cut into her shoulder. “Jesus, Brady!”

“Sorry. But what the f**k is he doing here? I thought you said you broke up.”

“We did. Well, I mean, it’s over since he wrote that article,” Liz told him.

“Wait, ‘it’s over’? Have you guys actually broken up?”

“We’re not together. It hardly matters if I’ve spoken with him,” she told him fiercely. “He refused to take my call all day when the story broke. He had his f**king byline next to Calleigh Hollingsworth’s,” she spat the name. “To me that means we’re over.”

“But you haven’t actually talked to him?” Brady asked. “And who the f**k is Calleigh Holling-whatever?”

“Brady, how was I supposed to talk to him if he refused to take my call? I couldn’t. It’s over. He’s the ass**le who wrote the story about us. It’s over.” Liz massaged her aching shoulder in frustration. She didn’t want to have to deal with this, not with everything else in her head. “And Calleigh is the other reporter who broke the story with him. They used to date and now they’re working together in Charlotte.”

Brady’s grip on the steering wheel tightened and she saw him take incredible care to breathe evenly. “I can’t let you go in there. The guy is unstable and dangerous.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me.”

His head snapped to the side. “Are you serious?” he asked. “After what he did to you.”

“It wasn’t like that. Not that.”

“Well, whatever it was,” he said as if he didn’t believe for a second that it wasn’t exactly what he had said it was, “it was wrong. He’s already hurt you. I’ll be damned if I let him do it again. And what kind of guy takes a job with his ex-girlfriend? I’ll tell you. Someone who wants to f**k her while his girlfriend is hours away still in school.”

“Brady,” she snapped, shaking her head. “I don’t want to think about that. Ugh! Hayden and Calleigh. I can’t.”

“I’d put money on it.”

“Can we just drive and not talk about that?” she asked. Brady eased down the road again slowly. He clearly wasn’t in any hurry to drop her off.

“Can I take you somewhere safer?” he pleaded.

“I’m safe at my house. I just . . . I need to talk to him, Brady. He’s there for a reason, and I need to let him know that it’s over. He has to already know, but wouldn’t you feel better if I told it to his face?”

“Fine. You want to go in there, I’m going with you,” he said stubbornly.

“Are you out of your mind?” Liz asked. “Did you forget that you’re a congressman and he’s the ass**le who wrote the story about you? Do you want to give him ammunition to write about you? I certainly don’t! I thought we talked about letting the story blow over. I guarantee it won’t if you storm into my house and confront Hayden.”

Brady ground his teeth together and didn’t say anything. She knew that she was right. She needed to confront Hayden about what had happened. Brady didn’t. He would only take a bad situation and make it worse. She didn’t want anything to get worse than it already was.

“Will you just drop me off on the corner?” Liz asked, pointing up the street.

“Liz,” he pleaded.

“I’ll be okay, Brady. I’ll call you after he leaves,” she told him.

He sighed heavily and then pulled over at the end of the street. “You have the right number now?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, grabbing her purse off the floor. She found Clay’s phone in the bag and handed it to Brady. “Will you give this back to Clay? He’s probably wondering how he managed to lose it.”

“I can’t wait to give it back to him,” Brady said with a devilish smile on his face.

“Don’t be too hard on him, okay?”

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep, baby,” he said, grasping her chin in his hand and kissing her hard on the mouth.

“I know you don’t.”

“Promise you’ll be safe?”

Liz nodded softly. “Promise.”

“Good.”

They kissed again desperately, like a drowning person gasping for their last breath. Then Liz pulled away and exited the car.

With a heavy heart, she clutched her purse to her chest and started walking down the street to her house. She hadn’t checked her phone yet and at this point she was kind of afraid to. Had Hayden called? Did he have some kind of explanation? Not that it would change her mind at this point.