On the Record

by Linde, K. A.

  The lake was pristine and snow fell softly onto its smooth surface. It was a light snow. Nothing that was likely going to stick, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

  “It’s snowing,” she said as she walked into the kitchen.

  “Yeah, it’s been doing that since I got down here. Hopefully it doesn’t stick or we’re not going anywhere anytime soon,” Brady said.

  “That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”

  He smiled and her heart stopped. “I hope you like oatmeal, because that’s pretty much all we have.”

  “Oatmeal is fine.”

  They ate in a peaceful silence. Both knew that the conversation to come was an important one, but each wanted to prolong the state of bliss they were in for a little bit longer. Brady reluctantly cleared the dishes, and Liz sat there sipping on the water he had poured her.

  “So,” he said, leaning back against the counter.

  “So,” she replied.

  “We have some things to talk about.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe we should start at the beginning.”

  “Living room?” she asked, standing and backing into the room.

  “Sure.”

  Liz took a seat on the couch again, but this time Brady sat across from her. She hated the space between them already, but she knew why it was necessary.

  “I guess I should preface this conversation,” she began, “by letting you know you probably aren’t going to like some parts.”

  “I doubt I’ll like much of it,” Brady said, leaning back into the seat and crossing his leg at his ankle.

  Well, at least he knew. Maybe he wouldn’t kill anything along the way.

  “So, the beginning, right?” He nodded and she tried not to avoid those dark eyes. Liz took a deep breath and began. “I guess the story starts after I left your primary. I wanted you to be happy, and I didn’t want to jeopardize your election. So I left and was miserable the rest of the semester. I never told anyone what happened, and I never let anyone in. Not even my roommate. I guess after you won I realized there was no hope for us, and I just wanted to try to forget. That’s when Hayden and I started talking.”

  She cringed at Hayden’s name, and she saw Brady’s jaw clench. She didn’t blame him. Not one bit.

  “Fast-forward to October. Well, you know what happened that night.”

  “Yes. I do,” Brady said stiffly.

  God, she hated this.

  “Well, when you closed that door, I decided that nothing else really mattered. It was only the first argument Hayden and I had ever had, so I forgave him and we put it past us.”

  “Just like that?” he asked, frustrated. “I fucking broke up with Erin the next day and you just forgave him?”

  “I’m not you, Brady. I made my own mistakes,” she said softly. “I thought it would be okay.”

  Brady shook his head. “You’re entirely too forgiving. That guy is a jackass.”

  “He is. But you have to understand that Hayden had never once acted like that with me before. And you were gone.” He opened his mouth to say something, but Liz beat him too it. “I know. I left. I know. Trust me. Can I just tell the rest?”

  He breathed out heavily. “What happened?”

  “Everything was fine with my relationship, but nothing was okay with me. I beat myself up for months about cheating on Hayden with you.”

  “Over our kiss?”

  “You and I both know it was more than that, Brady. We wouldn’t be here right now if it was just a kiss.”

  He nodded, acknowledging her statement, and she continued.

  “I had a breakdown and told Victoria. She said that I should tell Hayden, because the worst thing that could happen was that he would leave me. At the time, I really thought that was the worst thing that could happen. I just wanted the weight off my chest. I wasn’t going to tell him it was you,” Liz said. Her body ached as she thought about what happened next.

  “But you did.”

  “Yes. He figured it out and I don’t even know how to explain what happened. He wasn’t himself. He turned scary.”

  Brady’s eyes narrowed considerably and looked on edge. “Scary how?”

  Liz shook her head. She couldn’t look him in the eye. She couldn’t relive what had happened. She didn’t want to tell him. She just wanted to get on with everything else.

  “Liz, scary how?” he demanded.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she peeped.

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” he said gruffly. Standing and striding over to her, he grasped her chin softly in his hands and tilted her face up to him. “Look at me. What do you mean by that?”

  Liz’s bottom lip trembled as she stared up into Brady’s concerned brown eyes. “He just freaked out and demanded details. When I gave them to him, he just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  “He made me feel even guiltier about what happened, had sex with me, and then left in the morning.”

  Brady stood very still at her words. She couldn’t read all the emotions rolling through his body, but she could see underneath it all he was pissed. “Did you want to . . . ?”

  Liz swallowed. She wanted to shake her head, but she just stared at him, the fear still reflected in her eyes.

  “Fuck!” he cried, dropping his hand and storming across the room. “Fuck!”

  “Brady . . .”

  “I’ll kill him, Liz.”

  “No,” she said, jumping up and rushing toward him. “You can’t do that.”

  “Where are my car keys?” he asked, looking around the room.

  “Brady,” she pleaded. She pressed her hands into his shoulders as he tried to walk toward the door. “Please.”

  “You want me to stay here and just let him get away with raping you?” he demanded.

  Liz shook her head. That word. She couldn’t hear that word. No. That wasn’t what it was. It wasn’t. It had been different. Just angry sex. Just hate sex. Just guilt sex. Anything but that. She could still hear Hayden shushing her as he pushed her into the mattress. A tear fell from her eyes even as she tried to hold them at bay.

  “Oh, baby,” he said softly. He wiped the tear from under her eye and pulled her into his arms. “I’m not going to leave.”

  “You can’t go after him,” Liz said, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  “I want to kill him for ever touching you.”

  “I know, but I don’t think murdering the reporter who is writing an ongoing story about you would get you reelected.”

  He kissed the top of her head and held her close. “Good to know someone is thinking about my reelection chances.”

  “Always,” she murmured.

  Brady walked her back over to the couch, and after her tears dammed up, she started her story again. At least the hardest part was out of the way. Though she knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming after that.

  “I told Hayden a week ago, and the story broke yesterday. He didn’t tell me that he was going to put it in the paper. Everything seemed normal . . . or as normal as it could be.” Brady tensed next to her, and she knew he wanted to make a remark about Hayden. “I saw the article in the paper and freaked out. I was actually with Savannah when it broke.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, so I guess at least I had someone to break down with,” Liz said with a sad shrug. “Anyway, I tried to call Hayden, but he never returned my call.”

  “Pussy,” Brady growled under his breath.

  “Yeah. Then I got a call from Heather.”

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I hadn’t been planning to call you in the first place, because you told me not to and I wanted to respect what you wanted. Then she called me and told me not to contact you.”

  “I can’t believe she would go behind
my back like that.”

  “Really? After how she reacted when she found out about us, and then with her name ending up in Hayden’s article? I’m surprised you didn’t think of it yourself.”

  Brady shook his head, trying to process all the new information. “I guess I should have thought that she would tie up everything she thought was a loose end.”

  “That’s me,” Liz said bitterly. “A loose end.”

  “You know what I mean . . .”

  “Yeah. I do. But as you can imagine, after that conversation I decided to get drunk, which is when Clay called me.”

  Brady looked at her in disbelief. “And how does Clay have your phone number?”

  “I gave it to him at your gala event that summer we were together. He’d never used it before, but remember that same night he thought my name was Liz Carmichael.”

  “So he put two and two together,” Brady said, inching away from her. He laced his fingers together and stared down at them as he tried to find words. “I know that Clay has a certain reputation. I’d hope that I don’t have to kill my brother too.”

  “Um . . . no. You don’t. He kissed me, but that’s all.”

  “You kissed him?”

  “Um . . . yeah.”

  “And he was satisfied with just a kiss?”

  “Well, no, but it’s kind of complicated. I thought that I was never going to see you again, so when I went with Clay, I was in a really low place.”

  “But you just kissed?” Brady asked to clarify.

  “Yes. He told me that you and Erin broke up, and something in me snapped back into place. I realized what I should have known all along. You were it for me. Nothing else really mattered. I had to talk to you. I had to get you to see that this could be fixed. I wasn’t broken as long as I still had a sliver of hope. Which is how I ended up stealing Clay’s phone to call you. And now I guess we’re here.”

  “That’s a lot to take in,” Brady admitted.

  “It is. That’s why I wanted to talk to you in person. I never would have told Hayden in a million years if I had thought that he would write about it.”

  “Didn’t you even think to clarify with him that this wasn’t on the record?”

  Liz tucked her legs up underneath herself and sighed. “He was my boyfriend. We’d been together for almost a year and a half. I never thought that he would do that.”

  “Goddamn reporters.”

  Liz shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I’ve never hated them more than in this moment.”

  Brady stood up and paced the room. She could see him trying to process everything she had told him. She knew he already believed her. It would be a pretty elaborate story for her to make up, and what would be the point in that? She was here. She was with him. She wasn’t about to start lying now.

  He pivoted and stared at her. He took in every aspect as his eyes roamed from her body clad in his baggy clothing up to her messy towel-dried hair to her face, open and vulnerable to him. With everything she was worth, she wished she knew what was going on inside of that head.

  “So, the real concern is where to go from here,” Brady said, his voice even and level. She could see the mask slipping into place, see the wall slamming down and closing her out.

  “Please don’t do that,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “I’m right here. You can talk to me. You can tell me what you’re thinking,” Liz pleaded. “I’m not the public. I’m not the threat. I don’t want you to think that you have to hide.”

  “How do you do that?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Do what?”

  “See through me so easily. All I did was look at you and ask a question.”

  Liz slowly shook her head. “That’s not what I see when I look at you, Brady.” She brushed her hair off of her shoulder, moving it all to one side. “You’re not the campaign with me. You’re not a congressman with me. You’re just the man I fell for, and that man tried to shut me out once. I’m not letting it happen again.”

  Brady broke her gaze and let his eyes shift out the window. “I think there was a bit of mutual fault in that instance.”

  “Yeah. I guess we were both stupid.” Liz sighed. There was so much she wanted to know. She didn’t even know where to start . . . or where exactly they could go from here. “What was it like not having me at your side at all of those events?”

  “What does it matter?” he asked, glancing back up at her.

  “I was just curious. Like, was Erin all that great? Why were you with her to begin with? She was out there in public with you, on your arm. It seemed so wrong. And you just let her talk about all of that stuff at the dinner with your parents and I just had to sit there. I mean, a morning talk show host who does charity work with inner-city kids? Really? She must have given really great head, because she sure was boring . . .”

  “Are you about done?” Brady snapped.

  Liz eeped. “Um . . . yeah.”

  “Good. Now that that’s off of your chest, let’s try to put all of that behind us and think about what we’re doing right now. I can’t change anything that happened the past year, and I can’t change any of the circumstances we’re currently in. I can only think about the future.” As Brady messed with his hair, he walked back over and took a seat next to Liz. “I want to go public.”

  “What?” Liz gasped, standing abruptly and covering her mouth. She was sure that he hadn’t just said that. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “Liz, I want to go to public. I’ve had over a year to think about what I would have done differently. I’ve missed you enough that I want to do this. I want to try to make it work. The public already knows you exist. Sure, it won’t be easy to be out there, but I’d rather it be our choice than the media’s. We didn’t go public before because I couldn’t see anything past my career. Well, now I want both. I should be able to have both.”

  Liz swallowed. She felt a bit faint. She never thought that she would have this conversation with Brady. Not in a million years. Every time she let herself think about being public with him, she had pushed the thought down and buried it. Now that she was faced with the possibility, she didn’t even know what that would look like.

  “Um, whoa. That’s . . . that’s kind of huge, Brady. I mean . . . Hayden and I just broke up. I just got the job offer at the New Yorker. I’m still in school, editor of the paper, and those articles. You’re up for reelection.”

  “Liz, I don’t care,” Brady said, standing with her. He grabbed her hands and pulled her closer. “I want to do this. All I hear is wasted time. You left. I get why you left, but I was stupid for letting it happen.”

  “I just . . . I want to, Brady, but . . .”

  “No,” he said, touching his fingers to her lips. “You want to.”

  She smiled up at him, but her stomach was in knots. This was exactly what she wanted and it scared the shit out of her. Everything had changed so fast.

  “I do, Brady. I want to be with you, but this is really sudden.”

  “I know. It’s kind of crazy,” he said. “I’m not normally a rash person. You really do fuck me up.”

  “I just . . . I know I was the one who wanted to go public last time, so I shouldn’t be hesitating about this, but it’s a lot to think about all at once.”

  Brady smiled and then bent down and kissed her on the lips. “I think I’d be more surprised if you were completely okay with everything. It’s a big decision. I’m used to the limelight. You’d have to be in it too, baby.”

  Liz froze. She hadn’t thought about that. Well, not really. She had always thought she was better behind a camera than in front of one. She preferred writing articles to working in broadcast. What would it be like to be out there with Brady?

  “Can we . . . can we wait to see if all of this blows over first? I just don’t want to be rash
and put us out there, only to be under worse scrutiny.”

  “I’ll do it your way,” he said with another tender kiss, “as long as it means you’re mine.”

  “I always have been, Brady.”

  Chapter 28

  AROUND THE BLOCK

  Brady and Liz spent the rest of the weekend locked away at his lake house. Not wanting to risk being seen by any reporters who might wander by, they didn’t leave the house. But there were few objections from either of them about that. It was nice and peaceful compared to the hellfire they were walking back into when they left the lake. Neither was looking forward to it.

  The drive back to Chapel Hill seemed to take half as long as the drive to the lake house . . . and she had been asleep for most of the drive there. Liz chewed on her nails compulsively until Brady slapped at her hands and made her stop. She grabbed his hand, laced their fingers together, and leaned on his shoulder. She wasn’t ready for their weekend of tranquility to be over.

  “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.