“What about your press secretary? Doesn’t she know who I am?” she asked, wanting to cover all the bases.

“Heather? No, she knows you’re a reporter, but she doesn’t know you by face, just by name. And I’ll deal with Heather so she doesn’t put the pieces together,” he told Liz confidently.

“Well…I still don’t have an answer to my second question,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “When do I get to see you again? I’m not going to have to wait another three weeks, am I?”

“Baby, I never want to make you wait again,” he said, picking her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, and carrying her back up the stairs to the bedroom.

Liz returned to her house the next morning bright and early. They had spent all night at the lake house and she hadn’t gotten much sleep, but it was worth it. She would do it all over again if she had the chance. It felt surreal to come back like this and have everything else be the same…when she felt so different.

She wanted to sleep, but life was still moving on all around her. Her world with Brady felt like something out of a dream, and then she woke up to reality.

The entire week felt like that. She turned in another assignment: The one she had been working on during the drive to the lake house. Today was the day she found out whether she had done any better. Overall, she had thought it was a better paper. Maybe Brady was rubbing off on her.

Well, in her opinion, he wasn’t rubbing off on her enough. She had managed to see him twice this week at various hotels—once for a pretty spectacular hour and once on Saturday morning before he had to go to work. They had started talking nearly every day, though. She wanted more, but she was already getting more from him than he had said when they had first agreed to do this.

She felt as if they were dating. Maybe they were. Yet their relationship was a complete secret, and not one person knew it was going on besides the driver who had taken her to the lake house. But when they were together, the world slipped away, and he consumed so much of her thoughts.

And still, despite their blossoming relationship, if she could even call it that, her daily life remained the same. She went into the paper every day and submitted articles to be printed, went to class, and resumed her tennis sessions with Tana. Sometimes she even found time to go to the local pool and work on her tan.

Today she had agreed to meet up with Justin after her class. He wanted to talk to her about the AV work he was doing for her for the summer. She was sure he was going to try to get more money out of her. She didn’t even have access to the meager funds, and paying him freelance was too much as it was. She was going to have to cut him loose and find someone else to do it if he wouldn’t cooperate.

Liz shoved her laptop into her bag and walked up to Professor Mires’s podium. “Great lecture today.”

“Why, thank you, Liz.”

“I was seeing if you had my paper graded,” she said with a smile.

“Ah. I actually did get a chance to read yours. I’m a bit behind with the rest of the class, unfortunately.” She pulled a paper out of her bag and handed it to Liz. “Good work. This is more on track.”

Liz opened the paper to the back and found a B+ circled in red. Well, a B+ wasn’t an A, but it was closer. She had enough weeks to bring this grade up. At least, she hoped so.

“I know it’s not what you wanted, Liz, but it’s getting there. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you’ll really start to see improvement. In my notes, I suggest broadening your scope and not focusing so much on each individual politician. Maybe work with them all together or look at it more long term or even historically. The reader should be able to relate to your arguments even if they’ve never heard of the politician. I think you’ll figure it out.”

“Thank you, Professor Mires,” she said, mustering a smile.

She walked out of the classroom with a sigh and veered toward the Pit, where she was planning to meet Justin. She pushed her hair off of her neck as the summer heat beat down on her. It had gone from comfortable to unbearable in the span of a week, and she was really missing the lake house. She knew it was for more than the cool water.

Liz pulled out her phone to text Justin that she was on her way, and she saw that she had missed a text. She opened it and saw the name Carmichael flash on the screen. Her heart skipped a beat. Brady didn’t have a lot of free time to text her, and it always made her excited to see his name, even if it was a code name.

Carrboro Town Hall in fifteen minutes.

That’s all it said. Nothing to say what was going on or if he was speaking. She checked the time on the text and saw that it was forty-five minutes ago. She was already thirty minutes late, and by the time she got to her car and drove the ten minutes to the outskirts of town she would be an hour late. She bit her lip and debated.

Go to her meeting with Justin or get the chance to see Brady. It was a no-brainer. She could reschedule.

Something came up. Can we reschedule? Liz jotted out to Justin.

We were supposed to meet in ten minutes…

Liz grumbled. She knew when they were supposed to meet. Yeah, sorry. It was an emergency. Same time tomorrow?

Just come to the party at Frat Court tonight, and we’ll talk there.

Liz rolled her eyes. How many more times could he ask her to go to his stupid parties before he got the hint?

I don’t know if I can make it. I’m swamped with work for the paper, but I’ll try. Tomorrow same place, same time, if I can’t make it?

Yeah. Whatever, Liz.

Liz sighed heavily. She could not lose her best AV person just because she didn’t go to his party. She knew that she was neglecting her work a bit to go see Brady, but Brady was also technically work, wasn’t he? Was she just rationalizing? This was ridiculous, and she couldn’t deal with it right now.

She put her phone away and tried not to think about it.

Liz parked across the street from Carrboro Town Hall, walked through the crosswalk, and rushed up the stairs into the building. A large group of people were still milling around the room, but it was obvious that whatever had been going on inside was over.

She sighed, disappointed, and searched the room for Brady. She didn’t see him and started circling, looking for someone familiar. Standing in a corner was a woman she recognized from Chapel Hill News. The local newspaper didn’t think very highly of the university paper, largely because of the editorial and opinion columns that took up the majority of the space. Liz didn’t blame them for it.

“Hey,” Liz said with an awkward wave as she broke into the conversation the woman was having with her photographer.

The woman looked at Liz as if she was trying to place her, then gave her a fake smile. “Hey, how are you?”

She clearly didn’t remember who Liz was. “I’m doing all right. I got the memo about this too late. I’m with the university press. What did I miss?”

She saw the recognition shine in her eyes.

“State Senator Maxwell is running for Congress.”

“Right. I know. I was at his press conference when he announced,” Liz said with a smile. She hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder.

“Oh,” she said, turning her head back to her photographer. “Well, he gave a speech about community outreach. It was pretty short and he didn’t allow any questions.”

“Is he still here?” Liz asked, glancing around the room again. Why hadn’t he told her about this earlier? It must have been scheduled in advance. She could have been there on time or at least seen him. Granted, she couldn’t miss Professor Mires’s class, but Liz might have gotten out of it if she told the professor it was for her project.