On the Record

“Hey, bitch!” Victoria said when she saw Liz. “About time you got here.”

“I’ve been here for a while. I was talking to Justin. Thanks for inviting him.”

Victoria twirled her finger in the air and took another sip from the cup. “You’re friends and all that. Plus, I’m secretly hoping you’ll find someone other than your Hayden Lane,” she said with that teasing lilt she always got to her voice when she got the opportunity to make fun of Hayden.

“Oh, yes, so many better options at this party. I guess I should go back to Australia with you.”

“Don’t be jealous of my abilities. I don’t know if you can handle three,” she said, patting Liz on the arm. “You have a hard enough time with one.”

“Oh my God. Why am I friends with you?” Liz asked.

“Because I’m awesome, obviously.”

Liz couldn’t deny that her best friend was awesome, and she was happy that Justin was in attendance even if she was missing Hayden. She wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of the red hunch punch sitting in a cooler. The party picked up pace as everyone fed off of the post-summer energy that took over the room.

Massey showed up at some point with a bunch of her sorority friends. She and Justin seemed to know each other. Soon enough he had his arm around her and was regaling her friends with stories. Tristan appeared shortly after that. Liz wasn’t even sure how he had found out about it, but he only stayed for a grand total of fifteen minutes before making some excuse about homework and leaving. It was the first day of school. There was no way he had any homework.

Sava

At the first opportunity, Sava

“Hey! Sorry I’m late,” Sava

Liz chuckled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“Sorry—years of making fashionably late entrances never wore off, I guess. Also, my brother’s in town.”

“Understandable,” Liz said, ignoring the part about her brother. “Is that your Forrest?”

Sava

When Liz glanced past Forrest, she saw Justin had Massey’s back against the wall and his tongue down her throat. Liz laughed and pointed it out to Sava

“So does she, apparently,” Sava

Liz shifted her gaze back to Sava

“What were you up to before this?”

“Ugh! I had family shit after the newspaper meeting,” Sava

“Did you take Forrest to your family stuff?” Liz asked with a giggle, imagining the large, tatted man in front of her in the Maxwell house. It pinched at her heart to think about Brady being in town, but she tried to dismiss it. It wasn’t as if she were going to see Brady, and anyway she had moved on to Hayden. That was what was important now.

“No! Are you crazy? My family would take one look at him and tell me to stop acting like a teenager,” Sava

The way she said that almost made Liz laugh. There was only one person that Sava

Sava

Shit! Shit! Shit!

How could she backpedal out of this one? Liz knew there wasn’t stuff about them in the papers. She had checked and rechecked all of her sources last summer. Clay Maxwell didn’t even have pictures appear online that weren’t from when he was a kid, and the man had sure grown since he was a boy.

“How do you know Andrea?” Sava

“Um . . .” Liz said, racking her brain. “I met her at an art gallery opening in D.C. over New Year’s,” she blurted out.

“Really?” Sava

“He was there with her,” Liz confirmed. That was completely a true statement and yet didn’t answer Sava

“Huh,” Sava

Liz swallowed and cleared her mind. Nothing to think about. Nothing at all.

“What happened with Erin?”

Sava

“Sure,” Liz said softly.

“Anyway, once I told her what happened with Lucas, she started telling me how I was like a bad person for kissing him and that if he really liked me then he wouldn’t string me along and all this. Which, okay . . . she’s right. Fine. It’s not exactly what she said, but how she said it. In this holier-than-thou voice with her finger sticking out and scolding me. And she has treated me like that every time I’ve seen her since. When I’m around her, I swear I’m about to go crazy.”

Liz nodded, her mind drifting off. She felt bad for Sava

But it made her smile devilishly anyway.

Chapter 15

DROPPING THE BALL

Liz landed back in the Raleigh airport after three days spent in New York City working with Nancy at the New York Times over fall break. She had never worked so hard, but also had never had a better experience in journalism. Nancy had a knack for utilizing people’s strengths, and Liz had been knee-deep in the political reporting area at the paper. She had shadowed various people, assisted in research, writing, and editing, and had even gone out into the field with a seasoned reporter.

The experience further solidified that she was really doing what she loved. She was so often locked away in the academic setting that she didn’t always see what it really felt like to be out there. The college newspaper, while an incredible publication, was nothing compared to starting a career at a professional newspaper.