That had made it difficult to explain why she wouldn’t go out with him. He didn’t even know she’d been seeing someone. Victoria didn’t understand why, but then again, she didn’t know that the guy Liz had been seeing over the summer had been Brady Maxwell. She wasn’t ready for a relationship or really anything else with Hayden-or anyone. If he heard a whisper of this, Liz would kill Victoria.

Liz’s eyes shifted from Victoria to Hayden, standing only a few feet away lost in conversation. “And anyway, you’re the one swooning over your Hayden Lane.” “Yes, I can’t believe you are so freaked out that I went on a date with someone who goes to Duke.” Liz just shrugged. “Like the Duke Fan?” Liz chided, shuddering. “I can kiss whoever I want, Liz,” Victoria said. So Liz had taken the choice into her own hands and walked out on him, and she hadn’t heard from Brady in the two and half months since she had left. She hadn’t been okay with either of those scenarios. If she forced Brady to decide between her and the campaign, it would have hurt him and if he chose her and lost the campaign, he would resent her. It was in that moment of clarity that she had known what she had to do. And then on the night of his primary victory Brady had given his acceptance speech, proclaiming her, in all but name, as the person who had made him believe completely in this journey he was on. In love with a man whom she couldn’t be with because she was a reporter, a liability to the campaign, a liability to everything he had worked for. Her affair with the State Senator Brady Maxwell had lasted the length of the summer, and in that span of time she had fallen unequivocally in love with him. Gah! Did Victoria have to bring this up again? How often had they had this conversation since she and her editor at the paper had shared that heated kiss over the summer? “Coming from the girl who will kiss anyone!” Liz cried. “That’s like saying liking the way Hayden kissed you and liking Hayden are two different things.” “Liking the effects of alcohol and liking alcohol are two different things.” At least we both agree on alcohol,” she said, holding up her glass. “Some things are important to you and some things are important to me. “I’ve only been working toward this, oh, I don’t know, all year.” on election night.” Victoria tossed her dark brown hair off her shoulder and looked at Liz beneath thick black lashes coated in mascara.

“I didn’t know it was to a newspaper party. “You’re the one who said that you wanted to go out with me tonight,” Liz reminded her. She looked as gorgeous as ever in a skintight black dress covering her voluptuous body, and bright red heels to match her cherry red lips. Liz’s best friend was standing against the bar with a drink in her hot-pink-manicured hand. I can’t believe you dragged me to this party,” Victoria said.

On the Record by K.A. Linde