“Are you going to be okay?” Liz asked, sliding her hands up his chest and running her hand along his jaw. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his soft lips. It felt like good-bye.
“Let me deal with Heather and Elliott, okay? Don’t go anywhere,” he pleaded. She wasn’t sure how he expected her to go anywhere when she didn’t have a car, but she wasn’t planning on leaving him alone.
“I won’t. I’ll be here, Brady,” she said softly, trying to stay strong for him. “But what does this mean?”
“Don’t worry.” He kissed her hard. “Nothing is going to happen to us. I’m going to deal with it.”
“Brady,” she said, knowing that couldn’t possibly be the case.
“Baby, stop,” he said, clutching on to her. “I can’t handle this with all of those questions in your eyes. Just trust me.”
Liz nodded slowly. “Okay. I trust you,” she whispered as the front door banged open again.
Brady pulled away from her with a soft smile. “I’ll be right back.”
Liz watched him walk away from her as Heather entered with the short, beady-eyed guy Liz had seen following her around the past couple months. He must be Elliott…whoever Elliott was. Neither of them looked pleased.
Brady slid the office door open, and Heather and Elliott walked inside. Elliott shot one nasty look in her direction before passing Brady.
Liz sighed. Great. She was the bad guy in this.
Brady followed behind them and slammed the door shut with such ferocity it hit against the other door and popped back open.
She heard voices from the other room, which had to mean that they were yelling at one another. She glanced around and wondered whether she should put her dress back on and get ready to go. She was certain that by the end of this conversation, she would be saying good-bye to Brady and someone would be driving her home.
Liz tiptoed forward toward the door. She would rather hear everything that was being said than wait for Brady to tell her the sad news. What could be the worst thing that could happen if she got caught—she couldn’t see him anymore? That was already a real possibility.
Liz tried not to make a sound as she peered through the small opening in the door and listened in on their conversation.
“How long has this been going on, anyway?” Heather demanded. She was standing in front of the bay window, her arms crossed over her chest, leveling a hard stare at Brady.
“I don’t see how that is relevant information,” Brady growled.
“You’ve been off your game, Brady. Don’t think we haven’t noticed,” she said immediately. “Has it been going on all summer? Is this why we made that stupid appearance on campus? Because if you changed my f**king travel schedule for your little f**k buddy, I’m going to…”
“What?” Brady yelled. “What are you going to do if I changed anything for her?”
“Be f**king pissed off!” she yelled back.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Elliott said, placing his hand on Heather’s arm in an attempt to calm her down.
“He’s ruining everything, Elliott,” Heather grumbled. She turned away from them both. “I thought we were all in this together.”
“I’m not ruining anything. You’re blowing this out of proportion,” Brady said.
Liz gave a sharp intake of breath. She hoped it wasn’t heard from the other room, because Brady had surprised her. She couldn’t tell whether he was defending their relationship or simply saying that this hadn’t leaked to the press yet, so the campaign was still safe. Either way it was surprising. She felt as if everything was ruined.
“I’m blowing this out of proportion,” Heather said, whirling back around. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? You are sleeping with a college reporter, for Christ’s sake. Have you even read her terrible articles? Do you even care what she thinks of you? I read everything out there. It’s in f**king print that she thinks you’re a joke. Don’t come at me with some I want some pu**y remark and expect me to take this lightly.”
“Really, Heather? How long have we been working together? Have I ever been the guy to jump at some random pu**y? Honestly?” Brady asked, his voice cold and hard.
“Both of you stop it,” Elliott said, standing between them. “As your lawyer, I strongly encourage you to reconsider your position and calm down.”
His lawyer. Well, that makes more sense. He is skeezy enough for the job, Liz thought.
Brady took a few steps away from them, placed his hands on a shelf, and took several deep breaths until his hands stopped shaking. “Fine,” he said finally. “What are you guys doing here anyway? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Yates dropped out,” Elliott told him.
Liz’s mouth popped open. One of the competitors in the primary had dropped out of the race. That meant Brady had only one other opponent, Charles Hardy. This significantly increased Brady’s chances of winning. Hardy was a seasoned politician, but he didn’t have the financial backing, the charisma, or the name that Brady had.
“He dropped?” Brady asked, stunned by the new development.
“Yes, we drove all the way over here, because you weren’t answering your phone. We thought you would be interested to know what your competition looks like,” Heather told him. “It’s a different ball field with only one other guy. That makes it a horse race. We can win a horse race, Brady. We can win.” She whispered the last phrase as if she wasn’t sure he understood what it meant. This clearly meant a lot to her too.
“What does Alex think?” Brady asked, his voice betraying how hopeful he was about the outcome.
Liz had heard Brady mention Alex, his campaign manager, before. He didn’t like to talk about him or really anything about the campaign much when they were together, but she had gathered that Alex was a strategy man. He preferred to work behind the scenes and let Brady and Heather take the front on anything in the spotlight.
Heather glanced at Elliott and he nodded. “He said it’s a go. You push hard the next couple weeks…and I mean hard, Brady, not what you’ve been doing all summer. If you do that, you have it in the bag, and Alex knows his shit,” Heather said.
“Then I’ll do it,” Brady said simply, like it was the easiest decision he had ever made. “I’ll do whatever it takes to win. You both know that.”
“Then you’re going to have to get rid of the girl,” Heather said plainly.