“Thank you,” she said. He was already switching back over to the other line to finish his conversation.
Liz took a few steps away from the counter and sat down in the small waiting area. She couldn’t get over how weird it felt to be just Liz Dougherty again. It was almost too easy to assume a new identity. She felt lost in the deception and appeal of shrugging off the cares of her world, and now she was rebounding back to plain, average life. It was a bit disorienting.
“Liz,” Hayden called, walking out through a side door and toward her with a big smile on his face. Liz stood quickly and pulled her shorts down to a decent length.
Hayden looked exactly how she remembered except he wasn’t in his normal shorts and polo combo. He had on a gray suit with a green shirt and striped tie. His medium brown hair was tousled, as if he had been running his hands through it while working. It was a bit shorter than she was used to. He usually kept it long enough for the curls to start peeking out around his ears, but apparently the Hill had cleaned him up. His hazel eyes were closer to a green color than normal as they reflected his attire.
“Hey, Hayden,” she said, walking to meet him halfway.
“Good to see you. How was the trip?” he asked, leaning forward and giving her a hug. She wrapped her arms around him briefly and then they broke apart.
“It was an easy drive,” she told him as he continued to smile down at her.
“I’m glad to hear that. Come on back with me. I have one more thing to finish up and then I can introduce you around. Sound good?”
Liz nodded. “Sounds great.”
Introductions. How many of those had she had this summer? She could think of one—Chris. She sighed and tried not to think about Brady. It was too complicated and would only frustrate her further.
Hayden held the door for her as she walked into a long hallway. He motioned her toward the elevator and scanned his security card. The door dinged open and they walked inside. He pressed the button for his floor and the elevator shot up.
Liz stood there in silence, wondering what it was going to be like in his office. She half expected it to be a madhouse, but then she also kind of thought it might be like Hayden—calm and controlled. He was efficient, and while the university press was different from a press office, he had always run it so smoothly. It had its moments of insanity, but Hayden tended to keep things under wraps.
What she found when they exited the elevator was much closer to mayhem. The room was covered in desks that were all pushed together and covered in monitors, computers, coffee cups, and hundreds of random pieces of paper. People were running around in a bigger hurry than was likely necessary; some were yelling into phones, and others were milling around chatting with colleagues. It should have been a terrifying sight, but it only excited her. This was what she wanted in her life.
“Come on,” he said, walking down the busy hallway. He turned about halfway and stopped at a small desk way neater than any of the surrounding desks. He was possibly the tidiest person she knew. She made a mental note to clean his office before he came back to school. The thought of being with Brady on top of Hayden’s desk at the paper made her blush. She needed to get her head on straight.
“Have a seat. I have to copy this stuff and turn it in to my boss before I go,” he said, taking a neat stack of papers off of his desk. “I’ll be right back.”
“All right,” she said, sitting down in his chair. She watched the general commotion in the office. It reminded her of the school paper, but with a different kind of hierarchy. She liked the hum of the room and the general sense of urgency. She could fit in here.
Liz turned back to Hayden’s desk and examined the area. His Post-its were color-coordinated based on the topic he was working on, and that made her giggle. She wished she was that organized with her stories, but they kind of came out of stream of consciousness.
He had pictures of him with his parents and what looked like his sister. Liz had never met her, but she knew that she was older and had gone to college out of state. There wasn’t much else on the desk aside from a few crumpled papers with numbers on them. He must have still been running, because they looked like old marathon race numbers. It wouldn’t surprise Liz in the least if he was working sixty-hour weeks and made time to run marathons.
She looked through the collage of newspaper articles he had pinned to a corkboard behind the pictures. She found a few were his from the school press, a few were from other reporters, and one was from…her. Liz stared, surprised. It was the article she had written most recently for the paper; the one Hayden had given her the suggestion for. He had one line highlighted in bright yellow that made her smile grow. It was her favorite line too.
In an endless sea of overindulgence, find time to indulge in something worthwhile and make an informed, educated decision for yourself. What matters to you in here, will matter to you out there.
Liz smiled to herself. She liked that he had enjoyed the article enough to post it up where anyone could see it.
“All finished!” Hayden said, rushing back to his desk. “I knew that wouldn’t take too long. Want to meet my friends before we head out, or are you beat?” He slung a messenger bag over his head and smiled brightly at her. She had forgotten how much Hayden always smiled. It had been her favorite part of coming into work. Even when she had been exhausted and irritable, he was there smiling away and brightening everyone’s day.
“I’d love to meet your friends. Lead the way,” she told him.
They walked around the corner and stopped in front of two side-by-side desks. Two guys in suits were seated in front of their computers. They looked as if they were intent on their work, but as she looked more closely she saw they were actually chatting online and playing some video game. Liz shook her head. Men!
“Phillip! Topher!” Hayden said, clapping one of the guys on the back. “Y’all, this is Liz.”
They both looked up at once and said hi. One guy stood and introduced himself. “Topher,” he said, extending his hand. Liz shook it. He was of average build and height, with really short curly brown hair and chipmunk cheeks.
The other guy she assumed to be Phillip stood next and shook her hand. He was exceedingly tall and skinny, with military-cut hair and crooked front teeth. “Nice to meet you,” Phillip said.
“Nice to meet you too,” Liz said with a smile.
“Glad you’re finally here. Hayden has been talking about getting time off all summer. We were pretty tired of hearing about it,” Topher said, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking.