“I’m not working,” Massey said. “It’s all off the record.”
Liz sagged. She was so tired of reporters. She didn’t like being on her guard all the time. “I spend every weekend with him and it’s amazing. We just click. You know?”
Massey got a dreamy look in her eye. “I think I do.”
“Are you dating someone?”
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “But there is a guy I like. Knowing me, it won’t go anywhere.”
“You should go for it,” Liz encouraged her.
“You’re right. Maybe I will.”
“Well, I should probably get out of here. I just wanted to look at the office one more time,” Liz told her. “Probably sounds stupid.”
“No, it doesn’t. I know exactly what you mean.”
Their eyes met and they both smiled. Everything wasn’t suddenly better between them, but they at least had a chance that it would be. That was good enough for Liz. She was glad she had decided to come to the newspaper after all. Waving good-bye to Massey, she exited the newspaper building feeling just a little bit lighter.
Liz turned the corner to take the stairs and stopped dead in her tracks. She gasped. “Hayden?” She hadn’t seen her ex-boyfriend since he had walked out of her house back in February.
“Hey, Liz,” he said, walking the last few stairs to stand next to her. She took a few steps backward. “You look great.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked numbly.
“I came to see you.”
Liz just stared at him. “You drove all the way to Chapel Hill to see me?”
“It’s not like it’s the first time. I used to do it all the time,” he said with that same stunning smile he’d always had.
Liz really took a look at him. The last time she had seen him he had been messed up from finding out about Brady, outing her to the paper, and then not hearing from her for the weekend. He had looked like a wreck. He didn’t look like a wreck anymore. He was wearing pressed khaki shorts and a baby blue polo. His Ray-Bans were hanging from green Croakies and his hair was perfectly styled, a little shorter than normal. But something was different. It was almost like his hazel eyes seemed . . . sad.
“No, but that was before . . .” Liz mumbled.
“I know, but I just really wanted to talk to you. I haven’t seen you in months.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Liz said, crossing her arms.
“I know that, and I know you’re . . . with him now.” He didn’t seem to be able to say Brady’s name.
“Then why would you think to come here?”
“Because . . . I don’t know, I just wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see you. I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “I want to make things better.”
“How did you even know I’d be here?” she asked.
Hayden looked sheepish. “I checked the exam schedule for your classes, but I guess you finished early. I assumed you’d be at the paper. You live at the paper.”
Liz laughed in his face and then covered her mouth. It was a symbol of how much had changed with her that she could even laugh at that fact. “I was forced out.”
Hayden stared at her, stunned. “They kicked you off?”
“Suggested I take a temporary leave of absence,” Liz said, rolling her eyes.
“Because of the article?”
“Yes.”
“Wow, I’m sorry,” he said. Liz could see the pain in his eyes for what he had done. An awkward silence ensued before he spoke up again. “What . . . what have you been doing in the meantime?”
“Basking in the greatness of my new relationship.”
He cringed. “I deserve that.”
“Yeah.”
He took a deep breath, and if it was possible he looked sadder, like someone had just kicked his puppy.
“I think I should go. I’m meeting Savannah for lunch on Franklin. I was just passing through,” she said, walking past him to the stairs. She heard him following her and sighed.
“Do you think I could walk you?” Hayden asked once they reached the bottom.
He wasn’t going to make this easy, was he? “I think I know how to get to Franklin. It’s like a five-minute walk.”
He gave her a knowing look. “Please let me.”
“Why are you pushing this?” she demanded.
“I have to make it right sometime. Might as well start today.”
“You could have made it right by never reporting about what happened, but you didn’t. You told Calleigh and you slapped your name on it. This is worse than that, Hayden.”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said, holding his hands up. “I can’t time-travel and change things, but you’re happy now . . . with him. What does it hurt for me to walk the five minutes with you to Franklin?”
“It had better not hurt a damn thing,” she said. She walked to the exit and he kept up with her at an easy pace.
“You really do look nice today, Lizzie.”
Liz shook her head at the nickname. Too many memories flashed before her mind all at once. Their first kiss in D.C., getting together on election night, lying near a waterfall in Hawaii, walking out of the newspaper together every day. They had spent so much time together, and that one nickname brought it all back fresh to her mind.
“Flattery is not accepted,” she said, looking away from him.
“I guess I’m glad I went with nice then instead of gorgeous, because that really would have been flattery.”
“Still not accepted.” She didn’t know how many times Hayden had called her gorgeous when they had dated. He needed to stop bringing up the past. The past was over. Things might be more complicated with Brady than they were with Hayden, but at least when she was with Brady she knew that she didn’t want to be with anyone else. That hadn’t been something she could say while dating Hayden.
He smiled faintly next to her and they started walking toward Franklin Street. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable. Things with Hayden had always been easy. Her romantic attachment to him had stemmed out of adoration for the way he ran the office, and his charismatic nature. It was only now that she was with Brady that she realized so much of her relationship with Hayden had been an extension of their friendship and less of the passion that came with romance.
That had been fine at the time, but knowing the alternative, it just seemed plain to her now.