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"I’ll, uh…see you around," she said, unlocking the door "We start on Monday?"

Hayden nodded "I’ll be in Sunday to finalize the first run, but I’ll see you on Monday, unless you wanted to get together soood Heher out Alet ready for school and my new job, but thanks…"

"Well, Monday then," Hayden said, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, with a s to his car

Liz opened her door and sank into the car with a huff She had just turned down Hayden Lane

She had never guessed she would be in this position And she had the strange realization that he probably would ask her out again Maybe he even thought she was playing hard to get or so to do about that, because she couldn’t keep obsessing so ain

The weekend rolled by undeterred by any otherthe fas with Victoria She hadof the school year Students andering all over ca to find where their classroo up the massive hill on Stadium Drive fro out fliers and trying to cajole freshanization It was a y and brilliance that few other places rivaled

Still, she found that what she hadover to a newspaper bin, picking up a fresh paper, and seeing all of the hard work her friends had put into the first issue Liz had written her article for that first week a long tio…the same paper she had received an A+ on froiven her the idea for Hayden had said that he was going to run it the first day, since that had the er to see her name in print once ain," Victoria said as they walked through the crowd in the Pit

Liz shrugged It was probably true She’d had too lad to have solad to be in the lab?" Liz asked "Plus, there are so h I’d rather be out at the pool than in a classroohteen hours, and four of those classes are sciences"

"I like science Nothing wrong with that, Miss Journalish snooty voice

"Vic, you’re brilliant," Liz said, throwing her arm over Victoria’s shoulders

"Of course I a her eyebrows

Liz shook her head, laughing lightly It felt good to be carefree…to feel as if she was in college again

Victoria snagged them an empty table while Liz fetched the first paper of the seed back to her friend Sinking into a chair, Liz pushed her blond hair off of her neck and laid the paper flat in front of her

She froze when she saw the front page Her vision blurred and she felt her body sway

There on the front page was a picture of her and Hayden in DC It was the one that they had gotten a stranger to take for theuely an e about what people had done over the summer Liz had brushed it off, since she couldn’t tell anyone about her suht twice about it

She couldn’t believe this was happening Brady had told her to be anonyet her picture in the paper And now here she ith a job lined up to ith reporters all over the country, and her picture with another guy front and center Liz knew she was probably overreacting, but she hadn’t told Brady whom she had visited in DC, and she certainly hadn’t expected for that picture to surface

"Earth to Liz," Victoria said, waving her hand in front of her face

"What?" she asked, co? You’re white as a ghost"

"I, uh… to face the paper to Victoria

"That’s fucking awesome So cool" She bent over the picture and read the little caption "You and Hayden look great together"

Victoria glanced back up at Liz with a big smile still on her face She dropped her smile and narrowed her eyes

"Is this bad?" Victoria asked

Liz nodded "Not good"

"Can you tellto stay anonymous…"

Liz knew as soon as it was out of her mouth hoeird that would sound to soht

"Are you fucking serious? This guy doesn’t want you to be known? Does he even know you’re a reporter? Does he know that reporters are in the paper? I would come over there and shake some sense into you, if there weren’t so many people around!" Victoria cried heatedly

"Victoria, back off!" Liz snapped, unable to hold her anger in "He knoho I a about s he’s asked me to do, and I would do them a hundred times over"

Silence stretched between them Liz always had a cool temperament Victoria was the firecracker ould explode at the drop of a hat

"Fine," Victoria said after a couple oing to do?"

"I don’t know," Liz answered truthfully She should call him and talk to him about it before he found out some other way She probably should have told hi, she couldn’t see chain locket at her neck and sighed She had taken to wearing the necklace Brady had given her every day She always argued with herself that it ith every outfit…that it didn’t have anything to do with him…that it was just pretty But she couldn’t lie to herself, and she couldn’t keep fro that she had told Brady that she loved hione by, she realized more and more that he had never actually told her…