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Calleigh took a step backward, straightened out her low-cut cream blouse. Her black suit jacket was discarded in the booth. She didn’t look that drunk. She kept one hand resting on Hayden’s chest as if she needed to steady herself. Her signature dark red hair—nearly maroon—fell down in front of her shoulders, with thick, chunky bangs falling into her ever-vigilant green eyes. Was Calleigh interested in Hayden?
Liz didn’t think she stood much of a chance against Calleigh Hollingsworth.
“I’m glad you made it,” Calleigh said. “Let me introduce you to my coworkers. ”
Calleigh grabbed Hayden by the crook of the elbow and pulled him toward the booth. Liz shuffled after them.
“Hey, y’all, this is my friend Lane, the one I was telling you about,” Calleigh said. “Lane, this is Trent, Jenny, Monique, and Rick. They work at the Charlotte Times with me. ” They all nodded their heads and responded with their own salutations.
“Nice to meet you all,” Hayden said with his charming smile.
Each of the guys wore a plain, square-shouldered suit jacket. Trent had light red hair, distinct against his green shirt. Rick was dark headed and stocky, with a dark blue shirt and silver tie combination. Monique was exceptionally tall with short black hair shaved on the sides and styled into waves on top. She wasn’t exactly big, but she had a larger bone structure hidden underneath long black suit pants and a billowy black blouse. Jenny was a girl-next-door blonde, small and mousy, with a pale yellow shirt tucked into her khaki knee-length skirt.
“We’ve heard great things about you, Lane,” Monique said.
Hayden chuckled softly, his eyes darting to Calleigh and back. “Thanks. I’m sure Calleigh exaggerates. ”
“I would never,” she said, placing her free hand on his arm.
“You’re editor now?” Rick asked, assessing him. Liz saw his eyes flicker to where Calleigh’s hand rested on Hayden’s arm. So, he was interested in her. Not surprising. Everyone was always interested in Calleigh.
“Yeah. I took over this past semester when Calleigh decided to take the job with y’all, and I’m continuing through my senior year,” he told them.
“We were lucky to get Calleigh,” Rick said.
“I think the last editor y’all got from Chapel Hill was Mr. Stewart,” Calleigh said with a giggle.
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Let’s not even bring him up. ”
The group laughed, all sharing a private joke that neither Liz nor Hayden understood. She was getting tired of being anonymous and was about to speak up, when Trent noticed her.
“Hey,” Trent said, “aren’t you that girl who asked Senator Maxwell his last question?”
Liz flushed with pride. She knew it was a good thing, but it felt odd that a reporter for the Charlotte Times had noticed her.
“Uh…yeah,” she said. She took a step forward and stood next to Hayden.
“Sorry,” Hayden apologized. “This is my reporter, Liz Dougherty. ”
“Well, great job,” Trent said.
“Yeah, she’s great, right?” Calleigh said, finally including her in the group. “Lane really knows how to pick ’em. ”
Liz pushed the implication in her words out of her mind. She didn’t care one bit that Calleigh was probably talking about herself. Liz tried to look unruffled.
“That was a stellar question,” Jenny told her, leaning forward. “It’s nice to see the college papers asking bold questions. ”
“Yeah,” Trent agreed, looking her up and down. “Bold. ”
“I guess I didn’t realize how bold it was at the time,” Liz admitted with a shrug.
She took a sip of her drink. She couldn’t believe where she was and what she was doing. It was pretty amazing.
“Well, it was bold, all right,” Monique said, twirling her hand in the air dramatically.
“I thought it was a great question,” Hayden interrupted. “The kind of questions we need to be asking. Not those questions about his age and his past runs. We all know he’s young. That’s obvious. What people don’t know about is his record. I bet we’ll be hearing a lot more about it in the coming months. ”
There was the Hayden she knew. He had all these lofty ideals about how journalism should run; whether it ran that way or not was still up in the air, but he tried to keep things as idealistic as possible. She thought his philosophy kept things at the paper honest, and she appreciated the sentiment.
