Struck from the Record (20 page)

All right. Off-limits.

“So, where do you want to go to law school? Just served my time. It’s the worst three years of your life, and then there’s clerking.”

Easton laughed, but Clay really hadn’t been joking. He’d been lucky to have Andrea through it. Easton would be lucky to have Savannah.

“Don’t listen to him. It’s not all that bad,” Marilyn said.

“We’ll see how the LSAT scores come back, but I’m pretty open to anywhere. Ideally, top ten.”

Clay had wanted Yale and only Yale.

“Good luck with that. Glad it’s not me again. It’s cutthroat, but if you have the right woman at your side, it’s all worth it.”

Savannah coughed and then stood. “Hey, baby, since Clay is here, I think I’m due some sibling time. I’ll see you later?”

“Damn,” Easton said, rising to his feet. “I lose you all weekend and then tonight, too?”

“All weekend?” Clay prodded.

“I’ll tell you on the way to Franklin,” Savannah said to Clay.

“All right.” Clay bent down and kissed his mom. “Love you. Be back in an hour or so.”

“Y’all have fun,” Marilyn said. “I have so much work to do anyway.”

“Bye, Mom!” Savannah yelled from the doorway.

Clay wandered out after Savi and Easton. Savannah gave him an exaggerated long kiss at his driver’s side door and then waved as he got inside and drove off.

She sighed and then trotted over to Clay’s hybrid. He’d driven it to Chapel Hill since the gas mileage was so much better, but he already missed his Porsche and her pickup.

“So,” he said as they started toward Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill, “where are you going this weekend?”

“No one told you?” she asked, shifting awkwardly in her seat.

“Told me what?”

“You know…that Liz’s bachelorette party is this weekend, too.”

“Right. No, I did know that. Forgot about it, but I knew. Where are you going? Vegas?” he asked hopefully. He could just envision Liz at a strip club. He found it both highly amusing and extremely provocative. He would need that image for his fantasies later.

“Um…no. Hilton Head.”

Clay slammed on the brakes at the red light, and they both rocked forward. “What?”

“Jesus, Clay. Easy on the brakes.”

“Sorry. But…what? Did Brady set this up? Are y’all going to be at the house?”

“No. No. Um…it was actually Andrea’s idea,” she said softly.

“Andrea’s idea,” he repeated hollowly.

“She offered her parents’ house for the beach weekend when our house was taken by you and the guys.”

Clay was reeling. He floored it when the light turned green and got into a parking spot before he found words again.

“So…Andrea is going to be there?”

Savannah nodded as she climbed out of the car, and they started up the street. “Yeah. She’s coming with the bridal party—me, Victoria, and Massey.”

Fuck.

Andrea was going to be at Hilton Head this weekend at her place where they had first met, just down the beach from where he was staying. That was a world of possibilities.

“Just don’t tell anyone I told you,” Savannah said. “I didn’t know that you didn’t already know. I probably wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

They entered Sugarland, a small cupcake and gelato shop on Franklin Street that was everyone’s favorite dessert place in town. Savannah got pink champagne gelato, and he got a double-chocolate cupcake. They took their desserts to go and wandered the all too familiar streets.

“Oh, by the way…can I drive down with you since you’re here?” Savannah asked.

“You’re a hellion, Savi.”

She nudged him. “Pretty much. Learned it from my big brother.”

“Which one?”

“Well, we both know I didn’t learn to be a hellion from
Brady
. He doesn’t even know what that word means,” she said with a giggle. “I doubt you’re going to have any fun at this bachelor party. He’s probably going to have one drink, declare his love for Liz, and go to bed by ten.”

Clay snorted. “Oh, joy.”

Savannah giggled and then they headed out to walk around campus situated just off of Franklin Street. Savannah stopped in front of the Old Well for a picture with her half-finished gelato. Clay snapped one with his phone and then they took a selfie.

“Send that one to me!” Savannah said.

Clay shook his head, but did as he was told. “So…you and Easton, huh?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“Seems pretty serious.”

“Ew. Are you going to have a birds and the bees talk with me?”

Clay laughed. “Definitely no. I’m just curious. Politician?”

Savannah groaned and looked away. “I can’t help it that the profession he’s interested in happens to coincide with something I detest.”

“True,” he admitted. “Just doesn’t seem like you.”

“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” she said hopefully. “Law school changes people right?”

“That’s a fact.” Clay was thinking about all the couples who broke up and got divorced while he was in law school. He didn’t wish that on his sister and hoped she knew what she was getting herself into.

“Hey,” she said as they veered back toward the car, “can you try not to fuck it up this weekend?”

“Language, Baby Maxwell,” he joked.

Savannah punched him. “I mean it!”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’ll give it a try.”

Chapter 19

BACHELOR PARTY

Savannah piled into Clay’s car the next morning for the drive south. If he’d been in D.C., he would have just flown, but it was good to spend the time with Savannah. They’d argued more than gotten along while growing up. It was weird sometimes to think she was of legal drinking age and would be graduating from college in a year. He still saw her as that little kid, but she clearly wasn’t that anymore.

They spent most of the drive arguing over what music to listen to, debating which nineties band was the best, and dissecting Savannah’s misguided love for One Direction. She insisted that Harry Styles was the best, and Clay could only agree because he’d banged Taylor Swift.

Due to frequent pit stops for snacks and the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend, so traffic was atrocious, their five-hour drive turned into six, and they rolled into Hilton Head Island in the middle of the afternoon. It was already boiling hot, and the air was so humid that he could practically drink it. The smell of sea salt was in the air, and both he and Savannah were jittery while driving through downtown toward the sandy beaches.

Truly, Memorial Day weekend was the worst possible time for them to be here, but it meant they would get to stay here on Monday before driving back home. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper on the little island, and they inched along, fighting to get to their beach house.

Clay had been to Andrea’s beach house nearly as many times as his own. Every summer since he was twelve, they’d skirted the beach that occupied the short distance between their two places, disappearing in and out of each other’s houses, making the other a part of their family, no matter how messed up it became.

Andrea’s mom, Cathleen, had gotten the house in the divorce, and when she’d remarried a year after divorcing Andrea’s father, Rupert, Andrea and Clay had had to deal with her two younger stepsiblings. The only person in her family whom she still talked to was her mother, and Clay knew that was only on her terms. When Cathleen called, that usually meant trouble. Her father had remarried a few years later to someone roughly Andrea’s age, and they’d never reconciled their differences. From the start, she had said that the only thing she got from her dad was her last name.

Having Hilton Head dredge up all these old memories made him uneasy. And miss her all the more.

While he’d always felt like he was in Brady’s shadow, he had never thought about how
he
had been the one to really give Andrea a family. No rings or big wedding plans, but she had clearly become a Maxwell long before that thought had ever entered her mind.

He pulled into the driveway to Andrea’s whitewashed beach house and parked the car.

“Thank God we’re here,” Savannah said, hopping out of the car. She grabbed her purse, slung it over her head, and then started collecting her backpack and bag of snacks from the backseat.

He unbuckled his seat belt and popped his own door open. It felt like a lifetime ago since he had last been here. If only he could go back to that time when he’d been so naive and tell that little kid not to be such an idiot when it came to this beautiful girl…

Nah, it wouldn’t have mattered. He hadn’t been that jaded yet…and neither had she.

Clay pressed the button to pop the trunk and helped Savannah take out her giant suitcase. “What do you have in here?” he asked with a grunt. “Bricks?”

“Just the essentials!”

Clay closed the trunk, and when he glanced back up at the door, two beautiful blondes were staring back at him. Liz was in nothing but a red string bikini and white cutoff shorts that made her curvy body look fucking amazing. But Andrea was what stole his breath.

Fuck
.

She had on a hot-pink strapless bikini. Her blonde hair rippled down over one shoulder. Even from a distance, he couldn’t help but admire every inch of her milky-white skin. And it took a lot of self-control not to storm right over, throw her over his shoulder, and take her upstairs to fuck her brains out until she forgave him. The caveman inside him begged to be unleashed.

Fuck it.

Savannah put her hand on his arm and shook her head almost imperceptibly.
How the hell did she know what I was thinking? Is it written all over my face?

Because, right now, all he could think about was Andrea. All the old familiar emotions and memories sprang up between them. He didn’t understand how she could just stand there and not feel the heat radiating between them. It was like a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode.

Their eyes met and, fuck, if he didn’t want to make things right with this woman. He’d been sure that all was lost.
But how could it be lost? How could all this history just disappear?

He hadn’t slept with anyone the night of the inauguration, and he hadn’t slept with Gigi. He didn’t know what he had to do to prove to Andrea that he was the man for her…but he’d do it.

Andrea seemed taken aback by the intensity of his gaze, bit her lip, and then slipped back into the house. He deflated, but Liz was already barreling down the stairs toward him.

“I’m getting married next weekend. I’m getting married next weekend!” she cried.

“So I’ve heard,” Clay said, pulling her in for a hug.

Savannah started wheeling her massive suitcase over to the front of the house, leaving Liz and Clay alone to talk.

“Gah, how excited are you for the wedding?” Liz leaned back onto the trunk of his car and tapped the back twice. “Kind of a downgrade from your normal ride, isn’t it?”

Clay laughed. “The car is for trips. Better gas mileage and good for the environment. I heard you’re big on that.”

Liz brightened. “That’s true. Good for you!”

“And, to answer your question, it’s clear I’m not as excited as the bride.”

“Bride,” she breathed. “That word. Can you believe Brady and I are tying the knot?”

“Nope. Not at all. Pretty sure I tried to prevent that at every turn.”

Liz laughed and just shook her head. “So, what are your plans for Brady? You’ll watch over him, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. He’ll be fine. We don’t really have plans.”

“Strippers?” she asked curiously.

Or was it interest in her voice? He never could tell with Liz. Things that might piss off most girlfriends would go over her head. And then, sometimes, things that didn’t bother anyone else would piss her off.

“You volunteering?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “You wish.”

“Got me there.”

“It would be Victoria, if any of us,” Liz said about her crazy voluptuous best friend whom he’d heard was wild in bed.

“I’ll have to give that a go.” He winked at her.

“One, she’s taken, and two, you couldn’t handle her.”

“We’ll see about that. I bet I could give her a run for her money.”

“Hmm…” she said, assessing him, “Maybe.”

“I gave you a run for yours,” Clay joked.

Liz shook her head and bumped him with her hip. “You’re ridiculous. Get out of here, and take care of my fiancé.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She followed him back to the driver’s side and gave him a pensive long stare. “Hey, Clay?”

“Yeah?”

“She misses you,” Liz said quietly.

Clay frowned. Andrea missed him. It was like Liz was offering him a small sliver of hope. Andrea had said she missed him at his house, but then he’d fucked it up. If Liz was telling him again, it had to be because she thought he still had a chance.

“I love her,” he told Liz.

She immediately broke out into barely suppressed laughter.

“What?” he demanded.

“Clay Maxwell…in love.” Liz shook her head. “When I first met Andrea, I thought you two hated each other. But I was so wrong. You just hadn’t realized how much you loved each other yet.”

“You think I still have a shot?” he asked.

She bit her lip and then glanced back up at the house. “You just might.”

“Thanks”—he brushed a kiss on her cheek and laughed—“sis.”

“Oh, get out of here,” she said, shoving him into the front seat of his car.

He revved the engine at her as she walked back toward the house. As he drove the short distance to the Maxwell property, he had a smile plastered on his face, and a plan was forming in his mind.

He could win Andrea back.

He could be the man she wanted.

He could make her see how much he loved her and that flushing fifteen years of history down the drain was the worst idea she’d ever had.

He could do it…

He had to do it!