Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding #2)(56)
Author: K.A. Linde

"Assume away," he said waving a dismissive hand.

"Anyway, lunch?" she asked a bright smile crossing her face.

He sighed staring down at the stack of papers on his desk. "If I keep having lunch with you people are going to think you’ve put me in the friend zone," he murmured practically quoting a line out of Just Friends.

"You are in the friend zone," she said with a giggle. "You have been for a couple weeks and it’s seemed to work out just fine. Anyway everyone knows that I’m living with Ramsey. You’re the only one who seems not to care about that."

"I’m not the only one," he murmured. "Just the only one who will admit it." He glanced back up at her flirtatiously a smirk appearing on his lips.

Lexi shrugged again nonchalantly as if she had been through this conversation before…and she had. "Doesn’t matter that you admit it. I’m still with Ramsey," she said certainly.

He set the papers aside, leaned back in his administrative chair, and stared at her. "And where is your man today?" he asked.

"He’s working," she told him with a faint sigh at the end.

"Ahh," he murmured, "Too busy to take his girlfriend to lunch?"

"Stop goading me Brandon. He’s not used to anyone being around. We had a long distance relationship for quite some time, and he can’t just quit his job to have lunch with me every day. Since you work a 9to5, you have no trouble in being constantly available especially since you don’t have a girlfriend."

"I would if you would let me take someone else to lunch," he spat back playfully.

"You know there’s nowhere else you’d rather be," she said. "So come on. I want sushi today and it’s your turn to pay."

"Fine," he grumbled only half frustrated by the situation.

The two had managed to develop quite a friendship just as Lexi had predicted that night out on Ramsey’s balcony. Brandon, of course, never failed to shamelessly flirt and throw himself at Lexi, but she easily deflected his advances. They had an easy banter, and found that they had more in common than originally anticipated. When they both let their guards down, they found that they really enjoyed each other’s company. He wasn’t exactly a substitute for Chyna, for no one could really replace her best friend, but he was a nice change in the mean time.

Ramsey didn’t approve of the relationship as he had made clear time and time again. But with Ramsey’s continual absence, Lexi had to find a way to kill time outside of her job. He wasn’t always around when she was at home, but the time they spent together was cherished by both. Lexi was certain that the decision to move in with him had been an accurate one at this point. Even though he was so busy, it was better to have the couple hours a week together then to have the distance to separate them.

Lexi paused in the doorway as her cell phone jingled in her purse. "Sorry," she mumbled fumbling with the latch on her purse. "Mom, hey, it’s not the best time. I’m about to go to lunch," Lexi spoke quickly into her phone. The sobbing that penetrated through the receiver stopped Lexi in her tracks. "Mom, are you alright? Is everything alright? What happened? Calm down. Calm down. Tell me what happened," Lexi spoke urgently her heart beating out of her chest with fear. Panic gripped her and she latched onto Brandon as he approached. Upon seeing her stricken face, he ushered her back into his office.

"It’s your father," her mother gasped through her tears.

"Dad?" Lexi moaned in terror. "What happened to dad?" Brandon rested his arm around her shoulder for support as her body seemed to be collapsing under the weight of the impending news.

"Honey, he had a heart attack," she cried out. She hiccupped a couple times into the phone a sure sign, Lexi knew, of an onset of hyperventilation.

Lexi felt a tear run down her cheek and then another one followed. She couldn’t stop them from tumbling relentlessly out of her eyes. "Is he okay?" she could barely get out.

Another round of sobbing came through the line. "I don’t know. I don’t know. I just…don’t know."

"Where is he? Did you call an ambulance?" Lexi asked taking the side of the parental figure and demanding the details.

"He went into the city for some consulting work," she sobbed. "He had been complaining that his shoulder and chest hurt, but we just didn’t think anything of it. He always has chest pains. Luckily someone was around when he collapsed. They picked up the call and told me they were calling 911." She paused for another round of fitful tears. Lexi had never quite heard her mother in such a state. "They took him to Grady. It’ll take me too long to get there, but I’m on my way. Please go and tell me he’s alright. Tell me I haven’t lost my George."

"I’m on my way now mom. I love you. I’ll call you from the hospital," Lexi told her before hanging up.

"Do you need me to go with you?" Brandon asked having heard everything through the line.

"No," Lexi said swiping at her face. "I just…I can drive."

"Are you sure?" he asked grasping both of her shoulders in his hands and staring deep in her tear streaked face. She nodded helplessly. He pulled her into a brief comforting hug. "Call me if you need anything," he told her. She nodded again and then quickly left his office.

She pulled her phone back out as soon as she was out of the elevator. Her first instinct was to call Ramsey. She knew he was busy working, but she needed to speak with him. Hopefully he would be available. Sometimes when he got so into work, he completely forgot all else including to check his phone. She pressed the speed dial number for his phone, listened to it ring four times before going to voicemail.

Lexi cursed loudly as she entered the parking garage and beelined for her car. She wanted to talk to Chyna. She was reassuring and always helped Lexi through these problems. Unfortunately she was halfway across the world at a photo shoot in Milan, and the international reception was terrible. Lexi rarely got to talk with her, and never when she was the one who called.

She peeled out of the garage and zipped towards the interstate. She scrambled for who she could call. She needed to speak to someone…to have someone reassure her. She needed a voice of reason in her panic. Brandon was nice. She could have let him come with her, but they had been friends for less than a month. This wasn’t exactly a place for her to allow him to get involved. She needed someone else…someone who really knew her.

Lexi knew she had lost her sanity in this instance when her fingers numbly dialed the next number. "Lexi?" Jack asked answering the phone on the first ring. She couldn’t help it. She sobbed into the phone just as her mother had when Lexi had answered.

"Lexi? Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened?" he asked quickly his chest pounding as he listened to her tears.

"Jack. Oh Jack," she cried barreling around cars on the interstate. "My dad had a heart attack."

"What?" he gasped. "Is everything alright?"

"I don’t know. I’m on my way to Grady right now to find out," she told him.

"Look Lexi, he’s going to be fine. Grady has some of the best doctors in the world," he told her reassuringly. "He is in good hands there."

"I know," she blubbered, "but it’s my daddy."

"I know Lex," he said lapsing into old habits easily, "but you have to be positive. You don’t know all the details. Things will work out."

"How? How do you know?"

"I don’t, I’m afraid, but I just have a feeling," he told her.

"Promise?" she begged.

He paused a second before answering. "Yes I do."

"Thanks Jack," she breathed into the phone. "That means a lot," she said sniffling and holding back another round of tears.

"Do you need me to come down there?" he asked hesitantly unsure if that was his place or not.

"No," she answered quickly. "Thank you. I don’t want to take you away…"

"Right," he responded.

"I just needed to talk to someone…someone who knows me," she said quietly.

Jack took another exaggerated pause before responding. "Well I know you Lex."

"I know Jack," she whispered.

"If you need me to come to the hospital just give me a call ok?"

"Okay," she mumbled.

"Everything will be fine," he repeated for reassurance.

"Thanks."

"Are you almost there?" he asked not wanting to get off the phone in her time of need until she had safely at the hospital.

"Yes, I’m pulling in now," she told him as she directed her car into the first available parking space.

"Call me to let me know what happens alright Lex?" he said. "I want to know that I’m right…that I held up my promise."

"Sure Jack," she said sadly as she hung up the phone. She couldn’t even consider how ironic his statement was. She raced into the Emergency Room lobby and to the woman behind the desk.

"Name," she said dryly not looking up from her clipboard.

"My father had a heart attack. I need to see him," Lexi gasped out.

"Name?" she asked turning to her computer flippantly.

"George. George Walsh. My name is Lexi. I’m his daughter," she breathed out as fast as possible.

"Yes. Mr. Walsh is up the stairs and down the hall. Room number 205," the woman told her just barely glancing at her over her horn-rimmed glasses.

"Thank you," Lexi said before darting down the hall. She skidded around the corner at near break neck speed and took the stairs two at a time. She slowed as she approached the much busier hallway. She took a light jog as she followed the line of numbers down to the one she had been assigned.

Lexi pushed open the door to her father’s hospital room and stepped in. "Daddy?" she whispered into the sunlit room tears streaming down her face again.

Her father’s eyes fluttered open briefly in recognition before closing again. His breathing was labored and he looked as if he had just run a marathon. His skin was almost a green color and he was soaked through with sweat even though the hospital room was frigid. Despite this, a faint smile appeared at the edges of his lips upon her entrance. "Hey….ba…by," he breathed out before falling silent again, the effort to speak taking too much out of him.

"Hey," she cooed rushing to his bedside, planting a soft kiss on his forehead, and falling back softly into the waiting bedside chair. "You don’t look too good old man," she said jokingly. It took everything she could to chuckle softly. She could tell it was straining him to pull up the corners of his mouth, but that didn’t stop him.

Lexi pulled out her phone and quickly sent a text to her mother to let her know that her husband was still alive. She didn’t want to leave his side long enough to make the phone call. She knew her mother was likely still in hysterics and the thought of being out of the room for long enough to deal with that seemed too much to grasp right now.

A nurse scrambled in the doorway and Lexi snapped her head around at the disruption to the quiet of the room. The only thing that had been constant was the deep wheezing breaths her father was taking and the slow beeps emitted from the machine next to his bedside. The woman stopped in her tracks when she saw Lexi sitting in the previously unoccupied chair. "Well hello dear," she said a bit too brightly for the circumstances.