Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding #2)(65)
Author: K.A. Linde

Taking a deep breath, she did the one thing that she could think of even though she knew this wasn’t going to be good for her either. She picked up her phone and dialed Chyna’s number. The line was eerily quiet for a Friday night when Chyna answered. "Hey chica," Chyna said happily into the phone. Lexi had no idea what was going on. Last she had checked, Chyna was normally out partying and drinking every weekend since she had returned from Milan. Lexi couldn’t understand why she would be somewhere quiet already.

"Chyna, it’s so good to talk to you," Lexi said more exhausted and desperate than she had intended.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Chyna asked dreamily seeming to read her mood. Lexi quickly filled her in on the situation at hand. She told her about Jack doubting the wedding, about the bachelorette party, about Ramsey having been with Maddie, about him agreeing to this company with Parker. Chyna listened the whole time without a word. Lexi didn’t know what to make of it. After she finished, Chyna sighed heavily. "You’re determined to get yourself in trouble aren’t you?"

Lexi paused and actually thought about what her friend was saying. She kind of was determined to get herself in trouble. Why was she always in these miserable situations? Was it more her fault than anything? She didn’t want to contemplate it. There was too much to think about. "I guess so."

"I knew this would happen," Chyna said with a dramatic sigh. "I told you not to go see him, not to go to this wedding."

"I know."

"You know but you don’t listen. You never listen Alexa," she said exasperated.

Lexi knew she was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. "I guess."

"No, you know," Chyna chided her. "You know he’s bad for you or at least that he lied to you on multiple occasions just like you knew that Jack was a philandering ass. You let these guys use you up until there’s so little of you left I can’t even find my best friend." Lexi nodded mournfully even though she knew that Chyna couldn’t see her. "It’s worse this time because you know better. Ramsey is not Jack and yet you allowed him to do this to you all the same."

"I know Chyna," Lexi said sadly. "I know I did."

"Now you can’t just walk away from it all. You put yourself in this position and you are going to get yourself out of it. Do you love him?" she asked abruptly throwing Lexi off guard.

"Yes," she answered without taking the second to think about it.

Chyna sighed again, but different this time. She seemed almost resigned to Lexi’s inflexibility, to her determination when it came to men that were bad for her, men that she allowed to hurt her. "Then you can’t run away from this Alexa."

"I wasn’t…"

"Yes you were! Don’t you dare lie to me!" Chyna said barely raising her voice but somehow making it more commanding than Lexi had ever heard before. "You were calling me for a way out. Well I don’t have one. You need to talk to him! You need to get your answers. Just don’t do it like you did with Jack last year."

"I wouldn’t…it’s not the same," Lexi said meekly.

"No it’s not," Chyna agreed willingly. "You’re not infatuated with Ramsey. The element of obsession is out of the picture which might be the best thing that could happen for you. If you really love him and not the way with Jack where he infects your very being, then you need to clear the air. At least then you’ll never have to wonder. You’ll never have to think about what it could have been."

Lexi knew she was right…hated to admit that she was right. She wanted to run. She wanted to high tail it in the opposite direction and not look back. The last thing she wanted to do was face down the man that she loved to find out once and for all why he had done this to her. Why he continued to lie to her. Why he continued to put her second best in his life. She wanted to be the strong confident woman that she knew she could be, but it was so difficult. The thought of confronting all of her fears left her frantic.

"I can practically hear your brain working over the line. What are you going to do?" Chyna asked.

Lexi sighed heavily circling the rather clean bathroom. She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to fly back to New York and binge on chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with her best friend for the next couple days. But she also knew what she needed to do. She needed to stay and see this thing out. Wasn’t that the whole reason she had gone through all this mess this week to begin with?

It wasn’t going to be like the time with Jack. She couldn’t possibly imagine Ramsey doing anything so terrible as proposing to Parker or something equally as ridiculous. She didn’t trust Parker. She didn’t particularly prefer them to be together, but Lexi didn’t think they were at that stage. If there were any more secrets that she didn’t know about, she wasn’t sure how she would be able to handle it. But she knew now that she had to handle it.

"I’m going to stay," Lexi said with a note of finality in her decision.

Chyna let out a deep breath. "Thank God. I don’t have to cancel the airlines tickets."

Lexi laughed at that statement. Chyna had so much money that she would probably just never get around to canceling the tickets. She wasn’t concerned with that at all. However, this was the first Lexi had heard about her having airline tickets. "Where are you going?"

"Atlanta silly. You thought I was going to make you go through that wedding alone?" Chyna asked as if this was the most ridiculous thing she had ever considered.

"You’re coming here?" Lexi asked loving how well her best friend knew her.

"Yes, well, I guess I should tell you the news," Chyna said almost hesitantly. Lexi waited anxiously for Chyna to explain. "Adam and I are kind of trying to be more serious again," she almost whispered.

Lexi’s stomach dropped straight out of her body. She gulped hard taken off guard by the sudden revelation from her friend. Her and Adam had decided not to date once she had gone to Milan, and Lexi had more or less thought it was over between them. Chyna clearly still had a thing for him even if she hadn’t admitted it, but she hadn’t thought they had been seeing each other since they had been back. Chyna had been back to her old self of partying and random guys every couple nights. "Re…really?" she stammered out. "When…uh when did you guys start talking again?"

"I guess when you left," Chyna said and Lexi could hear the smile in her voice.

"Oh…uh that’s great Chyna. I kind of thought that you and Adam were done."

"Me too. He’d been kind of aloof since we took our break, but this week has been better. He’s coming to Atlanta with me actually. He said that he wanted to be my date and said something about needing to talk to you."

Lexi gulped. "Did he mention what it was?"

"I don’t remember," she said waving away the statement. "Didn’t seem that important at the time."

"I’m sure it’s nothing," she murmured into the phone thankful that Chyna wasn’t listening too clearly to her tone.

"Well we’ll be in tomorrow before the wedding. Call me and let me know how things go with Ramsey. Love ya chica," she said before ending the call.

Lexi leaned back against the cold marble counter top and allowed her vision to go hazy and her breathing to slow. That conversation had done less to prepare her for her conversation with Ramsey than she had thought. It suddenly felt like everything was starting to catch up with her. She hadn’t wanted to think about anything else when she was mentally preparing herself to deal with Ramsey. Yet here she was lost in her own world unable to get out of her own mind. She had so much going through her mind that she would have to steel her mind for what was about to happen over the next day.

The door creaked open and an elderly woman walked in. She waddled over to a stall keeping her eyes downcast as if she didn’t want to know for what reason Lexi could possibly be leaning against the counter, glassy-eyed, and unmoving. Lexi was sort of grateful that social propriety dictated that people stay out of each other’s business. The woman washed her hands and made a hasty exit. Just as the door was swinging closed, Lexi heard a voice that she had been anticipating.

"Yes a woman in the restroom fits that description," the woman said in a high-pitched voice as she teetered past Ramsey.

Lexi took a deep breath before following the woman out of the room. "I’m right here." She was surprised to find that her voice was calm and strong. "We need to talk," she said arching one eyebrow at Ramsey as he stood in front of the bathroom door. She nearly smiled at the irony of seeing him in front of a bathroom since their first "real" meeting had been in the same location.

He ran his hand back through his hair and looked down at her sheepishly. "Yeah we do. Can we go somewhere?" he breathed out.

"Where?" she asked staring up into his face. She could tell that he was worried about how this conversation was going to affect their relationship. She wondered if he had noticed her slip out the back immediately or if it had taken a minute to notice her departure. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off of him and Parker standing so comfortably next to each other, but she had no way of knowing his reaction or his thoughts. She had no idea what he was thinking about at all.

"My place," he said immediately. "I want to get out of here."

"Should we bring Parker along to verify your story?" she asked maliciously. She just couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t hold it back. Who knew if when they got back to his place he was even going to tell her the truth? Could she trust that he wasn’t going to just lie to make himself look good or to hide what actually happened? He had done that before. Clearly he had done it at least sometime recently to keep her from knowing about this job.

"No, we don’t need Parker to have a legitimate conversation. I’ve been wanting to talk to you all week, but you kept postponing this moment. And I had no idea Bekah…" he paused midsentence and released a sigh. "You know what? Let’s just talk about this at my place. I’ll pull the car around," he said with a note of finality and walked towards the door without looking to see if she was following.

She was a little surprised that he was so determined to talk to her about this. She had been avoiding the much needed conversation, but it wasn’t like he was exactly eager to tell her all of this either. After the way their last talk had gone, she couldn’t really blame him. Lexi glanced back at the rehearsal dinner. Someone had left one of the doors propped open and she could see people milling around inside, talking, and carrying on. Parker’s body appeared at the entrance and somehow even though the room was dim and Parker had no way of knowing Lexi was even standing there, she turned and looked her full on in the face. There was that damn sympathetic look again. Lexi just couldn’t place why she kept getting that look from Parker. She was part of the reason that Lexi was in this mess to begin with. There should be no sympathy from her of all people. Yet there she was her head lightly cocked to the side, eyes open wide, brows slightly furrowed, mouth popped open just enough to make her look surprised, and wearing that expression like she felt every ounce of Lexi’s pain.

Shaking off the similarities between them, Lexi turned from Parker and sauntered across the busy restaurant, out the door, and to Ramsey waiting patiently in his Mercedes. The drive back to his place was surprisingly short even with the dead quiet in the car. Lexi took a seat on his comfortable leather sofa when they arrived back at his place, waited for him to take a seat in an opposing chair, and then stared intently into his face.