Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding #2)(77)
Author: K.A. Linde

"What was that?" Chyna asked pointing between them. "Does Adam know something about this but not me?"

"Uh…" Lexi said licking her lips and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I didn’t cheat on you," she said carefully.

"Then what is she talking about?" he repeated.

"Wait wait wait," Chyna said realizing that Lexi didn’t exactly answer either of their questions. "Did you cheat on him with Adam?" The pieces were falling together. Chyna couldn’t believe it was possible. Adam was the only person she had ever really fallen for. Lexi was her best friend. She knew that they had always had a tight bond after she was roofied earlier that year, but she never once thought it had been possible. Adam had always been extremely friendly, but still Adam was friendly with everyone. However, that look that had passed between them had been too telling. That coupled with the fact that she knew that Adam and Lexi needed to discuss something just made it seem to coincidental. This couldn’t be happening.

"With Adam?" Ramsey asked stunned.

"That must have been who she was talking to on the phone at my bachelorette party," Bekah said triumphantly. This had worked out even better than planned. Turning the tides on Lexi and having the guy in the room with them, it was almost too much to ask for.

"Hold on," Lexi said raising her hands. "You guys are getting out of control."

"Then tell me you didn’t sleep with Adam," Chyna said pulling her friend around to face her.

Lexi glanced at Adam. This was not good. This was not how this was supposed to happen. Adam was not supposed to show up with Chyna. She was supposed to have already told Ramsey about this. She hadn’t wanted Ramsey to find out like this. It wasn’t fair to him after the hell she had put him through about his lying. Not that she had lied to him. She really hadn’t, but now it looked like she was hiding things from him. Shit. She hated this.

Adam just shrugged. "You might as well tell them."

Chyna turned to face him as if she had forgotten he was in the room. Her eyes watered considerably as she stared at him in disbelief. He was so calm and collected as if this had no effect on him when she was falling about. Her world was falling apart.

"Ramsey I was going to tell you this morning," she began.

"This is what you were going to tell me?" he asked his mouth dropping open. "And I had to hear it from Bekah after everything we just went through for the past month?"

"No no…it’s not what you think. She has her facts wrong," Lexi quickly amended.

"Are you kidding me with this Alexa?" Chyna asked. "You’re my best friend."

"Adam and I did not sleep together!" Lexi cried looking back and forth between Chyna and Ramsey. They both were eyeing her skeptically. The evidence seemed pretty damning against them, but she couldn’t let that continue.

"What?" Chyna asked glancing from Lexi and back to Adam. "Then how are you involved?"

"She slept with John…right?" he asked alluding to his illustrious brother who Chyna had had a rather unpleasant experience with and had resulted in her break up with Adam earlier that year.

Lexi’s eyes dropped to the ground. Everything was out in the open now. "Yeah…I slept with John."

* * *

K.A. Linde

Hope

Well it sucks to be honest

And it hurts to be real

But it’s nice to make some love

That I can finally feel

Hard times let me be

I’m a good man, with a good heart

Had a tough time, got a rough start

But I finally learned to let it go

Now I’m right here, and I’m right now

And I’m open, knowing somehow

That my shadow days are over

My shadow days are over now

-John Mayer "Shadow Days"

* * *

Chapter 25: Present

No one spoke for awhile after Lexi’s declaration. She had slept with Adam’s brother, John, when she and Ramsey had been broken up. This was the same brother that had put the moves on Chyna forcing their untimely break up. Chyna despised John…hated him. There was no way she had ever wanted Chyna to find out, but that was certainly better than her thinking she had slept with Adam! That would be the ultimate betrayal and she wouldn’t have blamed Chyna if she never spoke to her again. Adam was handsome and wonderful. She had an uncanny connection with him, but it just wasn’t like that. He loved Chyna, and Chyna was her very best friend. She had done terrible things before, but not that.

Not to mention Ramsey. She hadn’t cheated on him, but the pain was still evident in his bright green eyes. He was completely taken aback. This seemed to be the last thing he had expected her to say. Bekah’s statement claiming she had cheated on Ramsey wasn’t true, but with her past it still had to leave doubts in his once unclouded mind. She just wanted to tell him that things would be alright between them, but how could she know what he would do with this news?

Lexi wished with everything she was that she could stop everyone from looking at her right then. Her brain was aching from the swell of emotions going through her, and their reactions weren’t helping. Chyna appeared shell-shocked if not a bit disgusted. No doubt she was thinking about the last time she had encountered John and what it had done to her relationship. Adam looked sympathetic, but like he had somehow known this would blow up in her face. Jack’s smirk had returned to his face. He seemed triumphant as if this was proof that she was still no better than him. And Bekah – Bekah was the worst of all. She wore smug like a new pair of Jimmy Choos. If Lexi could wipe that murderously arrogant look off her face, she swore she would die a happy woman.

"I really wanted to tell you Ramsey. I know what we’ve been through," Lexi said pausing to fully look him in the face. She needed to stand up for herself. She couldn’t cower and hide behind her actions. She needed to take responsibility for what she had done. "No I just, I can’t apologize for it happening…"

Ramsey’s eyes narrowed. Out of the corner of her eye, Lexi could see Chyna’s mouth drop open. She knew this was a do or die moment. The two people she cared about most were waiting for an answer that she just couldn’t give them. She couldn’t grovel and apologize for what she had done. She had been that person before, but she wasn’t sorry about sleeping with John. It had been something she had done when she had been a single woman. It’s not as if she had asked for a break, they had broken up. She had told Ramsey not to call her and he hadn’t. She thought it was over. The fact that she was even in Atlanta with Ramsey was completely unanticipated.

But she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. She loved him, but she hated the lying. And she hadn’t meant him to think that she was lying. She just hadn’t gotten around to telling him yet. But now she needed to make him understand.

Lexi sighed before continuing. "No, I’m sorry that it hurts you. I really am, but I’m not sorry that I slept with someone else," Lexi said amazed that she could even get the words out. "I wasn’t dating you at the time. We were two consenting adults. In fact, I hadn’t anticipated getting back together with you. Things changed clearly since then, and it’s not going to ever happen again, but it did happen. I can’t change it.

"So either you have to accept that fact along with me or you don’t. We’re just at that point," Lexi said standing tall and fighting the urge to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. She was both more nervous about Ramsey’s reaction than anything before this moment, and also completely confident in her decision to finally stand up for herself. Ramsey looked as if he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to say.

Before he got the chance, Chyna butted in, "But you still slept with John knowing the kind of person he is. You still did it. Just because you say these things doesn’t make it better. Think about what you did with him," Chyna said with a shudder. Adam reached out for her, but she didn’t stop talking. "How can you even go on with your life? I’m sorry Adam, but you’re brother is kind of disgusting," she said with an easy shrug.

"Can we really drop this line of conversation?" he said with a roll of his eyes. "I know how you feel about him, and it made us do stupid things once before. Let’s just avoid it all together."

Chyna batted him away from her, and turned back towards Lexi. "I’m sorry I can’t just ignore this fact. My best friend slept with your brother. Not to mention you knew about it and didn’t tell me. You guys were keeping it secret together. Alexa has never kept a secret from me before and now this. How could you?" Chyna asked a hitch in her voice.

"Chyna…" Lexi stammered looking at her friend sympathetically. She honestly hadn’t meant for it to be a secret for so long. Before that phone call from Ramsey, she had intended on telling Chyna…one day. She just hadn’t been ready yet, and then afterwards she had wanted to forget it had happened. She never wanted Chyna to know.

"Do you really blame her for not telling you after how you’re overreacting?" Adam asked attempting to talk some sense into her.

"Overreacting?" she squeaked. "You haven’t seen overreacting!"

"And we don’t want to," he said shaking his head at her.

"The fact that she slept with your brother doesn’t bother you?"

"No," he stated simply with a shrug. "It really doesn’t, and it shouldn’t bother you. It’s not like I think something happened between you and John. I certainly wouldn’t be okay with that, but my brother isn’t a bad guy. And as she said they are two consenting adults…"

"You’re brother isn’t a bad guy?" Chyna groaned rolling her eyes dramatically. "I wouldn’t wish him on someone I like a lot less than Alexa."

"We’ve been through this," he grumbled clearly annoyed, "but you can’t change it. All you can do is accept the fact that it happened and move on. She’s your best friend after all. You two have been through a lot together…"

Chyna turned back to Lexi as if she were considering Adam’s point, then shook her head. "That’s exactly the reason that this doesn’t make any sense. You’ve never been that person with me. Yet, you hid things from me…your best friend. I know you hide things from everyone else, but me? I thought you sleeping with Jack before their engagement was an all time low…but this…" Chyna stammered out in anger.

Lexi’s hand went to her mouth instantly in shock. She couldn’t believe that Chyna would blurt out the secret she had been trying to keep from revealing all along. You could have heard a pin drop in the room the silence was all encompassing.

When Lexi had thought that everything was out on the table after her confession about John, she hadn’t actually anticipated everything being out on the table. She hadn’t thought that Chyna would ever tell anyone, let alone a room full of people, that she had slept with Jack prior to his engagement to Bekah. She hadn’t told anyone else so she hadn’t been expecting anyone else to blurt out the news.

In all honestly, there was only one real reason why she hadn’t told Bekah about her and Jack f**king during his birthday party a year ago. It certainly wasn’t her regard for the woman. She despised Bekah. In fact, she couldn’t think of a person she liked less. Yet, she had held back that one fact. She had held back the one thing that would have seriously turned Bekah away from Jack. It was what she had always wanted.