Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding #2)(80)
Author: K.A. Linde

"What?" everyone yelled nearly at once.

Lexi’s smile shined like a beacon at the realization that he was actually going to skip the wedding…with her. They were all boycotting! She loved the idea. She had no reason to be there now and the only person she wanted to be with was leaving with her. It was too perfect. She felt a glow of happiness overwhelm her as her smile turned to him. He moved towards her blatantly ignoring everyone else in the room, cupped her cheeks in his oh-so-capable hands, and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

"Of course I’m going with you," he whispered for her ears with a peck on her little button nose.

Lexi broke Ramsey’s beautiful emerald gaze long enough to judge the reactions of the remainder of the room. Bekah looked ready to murder him where he stood. Lexi thought it was unsurprising as that now left her short a groomsman. Considering she was insane about her own wedding and had freaked out more about the bands cancellation than Jack infidelity, this certainly made sense to her. Not to mention, this was her brother who was leaving her own wedding out of disapproval. Bekah couldn’t have planned a better scheme to ruin someone’s wedding herself.

The rest of the room looked shocked, but none more so than Parker. Her eyes were practically popping out of her skull and her mouth was hanging open. It was as if she couldn’t believe that the perfect Country Club gentleman she had known since she was little, that she had dated for years, would ever do something like this. How could he turn away from his own sister on her wedding day? How could he turn away when she needed him?

"You can’t just leave!" Parker cried on top of the other protests. "This is Bekah! She’s only getting married once, and you want to miss that?"

Ramsey shook his head at the protests, but fixed his gaze on Parker who seemed to be the most desperate of the bunch. "I’ve done many things to defy the person my family wants me to be, which is why I’m sure you, of all people, should be able to understand why I must object to this wedding." He spoke quietly, but with a determined and even tone.

"No," Parker said shaking her head, "I cannot understand. I never understood why you defied your father so much. I’ll never understand why you would leave now. It’s as if you don’t even care…about anything…about how this affects things."

Ramsey’s eyes seemed to harden with every word she spoke. "You don’t understand, because you never saw me for who I really am. I may be a product of my upbringing, but I am not a "Bridges Man" through and through," he said adding the air quotations for emphasis. Bekah gasped at the connotation and Parker’s mouth hung open. Jack even looked stunned at the proclamation.

"Wh…what are you t..talking about?" Parker stammered out.

"How can you say you aren’t a Bridges Man?" Bekah asked furiously.

He rounded on her. "Because I’m not," he said throwing his arms wide. "I never have been. I have done everything in my power up until this last couple months to thwart the very power that everyone attempted to bestow upon me. I don’t need nor want the power, money, or responsibility that Bridges has to offer."

"Then why did you agree to work for the company?" Bekah demanded at the same time Parker gasped out, "Why are you working with me as Vice President then?"

Ramsey shook his head as if answering these questions were the last thing that he wanted to do, but he obliged them nonetheless. "I did it thinking it was the best thing for me and Lexi, and I managed to secure a contract that finally…fit my interests, per se."

"What do you mean fits your interests?" Parker asked completely ignoring the first half of the statement.

Ramsey shrugged with an easy smile. "Let’s just say I was given full discretion, which are terms that I can agree to."

"Daddy would never…" Bekah began, but was cut off by Ramsey’s defiant stare.

"I’d like to see that contract," Lexi murmured under her breath.

"I had my lawyers look it over," he said confidently. "So as you can see, I stand by my word. Now if you’ll excuse me." He motioned for Lexi to exit. As the small entourage made for the exit, Parker dashed after him and grabbed his arm to stop him in place.

"You can’t be serious," she muttered despondently.

Ramsey turned to her reluctantly. "Parker, I’m not sure how to make myself any more clear."

"You’re going to leave your own sister’s wedding?" she asked her eyes filled with utter disbelief.

"Yes," he said as a matter-of-fact. "If you cared for her at all, you would leave to."

"How could…" she shook her head unable to comprehend. "How would I be showing her I care if I left?"

"Because the only thing that is going to stop this mess is for us to stop denying what is going on here. Parker, just walk away," he implored her.

Parker looked torn. She peered over her shoulder at her best friend and the people she had known her entire life, and then back up at the man she had loved for just as long…the man she could never have again. "No," she whispered shaking her head and stepping away from him, "I can’t be a part of this. I’m here for Bekah. If you don’t care enough to stand by her, well that can’t be helped, but I will. I won’t give up on people," she said with a cold stare.

Ramsey nodded solemnly at her implied meaning and turned back towards Lexi before she made his decision waver. The past was the past, and he couldn’t change it. He could only shape the future. "Lexi, let’s go."

Lexi smiled up at him before turning back to the people she was so ready to leave behind. "I truly hope that you have a happy life together," she said with a pleasant smile across her face. She knew that it couldn’t possibly be the case that her well wishes would come true, but she was certain that they didn’t believed her.

As the quartet walked out of the groomsmen quarters, across the hotel, and through the enormous front doors, Lexi knew that she truly didn’t care what they thought. She was finally doing what was right. She had done what she came to do. Jack was out of her system for good this time. She may not have been successful at stopping a terrible wedding, but she had succeeded in extracting herself from the situation entirely.

And even better than that, she had Ramsey again. They were on equal footing, and time may be the only thing that could tell where they were going from here, but at least they were going together. She couldn’t ask for more than that.

"Where to now?" Lexi asked looking up at Ramsey hopefully.

He gingerly pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and then laced his fingers with her own. "To our apartment?" he asked with the same note of hope in his voice.

A smile played on her lips. "I like the sound of that," she said as they walked hand in hand away from the wedding showing more solidarity for each other and more disapproval of the events unfolding inside than any objection she could have uttered prompted by the minister – speak now or forever hold your peace.

She figured she really was at peace.

The End.