Avoiding Temptation (Avoiding #3)(37)
Author: K.A. Linde

Lexi scrunched up her nose at him and poked him in the side. “Don’t be a jerk.” She couldn’t hold back her smile.

“Oh yeah, that’s me. I’m the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. How can you even stand me?” Ramsey asked, rolling his bright green eyes.

“Clearly, I can’t. What are you doing in my bed anyway?”

“Your bed?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Since when is this your bed?”

“Oh, I don’t know? Maybe the last two years,” she said. She couldn’t keep the smirk off her face.

“And who has been sharing this bed with you for the last two years?” His lips landed on her palm, and then slowly, tenderly, he ran kisses up her arm.

“I might have allowed you to sleep in my bed—”

Ramsey stopped at her shoulder and stared up at her. “As long as I’m sharing it with you, then it can be yours.”

Lexi lazily smiled back at him. Sometimes, he was so romantic.

“Doesn’t exempt you from telling me what you were thinking about downstairs,” he said slyly.

She groaned. “Must you know?”

“Must you try to evade me?”

“Jack and Bekah are in mediation today,” she whispered, not taking her eyes from him.

It was Ramsey’s turn to groan. He heavily rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I thought you were going to stay out of their business.”

“Jack is my friend. He’s always been there for me when I needed him. I feel like a bad friend if I’m not there for him now,” she said, trying to explain but knowing it was futile.

“I know things between you and Jack have changed and that you’re his friend. I know all of that. I’ve been really damn accepting of it all, considering your past…”

Lexi cringed. That was one of the moments she felt like she was dying from her mistakes rather than living with them.

“The last thing I want is for you to get tangled up in this,” he said, squeezing her hand. “You understand, right?”

Lexi shrugged and stared up at the ceiling. From her perspective, she was already tangled up in what was going on. She was always tangled up in something with Jack, and this was no different. It wasn’t like she had taken his case on or anything. She was just being the supportive friend he needed. She didn’t think it was asking too much.

“Why do you have to be involved with this? Make me see your point,” he said.

He could probably see her shutting down and closing off. She had never liked being told what to do.

Lexi observed the motion of the fan for a few seconds before responding. “I’m not sure what to say that I haven’t said before. I’ve known Jack since I was eighteen years old. Yes, our relationship has changed since that point, and it should. We’re older, and we’ve grown up. Sometimes, I really hated him, and sometimes, I really loved him. It was hot and cold—no, burning and freezing. It was two extremes that I thought we would never be able to control, never be able to figure out. Instead, we just crashed into catastrophe over and over again,” Lexi explained.

She wanted to say so much more, but she didn’t know how to explain something that hardly made sense to her.

“When he married your sister, that was the end for me. I was just over everything. I didn’t even want to be me anymore.”

“I remember how it was,” Ramsey responded.

Lexi smiled softly. “I was an ass to Jack at the D-Bags concert. But he said something that night that he has actually held to the past two years. He told me that all he wanted was for me to be happy. Against my better judgment, I let him try to be my friend. It’s hard to let go of someone who has always been there,” she whispered.

She rolled over on the bed to face Ramsey, and something in his expression told her that he understood that much at least.

“The divorce is the culmination of every terrible thing Jack could ever think. This is probably his biggest fear. Bekah is destroying him, and he doesn’t have anyone.”

“But he did that to himself,” Ramsey reminded her.

“Probably true.” She would give him that.

“How would you feel if this were Parker?”

Lexi held her breath. She knew exactly how she would feel. “You want to bring Parker into this?” she asked.

“I’m just using her as an example.”

“If I can adjust to you spending every day with her, then you should certainly be okay with me being there for Jack when he’s going through something pretty traumatic,” Lexi said quickly.

“Okay, Lexi,” he said, stroking her hair back off her face. “I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m trying to understand. I wouldn’t tell you not to be friends with Jack. Only that the same rule applies from the beginning.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“If he touches you, I’ll kill him.”

Lexi laughed and buried her head in his chest. “I think you’re safe.”

A few hours later, Lexi found herself driving up in front of Jack’s apartment on the outskirts of Buckhead. The fact he considered this a step down was a bit ridiculous. The complex was by no means a dump. She had lived in much, much worse in New York. Then again, she had been a student, not an executive at a huge conglomerate.

Lexi had never been to the house that Jack had shared with Bekah. She hadn’t been able to do it. For all she knew, it had been a mansion. So, compared to that, this place was probably a dump. Either way, Jack was now paying rent on a one-bedroom apartment and half of the mortgage for the house they had purchased. The place couldn’t be that spectacular if he had to pay double…or his Bridges salary was that extravagant. She wasn’t sure which was the case.

She pulled into a spot a few doors down from the entrance to his building. Her hands were shaking.

“Shit!” she grumbled.

She swiped her hands on her jeans a few times, trying to see if that helped anything. She didn’t know why they were even shaking. It didn’t make sense.

After such a nice afternoon, locked away in the bedroom with Ramsey, she felt weird coming over to Jack’s place. Ramsey knew that they were meeting up. Since they had talked about how she felt about being there for Jack, Ramsey hadn’t pushed the subject when she said she was meeting him. Still…

Ugh! She needed to stop her brain from overanalyzing. It was just Jack. Nothing had happened between them in over two years, and nothing was going to happen with him today. It shouldn’t matter that she was at his place rather than meeting him at a restaurant. She was psyching herself out for nothing.

Lexi exited her car and then walked into the apartment complex. A blonde attendant was seated behind the desk, typing away on her cell phone. She didn’t even look up when Lexi walked in, which was fine by her. Walking up to the elevator, Lexi pressed the button, and as soon as it dinged on the bottom floor, the attendant looked up.

“Can I help you?” she asked, still typing on her phone.

“Nope. Thanks though.”

“We’re supposed to clear visitors.”

Lexi shrugged. “I’m here for Jack Howard, apartment number six fifty-two.”

“Oh, Jack!” she said with a big smile. “Tell him I said hi!”

Lexi fought rolling her eyes. Jack had only lived here a couple of days, and already, the attendant knew who he was. Typical.

“Will do,” Lexi said, stepping into the elevator and letting the doors close between her and the blonde bimbo.

Some things never ceased to amaze her.

Jack’s new place was near the elevators, so it was a quick walk to his front door. She remembered standing on the threshold of his apartment, debating whether or not coming to Atlanta to meet his girlfriend was a good idea. So much had changed since then.

Lexi rapped lightly on the door and waited for Jack to answer. She heard feet pattering as he jogged toward the door. It cracked open, and Jack appeared, smiling brightly at her. It was one of those gut-wrenching, take-your-breath-away smiles. His bright blue eyes lit up as he reached out and gripped the doorframe.

“You made it,” he said. He gestured for her to come in.

“Yeah.” She walked forward into the apartment. “It was easy to find.”

“That’s good. No trouble getting upstairs or anything? Some of the attendants aren’t accommodating.”

“No trouble, but the girl downstairs wanted me to tell you hi!” she said, mimicking the girl’s voice. “Nondescript blonde attached to her phone.”

“Ah,” he said, “I think that’s Heidi.”

“She seemed pretty happy when I mentioned you,” Lexi said, arching an accusatory eyebrow.

Jack slammed the door shut roughly. “I don’t think I can hear anyone else accuse me of cheating tonight, or I might snap and literally f**k the first person I see.” He stared at Lexi pointedly.

“I, uh…yeah,” she stammered, trying to find the right words without blushing furiously at that look. She had seen it a million times, and it was not helping. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Of course it’s not,” Jack replied sarcastically.

“Did the mediation go so poorly?”

Jack laughed disdainfully. “I’ll let you tell me.”

She followed him into the living room where an open bottle of Jack Daniels and a half-empty glass rested on a beat-up coffee table. “That good, huh?”

“It’s only drink number three. Think I can finish the bottle?”

“What happened?” she asked, taking the opportunity to look around his apartment.

It was sparsely decorated, to say the least. He had an old couch sitting behind the coffee table and a flat screen TV hooked up to the opposite wall. She wondered if all this stuff had been in storage or if someone had loaned it to him. There wasn’t anything on the walls—no pictures, no old record albums, nothing. Besides the Jack Daniels, there wasn’t anything really visible. It was more depressing than when a typical freshly moved in apartment because there weren’t even any boxes around. All of his stuff must have still been at the house.

“Everything you said would happen. Her lawyer spent half the time talking over the mediator, trying to get me to admit that I cheated on her while we were married. She kept baiting me, playing the victim. We accomplished nothing, and then after hours of trying to get something done, Bekah said she didn’t want to continue mediation, and it wasn’t helpful. So, we’re filing for a court date anyway,” Jack said.

Lexi hated to tell him that she told him so. Probably not the best thing in this situation.

“Well, at least, the alcohol is cheering you up,” she said softly.

“No. You’re the first good thing I’ve seen since I left.”

He stared back at her from across the room, and she could feel the tension crackle between them. Not good. She needed to redirect and quickly.

“Are you sure you’ve only had three drinks?” she asked. She picked up the bottle and looked at how much was left.

“You want to pour me another?” He sank into the couch and ruffled his dark brown hair, which had grown out past where he normally got a haircut for Bridges.