by K. A. Linde
“Game?” Lexi asked raising her eyebrows
“Come on, Lexi, you heard the rules on the way here,” Maddie said shaking her finger at her.
Lexi didn’t have it in her to mention that she’d been entirely excluded from all conversations in the limo. She hadn’t wanted to converse with them, but she certainly did not remember mention of any game.
“B, show her the list,” Maddie directed pointing out their purses.
“Yeah, Lex,” Bekah snapped, her confusion about Lexi’s previous statement wiped from her face. She was back to enjoying her continual torment. Bekah produced a sheet of white paper with a list of instructions on them. “This is a list of what we need to accomplish for the night. We came up with these to keep my bachelorette party exciting. Ten things to do before the end of the night.”
Lexi snatched the paper from her hands and read the rules, grumbling at every mention of alcohol, blow jobs, boxers, and sex. “I can’t take part in this.”
“You’re already here,” Amber drawled. “Why not loosen up a bit?”
Lexi didn’t even need to comment on that. She loosened up around Chyna, not around these fire-breathing dragons. She didn’t want to get burnt.
“Let’s just get out of here,” Bekah said grabbing the list out of Lexi’s hand and ignoring her disapproval.
After everyone finished changing and applying their makeup, they grabbed their purses and headed out of the hotel. They stepped out onto the city street and veered toward the rows of bars.
What surprised Lexi the most about the town was that it was perpetually changing. The city was built around a three by four block radius of shops, restaurants, and bars. Though the overall layout had remained relatively the same since the late 1700’s when the town was built, the bars constantly changed names. Every generation that flowed through the university would grow up with a different set of bars and pubs to frequent.
Lexi could remember nearly all the names of the locations she had regularly visited and as they turned the corner, she could easily recall memories from each locale. Yet, only a select few still held the same name.
Lexi walked farther down the street, suddenly realizing where her feet were carrying her. Her heart was racing as they drew closer. She could do this. She could face down her past. These next few steps would be easy.
“What a cute coffee shop,” Amber drawled staring into the glass-paned storefront.
Lexi’s breath caught as she stared through the front window. The same wooden tables were scattered throughout the room. The old comfy chairs and sunken couches had been replaced and booths were erected along the back wall. The fireplace was all closed up patiently awaiting the winter months. Any green reading lamps, which had once adorned tables, were nowhere in sight. Instead, several standing lamps were distributed around the room. Despite these differences, it still looked the same...it looked like home.
“Wow,” Lexi breathed.
“Yeah, I think Jack used to work at a coffee shop somewhere downtown during college,” Bekah said looking around to see if there were any other cafes nearby.
“How quaint,” Kersey responded inching away from the place. Guess the place wasn’t up to her high standards.
“Jason’s Coffee Shop,” Amber muttered. “We’ll have to see you in the morning.”
“Wait, Jason’s?” Lexi asked nearly falling over herself to look up at the sign.
“Yeah, why?” Amber questioned looking at Lexi strangely.
“This isn’t Jason’s,” she murmured.
“It says so right here,” Bekah pointed out, her finger landing on a small square sign over the doorframe.
“But it’s been Corner Cafe forever,” she moaned. “How could it be Jason’s?”
“That’s business, honey,” Amber told her patting her on the arm.
Lexi stopped and looked at the four girls before her. How could she even begin to explain? It didn’t even really make sense to her. A small part of her wanted Corner Cafe to still be there. It had to still be there. It was the only piece that remained of the Jack she had once known. Without this, was he even still out there?
Now even Corner was gone. The place they met. The place they spent hours together. The place it all started.
Without this place, she would have been someone else. She would have never met Jack Howard. She would have never led the life that she had lived. So on one hand, she was terribly sad to see the place go. Jack had meant so much to her for so long, and it had all started right here...at that table.
But still she was happy. Perhaps this was another way to close a chapter. If even their beginning together no longer existed…well then, where would she ever find their future? As much as she had been pushing away from him—maybe this was good. The Jack that worked at this coffee shop no longer existed. It was only fitting that it was also closed...renamed...changed.
“Lexi?” Maddie asked waving her hands in front of her face.
“Uh, yeah?” she asked snapping out of it.
“I asked if you used to come here a lot,” Maddie told her.
“Right. Yeah, sometimes,” she said eyeing her study table through the glass.
“Is this where Jack worked?” Bekah asked pursing her lips. She was clearly judging the establishment. From her tone of voice, Lexi would have guessed she didn’t approve either. This Jack was not the same person she was engaged to marry. This Jack was the man Lexi had fallen for.
“No, another friend of mine did,” she stated wearily. “He moved away though, and I barely know who he is anymore…”
The girls seemed bored by the coffee shop already and began walking away from the building. Lexi gave it one more wistful look before following behind them and leaving her Jack behind.
As they turned the corner, Lexi stopped and stared up at her once favorite hot spot, Chamber, now renamed Rage Bar. It was everything she remembered Chamber to be from college. The new owners hadn’t changed a single thing other than the name. Several bartenders worked the massive bar that stretched the length of the room. The medium-sized rectangular room was divided in two, by sliding glass doors keeping the dance space and the more secluded lounge area separate. A raised platform designed in an L-shape was constructed against one wall in the dance hall. Large security guards now wore bright orange Rage polos and were stationed in precarious locations around the room.
The patrons never aged at this establishment. It was the same group of eighteen to twenty-one year olds sneaking in with fake IDs. She knew twenty-four wasn’t old by any stretch of the imagination, but she might as well have been seventy with how old she felt at this bar. She smoothed out the ridiculous outfit Bekah had given them and tried to remember what it felt like to be nineteen.
She had danced her heart out on that stage more nights than she could count. She could remember the adrenaline of hanging out with your closest friends and the thrill of dancing with total strangers that you thought you would never see again. The town was too small for that though, and she always ended up seeing the people she had drunkenly danced upon in her class or out for coffee later in the week.
New York was nothing like that. If she never wanted to see someone again, then she never had to see them again. Sure, some of the guys circulated the same bars more than others. She could pick out the regulars, but the clubs were so large that they were easy to avoid, if need be.
She remembered getting free drinks, because she knew the bartenders in college. She made friends with a lot of them. Some were in her classes and others she knew because she frequented the establishment a bit too regularly as an undergrad.
The free drinks were also given to her, because of the people she hung around with. Her friends from the gymnastics team could surprisingly drink most people under the table. Even though she had only set foot on the mat at one meet and it was only for exhibition, everyone still considered her part of the team. She had a stack full of team paraphernalia in her closet to prove it. She had been nineteen when she joined t
he team. Jack had gotten her that spot. She hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Suddenly, nineteen felt too young.
When she had been nineteen she had fallen into his trap. She had fallen in love with him. She hadn’t been disillusioned by his inability to commit to her or his philandering behavior. But she couldn’t think about going back in time like that. She wouldn’t be the person she was today if she hadn’t experienced what she had gone through with Jack. And though, the things they had done together were wrong…terribly wrong, she knew that if she relived them that she wouldn’t have been able to change a thing. And so she lived with her decisions and moved on.
She sighed realizing that whole train of thought had made her feel very far from nineteen.
“I’ll be right back,” Lexi mumbled, watching the rest of the girls stumble toward the bar. She walked out of the building and into the enclosure where the smokers were congregated. She didn’t like the smell, but she needed some fresh air. Pulling her phone out, she typed a message to Ramsey. “Not as bad as I thought.”
“Are you drunk?”
She giggled, realizing she was getting there. “Not yet.”
“Be safe, please.”
“Always.”
She scrolled through her other messages, her eyes landing on the latest one from her Mystery Man. He’d sent her a few texts after their phone conversation, but she hadn’t responded. What could she say to him? He was feeling more and more like a rebound the farther away she got from him. And she was angry at herself for getting caught by that bitch, and getting dragged to this bachelorette party. It was her fault not his, but he wouldn’t understand. She hadn’t told him about Ramsey or Jack before leaving. She was too afraid to bring them up.
Her phone dinged in her hand, and she pulled up the text expecting another from Ramsey. The words flashed on the screen, and she realized she had conjured up her Mystery Man out of thin air. “Lexi, are you there?”
God, she couldn’t keep ignoring him like this. She just needed time. “Yeah. I’m at a bachelorette party actually.”
“Sounds like a good time. Why did you have to leave so soon earlier? I wasn’t finished with you.”
Lexi chewed on her bottom lip. She couldn’t have this conversation, not when she had promised herself she was going to figure things out first. “Look, I’m a little tipsy, and I don’t want to lead you on.”
“Are you leading me on?”
“I don’t even know what I’m doing a week from now. Can you give me the week to figure it out?”
“Lexi…”
“One week. That’s all I’m asking.” She held her breath and waited for him to deny her request.
“All right. One week.”
Lexi sighed as she tossed her phone back in her purse. At least that was settled. She felt kind of stupid. What if this backfired? What if nothing worked out with Ramsey, Jack married the wench, and she went home all alone. It was about what she deserved. Pushing her tipsy thoughts aside, she tried to remind herself that this was for her own damn good. She couldn’t string along another man while she waited to figure things out with someone else.
With that she wandered back inside to find the drunken entourage at the bar. Lexi was feeling the booze in her system, but she wasn’t gone just yet. The rest of the group had no reason to want to remain sober for the night. They had all delved in as quickly as possible, and were having more trouble functioning as the night progressed. Kersey was having trouble with coherent sentences. Though somehow, she had found a way to flirt with every guy who walked past her. She was already clinging to a fraternity type standing against the bar.
Maddie and Amber had fallen into fits of giggles over absolutely nothing. Or at least if they were actually laughing at something, Lexi had been unable to discern where the conversation started and the laughter began. Bekah was wobbling dangerously on her outrageously high heels. Lexi honestly couldn’t even believe she was standing at all. She had resorted to telling every person she could speak to in every bar that she was getting married. She wasn’t always discreet about it either. The past couple bars she had just barged in and flat out yelled her upcoming marriage to the nearest group of people. This always resulted in another round of shots from whoever chose to listen to her.
When a shot was pushed into Lexi’s hand, she didn’t think twice before downing it as fast as she could. And as soon as it hit the pit of her stomach, she regretted it.
Tequila. That one drink was too much. It pushed her over the edge from tipsy to full out drunk. She could feel it from head to toe. Her head was suddenly heavy and she felt as if she were swimming. Her throat was on fire. Shit. She scrambled for a lime to chase the drink down. That taste of the lime alleviated the burn down her throat and in turn the nausea that had come over her.
“So, where are we on our list?” Bekah asked sliding her shot glass back across the bar. She pulled on Maddie’s arm to steal her away from another giggle fest with Amber. Maddie’s expression glazed over as she realized that Bekah had been talking to her. She stumbled forward a step before grabbing Bekah’s arm and staring deeply into her face.
“Whattttt?” Maddie asked clearly not having been paying attention.
“The list. Where the fuck are we?” Bekah snapped sharply. Apparently even drunk she was bitchy.
“The list. The list,” Maddie squealed reaching into her purse, shifting around the contents exaggeratedly, and pulling out a now, very crumpled piece of paper. Maddie stared at it for a second as if she were examining it. She flipped it over, despite the fact that there were no words written on the back. “I can’t read it,” she finally announced shoving it into Bekah’s hand.
Bekah grumbled something unintelligible, flipped the paper back over to the correct side, and turned it right side up. She smoothed the wrinkled paper out on the bar and looked at what was left to complete on their list. “Someone has to get boxers,” she said reading each article carefully.
“Maddie would get them if Ramsey were here,” Amber muttered through her eternal laughter.
Bekah openly glared at Amber and all the color drained from Lexi’s face even through her drunken haze. What did that mean? Had Maddie slept with Ramsey? By the smirks on all the girl’s faces, she was going to have to assume yes. Great.
“Oh, whoops, Lexi...did you not know that?” Kersey asked, seeing her growing pale.
“Amber, Kersey,” Maddie snapped. “I’d rather not be reminded of the time Bekah tried to kill me. Can we move back to the game, please?”
She knew Ramsey had been somewhat of a player before they had gotten together, but she didn’t think he would actually sleep with one of the spawns of Satan. She wondered what had actually happened. Her mind coming up with several possibilities made her change her mind. She didn’t care what had happened between them.
“We’re gonna go dance.” Maddie stumbled forward careening around Amber and wrapping her arms around Bekah. “Come dance with us!” she squealed a giggle escaping her. “We can find a better boxer guy on the dance floor.”
“You two go dance. I’ll catch up,” Bekah said shoving Maddie off of her.
“Okay, love ya,” Maddie said, dashing after Amber, who had already begun to disappear into the mob of people.
When Lexi glanced back up, she realized she had been left alone with the Wicked Witch. The last time that had happened, she had ended up leaving Atlanta and Jack behind. This couldn’t be good.
MAY—THREE MONTHS EARLIER
“Yes, I’m sure I’m making the right decision,” Lexi said into the cell phone as the taxi pulled over onto the curb. “You’ve tried to convince me not to leave New York since I got the summer associate position.”
“Why would I want my best friend to leave me when she’s finally out of school?” Chyna pouted.
“I don’t expect you to want me to leave, but I would like you to be happy for me,” Lexi said opening her purse and pulling out cash. “Keep the change,” she said to the cabbie as she popped o
pen the door and stepped out.
“I’m happy for you, darling. You’re going to make a fortune, which will be a nice change. I’m just going to miss my bestie. Perhaps, I’m a little selfish,” Chyna said adding a giggle in for good effect.
“You? Selfish? No,” Lexi gasped sarcastically.
“Oh, shut it!”
Lexi walked around to the back of the car and pulled open the trunk. “Well, you’ll have to come visit.”
Chyna scoffed. “If I’m flying that far south, then I’m going to the Caribbean.”
“Make a pit stop and take me with you,” Lexi told her, lugging her bags out of the trunk and depositing them on the sidewalk. She stared down at the two bags before her. It didn’t seem like enough for the next two months…maybe three if she worked her ass off. Her roommate, Rachelle, swore that she would mail her anything else she needed, but Lexi wasn’t going to count on it. And anyway, Rachelle was going to be in California in less than three weeks. Not to mention, the only other person who had a key to her place, Chyna, was going to Milan for the summer for a photo shoot. So if Lexi forgot something now, she would have to do without it.
Lexi shuffled the bags to the foot of the stairs and decided that she would move them upstairs once she got the door open. No use hurting her back in the process. She figured the law firm she would be working for all summer would do enough damage.
“Maybe I will,” Chyna said.
“That’ll be the day,” Lexi sneered. “If I ever get you into Atlanta again, it will have to be for something really special.” Lexi didn’t think she would ever get her here, honestly. After what a catastrophe it was the last time, Chyna had sworn off Atlanta, saying it was too much drama in one place.
“True. The smog is killer, and the traffic sounds all wrong,” Chyna told her.
“Well, thanks for the support,” Lexi said rolling her eyes.
“Alexa, I support you, doll. I know you’ll succeed at whatever you put your mind to,” Chyna reassured her. “I just think you’re picking the wrong town to succeed in. What happened to that amazing internship you had last summer in New York,” she reasoned. “Ouch!”