by K. A. Linde
Lexi ground her teeth together. She wanted to shake him. She wanted to reach over the table and slap some sense into him. Didn’t he know what he had done by being so stupid? Argh! It just made her blood boil.
“Then, we got married, and things were all right for a while. We both had to adjust to living together and our new life. I guess you could call it the honeymoon effect, but then something happened. It changed. She stopped caring about me, about anything. I don’t know what happened. Maybe she just decided that she had made a mistake. In any case, she wasn’t the same person that I’d met. And she’s even worse than that now.”
“Then, I guess this divorce is for the better,” Lexi said softly.
Lexi knew that it was. She had known that he shouldn’t have ever married Bekah, but Lexi couldn’t change the past any more than he could.
“Lexi, the worst part about it all is that I really tried to make it work.”
“I know, Jack,” she whispered.
“How do you know?”
“I was there through it,” she reminded him.
“But there’s something more to that statement.” He pointed at her, like he was trying to figure out what she was hiding behind her big brown eyes. “Isn’t there?”
“It’s just…Jack, you would try to make a marriage work even if it was all wrong.”
“Why would you say that?” he asked, his eyes icing over.
He didn’t want to hear what she was dishing out.
“Because you did it with all of your other girlfriends.”
Jack’s eyes hardened. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to make things work with someone.”
“There is when they’re all wrong for you,” Lexi couldn’t help but shoot back.
“It’s better than running away from every relationship as soon as things get rocky.”
“I’m pretty sure the only thing that kept getting in the way of my relationships was your dick,” she said, not able to hold her anger down.
“Oh, come on, Lex, give me some credit. Sometimes my tongue, too.”
Lexi stood abruptly. “Why? Why didn’t you try with me? Why every other person but not me? Why am I still the only one here, Jack?”
“I did try with you,” he said, not breaking eye contact. “We tried it out in New York.”
“Bullshit! You slept with someone else in New York. Tell me the truth.”
“Lex, I did try—”
“You know I talked to Stella?”
“What?” Jack asked. He looked seriously confused in that moment.
“I saw her at the D-Bags show,” Lexi said, taking a seat when the couple across the room started staring at her.
“That was more than two years ago.” He didn’t look pleased that this was coming up. “What did she say?”
“She said that she was sorry for what she had done to me. What did she do to me, Jack?”
“Why is this just now coming up?”
“Because she told me that you said no like five thousand times. She said that you didn’t want to sleep with her that night and that she seduced your drunk ass. She said you had an excuse for being a total moron that night, but you didn’t even tell me that! You said there was no excuse for what you did, and then you pulled out a fucking diamond ring, and poof! You vanished into thin air.”
“I told you I had no excuse for what I did with Stella because there was no excuse for what I did. I couldn’t come crawling back to you, begging you to see me as the total moron,” he said, spitting her own words back at her, “who had slept with someone else, groveling for you to take me back.”
“But I would have!” she snapped.
“Lexi, whether or not Stella seduced me and I told her no five million times did not matter to me because I let you down that night. You were right. We were different. And then I slept with her. No matter what happened to get me there…that was still the outcome. I didn’t deserve you.”
Lexi just stared at him. All this time, and it came down to that one statement. He didn’t deserve her. It hurt worse than she had ever thought it would. Other people had said it to her, but she always ignored them.
“I had to own up to what I’d done in New York and take responsibility for my actions. I gave in that night. The thousand times I’d said no didn’t matter because of the one time I said yes.”
“It would have mattered to me.”
“Well, we can’t change what happened,” Jack said, leaning back in the booth. His eyes were distant. “No matter what we might want…we have to live with our mistakes and live with our past.”
“That’s all I’ve been doing…living with my mistakes,” Lexi said.
“Yeah. A lot of the time, it just feels more like dying from my mistakes rather than living.”
Lexi sighed and nodded. “I know what you mean.”
“If anyone does,” he said, staring up at her again, “you do.”
Food arrived, and they ate together in silence. Jack’s mediation was swiftly approaching, and she had to get back to work. But she found it difficult to rush back to their obligations. Even when they argued, even in the silence, even when it felt like they were just milliseconds away from ripping each other’s clothes off—things with Jack always felt natural and normal. She had never gotten over that feeling of being around him. It was an indescribable feeling that, even through their friendship, they had never gotten rid of.
Things had just changed. But one thing never changed—Jack was always the person she turned to when things went wrong in her life.
Jack paid even though Lexi had insisted that it was a terrible idea with the divorce proceedings. But he had just laughed it off and told her that he wasn’t going to end up penniless. He could pay for lunch.
“Good luck at the mediation. I hope she takes it seriously,” Lexi said.
“Thanks. Did you want to come over after? I can tell you about how it went, and you can see the new place.”
Lexi bit her lip and looked down. “I don’t know, Jack.”
Memories flashed through her mind of him asking her to come over to his place, him making it up to her, him promising not to cross a line. Her face heated, and she felt like every dirty thought was written clear across her forehead.
Jack chuckled softly at her. “Come here, you,” he said as he drew her into a hug.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and tried not to feel completely embarrassed. She breathed in that old familiar scent, reminding her body not to react to the association she had with the smell. When he released her, his blue eyes were still laughing at her. She dropped her arms quickly and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“You know I’m still married, right?”
Lexi smacked him on the arm. “Of course I know. I’m engaged, remember?” she said, flashing him the diamond rock on her finger.
The humor left his face, and he nodded. “You don’t have to remind me. I know.”
“Yeah…”
“I was just suggesting you come see my place—nothing more than that. It’s what friends do. If you’re not comfortable though…” he said, trailing off.
Lexi sighed. “We’ll see, Jack.”
“All right.” He didn’t seem to want to push his luck.
“Remember to listen to your attorney, and don’t give in to her baiting. Because, Jack,” she said, “she’s going to try to bait you. Just…just try not to let her win, okay? That’s all she wants. If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’ve nothing to hide. You’ll do great.”
“Thanks, Lex,” Jack said, even as the color drained from his face.
Lexi paced back and forth across the living room, a legal pad tucked under her arm. She had work that needed to get done, but she was having the hardest time concentrating. There was just too much to do. Besides work, she had so much wedding stuff to do that she was ready to go cross-eyed. Plus, Jack was currently in his mediation with Bekah. Lexi was anxious to hear how about it and if she had been right about Bekah baiting him.
Ramsey was upstairs, working in his office. He had been working from home more frequently lately. She didn’t know if he got more work done here or if he just liked being away from the hospital. She suspected he would tell her that it was because he liked being close to her. The thought made her smile.
“Sherri called,” Ramsey said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Why does she always call you?” Lexi demanded. She stopped mid-stride.
“Because you never answer your phone.”
Lexi marched over to her phone and pressed the button to light it up. “She didn’t call me.”
“Almost four months of you not answering her phone calls when she calls has led her to call me first,” Ramsey explained.
“I don’t avoid her calls or anything.”
“No one said you did, dear.”
“Well, what did she want?” Lexi asked.
“Just checking in mostly since we’re seven months out. She asked if we had selected a florist and said she would email me some recommendations. She asked how you were doing with picking out a dress.”
“Ugh! Terrible. None of them are right.”
Ramsey laughed. “I know. You told me. She said that should be your number one priority right now.”
“It is. Chyna wants to use a custom designer, but I don’t need anything that extravagant. I’m only going to be wearing it once.”
“That’s right you are,” Ramsey said, walking toward her and scooping her up.
“Hey, put me down!” she cried.
He carried her in his arms, up the stairs, and into their bedroom.
“You are thinking way too hard about something that doesn’t concern you,” he said, tossing her lightly onto the bed.
She giggled as she landed in the middle of the down comforter. “I’m not thinking about anything but this bed right now.” She spread out her fingers and ran them down the soft fabric.
“Where was your mind at before I carried you up to bed?” he asked, kicking off his shoes and crawling up next to her.
Lexi shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.” His lips planted a kiss on her hip, and his fingers ran down her thigh.
“It’s nothing. Really.”
He moved farther up, kissing her side and her stomach. One arm wrapped around her waist, pressing her body against him.
“Don’t make me tickle the answers out of you. It’s not beneath me.”
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 s
pectacular 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.