Avoiding Responsibility (42 page)

"I'm going to stay," Lexi said with a note of finality in her decision.

Chyna let out a deep breath. "Thank God. I don't have to cancel the airlines tickets."

Lexi laughed at that statement. Chyna had so much money that she would probably just never get around to canceling the tickets. She wasn't concerned with that at all. However, this was the first Lexi had heard about her having airline tickets. "Where are you going?"

"Atlanta silly. You thought I was going to make you go through that wedding alone?" Chyna asked as if this was the most ridiculous thing she had ever considered.

"You're coming here?" Lexi asked loving how well her best friend knew her.

"Yes, well, I guess I should tell you the news," Chyna said almost hesitantly. Lexi waited anxiously for Chyna to explain. "Adam and I are kind of trying to be more serious again," she almost whispered.

Lexi's stomach dropped straight out of her body. She gulped hard taken off guard by the sudden revelation from her friend. Her and Adam had decided not to date once she had gone to Milan, and Lexi had more or less thought it was over between them. Chyna clearly still had a thing for him even if she hadn't admitted it, but she hadn't thought they had been seeing each other since they had been back. Chyna had been back to her old self of partying and random guys every couple nights. "Re…really?" she stammered out. "When…uh when did you guys start talking again?"

"I guess when you left," Chyna said and Lexi could hear the smile in her voice.

"Oh…uh that's great Chyna. I kind of thought that you and Adam were done."

"Me too. He'd been kind of aloof since we took our break, but this week has been better. He's coming to Atlanta with me actually. He said that he wanted to be my date and said something about needing to talk to you."

Lexi gulped. "Did he mention what it was?"

"I don't remember," she said waving away the statement. "Didn't seem that important at the time."

"I'm sure it's nothing," she murmured into the phone thankful that Chyna wasn't listening too clearly to her tone.

"Well we'll be in tomorrow before the wedding. Call me and let me know how things go with Ramsey. Love ya chica," she said before ending the call.

Lexi leaned back against the cold marble counter top and allowed her vision to go hazy and her breathing to slow. That conversation had done less to prepare her for her conversation with Ramsey than she had thought. It suddenly felt like everything was starting to catch up with her. She hadn't wanted to think about anything else when she was mentally preparing herself to deal with Ramsey. Yet here she was lost in her own world unable to get out of her own mind. She had so much going through her mind that she would have to steel her mind for what was about to happen over the next day.

The door creaked open and an elderly woman walked in. She waddled over to a stall keeping her eyes downcast as if she didn't want to know for what reason Lexi could possibly be leaning against the counter, glassy-eyed, and unmoving. Lexi was sort of grateful that social propriety dictated that people stay out of each other's business. The woman washed her hands and made a hasty exit. Just as the door was swinging closed, Lexi heard a voice that she had been anticipating.

"Yes a woman in the restroom fits that description," the woman said in a high-pitched voice as she teetered past Ramsey.

Lexi took a deep breath before following the woman out of the room. "I'm right here." She was surprised to find that her voice was calm and strong. "We need to talk," she said arching one eyebrow at Ramsey as he stood in front of the bathroom door. She nearly smiled at the irony of seeing him in front of a bathroom since their first "real" meeting had been in the same location.

He ran his hand back through his hair and looked down at her sheepishly. "Yeah we do. Can we go somewhere?" he breathed out.

"Where?" she asked staring up into his face. She could tell that he was worried about how this conversation was going to affect their relationship. She wondered if he had noticed her slip out the back immediately or if it had taken a minute to notice her departure. She hadn't been able to take her eyes off of him and Parker standing so comfortably next to each other, but she had no way of knowing his reaction or his thoughts. She had no idea what he was thinking about at all.

"My place," he said immediately. "I want to get out of here."

"Should we bring Parker along to verify your story?" she asked maliciously. She just couldn't help herself. She couldn't hold it back. Who knew if when they got back to his place he was even going to tell her the truth? Could she trust that he wasn't going to just lie to make himself look good or to hide what actually happened? He had done that before. Clearly he had done it at least sometime recently to keep her from knowing about this job.

"No, we don't need Parker to have a legitimate conversation. I've been wanting to talk to you all week, but you kept postponing this moment. And I had no idea Bekah…" he paused midsentence and released a sigh. "You know what? Let's just talk about this at my place. I'll pull the car around," he said with a note of finality and walked towards the door without looking to see if she was following.

She was a little surprised that he was so determined to talk to her about this. She had been avoiding the much needed conversation, but it wasn't like he was exactly eager to tell her all of this either. After the way their last talk had gone, she couldn't really blame him. Lexi glanced back at the rehearsal dinner. Someone had left one of the doors propped open and she could see people milling around inside, talking, and carrying on. Parker's body appeared at the entrance and somehow even though the room was dim and Parker had no way of knowing Lexi was even standing there, she turned and looked her full on in the face. There was that damn sympathetic look again. Lexi just couldn't place why she kept getting that look from Parker. She was part of the reason that Lexi was in this mess to begin with. There should be no sympathy from her of all people. Yet there she was her head lightly cocked to the side, eyes open wide, brows slightly furrowed, mouth popped open just enough to make her look surprised, and wearing that expression like she felt every ounce of Lexi's pain.

Shaking off the similarities between them, Lexi turned from Parker and sauntered across the busy restaurant, out the door, and to Ramsey waiting patiently in his Mercedes. The drive back to his place was surprisingly short even with the dead quiet in the car. Lexi took a seat on his comfortable leather sofa when they arrived back at his place, waited for him to take a seat in an opposing chair, and then stared intently into his face.

"Are you going to tell me about this new business venture?" she questioned him clasping her hands together to keep from tucking her hair behind her ear habitually.

"I..yeah," he said leaning forward in the chair and resting his elbows on his knees. "I don't know where to start."

"How about from the beginning? Or with the truth," she muttered her gaze piercing through him.

"The truth right," he said nodding to himself. "Well, the medical wing of Bridges Enterprise has been something that I've been hearing about since I was in diapers."

Lexi's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Since you were a kid?"

"Yes," he told her. "It's my father's dream. It's the one thing he's always wanted to do with the company, but had never been able to." He paused before continuing.

"Well he seems to be getting his wish now doesn't he?"

"Let me tell the whole story," he cut in quickly. Lexi sat back further against the couch and waited. "My grandfather had four daughters and one son, and all he wanted was boys. It was really hushed up, but he more or less left his daughters with nothing when he died. He gave them enough to live on by all means, but my grandfather was old school," Ramsey grumbled. "He thought that a woman's worth came from her husband, and once she had a husband, she was no longer her father's
problem
," he said the word like it was the most disgustingly archaic thing he had ever discussed. Lexi listened absorbedly unsure of how this all fit together.

"Anyway, my father inherited practically everything plus the business and it's been his obsession ever since. In his eyes, he is still the son struggling to please his father by building up the business. And I swore I would never be like that."

"But you are now," Lexi mumbled under her breath.

"I…God I hope not," he said his green-gold eyes staring deeply into her own. She fidgeted and looked away from his penetrating gaze.

"What do you mean? You're the new vice president right?" she reminded him

"Yeah…no…yeah," he said arguing more with himself than anything.

"Then what are you doing? You said you didn't want to be like your father, yet here you are doing everything he's ever wanted you to do. You don't even want to do this," Lexi couldn't help stammering out.

"I'm going to try to answer all your questions, but let me back up first," he said running hand through his hair again. "From the beginning right?"

Lexi nodded slowly. She couldn't believe how uncomfortable and worried he looked. She had never really seen him quite like this. She knew that he wasn't a hundred percent confident about everything, but sometimes it felt like that. He exuded so much self-confidence that to find him in an uncomfortable state felt foreign to Lexi. It must have felt just as foreign to him by the way he kept readjusting his posture and pushing his hand through his short blonde hair.

"The medical wing was what he always thought would be the next best thing for the company," Ramsey began. "It made the company a full-service industry: lawyers, accountants, and doctors all under the same roof…metaphorically speaking. I thought he would just forget about it eventually, but it seemed to be something that faded with time and then rekindled almost without notice. I can't even tell you how many Club meetings I had been to where my father discussed this newest project with anyone who would listen. I'd actually heard some of his closest friends talking about how that project was never getting off the ground. It was hugely embarrassing." A blush crept up on his tan face as he remembered the incident.

"Well, when Parker told my father she was pre-med for the first time, I saw that light in his eyes that I'd seen before. And I was right. He badgered me about the new medical wing, that I was pretty certain would never exist, for the next couple years."

"But it is going to exist," Lexi said wanly.

"Yes," he said nodding.

"And with Parker?" she asked her brown eyes looking up at him sadly.

"Yes, but not for Parker."

Lexi shook her head side to side. "Then who is it for, because she's one of the few I can think that are benefiting from this."

"You," he said quickly. "It's for you."

"Me?" she asked a giggle escaping her. "Oh Ramsey you must be deluded to think that this is for me."

"Lexi, it is for you. I'm working to make things better for you," he said earnestly.

"How?" she demanded, standing. "By giving up the things you love? By making yourself miserable by being daddy's prodigal son? By working side by side with Parker every day? I'm sorry Ramsey, but these things don't make me happy. And you know what? You would know all of that if you had just bothered to ask me, if you had just bothered to include me in your plans."

"I know. I know. I should have included you, but I wasn't sure this was ever going to actually happen. We'd been planning around it yeah, but we'd been doing that for years. I never thought that everyone would buckle down and become serious about it when she showed back up," he said rising to his feet.

"Well they did and now what Ramsey? They've just announced that you guys are opening a new branch of your company. What are you going to do with the clubs? What are you going to do about…everything?" she ended lamely not wanting to bring up all the other things in his life that he would have rearrange with this new development.

"The clubs are taken care of. I'm handing everything over to Lola. She already knows."

He realized his mistake a little too late. "Wait," she said pointing her finger in his solid chest. "Lola knows about this? This is what she was talking about on Sunday about how you were making everything better for me. And Brad and Jason know too right? That's why they wouldn't say anything bad about you. They were insisting that they couldn't tell me why they had moved out, but that it was for me. Everyone knew," she breathed. "Everyone knew but me."

"Lexi…"

"No," she said shaking her head. "Tell me the truth Ramsey. Tell me the truth for once."

He let out a big breath, and hated answering the question, but there was no way around it. "Yes, everyone else knew about what was going on. I wanted it to be a surprise."

"You didn't want it to be a surprise. You were scared!" she yelled pushing her hands against his chest in anger. "You knew I'd be pissed about this…all of this."

"No," he said grabbing her wrists and pulling her against him. "That's not what this is about. I didn't want to scare you away that's for sure, but I did it anyway."

"Is it because of Parker?" she questioned him.

"God, Lexi, no none of this has to do with her. She just happens to be the other half of this project. I was afraid you would think we were taking things too fast. I mean you moving in was a huge step for you. I didn't want you to know how serious I was. That I'd asked my roommates to move out so I could live with you maybe buy a new place for the two of us. That I'd given the reigns over to Lola so I wouldn't have to be at the club anymore. You wouldn't have to worry about the girls anymore. I wouldn't be out so late, and we could actually spend some time together.

"I was doing this all for you. I might have gone about it all wrong, but we hadn't even been dating for a year and I couldn't stop thinking about us. I couldn't stop thinking about where our life was going and how much I wanted you here. So I did this without talking to you about it. You were so lost in your job, studying for the bar, and your father's heart attack that I was doing everything I possibly could not to be another complication in your life. And look what I've done…" he growled walking away from her dejectedly. "I've only made things worse and more complicated."