Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding #2)(8)

"I…" she trailed off. "Are you planning on being in New York?" She assumed he didn't have plans to be up here, not that money was an issue. But if he didn't already have plans, then she could stall just a little bit longer. It hadn't even been a month since they had been apart, and though she missed him, it wasn't long enough for her to try to forget him either. If he crashed back into her life so soon, she wasn't sure she'd have the will to walk out again.

"Actually, I am," he told her cheerfully knowing, somehow, that he had her in a corner.

"Oh," she blurted out in surprise. She hadn't exactly been expecting that. Maybe he was bluffing. "What are you doing up here?"

"I have...business to attend to," he muttered vaguely.

Lexi's eyes darkened. She did not want to have anything to do with his business matters. Who knew what he had planned if he was up here for business? He could be doing literally anything, and she didn't want to be involved. "Well count me out," she told him fiercely.

"Something for good ole daddy, Lexi," he mumbled obviously perturbed about the whole situation.

"Oh," she said again. That changed things. His father, the owner of Bridges Enterprise, a multi-million dollar conglomerate, frequently had Ramsey attend to business matters when he was traveling. Ramsey, who hated working for his father for so many reasons Lexi had stopped counting, usually did them more for Bekah than anyone else. They had a strange bond as brother and sister. A bond Lexi didn't much like since Bekah was the scum of the universe.

"So what do you say?" he asked hopefully.

"Uh, alright then," she agreed listening to the devil on her shoulder, "you can visit, but Ramsey…"

"Yes?" he asked practically giddy with excitement.

"Don't you dare bring up that wedding," she warned him.

* * *

K.A. Linde

Drugged

"Like indecision to call you

and hear your voice of treason

Will you come home and stop this pain tonight

Stop this pain tonight"

-Blink 182 "I Miss You"

* * *

Chapter 2: September Eleven Months Earlier

Pilates was one of the first things Lexi decided she was going to do to forget everything that had happened in Atlanta. She signed up for a semester long class with her excess student loan money. She was still in shape from her semi-regular jogs around the city, but it just wasn't enough. No matter what she did, law school managed to add a few extra pounds when she wasn't looking. Though she had always had a petite frame and was still rather small, she didn't like the excess weight any more than any other woman in America. Not to mention after two years of going cold turkey without her gymnastics training, her flexibility was shot. She could barely fall into a regular split, and to any prior gymnast, it was an embarrassment.

Lexi rolled over on her purple mat as the teacher instructed her into a plank position. Her core muscles hardened underneath her as she held the push-up like pose. She could feel her body begin to shake from the effort, but she held her head high and kept a smile on her face to loosen her features. Just when she thought she would collapse, the teacher instructed them to release. Lexi pushed over her toes, laying her legs flat against the mat, and arching her back. Every core muscle expanded and she let her head drop backwards for that added sensation.

Rolling back over her toes, Lexi shot her butt up into the air in a downwards dog position giving her calves and shoulders a thorough working. She alternated feet, pressing each heel into the ground, and holding the move.

The tiny Pilates instructor came up behind her and flattened out her back, adjusting the position just enough to get maximum potential out of the movement. "Very good," she complimented. She flung her waist length braid over her shoulder as she stood and moved to another student.

Lexi breathed into the position letting all the built up energy of the past month release from her body. School had started as expected and though her courses were rigorous, the anticipation of graduation looming over everything relaxed students and faculty alike. Relaxed was a relative term, of course, since she still had reading for obscure law courses in statutory interpretation and other such material that was supposed to prep her for the bar and the real world. She wasn't certain they were really prepping her for anything.

Just as the instructor began working them through the next series of movements a loud jingle began playing from one of the bags stuffed against the adjacent wall. Lexi's face colored as she realized that was her ring tone. Cell phones were strictly forbidden on any setting other than silent. Lexi hadn't even realized that her phone had been on until that second.

Jumping up from her seated position, Lexi scrambled to the other side of the room and switched it off. The teacher glanced at her disapprovingly and went back to her work. A few other faces still glared at her as she flipped open the phone and glanced down at the screen. Chyna's name appeared across the front and just as she was about to scurry back to her mat in hopes of regaining some of her earlier composure, a text filled the screen.

"911! Get ur ass over here."

Lexi groaned inwardly at the abrupt change of course her afternoon was taking. She stuffed her cell phone back into her purse and threw it into the pile with her other stuff. She wanted to kick herself for giving into Chyna's hysterical whims, but her friend was important to her. Girlfriends had come and gone in the past, but she couldn't imagine life without her friend who had seen her go through the most grueling part of her life. Their chance meeting outside of a club when Lexi had all but called her a snooty, rich bitch had sealed their fate. And if Chyna said there was an emergency, Lexi came running, because she knew Chyna had always been there for her when she needed her most.