The Avoiding Series Boxset Read online

  “Calm down. Calm down,” Lexi shushed her, feeling self-conscious as Jack continued to watch the standoff intently. She tried to avert her eyes as he effortlessly stripped his jacket off and held it in his arms. He just looked so good it was hard to resist staring.

  “I’m not calm, damn it!”

  “I realize that. But I have to go,” Lexi said abruptly, already wanting out of the conversation.

  “No, you need to leave. Go catch a cab. On me,” she added hastily.

  “Love ya, chica,” Lexi said closing the phone lightly.

  Her phone lit up in her hand again, but she switched it to silent, and turned the screen face down. No more interruptions. The stillness in the room was disconcerting. Last time she had been alone with Jack, she had been in a state of hysterics. Life with Jack in general was a state of hysterics. The rollercoaster her emotions rode when in his presence sent her stomach rolling and every nerve standing at full attention. The strange euphoria that had settled over her at the familiar touch of his hands encircling her had dissipated with Chyna’s urgent cautionary reminder.

  He was not supposed to be here.

  Even more important, Lexi had sworn she would not be entrapped by him again, and that included finding herself alone with him.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you.” Lexi began edging toward the doorframe.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t move a single inch. She felt her breasts, covered only by a thin piece of flimsy material, brush against his arm as she passed. Holding in a gasp, she walked as quickly as possible toward the guest bedroom.

  “Nice seeing you?” he questioned, following her down the hallway. “We haven’t spoken in two years, I surprise you, and all you have to say is nice seeing you?”

  Lexi let her nails dig into her palm. The jolt of pain was the only thing holding her back from snapping at him.

  “Well, it’s nice seeing you too,” Jack retorted, his tone resolving to calm neutral.

  She forced a half smile in his direction. Clicking the tiny button at the rear of her suitcase, Lexi felt the arm release. Her hand extended forward retrieving the rest of her luggage.

  “What are you doing?”

  The earnest in his voice surprised her, and she looked up into those clear blue eyes in surprise. Something had changed. A flicker of doubt cast across her features; her mouth formed a circle with a question hanging off her delicate lips.

  “You can’t leave,” he stated simply. A command not a request.

  Lexi shook her head. This was so typical. “I can and I will.”

  “Lex, please, I don’t want you to leave.”

  “I know this might come as a surprise to you, but it’s not always about you. And contrary to what you may think you know, I don’t care what you want,” Lexi said fighting to keep her cool.

  He repositioned himself in a similar fashion in the doorframe. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t come here for you,” she spat.

  He nodded his head in mock agreement. “Then why did you come?”

  “I came here for your lousy fiancé. I came here,” she paused, slowly walking toward him, “to help her not make the same mistake that I did.” Anger continued to well up inside her especially since his expression had yet to change at her remarks.

  “That’s nice, except for the part about my fiancé. I don’t have one.” A smart-ass smirk made its way onto his face.

  “Oh details,” she said, waving her hand in the air dismissively.

  “I’d say that’s a fairly important detail.”

  “Either way. She is your girlfriend. Right? That hasn’t changed overnight?” Jack shook his head confirming that nothing had changed. “Well then, I should be going.” She grabbed a hold of her rolling suitcase and walked toward the exit.

  “Would you stay if she wasn’t my girlfriend?” he asked, letting her pass by him.

  She stopped abruptly and turned. Her lips were tight, jaw set. “You never change.”

  “Oh come on. I’m teasing you,” he said, reaching forward and touching her hand, gently extracting the suitcase from her grip. “If you feel that offended that I came back all the way from Nashville just to see you, to make sure you were all right, then fine, leave. I’ll hail you a cab or drive you myself.”

  A flustered sigh came out of her mouth. How could he always do this? Somehow he had turned everything against her. Now, she was the bad guy for trying to storm out of his house. She was the bad guy for wanting to leave when he had made all the effort to get her to stay. She was the bad guy despite his unexpected, unwelcome appearance.

  “Maybe you should do that,” she managed to get out. She knew it was the right thing to do. She couldn’t be here. Their history prevented them from being casual, from being just friends.

  His face dropped. He had been expecting her to give in. “You really mean that? You don’t even want to hang out for an hour? A half hour?” he pleaded. “For old time’s sake?”

  “Jack, I can’t. You can’t ask that of me.” Her voice came out just louder than a whisper.

  Still grasping the handle of her suitcase, he yanked it around and protectively placed it behind him. “I am asking it of you.” He took a step closer. “What do you really think is going to happen? Things are different now, Lex.”

  As she stared up into his gorgeous blue eyes, she couldn’t help thinking that things weren’t that different for her. He had obviously moved on and rather quickly, but that was not the way it had happened in her world. She had tried to move on...unsuccessfully. Deep down she knew that if he bent down to kiss her just then, she wouldn’t have stopped him. As much as that fact irritated her, it was the truth. Even after everything.

  “Look, I just want you to feel comfortable. If I can only have ten minutes of your time before tomorrow, then I guess I could settle for that. If you’d rather me leave, and come back in the morning when we were scheduled to meet, I can do that too. Or if you’d rather us hang out all night reminiscing, even if it means we have to sit on separate couches. I would prefer that option.”

  She hesitated before speaking. “Jack, I...”

  “You’re going to say you can’t, but you can. You just won’t,” he said, taking a step into her personal space. She could feel the heat coming off of his body, and smell the cologne he wore that took her mind to places it shouldn’t.

  “Stop, just stop,” she murmured, stumbling backward. “You know what you’re doing, and you can just stop that. If I’m going to stay, it will be because I want to. Not because you are using all your damn seductive magical powers on me.”

  He looked amused as he gazed down the hallway at her. “I have magical powers now?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” She glared at him.

  He held his hands up in defeat. “Fine. Magical powers it is. Now will you please stay?”

  “Fine,” she stated only partially reluctant, “I’ll stay.”

  His smile was electric, as compelling as ever. He marched down the hall and threw his arms around her lifting her effortlessly off the ground. A giggle escaped her lips as she latched onto him for support. He quickly placed her back on her feet not wanting to press his luck.

  After a short break in which Jack changed into a familiar faded green t-shirt and black athletic shorts, the pair arranged themselves on separate couches in the living room as promised. Jack flipped on the TV setting ESPN’s college football predictions as background noise. Lexi lounged back against the brown suede. Her eyes took in the space, focusing in on things she hadn’t previously noticed. Two copies of Sports Illustrated, a week old Wall Street Journal, and a copy of Maxim were laid out against the walnut coffee table. Heavy black marble coasters sat in a neat stack within a matching enclosure.

  What was strange was that there wasn’t a single picture frame in the room. As she thought about it, she couldn’t remember there being a single picture frame in the whole house. When they had been in colle
ge, he had an array of picture frames of his family at his parent’s country house when he was younger, ridiculous acts captured with him among his college friends, and some amazing photos he had taken himself when he had been in a photography class for a semester. Now, none of that was here. It was like he had erased his past. Lexi felt suddenly out of place. She was a part of his past that he had so easily gotten rid of. She let her eyes rest back on Jack as she tucked her hair behind her ears several times.

  “Why are you so nervous?” he asked, resting his arm across the back of the couch and fixing her with an attentive gaze.

  “I’m not nervous,” she mumbled.

  “You’re doing that thing with your hair,” he said, pointing it out just as a lock was placed behind her ear. She caught herself doing it and quickly snapped her hand down to her side. “It’s kind of endearing, but you always do it when you’re nervous or anxious.”

  “Well…I haven’t seen you in a long time. I just can’t believe I’m actually here.”

  “I can’t believe you’re actually here either.”

  Lexi’s eyes made their way back to him. “Hey, that shirt!”

  He looked down at what he was wearing. “Yeah?”

  “Oh my God, you’re wearing the carnival shirt,” she said seeing the worn outline of a Ferris wheel.

  “Oh, yeah. I guess it is. It’s the most comfortable thing I own.” She stared longer, her mind whirling. “Do you still have yours?”

  She giggled then sprinted to the guest bedroom. When she returned, she had a flimsy green shirt in her hand. The material had several tiny tears. It had been washed and worn so many times it was practically sheer. He nodded his approval with a smile. She tossed the shirt onto the back of the couch and returned to her earlier position.

  After a brief pause, Lexi spoke up again. “So, what did Danielle and Kate tell the new girl? I mean I’m guessing that’s who she talked to.”

  “Yeah, she met both of them. It was almost as strange as calling you. Well, maybe not quite that strange.” Her eyes narrowed when he winked at her. “Anyway, Danielle agreed immediately. Thankfully, she had no qualms about meeting Bekah. Her and I broke up on good enough terms, you know, for it not to be an issue.”

  Lexi giggled. “That’s not how I remember it.”

  “Luckily, that’s how she remembered it,” he said sighing. “I haven’t spoken to her much since then, but her sister lives in Atlanta now so she came and stayed with her for the weekend.”

  “Does she still live in Savannah?” Lexi thought it was humorous that she was able to have this conversation at all. When she had first found out that Danielle even existed, she was so furious that she was certain she would never talk to Jack again, let alone spend time with him.

  “Yeah. She’s married now to some redneck that dropped out of high school the year I graduated. He’s a real winner,” he added smugly. “She’s raising his two kids from a previous marriage, and she’s pregnant with another. You could only just tell when she was here. Anyway, she told Bekah our story; that we dated in high school and my first year or so of college. The distance thing,” he stated vaguely, “didn’t work out for us, and so we broke up. End of story.”

  “So, nothing about me then?” Lexi asked just trying to get all the information she could.

  “Uh...I never told her about you,” Jack said shifting uncomfortably.

  “Oh, well that’s probably for the better,” she said, trying not to convey her emotions too strongly.

  There had been plenty of reasons for Jack and Danielle breaking up. The distance and Lexi were just two of the many. But if Danielle hadn’t said anything about the others, Lexi wasn’t going to be the one to bring them up.

  “What about Kate? Obviously she brought me up, so I’m sure her story was interesting,” she stated sarcastically.

  “Ugh,” he groaned. “Do we have to talk about Kate? I know how you feel about her. I know how she feels about you. And now Bekah knows how Kate feels about you. And let’s just say, it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to be present for.”

  “Oh,” Lexi replied slightly taken aback. She hadn’t really thought about what Kate might have said about her beyond the usual. Lexi had been so concerned with what she was going to tell Bekah, that it hadn’t even crossed her mind what Kate might have said about her. “Did she claim that I was the reason that you wouldn’t commit to her?” she asked finally.

  He let out a puff of air. “Not exactly, but you didn’t help anything either.”

  “Me?!? You were the one…”

  He cut her off. “I said, let’s not talk about Kate.”

  She quieted, her chest heaving up and down in a familiar burst of anger. “Fine.”

  “What are you going to tell her?” he asked hesitantly.

  She shook her head deep in thought. She still wasn’t sure herself. At first, she had been certain that she was going to tell his girlfriend how Jack was an awful terrible person, and that Bekah better get out before things went downhill. After all, that was what she had told Chyna she was going to do. That’s what she had screamed at Jack in the hallway. But, after finally being in his presence, Lexi wasn’t sure if she could do it.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “There’s just so much you could tell her,” he stated vaguely. Lexi could tell he seemed a bit anxious about the whole situation.

  “I know.”

  And she did. Their history went back for six years and the fact that they hadn’t been together made the whole story juicier.

  “Did you mean what you said in the bedroom? That you were going to tell her not to make the same mistake you did.”

  “I did when I said it,” she offered. “But I was angry, and now I’m not so sure.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing,” he said, optimistic to the prospects. She could tell he wanted to ask more questions, but he held his tongue. Lexi was grateful for that. She didn’t really want to have that conversation.

  Lexi pushed her hair behind her ear again before asking the question that had been nagging at her since Jack had called the first time. “Why didn’t you tell her about me? You had to know Kate was going to say something.”

  He ran his hands back through his hair several times thinking the question over. He adjusted his position so that he was lying with his head back against the armrest before addressing her.

  “I didn’t want her to know about you. I...” he paused collecting his thoughts once again. “I met Bekah shortly after you and I…well…you know. I had no interest in dating anyone. But when I told you she was about as persistent as I am, I wasn’t lying. After a few unremarkable dates with her, I called the whole thing off.”

  Lexi looked over at him surprised. She had assumed their relationship was picture perfect. It was refreshing to hear that it wasn’t. “Why? What happened?” she asked curiously.

  “She wasn’t you.”

  Lexi gulped. She wanted to just scream at him for not calling her afterwards, for not calling a month later, a year later. They could have worked things out if he hadn’t run out, if he had just come back to her. But instead he had been with another woman. Now the distance between them was unbearable.

  “Bekah doesn’t take no for an answer,” he continued. “I was pretty messed up after I left New York, and she slowly brought me out of all of that. I stopped trying to see you in her, and I found that things went much better. I found I could like her. Soon we were together all the time. The relationship progressed rather quickly from there.”

  Lexi sighed heavily. The way his eyes lit up at the mention of their relationship pained Lexi. She could tell Bekah made him happy...happier than she had ever been capable of making him. Their relationship was everything she had hoped for with Jack, but had never been afforded.

  “I don’t know how much more you want to know, but Bekah wanted to move in with me when her lease ran out. Her parents are pretty well off and have been helping her financially. They told her they would cut her off
if she moved in with her boyfriend before she got married. That’s pretty much where we are now.”

  “So, it’s not because she wants to get married so desperately? It’s about money and moving in with you?” Lexi asked, trying to process this new information. Jack had made Bekah situation seem much more...desperate on the phone.

  “No. No. No. It’s really about her wanting to get married,” he remanded hastily. “She is playing it off like those are the real reasons. Honestly, she doesn’t need her parents’ money or approval,” he finished.

  Even though Lexi wasn’t really looking forward to meeting Bekah, she had obviously captured something with Jack. Lexi was kind of curious about her.

  “Can I ask you something?” Lexi asked sitting up to get a better look at him.

  “You just did.”

  “Ha. Ha,” she said dryly. A smile appeared on his face as he sat up to meet her gaze.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Where are all your picture frames?” Whatever he had been anticipating, that hadn’t been it. “You used to have a ton of them, but I don’t see any.”

  “When you were snooping?” he asked playfully. She nodded. His smile waned slightly when he responded. “The glass broke in a bunch of them when I moved here, and the rest are in my closet.”

  “Why didn’t you put those up? I mean at least the woods shot,” she said, remembering a particular black and white photograph of a rickety bridge over top of a creek surrounded by age-old pine trees at sunrise. It had always been her favorite.

  “I don’t have it anymore,” he said sheepishly, his eyes fixed on the floor.

  “Where did it go?” she asked intrigued. He had always loved that picture as much as she had. For the longest time, it had hung in a thick black poster sized frame above his bed.

  “I destroyed the frame.”

  Her mouth hung open as she imagined his prized portrait torn to shreds. “Why would you do that? It was your favorite picture.”

  He shook his head. “It was your favorite.”

  Realization dawned on her. He had gotten rid of it because of her. He couldn’t look at it anymore because of her.