Avoiding Commitment (30 page)

“You don’t like my clothes?” she asked
pouting.

“Oh, I definitely love your skimpy little
things, but you’re so…raw,” he said pushing her bangs off her
forehead and really looking at her deeply. “So utterly beautiful,
my dear.”

A slow sweet smile played across her mouth as
he stared at her lovingly. “Thank you.”

“No,” he said letting his fingertips trail
across her jaw line. “Thank you.” He covered her body with his and
pressed his lips firmly against her own. The tenderness and
affection he portrayed in that one kiss Lexi thought could last a
lifetime. Tears welled up in her eyes as their tongues briefly
touched then broke apart. “You’re crying,” he said concerned.

“I’m sorry. It’s dumb,” she said swiping at
her eyes.

“Is something wrong?”

“It’s just…I don’t know, Jack. That was
amazing
. I know you can say it was just a kiss, but…”

He cut her off. “No, I felt it too,” he said
knowing that she didn’t have to explain what had just happened
between them.

“You…you did?” she asked in disbelief.

He leaned in once more and placed a chaste
kiss on her lips. “Yeah. I did. Maybe we should just get some
sleep,” he suggested.

Lexi nodded as she lay down on his shoulder
and snuggled into his muscular chest. She had no idea where to
pinpoint that feeling. It was something she had never experienced.
It was wonderful, painful, euphoric, and disarming all at the same
time. She felt like her heart was ripping out of her chest, and
like she had just had the most amazing adrenaline boost of a
lifetime. The scariest part was that she had no idea how such a
small thing like a simple kiss could make her feel like this. Those
were her last thoughts before she drifted to sleep securely placed
in Jack’s arms.

*****

“Lex…Lex, wake up.” She heard her name
called, but all she wanted to do was snuggle up further in the
covers. “Come on, Lexi. You need to wake up.”

Lexi rolled over onto her back and stared up
into her favorite pair of baby blues. “G’morning,” she mumbled.

“Your phone has been ringing off the hook all
morning. You should probably go figure out what’s going on,” Jack
told her.

She felt a jolt of adrenaline hit her body,
and she bolted out of bed terrified to find out why her phone was
blowing up. She had three missed calls from Clark and four from
Olivia. Lexi thumbed through the texts, most of which were from
Olivia checking to see if she had gotten in alright last night.
Then as Lexi progressed through the messages, she noticed they
began to get more frantic.

“
Where are you?”

“
What are you doing?”

“
You didn’t come home. I’m freaking
out.”

“
Have you spoken with Clark, because he
keeps calling me.”

“
LEXI, what do I tell him?”

“
What if he shows up at the apartment?
Can’t you just get back here?”

Lexi sighed heavily when she reached the end
of the messages, a hard knot forming in her stomach. This couldn’t
be good. Clark would never call Olivia unless it was important.
Maybe something had happened while he was home. She wasn’t sure,
but she figured she should get home sooner rather than later.

“I’ve got to get going. Something’s going on
with Clark. I’m not sure what, but I have to head out,” Lexi told
Jack as she changed out of his t-shirt.

“Alright, let me know what you find out,” he
said kissing her briefly on the forehead before she darted out of
the house.

Olivia was pacing the living room absently
strumming her guitar when Lexi walked through the door. She looked
like she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Olivia
squealed before Lexi could say a word. She placed her guitar in its
stand and stared at Lexi angrily. “Clark kept calling and texting
saying that you weren’t answering your phone, and that you weren’t
responding to any of his messages. What did you expect me to tell
him?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect this to happen. I
had a few too many drinks last night and ended up sleeping at
Jack’s place,” she told her. Most of what she had said was
true.

“I figured as much, but I wasn’t about to
tell him that. He would have come back and barged into Jack’s
apartment without notice.”

“He could have. It’s not like we were doing
anything,” Lexi lied biting her lip at Olivia’s frustration.

Olivia snorted. “Suuuure. In either case, I
finally picked up and told him that you were fine and just passed
out in your room from drinking last night. I’m surprised he isn’t
over here yet. You should definitely call him.”

“I’m not sure why you are so frantic,” Lexi
commented.

“Because I’m lying for you. I don’t mind, but
you can at least confide in me,” Olivia cried. “I’m your best
friend, and you can’t even tell me the truth. You’re a different
person than you were when we first knew each other. I think this
has to do with Jack, and I’d really like to be clued in.”

“For the last time, there is nothing going on
between me and Jack,” Lexi said storming into her room and leaving
Olivia hovering at her door.

“If that’s the case, then why didn’t he just
bring you home last night? Huh?”

“Because he’d been drinking too and he lives
closer to downtown,” she said, the lie coming out easier this time.
She couldn’t even count how many she had made by now. They all
seemed to be running together.

Olivia seemed to just let it go from there.
There was no point in trying to argue with Lexi when she was in
this state.

She pulled out her phone again and texted a
message to Clark,
“Sorry. I passed out last night from drinking.
Hope you’re not worried.”

Then she typed out one to Jack.
“Made it
safe. No need to worry.”

After several hours of silence from Clark,
Lexi was beginning to get worried. If he had been so frantic
earlier, why wasn’t he returning her message now? It was very
strange. When she was about to send him another message, a knock on
the door sounded from the living room. As she went to check the
front door Olivia was already standing there with it open talking
to Clark.

“Hey, I was just wondering about you,” Lexi
said smiling brightly.

“We need to talk,” Clark said walking into
her bedroom without another word.

Olivia looked at her anxiously as Lexi
followed him into her room, her smile dropping from her face. “I
got all your messages.”

“Then you know what this is about?” he asked
in a very serious tone.

Lexi’s stomach knotted together, and she
could hear her blood pounding away in her ears. This wasn’t about
something that had happened when he had been home. No. Judging by
the way he was looking at her, she could tell. He knew. She had no
idea how he knew, but he did. He hadn’t touched her. He had barely
looked at her. And those lone looks had been ones of disgust. Not
the loving tender looks she normally received from her
boyfriend.

“I’m not sure,” she answered tentatively.

“Don’t do that, Lexi.”

“Do what?”

“Lie to me anymore. Just don’t lie. Okay? Can
we just go through this one goddamn conversation without you lying
to me?” he asked running his hand through his shaggy black hair a
couple times before resting his green eyes back on her.

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Tell me what happened with you and
Jack.”

She stared at him, anxiously holding her
hands in place so she wouldn’t be tempted to mess with her hair.
Everyone kept pointing out that little habit to her, and this would
be the worst time for it. “What about me and Jack?” she asked
gulping hard.

“Lexi, please!” he cried his breath
quickening. “Just
don’t
lie to me.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“Just the truth.”

“There’s nothing going on between me and
Jack.” She had said the words so often that even she sometimes
believed them when they rolled off her tongue.

“Goddamnit, Lexi!” he yelled turning around
in place and visibly tensing at her words. He looked as if he were
about to throw something across the room. “I already talked to
Jack!”

Lexi froze in place. He had talked to Jack?
She couldn’t believe it. Had he gone to Jack’s place after she left
this morning which is why it had taken him longer to get here? Jack
must have told him everything to save his own skin. Lexi meant
nothing to him. She just wanted to cry. Why wouldn’t he have at
least warned her that he had spoken to Clark. Unless of course she
really did mean nothing to him. Everything he claimed to feel for
her had just fallen away when he had been confronted by her angry
boyfriend…his angry friend.

“You talked to Jack?” she whispered.

“Yes, he told me everything.”

“Everything?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“But nothing happened,” she said attempting
to stick to her story.

“Lexi,” he began shaking his head. “I already
talked to Jack. Don’t give me that. Now I don’t want to believe
him, but I need to hear the truth from you,” he said facing her
cowering figure. “Tell me what happened between you and Jack.”

Lexi gulped even harder this time fear
glistening in her eyes. She realized that she was compulsively
threading hair behind her ears from anxiety. She had never wanted
things to turn out this way, but somewhere along the way everything
had been flipped upside down. How could she tell Clark what had
happened between her and Jack? If she just blurted out the facts,
it would make her look bad. Worse than she actually was, but if she
left something out that Jack had divulged he would know she was
lying and hiding things from him. It was the prisoner’s dilemma she
had learned about in school. Except there was no winning side to
giving away any information. “We slept together.”

“You slept with him?” Clark asked hardly
containing his disbelief. She nodded. “When?”

“May.”

He did the math in his head. “Almost eight
months ago?” he cried. “When did you have time? We were together
all month.”

She choked back tears before answering him
honestly. “It was at the beach house.”

“Are you fucking joking? While I was asleep
in the same house? Has it happened since then?” Lexi sighed heavily
and shook her head no. “I don’t believe you. You mean to tell me
that you fucked eight months ago, and it hasn’t happened once since
then.”

“No, it hasn’t. We decided not to.”

“Oh, for your own fucking sake,” he paced
rapidly around the room doing anything to keep from looking at
her.

“It hasn’t happened again.”

“How do you expect me to believe that?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“I don’t think you fucking know what that
is.” Lexi remained silent not wanting to egg on his anger. “Have
you done anything else since then?”

“Yes. We kissed some, and I would spend the
night at his place.”

“Oh, you just kissed a little. You want me to
believe that you spent the night and didn’t fuck? I told you not to
lie to me.”

“We didn’t do anything more.”

“What about last night?” he asked cornering
her.

“What about last night? Nothing
happened.”

“I wouldn’t say
nothing
! I saw you at
Chamber with him all over you.”

Lexi’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t been
manic and delusional. Someone actually had been watching her all
along. She couldn’t believe it. “You were watching me?”

“Yes and I’m not ashamed of it either. You
would have never told me the truth, and I needed to see ya’ll
together for real.”

“I can’t believe you would do that.”

“I know, because I’m not the scheming scumbag
who goes behind people’s backs. That would be you and your little
fuck buddy. I can’t fucking believe you, Lexi. Were you even
careful? Did he get checked for diseases? How could you sleep with
me after you slept with him? How could you even look at me with
those big beautiful brown eyes of yours and tell me you love me?
When you obviously don’t.”

“I do love you,” she said quietly.

“I don’t want to hear that from your
deceitful, manipulative, lying mouth.”

“I am so sorry, Clark,” Lexi gasped sucking
in deep breaths between tears.

“I still can’t believe you actually slept
with him” He crashed back against the bed burying his face into his
hands. “You little whore.”

Lexi’s glazed eyes stared down at him. Her
humiliation was evident. “It wasn’t like that.”

“You slept with him while you were with me,”
he said through clenched teeth. Finally, looking up at her, he
said, “That makes you a whore.” She brushed her palm against her
cheeks forcefully. It did no good, the tears kept coming faster.
“After all that bullshit you fed me about ya’ll just being friends.
After all the warnings I gave you about him.” She couldn’t tear her
eyes away from him as his anger intensified. “Fuck, Lexi, you told
me yourself that you didn’t think he had been faithful with one
person he’d ever been with. Why would you let this happen?
How
could you let this happen? Do you think you are special?
Do you think he’s just going to leave Kate for you? He just wanted
to fuck you. And, now he’s done that. Try to explain to me how that
doesn’t make you a whore?” he spat at her.

She had no answer for him. She had never felt
so belittled before in her life, and she knew that she deserved
every word. She had made a terrible mistake, and then on top of
that she had attempted to hide her dirty actions. No wonder
everyone had told her that she was acting uptight lately. She had
been carrying around such a weight on her shoulders since that
night in May. It was almost a relief that Clark knew.

“I just…I need to get out of here and think
about this,” Clark said standing resolutely. He brushed past her
and entered the living room.