Avoiding Commitment (32 page)

Lexi had been joking, not expecting an answer
in the first place. Though, she wasn’t sure if he was telling the
truth anyway. It could just be a line. She couldn’t picture the
type of women she had seen at his party the night before being
happy with an outdoor picnic and laser show as their first date.
She shook her head realizing that she was overanalyzing. Who cares
if he didn’t normally take girls on dates here?

Luckily, he had learned his lesson and sat on
the opposite side of the blanket from her giving her a wide berth.
He was always so up in her face and it really just brought out the
worst in her.

“I didn’t know what you wanted,” Ramsey began
digging into the basket, “so I just got a bunch of things. You can
decide what you like.”

“When did you have time for this?” she asked.
She had stayed at his house all afternoon. Granted, she had felt
like shit much of that time and took nearly an hour long
shower.

“I just made a list and had some people take
care of it,” he said sheepishly.

“Oh.” She should have figured. It could have
been worse. He could have not gone to the trouble. She shook her
head again in frustration. Why did she care whether or not he went
and picked out dinner for them? She had to keep reminding herself
she didn’t
really
want to be here. Right?

Lexi watched him extract a bag of green
grapes from the bag and immediately snatched them out of his grasp.
He jolted in surprise. She sent a smile his way and popped one into
her mouth.

Ramsey couldn’t help himself from staring at
her. Lexi’s cheeks were flushed from the Georgia summer heat and
lips wet from licking off the grape juice that had squirted onto
her bottom lip. He gulped heavily fishing around in the basket for
something to distract him. He uncovered the remaining food and
removed two cans of Coke for them.

She caught him watching her, and in her
eagerness scooted closer towards him so they were nearly touching.
“Want one?” Lexi asked holding a grape between her fingers. He
nodded and before he could reach out to take the fruit, she pressed
it in between his lips.

He crunched down on the fruit trying to act
as if that hadn’t affected him. “Thanks.”

Lexi batted her eyelashes before sitting back
on her side of the blanket. Her hand brushed her bag and felt the
vibrations through the material. She retrieved the device and
flipped it open.
“Are you okay? Where are you? Why aren’t you
returning my texts? Lexi?!?”

Lexi sighed heavily and bit her lip as she
read through Jack’s text message. She had completely forgotten
about messaging him back. She quickly typed out a reply and closed
her phone.
“Sorry. Alive.”

“
You got to your parents safe
then?”

Turning her head to look at Ramsey’s perfect
bone structure, she giggled a little to herself. Man, if Jack knew
where she was at this moment, he would have a fit. She wasn’t sure
if she wanted to tell him though. At least, not over text message.
Not when she couldn’t use the information as leverage.
“Safe.”

“Anyone important?” Ramsey asked casually
taking a bite of the sandwich in his hand.

Lexi rolled her eyes. “Just Jack again.” God,
she hated how familiar this all felt.

“Ahh...” he said unsure if he was prepared to
broach that subject.

“
Do you want to come over tomorrow or
something?”

Lexi sighed again. Did she want to go see
him? Yes. No. There wasn’t really a good answer. If she was honest
with herself, the answer would be yes. The answer would always be
yes. She always wanted to see him. She hadn’t spent any time with
him in two years, and she missed him. A part of her always missed
him. They had gone through so much, it was hard to not want to be
around him. Even though things always ended so fucked up, her brain
wouldn’t let her forget the in between times when things were oh so
good.

“
Yeah. I’ll let you know.”

“
Great.”

“So what’s up with you and Jack?” Ramsey
asked against his better judgment. Lexi’s eyes immediately
darkened.

“Oh, just...you know,” she stated vaguely
unsure how much she wanted to reveal. He didn’t know anything now
which was probably for the better.

“Not really. You two seemed pretty heated
last night. Was he just drunk? I’d never seen him that way before,”
Ramsey admitted hoping to push the right buttons. He could see her
begin to visibly relax as the attention fell away from her.

“I’ve just known Jack for a long time, and
he’s pretty protective. Kind of like an older brother,” she said
dryly. She couldn’t help thinking that Jack would make
the
worst older brother in the world.

Ramsey smirked noticing the ever-so-slight
twitch in her muscles that indicated she was lying. He had always
considered himself a great judge of character even when his parents
hadn’t. Lexi’s phone began to buzz next to her again.

“Hello?” Lexi asked not recognizing the
Atlanta phone number. Last time that had happened, she had been led
here. That thought almost made her want to drop the call, but the
sound of a chirpy voice cut off her line of reasoning.

“Hello, dear,” Bekah said from the other
line.

Cringing at the uppity sound of her voice,
Lexi pulled the phone away from her ear. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

No way had Jack put her up to this. Then
again she had to have gotten the number from somewhere, and Jack
was the prime suspect. “I’m busy. Was there something you needed?”
Lexi asked avoiding the question.

She let her eyes fall back on Ramsey who
looked at her inquisitively. She shrugged and mouth
Bekah
to
him. His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Yes,” Bekah stated rather deliberately. “I
don’t believe we’ve finished our conversation yet. Do you have
plans tomorrow? I’d really like to take you shopping for Jack’s big
day, and we can talk then.”

Jack’s big day? She hadn’t heard anything
about his big day. What was his big day? What were they
celebrating? She had no idea, but she didn’t particularly want to
give Bekah the satisfaction of knowing that piece of
information.

“Fine. How about I call you tomorrow?”

“Sounds great, sweetie,” Bekah said happily.
“Jack, stop,” Lexi heard her mutter playfully in the phone. She
didn’t even know if Jack was actually there or if Bekah was just
being a bitch. She supposed it didn’t really matter since it had
worked. Lexi could feel her heart constricting and pain crease her
temples. Her throat was closing up and she felt her body seizing at
the thought of Jack being alone with Bekah. Lexi coughed
uncomfortably and said a rushed goodbye before slamming the phone
shut.

“What was that about?” Ramsey asked, concern
evident in his voice.

“Your sister wants to take me shopping,” Lexi
informed him pushing several strands of hair behind her ear
forcefully.

“That’s nice of her,” Ramsey said. Though for
some reason, he didn’t really think it was.

Lexi snorted. “Nice. Right.”

“You don’t have to hang out with her,” he
stated absentmindedly. He passed a sandwich to her, and she reached
into the basket to investigate the contents further.

“Yeah, I know, but Jack wants me to,” she
said shrugging.

“Why is that?” he asked honestly curious.

Lexi shrugged again. “Beats me. We’ve known
each other for a long time, and I guess since I’m here he wants me
to get to know his girlfriend too.”

Ramsey took a deep breath to keep from asking
too many more questions. “How long are you here for exactly?”

“School starts on Monday. I guess until
Sunday then. A week total.” Lexi smiled at the grimace that crossed
his face. She wasn’t entirely sure if that was because she was
staying too long or too short, but she was going to go with the
latter. She had found herself in quite an interesting scenario.

“I guess you’ll be here long enough for
Jack’s birthday then,” Ramsey said leaning back on his elbows and
examining her reaction.

Lexi’s mouth popped open in surprise. Oh my
God. How had she forgotten his birthday? Of course, it was his
birthday this weekend. And, if she recalled, this was a big one
indeed. Twenty-five years old. Wow. A quarter of his lifetime gone
by, and she had known him since he was just nineteen. She couldn’t
believe she had forgotten. “Oh, yeah. What is he doing
exactly?”

She couldn’t believe she was asking Ramsey
for information about this. Why hadn’t Jack mentioned it? Had he
assumed she wouldn’t come? Did he not want her to be there? There
were so many questions that she needed answered. At least now she
understood why Bekah wanted to go shopping for
Jack’s big
day
.

“You don’t know?” he asked skeptically.

“I wasn’t really filled in,” she admitted
awkwardly.

He sure thought it was strange that she had
come to visit Jack, but he hadn’t even invited her to his birthday
celebration. “It’ll be a surprise for you too. Want to go with
me?”

Lexi was interrupted from answering as her
phone went off in her hand. “Goddamn it. Who wants to talk to me
now?” Lexi popped open the phone. “Hello.”

“Alexa!” Chyna squealed on the other line.
“Oh my goodness, chica, I have missed you. How have things been
going with, you know, everything? Are you planning to come home to
me sooner rather than later?”

Lexi’s laughed as soon as she heard her best
friend’s voice. “Chyna, it’s so good to hear from you.” Lexi
glanced over at Ramsey who’s expression had lightened in accord
with her own enthusiasm. “Sorry to disappoint, but it doesn’t look
like I’ll be joining you back home anytime soon. Though I do miss
New York terribly.”

“I knew you would,” Chyna trilled. “How could
you not? I know the summer is scathingly hot, but to get away to go
somewhere not only hot, but humid? Disgusting.”

“You convinced me to come down here in the
first place,” she reminded her, getting lost in their conversation
and not realizing that she was giving away information in front of
Ramsey.

“Yes, well, how does closure suit you?”

“Actually,” Lexi said pushing her hair behind
her ear as she glanced at Ramsey’s all too curious face, “I can’t
really talk about that right now.”

“And why not? You’re supposed to be with your
family tonight, right?”

“Err...”

“Oh my God, Alexa, you are
not
with
him right now are you?”

Lexi’s brows furrowed together hoping to God
that Ramsey couldn’t hear Chyna’s end of the conversation. “No, no,
no, no, no,” she muttered quickly. “I’m just...um.”

“Do not lie to your best friend.”

“I’m not lying,” she quickly corrected. “I’m
just...on a date.” Ramsey’s bright smile at the recognition of
their date was totally worth it. This guy seriously had everything
going for him. Which begged the question, what was he doing with
her? But she couldn’t think about that right now.

“What?” Chyna squealed. Then thinking the
better of it, she asked, “With whom? Jack? It better not be Jack.
Your vague texts over the past two days haven’t been enough. Fill
me in. What’s going on?”

“Chyna, I’m kind of in the middle of
something here,” Lexi reminded her.

“Oh geez, Alexa, I’m sorry. I’ll let you go,
but I better get some details. You know how long I’ve been waiting
for this to happen. If you don’t call me by tomorrow...”

Lexi cut her off. “Good night, Chyna.” Lexi
closed the phone and turned the damn thing off not wanting another
such distraction. “I’m so sorry. I’m usually not this popular,” she
admitted smiling at Ramsey who just shrugged off the
statements.

“No problem at all. Was that someone from
home?”

“Yeah, my best friend,” she told him.

Luckily, there were no interruptions for the
remainder of the evening. The two managed idle chit chat with
little interrogation or their normal rude behavior towards one
another. The sun set as they finished their meal and an
announcement went out signifying the beginning of the laser show.
Lexi got lost in the twirling lights and loud popular music
blasting from the speakers. She couldn’t believe that they were
capable of displaying scenes to go along with the music that were
large enough to cover the entire side of the mountain. The couple
involuntarily snuggled closer together as the show continued.
Ramsey had even ventured to lace his fingers with hers.

When the show ended, the surrounding families
and groups began to pack up. Lexi sighed finding it strange that
she was actually sad that the evening was coming to an end. She
began to pull away from him, but he pulled her back down.

“It’s not over yet,” he muttered into her
ear.

“But everyone’s...” she began gesturing to
the crowd.

“Wait a second,” he said smiling down at
her.

Lexi glanced around hoping to find out what
he was talking about. Half of the people were already exiting the
lawn, and they hadn’t even moved yet. She knew it would take awhile
to get out of the park and was ready to start the long ride back to
his place. If there was more to come, then no one else had been
informed. She was about to tell him that he had been misinformed,
when a loud pop sounded from the mountain.

Lexi’s eyes darted up to the sky as a red
firework exploded, covering the night sky. There were never
fireworks this time of the year. They only ever had fireworks for
the week of the Fourth of July. The surrounding crowd had halted
their urgent packing to look up at the shimmering colors falling
towards the earth. Several more fireworks erupted from their
perspective locations producing earsplitting booms and crackling
popcorn. Lexi stared on in wonder as more and more fireworks
colored the sky.

“I can’t believe they did this,” she
whispered into the night. “I didn’t think they had fireworks this
late in the season.”