The Avoiding Series Boxset

by K. A. Linde

“Look,” Parker began slowly, “I really don’t have a place in your relationship.” Lexi looked up at Parker as she spoke.

  “Yet you weaseled yourself in,” Ramsey growled, keeping Parker from saying anything further.

  Parker’s head snapped so fast in Ramsey’s direction that she looked like she got a crick in her neck. She didn’t look like she could believe he had just said that. Parker had done what she thought was right. She might have acted impulsively, but Lexi was pretty sure Parker thought her head had been in the right place.

  “It’s not exactly my fault that I have to be around you all the time,” Parker spat out without a second thought. Her venom carried years of pain and heartache over the man in front of her.

  Ramsey leveled his gaze on her. His green eyes could have burned a hole through her. His jaw was taut and usually full lips were pulled tight into a straight line. Tiny wrinkles across his forehead and around his eyes showed the true fierceness of his anger. Parker swallowed hard as she met that gaze, darted her eyes to Lexi, and back.

  Lexi stopped her pacing and turned back to Parker at the end of that last statement. Where had that come from? What the fuck was she talking about? Since when did they have to be around each other all the time? This was news to her. This was news that she had never wanted to hear.

  “Wait,” she cried holding her hand up to draw their attention back to her and keeping them from deftly changing the subject, “why exactly do you guys have to be around each other all the time?” Lexi eyed them both carefully. She knew they had their own language and she didn’t want to miss anything that was going on between them. Hopefully she would be able to pull something from their sidelong glances that told her one way or another what was going and if they were lying to her.

  “Uh…” Parker mumbled looking at the ground. She looked really uncomfortable like she knew she had just fucked up somehow. Ramsey openly glared at Parker as she stood there awkwardly.

  How could someone so intelligent possibly be so stupid? If she wasn’t supposed to tell Lexi these things, she surely wasn’t playing the part.

  “It’s stuff you don’t want to have anything to do with,” Ramsey finally responded, meeting Lexi’s eye.

  Lexi’s dark brown eyes looked back at him suspiciously. She couldn’t believe that was his response; that she just wouldn’t want to know about what Parker had said. Clearly she wanted to know or else she wouldn’t have asked. “I’m sorry, but I just heard that my boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend have to spend all this time together. Oh, and by the way, I knew nothing about any of this,” she muttered scathingly. “I think I’d want to know what the fuck this is all about.”

  “Ramsey, can’t we just tell her?” Parker breathed barely louder than a whisper.

  “Tell me what?” Lexi crowed turning on Parker who still wouldn’t look at her. Lexi was getting angrier the longer they kept information from her.

  “Look you really don’t want to know!” he told her again a bit more vehemently.

  By now of course, Lexi wanted to know nothing more than why she couldn’t know and what the big secret was. This was infuriating. How much more convincing did she have to do? She told him she wanted to know. She had already insisted she didn’t want any more lies, and yet here he was keeping something from her. She shook her head in disbelief. “Just tell me! Why do there have to be so many secrets between us?”

  “Ramsey,” Parker pleaded softly.

  “Look, it just has to do with the wedding all right,” he snapped. His eyes shifted to Parker whose own mouth had snapped shut.

  “Oh, God,” Lexi cried, “Can we not talk about the wedding?” Lexi shuddered at the thought of Jack’s wedding, period. She did not want to hear anything about it. She did not even want to think about it. She didn’t miss the sneaky look that passed between Ramsey and Parker, but she didn’t want to know what it had to do with the wedding. The last thing she wanted to know about was that wedding.

  “See, I told you it was the last thing you wanted to talk about and that I wasn’t going to bring it up,” he said sliding a hand through his hair.

  “Whatever,” Lexi said dismissively, “I still don’t understand why you had to lie about the other stuff. You know my past and how important trust is to me. How do I know you didn’t lie about anything else? How do I even know you care about me?” Lexi didn’t like stating that last statement. It made her feel incredibly weak and vulnerable. Her heart was in his hands at that last comment. She thought they had been on some sort of path, but his lying certainly made it clear that he had other things in mind. If he couldn’t even trust her with his past, how could he trust her with his future?

  “You know how I feel about you,” he said earnestly, moving toward Lexi. Lexi took a hesitant step back countering his movements. She wasn’t prepared to be in close proximity to him…to play this game.

  “Yet, you lie,” she breathed shaking her head at his advance.

  “It wasn’t intentional for me to lie to you about it,” he groaned miserably.

  “Unintentional lying?” Lexi asked rolling her eyes. “That’s rich.”

  “No, come on. I told you that Parker and I don’t discuss this stuff with people. Well, usually not,” he said sliding his eyes toward Parker. “Anyone who knew we were together knows better than to bring it up. Tell her Parker,” he barked demandingly.

  Parker sighed and sank into one of his cushioned chairs, as if resolved that she had to remain for the remainder of this conversation. “We really don’t tell people.”

  “You told me,” she said defiantly.

  “I thought you deserved the truth. I could see where Ramsey’s head was with you and I couldn’t hold it in. I didn’t want your world to come crashing down around you…like mine did.” Parker bit her lip anxiously before continuing. “But honestly, I haven’t told the whole story to anyone in a very long time, and Ramsey, I doubt has ever told anyone.”

  “Well, fine, you don’t normally tell people about it, but did you have to lie?” Lexi questioned him. “Couldn’t you have told me that she existed so I wouldn’t be blindsided? Why did I have to hear her side first?”

  “Lexi, I told you I don’t have an excuse. This is what Parker and I always did. We didn’t tell people what happened. Parker was the only one who ever told and she always seems to get there first with her distorted version of reality,” Ramsey grumbled. Lexi could tell just by the reactions of both parties that they had argued about this before and rather often.

  “My reality isn’t distorted,” Parker sputtered, looking up from where she was seated. “I was there. I actually know what happened. You weren’t even there for everything…”

  “Because you left! We argued, and you left. How could I talk to you about it?”

  “Ancient history,” Parker said with a sad shoulder shrug.

  “And you told her you miscarried,” he spat at her, his anger bubbling up again.

  “Ramsey, I did,” she moaned a tear rolling down her cheek at the mention of her lost pregnancy. She sounded as if she had said this same thing many times. Lexi wondered how many times she had tried to convince Ramsey that she had miscarried. She wondered if Parker actually had. She just didn’t know.

  He shook his head in disbelief. “And you believe her?” Ramsey asked turning on Lexi.

  Lexi didn’t know if she truly believed Parker’s side, but she was even more uncertain about Ramsey. “She’s not the one who’s been lying to me from the beginning. I don’t see why I should believe you?” she told him. “Does an abortion sound any more plausible?” Lexi asked crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Can’t anyone else see the truth but me?” he demanded, turning around in a quick circle his arms out before him as if pleading with an unseen audience.

  “What’s the truth?” Lexi asked harshly. “It’s hard to when you’ve lied about so much else.”

  “Did she skim over the parts about Bekah’s involvement?” he asked taking the argument back to day one.<
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  Lexi looked at Parker whose face had gone as white as a sheet. “She told me she would save me the details,” Lexi said, knowing for some reason that it was the answer Ramsey had been expecting.

  Ramsey gritted his teeth in an attempt to keep his anger in check. “Of course, she skimmed over the details. Parker still refuses to see what she actually did. She holds herself together behind a wall that no one has ever been able to break through. Didn’t you wonder why she wanted to save you the details?”

  “No,” Lexi said quietly. “I just thought it was personal. I didn’t really know there was a connection.”

  “I understand why you didn’t see it to begin with,” he growled a man possessed. She could see it all over him that he had been obsessed with this very issue at one point. “It took me a long time to finally realize what had happened in that week.”

  “Ramsey,” Parker pleaded, her voice shaking with every syllable. “You put the pieces together wrong. They didn’t happen that way.” By now Parker’s body was trembling.

  “What are you trying to say?” Lexi asked.

  “Parker saved you the details of my sister going over there and convincing her to get rid of the baby,” he stated stoically.

  Lexi couldn’t help it, she gasped. “No,” she murmured not wanting to see what was in front of her. “You think she did that? You think that about your own sister?” She had to ask. She hated Bekah, but to do that against your own brother. Lexi found it hard to believe.

  “After everything you know about Bekah, you somehow can’t believe that she would do that?” Ramsey asked in disbelief.

  Lexi thought it over. She didn’t have a good opinion of Bekah. In fact, she thought Bekah was one of the worst people she had ever met. She despised Bekah. But this even seemed low for her.

  Yet, Lexi knew how Bekah operated. No matter how much she loved her brother. No matter how close their bond was she still only worked one way. She did whatever directly benefited her. Lexi knew that she was like this first hand. She had only invited Lexi down to meet her with the intention of destroying her relationship with Jack so Bekah could have him all to herself. So, how could this benefit her? How could her convincing Parker to have an abortion benefit her?

  Lexi couldn’t draw a connection. This was Parker’s best friend. They had known each other since childhood. It was her brother’s baby. Granted, it was a baby that he didn’t know about until it was too late, but still…this was going to be Bekah’s niece. Why would she get rid of it?

  Then it hit her. It felt like a light bulb had been turned on in her mind. She knew exactly how Parker getting rid of her baby niece would benefit Bekah. It would save her reputation and the reputation of her family. Bekah would never want to be involved in anything that was scandalous…anything that could somehow come back to be directly related to her. It didn’t matter what emotional damage this would do to her brother or Parker. It didn’t matter how this would ultimately destroy their relationship. It didn’t matter that she would lose her best friend…or at least the easy relationship they had once had. All that mattered was what irreparable damage this would do to her family’s status.

  Lexi knew Ramsey must have come to this same conclusion. He knew Bekah better than anyone else. For some reason it seemed more logical than any of the other things that had been confessed all night. Bekah was a big enough bitch to convince her own best friend to get rid of her own brother’s baby, without telling him to save the Bridges name.

  “She did it for herself,” Lexi murmured softly, seeing it clearly.

  “How did you come to that same conclusion?” Parker asked standing a bit too quickly. She wobbled heavily on her two feet as she stared slack jawed at Lexi.

  “Because it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Ramsey responded.

  “It doesn’t make sense. Why would I lie about this? I know what happened. I was there,” Parker told him. “And you weren’t.”

  Ramsey shook his head despondently. “Let’s not have this argument again, Parker. Please. I know I wasn’t there. I know I made mistakes, but not any more or less than you did. Can we please drop it?”

  “How could you even look at her again once you figured it out?” Lexi asked in disbelief that he could still be a devout brother.

  He shrugged getting that knowing look in his eye. “She’s my sister. She might have done some terrible things, but I love her. How could she have known what this would have done or that I would have ever figured it out?”

  Lexi thought it was incredibly short sighted to believe that Bekah didn’t know what it would do. Bekah played a game. She wove her web and typically knew exactly where the pieces would fall. Then again, Lexi was a bit jaded about Bekah’s involvement in any scenario.

  “Well,” Lexi said spinning on Parker, “I guess since I know about as much truth about that situation as you both can agree on, can you at least tell me that he hasn’t lied to me about anything else? Do you know if he’s lied to me? You two have been awful chummy since you got back to town. I’m sure you would know something.”

  Parker gave Ramsey a knowing look before quickly turning away. “I…I don’t know.”

  “You think I can’t see what’s going on here? I see the looks between you two. I’m not stupid,” she yelled at the both of them. “I’ve done a lot of stupid things before. I’ve lied and I’ve made mistakes, but this is just different. I’ve come clean about my past, about everything. I’ve put it behind me. And to think that you don’t even have the decency to do the same…to even tell me about it. To try and hide it behind silly looks that you two pass between each other. Well, I’ve had enough!”

  Ramsey ran his hands through his hair. “I lied about something else,” he admitted softly.

  “What?” Lexi cried sinking into a chair in disbelief. “After I stood here and yelled at you for however long, you still held something back from me. What? Have you and Parker been seeing each other behind my back? Have you been cheating on me like you cheated on her?” she asked throwing her hand out in Parker’s direction.

  “I never cheated on Parker,” he gasped out, looking into Parker’s hurt face. “Did you tell her I cheated on you?”

  “No, Ramsey, I didn’t,” she said hating this conversation more and more. Parker had kind of implied that he had cheated on her, but she hadn’t come right out and said it. “I swear. I would never make that mistake again.”

  “I never cheated on her,” he bellowed. “Never!”

  “Oh, you just got drunk and had naked women in your apartment who…what did you say?” she asked Parker. “Would suck your dick at a snap of your fingers?”

  “You said that Parker, really?” he asked shaking his head side to side slowly as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “After everything, you still can’t get over that night. I told you nothing happened. It was for Brad and Jason. Why can you still not believe me?”

  Parker stared at him helpless, hopelessly. She clearly couldn’t get any words out.

  “Probably because you lie,” Lexi whispered into the stillness.

  He sighed heavily before slumping in the seat behind his desk exhausted. “I never cheated on Parker. There were girls over at my apartment that night, but I never nor would I ever do anything like that to her…or to you,” he added quickly. “If I had ever wanted to be with someone else, I would have just broken up with you. But I didn’t then,” he said glancing at Parker, “and I don’t want to now.” Lexi met his eyes as they landed on her face.

  “Yet, you lied about something else. It’s hard to believe what you’re spouting when you told me that you lied…again,” she said feeling tears spring into her eyes. She hadn’t even realized how emotional she had gotten. All she had felt through this ordeal was anger. She couldn’t believe he would lie over and over and over again to her. She had been purely angry with his reactions and his answers. The last thing she had even thought about was getting emotional. Yet, the fact that he was now admitting that he still hadn’t told he
r the whole truth made her want to break down in tears. The lies seemed endless.

  Ramsey sighed heavily. “I…I got you that job at the law firm here.”

  “What?” she cried, feeling the automatic need to punch something. “Are you fucking kidding me, Ramsey? You interfered with my job? Did you not think I was smart enough to get that job? Did you not think I had enough money to get that job? What was it? I don’t understand how you could go behind my back like that. No wonder it just fell into my lap. I made the mistake of acting like I was so smart…that I was so much more qualified than the rest of the applicants. You made me look like a fool. No wonder they were so easy with me. Did you tell them to do that too?”

  “I was trying to help. I knew you’d never take a Bridges associate position, but I wanted you close. I wanted you in Atlanta. So I made some calls. It’s not the end of the world,” he finished lamely.

  “Not the end of the world? Not the end of the world?” she screamed nearing hysterics. “I had one thing that I was really good at! I worked my ass off all year long to get good grades so that I could get an amazing paid associate position. I put out applications everywhere. I applied everywhere. Then you go and tell me that you just got me this job! I didn’t have to put in any of the work or the time. You happened to know someone, drop the Bridges name, and bam a job surfaces. God, it goes against everything that you stand for!” she cried looking him up and down like he was despicable. She knew on some level she should be happy that he had gotten her this job, but not this way. She couldn’t be happy that he had gone behind her back like that. This was the one thing she still had to be proud of, and he had taken that away too.

  “Lexi, please try and see it from my perspective. This job wasn’t even really open. No one would have gotten it, because they weren’t hiring until I talked to them. You wanted to be close to me too. It’s a good thing, not a bad thing,” he pleaded with her.

  “It could have been a good thing if you had been honest with me,” she told him. “Instead you chose to lie to me! You chose to deceive me! I have nothing left that’s mine. Your lies have permeated everything that is important to me. I don’t know if I can talk to you anymore, Ramsey, until you find the truth,” she said walking toward the door.