Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding 2)

"Thanks...I'm so sorry. I hate taking you away," she said the sniffles coming back.

"No need to be sorry. You had no idea this was going to happen. Hopefully I'll be with you soon girl," Lexi said saying good-bye and hanging up.

"Everything alright?" Jessie asked stamping out a cigarette and coming up behind Lexi.

Lexi shook her head. "My friend is having some guy trouble. I need to go find Ramsey." Lexi pushed her way back through the crowd until she reached Ramsey's side again. The first thing that she noted was that Parker was absent from the group. But she couldn't worry about that right now.

Ramsey could tell something was off as soon as she was next to him. "Is everything alright?" he asked concerned.

"Chyna and Adam got into a huge fight," she confessed. Lexi tucked her hair behind her ear and anxiously chewed on her bottom lip. "She's kind of hysterical."

"Did they break up?"

"She's not sure, but she's really flippin' out," Lexi told him sighing heavily.

Ramsey seemed to realize instantly where this was leading. "Do you want to go?" he asked motioning towards the door. Lexi nodded without another thought. The two waved goodbye to their party and rushed for the door.

"I'm sorry I'm making us leave early," Lexi said as she jogged to catch up with him in the crowd.

Ramsey held the door open for Lexi and she pushed her way past him. Even though the walk back to the beach house was only a couple minutes, Ramsey clearly didn't want to waste any time. He hailed a waiting cab and allowed her to enter first. When he sat down, he said, "You don't have to apologize Lexi."

She smiled and nuzzled into Ramsey's shoulder. For the minute ride, she sat there perfectly content in his arms. All her earlier worries were gone, and it felt right again. Just the two of them together in proper fashion. But soon the ride was over. Ramsey tossed a bill at the cabbie and exited behind her.

Throwing her clothes quickly in her bag, Lexi rushed to get everything together. "Don't worry about the rest. I can bring it back with me."

Lexi nodded her head looking around to make sure she had everything of importance, and then grabbed her rolling suitcase. Ramsey took it from her hand and veered her away from the entrance to the house. She narrowed her eyes, but let him lead her through a door they hadn't entered before. "What's this?" she asked. As she walked through, she realized that they were entering a garage. She hadn't even known that they had a garage for the place. They had taken a cab from the airport and hadn't need to drive anywhere the entire trip.

She looked at the sleek Mercedes sitting in one of the slots and realized that it looked very similar to the one she was used to riding around in throughout Atlanta. This was just a slightly older model from the look of it. "Is this yours?" she asked surprised. Somehow she had been here nearly a week and never realized that he had a car waiting for them.

Ramsey popped the trunk and deposited her bag. "Yeah. I keep her here since I got the my new one," he said snapping the door closed and coming around to the side of the machine.

"You keep her here? But why do the owners of the beach house let you keep it here?" she asked unable to put two and two together.

He stared at her over the roof of the Mercedes and sighed. "This is my house Lexi," he mumbled. "I wanted to tell you. I did. I just wasn't sure how you'd react." He was stammering like the first time she had met him. Sometimes she couldn't help but feel that he was the most adorable when he was like this. "You get all funny when I display...well...when I show that I have money. I didn't want you to think that I was cheating you out of a promised vacation by not really paying for us to come out here."

"Ramsey."

"I would have paid for us to go somewhere else, but I was more worried of taking you out of the country. I just wanted you to feel like I was taking care of you, and I thought this was the best way."

"Ramsey."

"So I didn't mean to keep it from you. I didn't want to..."

"Ramsey would you shut up," Lexi cried finally getting a word in. He snapped his mouth closed staring at her intently. "I don't care about the house. Why didn't you just tell me? It would have been fine." She opened the door and slid onto the cream leather seats. She actually found it a bit funny that he owned a beach house since it had been one of the first things she had ever thought about him with his beautifully tanned skin.

He sat down next to her. "I just didn't know how you would react."

"Perhaps next time, you can let me react before making assumptions," she said with a shrug.

After a second, he said, "You're right." He backed out of the driveway and made his way out towards the highway.

"Thanks for taking me," she murmured to break the silence.

"Of course. I know how much Chyna means to you."

"Ramsey," she stammered out, "can I ask you a question?"

"Sure what's up?" he asked merging into traffic.

"Were you and Parker ever...uh...together?" she asked turning to face him in the car. "I mean I know you said that you never had a girlfriend, but you guys looked...comfortable together. And Jessie said..."

"Jessie?" he snapped. "What did Jessie say?"

Lexi paused gauging his reaction. "She didn't say anything. Just that you two were cute together."

"Are you sure that's all?" he asked clenching the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

"Should she have said more?" she asked staring at him intently.

"No," he said taking a deep breath and releasing his firm grip on the wheel. "She just has a tendency to blab fallacies with the turn of the wind."

"Well she didn't say anything to me. But told me to ask you and trust whatever you told me," she said eager to get the truth out of him.

Ramsey shrugged. "All of that was a long time ago."

"All of what?" she asked curiously.

"Parker and I weren't together...not like we are at least."

Lexi gulped thinking of her relationship with Jack. Had he had something like that going on? She hadn't thought it possible for someone else to have a relationship anything like theirs, but anything was possible after all.