Avoiding Commitment (Avoiding 1)

"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 didn'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 overtop of a small 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 honestly intrigued. He had always loved that picture too. For the longest time, it had hung in a thick black poster sized frame above his bed.

"I destroyed the frame."

She gasped imagining his prized portrait torn to shreds. It saddened her beyond belief. "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. Her sadness deepened at the thought of him resorting to such extremes over her.

"Two days after I threw it away, I felt terrible and fished it out of the garbage. The picture was still in tact except for a few small tears from where the glass broke. I gave it to my mom."

Lexi forced the conversation to lighter subject from there not wanting to continue their suffering from long lost memories. She told him about school and her internship. He bored her with accounting information, and how his immediate supervisor was an older woman who kept trying to get him to sleep with her. They watched highlight reels from last year's mediocre football performance from their Alma Mater. Luckily, the team was still ranked in the top twenty-five due to good recruiting. She listened when he told her about his Fantasy Football strategy for the upcoming season, and gave him pointers on who she thought was going to play well. He regaled her with stories from Seth's bachelor party in Las Vegas earlier that summer. She told him about Chyna's congratulatory weekend in Atlantic City when Lexi had been accepted into her internship and found out she was top ten percent in her class.

"This feels so familiar," she breathed leaning her head back against the arm of the loveseat.

"Yeah, I suppose it does," he agreed amicably.

"You have a girlfriend."

"You don't have a boyfriend," he added.

"I could have a boyfriend," Lexi said popping her head up to look at him eyebrows raised. She hadn't told him one way or another so he couldn't really know that for certain.

He laughed lightly. "You don't have a boyfriend," he said matter-of-factly.

"How do you know?" Her eyes narrowed.

"Lex, I've known you for a long time…years, in fact. You don't have a boyfriend right now."

"Fine. I don't have a boyfriend," she conceded, "but I could."

"You could, sure. But you don't. Either way we've been here before."

"We've been everywhere before," Lexi stated running her hands through her long waves letting them fall off the back side of the loveseat.

Jack coughed into his hand covering up a laugh that began to break through. "I wouldn't say everywhere."

"Oh Jack, stop it!" she exclaimed catching his double entendre. Hefting the pillow out from behind her, she threw it with full force across the room and into his still amused face. Shocked, he picked the pillow up off the white carpeted floor and tossed it back in her direction catching her in the chest.

She gasped upon impact the weight of the pillow knocking the air from her lungs. She threw the pillow back in his direction with as much force as she could muster. He was prepared this time, and caught the pillow out of midair. Jumping up, he dove to the loveseat and smacked the pillow down into her shoulder. Lexi curled into a ball protectively covering her face.

"Do you surrender?" he asked holding the pillow high.

Just before he was about to bring it down on her one more time, another pillow materialized her in hand. "Never," she declared swinging the pillow hard hitting him full on in the chest. He teetered for a moment before regaining his balance and toppled his pillow down on her. When she didn't even seem to register his attack, he bent down over her and began to tickle her between the ribs. She giggled uncontrollably kicking out wildly with her feet, gasping for air.

"That's cheating. You're cheating," she squealed attempting to pry his hands away from her. "Stop. Stop. Oh God, Jack, stop."

He paused, his body starting to register the position he had found himself in. Lexi had unwound from her fetal position and was sprawled across the couch. Her bare legs were slightly spread with her hands above her head. The silky material of her shirt did very little to hide her hard ni**les underneath. His knee touched hers while his arms remained circling her waist in the same position where he had been tickling her. His body rested only a couple inches from her. As she recovered from his assault, her chest heaved up and down so hard she could almost touch him. Her chocolaty eyes were wide and wild, rimmed with tears of laughter. Flushed, her cheeks showed a splatter of red; her lips bare and showing slight signs of chapping. Even her hair was unruly and untamed weaving curls and waves all across the sofa. All together, she was the epitome of uninhibited, unbridled beauty.

Lexi's eyes gazed back at him seductively. She could feel how close he was, and despite herself, despite it all, she wanted him closer. Coyly, she licked her lips watching as his whole body seemed to relax into her. He was only a couple inches from her mouth at that point. So close, in fact, she could just reach her head off the armrest to meet him. In that moment, she knew. All that stuff about things being different had been bullshit. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted her.

Lexi heard a gentle trill come from the direction of the bedroom. "I think that's your phone."

His eyes roamed her face once more, and then glanced up at the clock. "Fuck, is it really 3:30?"

She arched her body up, feeling her press up against him as she got a good enough angle to read the red digital numbers. He hadn't pulled away from her, and she could feel him easily through his basketball shorts. "Yep, that's the time," she said sliding back down against the suede. His weight eased back against her as she moved. God, she wanted him. This was the reason she had promised Chyna she wouldn't be alone with him. They were a disaster together. Friends didn't do this kind of stuff. "Perhaps, you should go answer that."