Free Avoiding Commitment by K. A. Linde Page B

seem much more...desperate on the phone.
    “No. No. No. It’s really about her wanting to
get married,” he remanded hastily. “She is playing it off like
those are the real reasons. Honestly, she doesn’t need her parents’
money or approval,” he finished. Even though Lexi wasn’t really
looking forward to meeting Bekah, she had obviously captured
something with Jack. Lexi was kind of curious about her.
    “Can I ask you something?” Lexi asked sitting
up to get a better look at him.
    “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 don’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 over top of a 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 intrigued. He
had always loved that picture as much as she had. For the longest
time, it had hung in a thick black poster sized frame above his
bed.
    “I destroyed the frame.”
    Her mouth hung open as she imagined his
prized portrait torn to shreds. “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.
    “Two days after I threw it away, I felt
terrible and fished it out of the garbage. The picture was still
intact except for a few small tears from where the glass broke. I
gave it to my mom.”
    Lexi forced the conversation to lighter
subjects. She didn’t want to continue to suffer 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 he couldn’t stand. 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.
    “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.
    He laughed lightly. “You don’t have a
boyfriend,” he said as a matter-of-fact.
    “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 and let them fall off the
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