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“Does Malcolm even know you’re here, or—“
“Malcolm is over,” she said glumly. “He was never really a thing to begin with.”
We stood toe to toe, staring at each other while her words sank in. I’m pretty sure she expected them to have some sort of impact. They didn’t.
“I—I don’t know what the hell I was thinking,” Lexus went on. She spoke fast when she was nervous, and this was the fastest I’d ever heard her talk. “Maybe I was bored, or just restless… I dunno. Malcolm seemed fun and exciting at first, when everything was new. But I missed you, Tyler, whether I liked it or not. I kept missing you and shoving my feelings to the side, because missing you seemed wrong.”
“Look, this isn’t—“
“No please,” she pleaded. “Let me finish.”
I was three seconds from walking away. Only the look of genuine remorse on her face kept me from heading straight back to my table.
“One day I just turned around and said to myself: ‘Lexus, what the fuck have you done?’,” she blurted. “And my parents! When they found out we were no longer dating, the two of them went nuts! Especially my father. He’s absolutely furious at me for screwing this up. I couldn’t believe how much he actually loved you.”
She lowered her head somberly. “And I really did screw up,” Lexus admitted. “This was by far my worst decision ev—“
“Save it.”
“Anyway, you know that job I kept saying my father could get you?”
My eyes narrowed. “You mean the one the two of you kept dangling over my head for years?”
She looked crushed. “Tyler, no. I—“
“The one he promised to give me when and if I actually married you?” I laughed. “We dated all that time, remember? And he still didn’t trust me?”
“No, he—“
“I dropped out of school for you, Alexandra!” I shouted. “For you. Not for your father, or for some job that he held out like an unreachable carrot, or for any other reason than—“
“It pays six figures,” she said hurriedly. “And that’s only to start. Plus benefits of course, and there would be time for us to go on plenty of vacations…”
She looked up at me questioningly as her words trailed off.
“Us?” I scoffed.
“Tyler, I love you. I made a mistake.”
“Us?”
“You have no idea what it’s like to—“
“Listen to me carefully,” I said icily, my words cold enough that her gaze drifted upward again. I stared into those pretty blue eyes one last time. It was the only thing pretty about her now. “There is no us, Lexus. Not anymore. I don’t know if there ever really was, but whatever we once had together is completely and totally over.”
Those eyes went glassy. Her nostrils flared. But for once, there was finally comprehension in her pained expression. She was past denial, and acceptance was just around the corner. I felt badly, but only for her pain. Not for any other reason whatsoever.
“I— I understand,” she said finally.
I nodded slowly. “Good.”
“And I want you to know something: the job is yours even if we don’t get back together. My father wanted me to be perfectly clear on that. He’s wanted to hire you for a long time now, but I think I was the one standing in the way.”
She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I’ve stood in the way of a lot of things for you, Tyler. But I don’t want to stand in the way of this.”
~ 48 ~
ZANE
