He ran his hand through his dark brown hair, letting each strand fall back into place. She wished it were longer. He used to let it fall into his eyes…those eyes. Now, it just hit his forehead. He looked good…professional. It suited him for the accounting career he had decided on, but it didn’t suit Jack.

The silence dragged on as Lexi and Jack stared at each other across the room. The tension was palpable. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. What Jack wanted from her, was out of the question. They had gone through too much and put up with too many years for her to agree to help him. It would only hurt the one relationship she hadn’t royally fucked-up.

“What are you going to do about the divorce?” Lexi finally asked.

“What should I do?” His eyes searched her face for the answers that she had never had.

It was a more in-depth, determined, focused question than could be answered in words. She could feel years of questions hanging in the balance. She could feel years of desperation forced between them. She could feel years of heartache, destitution, and irreversible need roll off of every syllable.

“What happens if you and Bekah get a divorce?” she breathed, barely above a whisper.

She couldn’t believe she had asked it. She was engaged! It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what happened. Why did she even have to ask him that question?

The stretch of space between them had felt like a hundred miles growing every day since he had said, I do. Yet, here she was, the day after accepting Ramsey’s proposal, feeling the distance between them dissipating. She wanted to ignore it. She desperately wanted to ignore it. But what would she do if the Bitch no longer had her claws in him?

Jack looked down at the ground and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. She could see the thoughts running through his head. She could see what he wanted to say, but she knew he wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t say it.

“What do you want me to say, Lex?”

There was that pet name again.

She didn’t even know what she wanted him to say. And even if she did, even if she allowed herself the slip-up, what could be done?

“Nothing,” she finally whispered, turning away from Jack.

She tried to shut herself down, to think only about the memorable night she had had the day before. Yet, her mind kept wishing he would call out to her, but he didn’t. He didn’t stop her from walking away.

Five whole days of silence from Chyna.

It wasn’t the longest Lexi had gone without hearing from her. She had been in Milan for nearly two months after all, but this was deliberate. Chyna had walked out of that wedding with Lexi, Ramsey, and Adam, but Lexi hadn’t heard from her since.

Lexi couldn’t let this stand. She had tried reaching out to Chyna. She knew it would be best to talk things through before Chyna got to sit and stew. The woman could hold a grudge like no one else. But of course, Chyna seemed to be avoiding Lexi’s phone calls.

Lexi needed to make this right. Throwing on a pair of tennis shoes, she decided she was going to go over there and talk to her. She knew that Chyna was pissed about John, but that was over now. She was going to have dinner with John today to end things just like she had told him in the parking lot. The end.

She just needed to tell Chyna and hope that Chyna wouldn’t be a bitch about it. That would be great.

Lexi hailed a cab to head uptown. On a different day, she might have jogged to Chyna’s apartment, but she wasn’t in the mood. She needed to make things right, and she had too many thoughts swirling around in her head. Running would only make her obsess more about the situation. That was never a good thing.

The cab came to a stop in front of Chyna’s building. Lexi paid the fare and then stepped out onto the sidewalk. She walked up to the front entrance and saw Chyna’s doorman, Bernard, standing there.

“Hey, Mr. B,” Lexi said as she approached him. She liked that he was a constant staple of the Fifth Avenue apartment.

“Miss Lexi, it’s always good to see you,” Bernard said with a smile.

“It’s good to see you. Is Chyna up there…alone?”

“I feel like you ask me this every time you come over,” he said, his hand on the door. “Are you thinking she isn’t by herself in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Well, I just didn’t know if Adam was up there. That might not be the best thing for me right now,” she told him. Though she wasn’t sure why. She always seemed to divulge a bit too much information to Bernard.

“No,” Bernard said with a shake of his head as he pulled open the door. “She’s up there all by herself. Mr. Ward left earlier this morning.”

“And she’s still there, and she hasn’t returned my calls?” she snapped. She hadn’t meant it to come out so harsh, but it was so irritating. If Chyna was home alone, why couldn’t she just answer her phone?

Bernard certainly caught the irritation in her voice. “Have you done something, Miss Lexi?”

“No,” Lexi said quickly, running up the stairs and through the front door. She didn’t want to have this conversation with Bernard. She was already dreading having it with Chyna. “I’ll see you around, Mr. B.”

“Bye, Lexi.”

Lexi took the elevator to the penthouse suite, listening to the mind-numbing classical music as she went up. It dinged open on the top floor, and she walked down to the end of the hallway. She had a received key to Chyna’s apartment nearly three years ago, and she had never given it back. Under the circumstances, Lexi figured it would be better if she knocked.

Taking a deep breath, Lexi knocked on the door and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing.

“Really, Chyna? You’re not going to answer the door?” Lexi called out irritably. “I’m here, and you’re not going to talk to me? How immature are you?”

And still nothing.

Chyna wasn’t leaving Lexi with any other choice. She needed to speak with Chyna. Lexi wouldn’t let Chyna stew any more than she likely already was. Lexi hadn’t come all this way for nothing. After knocking one more time without a response, Chyna pushed Lexi over the edge. Lexi procured the little gold key from her purse and slid it into the lock. Bracing herself for the conversation ahead, she twisted the knob and entered Chyna’s penthouse.

“Chyna!”

Lexi kicked the door closed behind her and walked through the foyer, which Chyna had already redecorated since she had gotten home from Milan. Her interior designer and resident gay best friend, Frederick, must have had his hands on the place. He was constantly redecorating Chyna’s apartment based on her ever-fleeting taste in décor. It all had once been white chic and modern, then it was black leather with a classic New York flare, and then Chyna had gone through this terrible leopard-print stage that Frederick definitely did not agree with. Now, it was decorated in muted tans and gorgeous reds, blues, and greens that popped from the rest of the subdued style.

The room still had the same collage of pictures from Chyna’s many travels. Lexi noticed a few new pictures that Chyna had added since returning home. One was of a landscape on a canal in Milan, and the second was of the coast. Lexi wondered if they had any significance. Why had she picked those two to bring back?

And just as she had the thought, the door to Chyna’s bedroom opened, and she walked down the hallway into the living room.

“What the fuck are you doing here, chica?” Chyna asked, crossing her arms over her thin body.

She wore nothing more than a lacy demi bra and matching lace back V-string underwear. Somehow, she managed to look even more beautiful than she did in some of her thousand-dollar designer dresses.