Lexi rolled her eyes and then let them wander around the shop. She had completely tuned out what Bekah was saying. It’s not like she really wanted to talk about this. She just wanted to get things out of the way.

“Did you hear me?” Bekah asked, touching Lexi’s arm lightly.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I spaced out.”

“I just asked how many serious boyfriends have you had?”

“Well, two since high school.” Hearing the words out loud really made Lexi want to crawl into a hole. She hadn’t thought about the fact that she hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in so long. Sure, she had dated, and she had been in strictly uh…sexual relationships, but she didn’t count those. So her number still stood at two. Two guys in six years. Pathetic.

“So one other than Jack?” Bekah asked lacing her fingers together.

Lexi swiftly glanced up trying to read Bekah’s expression. Was this girl clueless? “Um…no. Jack and I were never together.”

Bekah narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“You already met Jack’s two serious girlfriends: Danielle and Kate.”

“Right,” she said leaning forward in her chair. “But ya’ll were together. I mean I talked to Kate.”

Lexi blushed at the accusations that were clear in her tone. “I wouldn’t believe everything Kate told you.”

Bekah twirled her earring contemplating what Lexi had just told her. “I realize Kate is probably biased to a degree. But she said that ya’ll were together so I just took her word for that. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not sure why you’re sorry. You claim to know nothing about me. And anyway, it’s an easy thing to misconstrue. You heard the conversation I had with Krista. I haven’t seen her in years, and she thought Jack and I were together. But it simply isn’t the case.”

Connor reappeared with their drinks. “Okay. So you and Jack weren’t together.”

“Nope.”

“I guess that clears up why he didn’t tell me about you,” she said under her breath. Lexi decided to just pretend like she was deaf. “So, how did ya’ll meet?”

Lexi desperately shoved her hair behind her ears. She hadn’t thought that a simple question could seem so difficult...so terrifying. So much of what she and Jack had gone through had been covered up and hidden for so long. The thought of peeling back the layers and revealing it to someone else constricted her. She reached out for her coffee, realizing for the umpteenth time that morning that she was desperate for the stuff…maybe even something stronger.

“Sorry,” Lexi said smiling weakly. “I haven’t really talked about Jack to anyone in a long time. Our uh...situation wasn’t exactly healthy, to put it nicely.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bekah asked sipping on her chai tea.

“The reason we were never together was because every time we tried, things or uh...people,” she said averting her eyes, “just kept getting in our way. For the longest time, I thought that Jack and I really were going to end up together.” She could feel her skin warming with embarrassment at the statement. “But some shit went down between us, and we just stopped talking. Pretty much end of story. I’m not sure what else you want to know,” Lexi stated bitterly.

Lexi could feel Bekah’s piercing gaze evaluating her. It wasn’t a comfortable look, and the silence that followed was even worse. “I get that ya’ll aren’t together and haven’t been for quite some time. I mean, I’d at least surmised that much,” she said giggling. “Jack and I have been together for a year and a half, and he’s never mentioned you before.”

“Not that he would,” Lexi said under her breath.

If Lexi had thought the last look she had received from Bekah was uncomfortable, it had nothing on the look she was giving her after that comment. “Excuse me?”

Should she tell her? Yes. She had come down to Atlanta to talk to this girl, she might as well start from the beginning and with the truth for once. Slowly, pulling back the first layer of their relationship, Lexi began, “You asked how we first met. We met at a coffee shop, similar to this one actually, where he worked for some time in college. We were together constantly for more than a month before I found out he had a girlfriend. And Danielle never found out about me,” Lexi said bluntly. Bekah’s jaw dropped slightly. Whatever she had been expecting, that wasn’t it. Not even close. “So when you say that you had never heard about me, I wouldn’t take it for granted that was because we hadn’t spoken.”

Lexi hated admitting all of that stuff, but the girl had asked for the truth. She might as well be frank with her. Jack had always been best at lying. Some people were good at sports. Some people were good at school. Some people were good at working. While some people were good at commitment, Jack was good at avoiding commitment.

“So, you’re saying that ya’ll have spoken or...done more than speak since we’ve been together?” Bekah asked, getting choked up at the thought.

“Uh...no,” Lexi said awkwardly. She hadn’t meant to imply that. “I haven’t spoken with Jack since he left New York almost two years ago. Well, up until he called me about you.”

“What kind of point were you making?” Bekah asked getting riled up.

Lexi pushed her hair behind her ears before continuing. “I wasn’t making a point about your relationship. You wanted to know about the type of relationship I had with Jack. So, I was telling you. It was one full of lies.”

“Lies?” Bekah’s blue eyes were glimmering with wonder. Lexi was pretty certain that her interviews with Danielle and Kate had been exceedingly dull compared to the dirt Lexi was sending her way. Then again, Danielle and Kate had had perfectly normal...ish...relationships with Jack. They had flirted, dated, and broken up like normal couples. They had had normal emotional responses to situations, and had gone through relatively normal cycles of development. Nothing about Jack and Lexi had ever been normal.

“He lied to me about Danielle. Then, swore he would never lie to me again. And to this day, I don’t think he has,” Lexi said wistfully.

“But I thought you said your relationship was full of lies.”

This time Lexi did look Bekah directly into her naively, innocent eyes to answer her, “It was. We just lied to everyone else.”

Lexi was pretty sure that after that last statement, she would never meet the personable Bekah again. The two stared stonily at each other for a few moments before breaking eye contact and uneasily sipping on their beverages.

Finally, Bekah broke the silence. “So, what happened next?”

“Uh…when?” Lexi asked surprised that the girl was even still talking to her. She certainly wouldn’t be happy with someone if she had just heard that.

“After he lied to you about Danielle.”

“I refused to talk to him again for awhile…almost a year. But after he broke up with Danielle, he came looking for me, hoping that I would forgive him. And I didn’t at first.”

Bekah nodded. “He’d lied to you. That must have been hard. He’s never done that to me.”

Lexi blushed not really wanting to correct her. She had been in town less than a day and already Jack had lied to Bekah because of her. Wow, things weren’t that different. “It’s just this time around I had a boyfriend. When I told Jack about him, he didn’t care. He pretty much persuaded me to come to his house and seduced me.” Lexi heard the faint gasp that escaped Bekah’s mouth, but she continued on. “I broke up with my boyfriend shortly after that. Mostly out of guilt.”

“But you said you and Jack weren’t together?” Bekah asked her stony gaze still not wavering. Lexi could tell she was getting more and more reserved and withdrawn. She wasn’t sure how much she should actually reveal, and Bekah looked to be having the same idea.

“No. We weren’t. I just couldn’t talk to him after that. I had really strong feelings for Jack, and they scared me. Made me do things that I normally wouldn’t. Made me act in ways that I…I couldn’t control.” Lexi glanced up at Bekah to see her nodding along.