“Sherri called,” Ramsey said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs.

“Why does she always call you?” Lexi demanded. She stopped mid-stride.

“Because you never answer your phone.”

Lexi marched over to her phone and pressed the button to light it up. “She didn’t call me.”

“Almost four months of you not answering her phone calls when she calls has led her to call me first,” Ramsey explained.

“I don’t avoid her calls or anything.”

“No one said you did, dear.”

“Well, what did she want?” Lexi asked.

“Just checking in mostly since we’re seven months out. She asked if we had selected a florist and said she would email me some recommendations. She asked how you were doing with picking out a dress.”

“Ugh! Terrible. None of them are right.”

Ramsey laughed. “I know. You told me. She said that should be your number one priority right now.”

“It is. Chyna wants to use a custom designer, but I don’t need anything that extravagant. I’m only going to be wearing it once.”

“That’s right you are,” Ramsey said, walking toward her and scooping her up.

“Hey, put me down!” she cried.

He carried her in his arms, up the stairs, and into their bedroom.

“You are thinking way too hard about something that doesn’t concern you,” he said, tossing her lightly onto the bed.

She giggled as she landed in the middle of the down comforter. “I’m not thinking about anything but this bed right now.” She spread out her fingers and ran them down the soft fabric.

“Where was your mind at before I carried you up to bed?” he asked, kicking off his shoes and crawling up next to her.

Lexi shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Tell me.” His lips planted a kiss on her hip, and his fingers ran down her thigh.

“It’s nothing. Really.”

He moved farther up, kissing her side and her stomach. One arm wrapped around her waist, pressing her body against him.

“Don’t make me tickle the answers out of you. It’s not beneath me.”

Lexi scrunched up her nose at him and poked him in the side. “Don’t be a jerk.” She couldn’t hold back her smile.

“Oh yeah, that’s me. I’m the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. How can you even stand me?” Ramsey asked, rolling his bright green eyes.

“Clearly, I can’t. What are you doing in my bed anyway?”

“Your bed?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Since when is this your bed?”

“Oh, I don’t know? Maybe the last two years,” she said. She couldn’t keep the smirk off her face.

“And who has been sharing this bed with you for the last two years?” His lips landed on her palm, and then slowly, tenderly, he ran kisses up her arm.

“I might have allowed you to sleep in my bed—”

Ramsey stopped at her shoulder and stared up at her. “As long as I’m sharing it with you, then it can be yours.”

Lexi lazily smiled back at him. Sometimes, he was so romantic.

“Doesn’t exempt you from telling me what you were thinking about downstairs,” he said slyly.

She groaned. “Must you know?”

“Must you try to evade me?”

“Jack and Bekah are in mediation today,” she whispered, not taking her eyes from him.

It was Ramsey’s turn to groan. He heavily rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I thought you were going to stay out of their business.”

“Jack is my friend. He’s always been there for me when I needed him. I feel like a bad friend if I’m not there for him now,” she said, trying to explain but knowing it was futile.

“I know things between you and Jack have changed and that you’re his friend. I know all of that. I’ve been really damn accepting of it all, considering your past…”

Lexi cringed. That was one of the moments she felt like she was dying from her mistakes rather than living with them.

“The last thing I want is for you to get tangled up in this,” he said, squeezing her hand. “You understand, right?”

Lexi shrugged and stared up at the ceiling. From her perspective, she was already tangled up in what was going on. She was always tangled up in something with Jack, and this was no different. It wasn’t like she had taken his case on or anything. She was just being the supportive friend he needed. She didn’t think it was asking too much.

“Why do you have to be involved with this? Make me see your point,” he said.

He could probably see her shutting down and closing off. She had never liked being told what to do.

Lexi observed the motion of the fan for a few seconds before responding. “I’m not sure what to say that I haven’t said before. I’ve known Jack since I was eighteen years old. Yes, our relationship has changed since that point, and it should. We’re older, and we’ve grown up. Sometimes, I really hated him, and sometimes, I really loved him. It was hot and cold—no, burning and freezing. It was two extremes that I thought we would never be able to control, never be able to figure out. Instead, we just crashed into catastrophe over and over again,” Lexi explained.

She wanted to say so much more, but she didn’t know how to explain something that hardly made sense to her.

“When he married your sister, that was the end for me. I was just over everything. I didn’t even want to be me anymore.”

“I remember how it was,” Ramsey responded.

Lexi smiled softly. “I was an ass to Jack at the D-Bags concert. But he said something that night that he has actually held to the past two years. He told me that all he wanted was for me to be happy. Against my better judgment, I let him try to be my friend. It’s hard to let go of someone who has always been there,” she whispered.

She rolled over on the bed to face Ramsey, and something in his expression told her that he understood that much at least.

“The divorce is the culmination of every terrible thing Jack could ever think. This is probably his biggest fear. Bekah is destroying him, and he doesn’t have anyone.”

“But he did that to himself,” Ramsey reminded her.

“Probably true.” She would give him that.

“How would you feel if this were Parker?”

Lexi held her breath. She knew exactly how she would feel. “You want to bring Parker into this?” she asked.

“I’m just using her as an example.”

“If I can adjust to you spending every day with her, then you should certainly be okay with me being there for Jack when he’s going through something pretty traumatic,” Lexi said quickly.

“Okay, Lexi,” he said, stroking her hair back off her face. “I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m trying to understand. I wouldn’t tell you not to be friends with Jack. Only that the same rule applies from the beginning.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“If he touches you, I’ll kill him.”

Lexi laughed and buried her head in his chest. “I think you’re safe.”

A few hours later, Lexi found herself driving up in front of Jack’s apartment on the outskirts of Buckhead. The fact he considered this a step down was a bit ridiculous. The complex was by no means a dump. She had lived in much, much worse in New York. Then again, she had been a student, not an executive at a huge conglomerate.

Lexi had never been to the house that Jack had shared with Bekah. She hadn’t been able to do it. For all she knew, it had been a mansion. So, compared to that, this place was probably a dump. Either way, Jack was now paying rent on a one-bedroom apartment and half of the mortgage for the house they had purchased. The place couldn’t be that spectacular if he had to pay double…or his Bridges salary was that extravagant. She wasn’t sure which was the case.

She pulled into a spot a few doors down from the entrance to his building. Her hands were shaking.

“Shit!” she grumbled.

She swiped her hands on her jeans a few times, trying to see if that helped anything. She didn’t know why they were even shaking. It didn’t make sense.