Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“Alexandra?” He sounds shocked and relieved that I answered.
“Yes?”
“How are you? Are you doing okay?” His voice is filled with so much warmth and concern that some of the hard edges of my mood soften. This sounds like the Scott I remember from our early days together.
“I’m okay, Scott. How are you?”
There’s a short pause before he says, “Not great, Alexandra. I’ll be blunt; I miss you.”
When I don’t respond, he says, “Thanksgiving was miserable without you here.”
I wasn’t prepared to hear any of this, and don’t know what to say.
“Everyone was asking about you, and I didn’t know what to tell them.”
I make a small sound of acknowledgement to fill the silence. It occurs to me to point out that he could and should have told his family that we broke up and that’s all they needed to know, but the urge to be confrontational has left me.
“I don’t want to spend Christmas without you, baby. When are you coming home?”
Does he truly care for me, or does he hate being single? Maybe showing up to his family holiday alone was a blow to his ego.
But Scott has always had other options. I’ve seen other women checking him out, even when I was with him. He’s an attractive man, so if it was simply about image and companionship, I’m sure he could have found someone to replace me.
“We need a chance to work things out,” he says. “You can’t just throw away all of the years we’ve spent together.”
Is that what I’m doing?
“What do you say, babe? Are you ready to come home?”
“I … I don’t know.”
Is Atlanta still my home? Maybe I could build the kind of family there that I’ve always envisioned myself having. Maybe, here in Las Vegas, I’ve been trying to fit myself into memories of the past rather than creating my future.
LEXY
The unsettling calls keep coming.
The next day, it’s Ava.
“Been on any social media apps lately?” she asks without preamble.
I’m still half focused on an email I was composing when she called, so I answer distractedly. “Only on my work account, I think. What’s up? Something I need to see?”
My brain catches up then, and I realize that her tone, like my dad’s yesterday, does not hold the promise of a pleasant call. In fact, the bearer-of-bad-news vibe is heavy when she says, “You might want to check your mentions.”
I reach for my cell phone and bring one up. “What’s going on, Ava?”
The number of notifications are alarming.
“Are you looking?” she asks. I can see her cringing in my mind’s eye as clearly as if we were FaceTiming.
There are pictures. “Shit!” I say, keeping my voice low, remembering my surroundings. I scroll to find more and more pictures. Kai kissing my hand. Gage kissing my lips. Me hugging each of them goodbye.
Those were clearly taken at Beasts Ink, but there are more. Gage and I walking down the street together, Kai opening his car door for me, my head resting against Thorn’s back while he’s giving me a ride on his bike.
They’re like paparazzi pictures, but they may have been taken by fans.
“Did you find the posts?” Ava asks.
“I found a lot.” More curse words come, but I keep them in my head.
There are video clips, too. And captions.
And comments. So many comments.
“Look at this slut.” “Fame wh*re” “Is she trying to date all three of them?”
My stomach churns, and I’d run to the bathroom if only I could stop scrolling.
“You okay, Lexy?”
“No.”
“I wanted you to know what’s out there so you weren’t taken by surprise, but now that you know, you should stop reading. No good can come of reading everything.”
Definitely nothing good can come from any of this.
“There are some positive comments,” she says. “Along the lines of you go, girl. Stuff like that. Everyone else is just jealous.”
I haven’t seen anything supportive, not that it would matter. I don’t want my private life out in the open for everyone’s judgment and amusement. It’s been bad enough dealing with my parents’ opinions; now the whole world wants to chime in.
And wasn’t I an idiot for thinking I could get involved with all three of these men and not be criticized for it?
Another post: “What trash!” I’m pretty sure the label is entirely directed at me, but all at once, it occurs to me how this kind of publicity could hurt Thorn, Gage, and Kai. A lot of men aren’t comfortable sharing a woman, and they may harshly judge men who do.
Their fan bases could turn on them, and Beasts Ink and this resort’s restaurant could also suffer as a result.
“Lexy?”
I realize I haven’t said anything for at least a minute, and I’m still scrolling. I close the app and try to draw in a deep breath. It’s very possible that I may vomit.