Lexi’s stomach dropped. She knew that she shouldn’t be eavesdropping. She didn’t know what they were talking about. She didn’t want to know what they were talking about. She just wanted to know why they were having a private conversation in the back bedroom.
What she should have done was back out of the bathroom, retrace her steps back to the living room, and catch her breath. Then, when she was composed, she could return and knock on the door.
But she didn’t move from her place behind the door.
“It doesn’t change anything that has happened between us,” Ramsey said gruffly.
“I’m not asking for it to change your mind. I get that you’re with her. Don’t you think I get that by now?” Parker asked without a trace of hesitation.
This wasn’t the meek, quiet girl who Lexi normally saw around the hospital. She didn’t have to hold back with Ramsey.
“Good. You should get that.”
There was silence for a minute. Lexi wished that she could see what they were doing. Was Parker pissed? Was she frustrated? Was she happy? She immediately discounted the last thought based on the conversation at hand.
They were talking about her. Eesh!
“I’m not stupid. I have a medical degree. I’m a surgeon and a businesswoman. You don’t have to lay things out for me as if I’m not aware. I was there when you grabbed her and pulled her away from John at the hospital. I see the way you look at her. You don’t have to throw the words back in my face,” she said evenly.
“I’m not throwing Lexi in your face.”
“Ugh! This conversation isn’t even about Lexi. You’re happy with her. I get it. This is about false assumptions sitting with you for too long now.”
“They’re not assumptions,” Ramsey said in frustration.
“One day I’m going to prove you wrong.”
“I doubt that. You have no proof,” he bellowed. “You’ve never had proof. They’re just words from you, Parker. It’s why we never worked.”
Lexi heard Parker draw in a sharp breath, and she wasn’t sure if she had done the same thing. He was talking about the fate of the unborn child. Years had passed, and he was still hung up on it. He would never really find out whether or not Parker had had an abortion or a miscarriage. Why did he even bother having this conversation? How did it even come up?
“We worked,” Parker said just loud enough for Lexi to hear. “We worked for years. We were everything…everything. Just because you didn’t trust me enough to believe me, just because we were young and stupid and threw away the best thing that had ever happened to either of us so easily doesn’t mean that you can defile that memory with lies. You were going to marry me, Ramsey Bridges. And don’t you damn forget that.”
Lexi imagined him running his hand back through his neatly kept blonde hair, considering what she had said, debating on how to respond. She saw the anger further welling inside of him. She wondered if he would blow up on Parker.
“You’re right,” Ramsey said softly.
Lexi gritted her teeth. She was right? Just like that?
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you. The whole thing just pisses me off.”
“That’s because you’re a fool, and you messed up,” Parker said with such conviction that it sounded like it had to be the truth. “I wish you would just believe me.”
“I can’t. I can’t be over it…”
Lexi’s breath caught, and she took a step away from the door. She couldn’t hear any more of that. He wasn’t over it.
Did he mean Parker or what had happened to them or just the abortion-miscarriage fiasco? In any case…it wasn’t an appropriate thing for him to say…not with Lexi right in the other room. Sure, he didn’t know that, but there shouldn’t be any secrets between them. Wasn’t that what she had said from the beginning?
She stumbled back a few more steps, wanting to distance herself from what she had just heard. It made her chest tighten and her throat close up. After almost three years together, he still wasn’t over Parker.
No.
Okay, he hadn’t said that.
He just wasn’t over the fact that Parker had had an abortion. Sure, he didn’t have proof and that made it more difficult, but Lexi didn’t have proof about whether or not he had slept with Elisa, and she believed him. She had put it behind her. And she hadn’t needed years to get over it.
Sure, it still aggravated her. It still made her cringe to think of the bitch, but Lexi wasn’t hung up on it. She hadn’t left him over it. Why couldn’t Ramsey move past what had happened with Parker? Didn’t he love Lexi enough to move on?
Dwelling on it just allowed it to eat Ramsey alive.
What the hell was she supposed to do with that information? If he wasn’t over that, then maybe he wasn’t over Parker. It had been years, but they had opened the medical wing together. What had Jack said to her all those years ago?
On some small level, you don’t think that working in close proximity together every day is going to rekindle something that was once there? Imagine if we had to work together every day. What would it be like?
She had told Jack then not to try to make her doubt Ramsey. But maybe she always had. From the first day that she had found out about Parker, she had just reasoned that if she could get over Jack and become friends with Jack, then it only made sense that Ramsey would be over Parker. That was why Ramsey was with Lexi now after all. Right?
Was she just an idiot to not see it happening?
Lexi ground her teeth together. Fuck that! She didn’t have to deal with what was happening on the other side of that door.
She wrenched open the door to the bathroom and rushed out. She slammed the door shut behind her, and it was loud enough that she was sure Ramsey and Parker would hear it. All she wanted to do was turn back around and keep running down the beach like she had wanted to from the beginning. If she had done that, then she would have avoided this moment. Maybe it wasn’t for the best in the long run, but right now, it sounded like a better idea than being anywhere near them.
Her feet stilled in the middle of the hallway, and she took a breath. Chyna had always said that she ran feet first in the opposite direction of her problems. Maybe she was overreacting. It took a lot of willpower to get her to stop and consider that maybe she had just walked into a bad conversation. Maybe he was over Parker. Maybe she was wrong.