Avoiding Intimacy (Avoiding #2.5)(34)

“Sorry, C, I had to ask,” Lexi apologized quickly.

“No, I know,” she grumbled. She was being defensive. It was all still too fresh.

“Just angry, and with everything else tonight…I can’t.” Tears stung her eyes, and she wished Alexa were there to hug her. “Lexi, you have to know it wasn’t me.

John’s the kind of guy who gets whatever he wants, takes what he wants. You know those kind of guys!”

They were the kind of guys she had always gone for. They were the ones she had let take her home. Lexi certainly knew what kind of guys she was talking about.

She had seen Chyna with them far too often. Lexi had been with them herself.

Wasn’t her Jack just the type?

“Well, it soon became apparent that I was what John wanted,” Chyna told her, thinking back to the pool with his eyes roaming her body, the club with his hands on her body, and tonight, with his tongue down her throat. It should have been apparent what was coming. She should have fought against it harder. “I should have seen it coming from a mile away.

And when I did see it, it was too late.

Adam didn’t believe me. He refused to see it. He loves his brother so much that he was blind to him—blind to his arrogance and f**king stupidity.

“I think if he actually knew his brother, he would have never left me alone with him. But he did leave us alone. John was smooth, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before. Before Adam, I would have gone for him any day of the week.” She figured that went without saying, but she had to say it. She needed to see the contrast. “But I’m different now! John had his hands all over me as soon as Adam left the room, but I turned him down.

Alexa, I turned him down.”

Chyna paused for a moment, pushing her hair off of her face. She sat up a little straighter. It felt good admitting it. She might have had terrible intentions, but when push came to shove, she had done the right thing.

“When I turned him down, he got furious. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want this to continue, as if me dating his brother didn’t matter,” Chyna told her, remembering John’s anger at her rejection and everything that had followed. “I felt like Adam should know what happened, so told him, and he wouldn't believe me.

He said I was being a drama queen, and I had probably misinterpreted what had gone on.” She still couldn’t believe the things he had said. Where had her understanding boyfriend gone in that moment? Her anger returned with that thought.

“But I didn’t misinterpret anything! I swear I didn’t. Tell me you believe me!”

Chyna said, breaking down at the thought of Adam leaving. “God, someone has to f**king believe me!”

“Chyna, I believe you. Of course, I believe you. If you wanted another guy, then you could have them every night of the week. Why would you make up something about his brother?”

“Right! Ugh! Why didn’t he see that?

We got in a terrible argument about it. He wouldn't believe anything I said,” Chyna cried, feeling a fresh wave of tears coming on. “We stood there yelling at each other until he got so angry; he just stormed out on me. He left me standing there all alone. Who leaves me? Who does that?” Chyna just kept repeating that to herself. She didn’t understand it.

“I’m so sorry. I think you'll need to give him some time, then it’ll work out.

He really cares for you. I know he does.

He’s going to want to work things out. I don’t know his brother or anything, but the way you talk about him makes it seem that Adam idealizes him. He probably doesn’t want to believe those things about John.

He just took it out on you, which is wrong, but I think he’ll realize he was wrong.

Once he sees how much of an idiot he was, he’'ll come around,” Lexi said.

“You think so?” Chyna asked, hope in her voice for the first time. She really wanted to believe that Adam would come around.

“Yeah, I do,” Lexi told her.

Chyna really wanted to believe her, but sitting all alone in her living room after Adam had just left her made that really hard. “Alexa, I still don’t know. I don’t know how to handle any of this. I wish you were here. I need you.”

“I can come home if you need me to.

You know I’ll always be here for you,”

Lexi told her soothingly.

“You’d end your vacation early for me?” she asked, her voice in awe. She seriously could not ask for a better friend.

“I know you don’t get to see him all that often.”

“You’re my best friend,” Lexi told her as if that solved everything. “Let me talk to him, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks...I’m so sorry. I hate taking you away,” she said, the sniffles coming back.

“No need to be sorry. You had no idea this was going to happen. Hopefully, I’ll be with you soon, girl,” Lexi said. She said her good-byes and then hung up.

Chyna hung up the phone after her.

Alexa couldn’t get here fast enough. Chyna didn’t know what to do in the meantime, so she just curled up into a ball on her couch and kept repeating the same thing over and over again.

He left her all alone. Who would leave her? Who does that?

CHAPTER 7

PRESENT