“No, he didn’t,” Cole told her. “He said he had enough shit going on in his life right now to get into it.”
Well, thank God for that, she thought.
“It’s not important anyway,” Lexie said dismissively, though it was extremely important. To her, anyway. That night was the downfall of the best—and only—relationship she’d ever had. And she would spend the rest of her days kicking herself for letting him go so easily.
But he hadn’t even tried to fight for her, had chosen instead to use his trade as an escape hatch, a way to completely wash his hands of her and the four other people seated at the table with her tonight.
Of the Warriors.
Of Detroit.
She wasn’t willing to forgive that as easily as Brent and Cole, and even Berkley, were.
“You should know, Lexie…” Brent said, trailing off.
“What now?” She ground out, jaw aching from clenching her teeth together to keep from saying things she couldn’t take back.
She learned her lesson last time.
“I’m going to ask him to be my best man.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Berkley, who had been annoyingly silent this entire time, piped up. “Well, it was either him or Nate, and you’ve slept with both of them so…”
“You bitch,” Lexie said with mock affront.
The whole table seemed to relax at its appearance.
“Look,” Brent said. “I know you’re hurt, and I get that the way things ended was messy, and he handled leaving badly but…I think you should go see him.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because he deserves a second chance,” Brent said simply.
For nearly two weeks, Lexie waffled between whether or not to go see Mitch.
During that time, she took a trip to Boston, wanting to give Amelia’s readers the winter-on-the-East-Coast vibes without dealing with the absolute madness that was New York City. Boston was an all-American city but more subdued than NYC.
Since Lexie had been clued in on the ruse, Amelia’s column in the magazine she worked for had changed considerably.
Initially, Amelia was using Lexie’s mid-twenties, single-girl work trip adventures as fodder for her blog, and it attracted a lot of people that were in the same season of their lives.
But when Lexie finally became aware of what Amelia was doing, and decided to continue helping her out, they thought it would be a good idea to expand their reach by including not only things for young, single women, but also events for families, and historical sites for people who wanted to experience some culture while they traveled.
So while she was in Boston—where everyone but Amelia assumed she was for such a long stay because she was trying to land a particularly difficult client—Lexie had a jam-packed itinerary.
As she was here on her own dime and not that of her company, she didn’t put herself up in a swanky hotel like the one she’d stayed in Dallas, choosing instead to book a room at the local Comfort Inn.
That was the first tip Amelia—by way of Lexie—gave her readers: don’t splurge on hotels. There are plenty of nice, clean hotels, motels, and inns out there that won’t break the bank. On vacation, most people are only in their rooms long enough to change, shower, or sleep. It made no sense to Lexie to drop a ridiculous sum of money on lodging when there were a million other things travelers could save for.
Like experiences.
The first day she was there, she simply wandered the city.
Her hotel was near Clam Point, and practically right across the street from the Boston Winery and Boston Harbor Distillery, so she took a little stroll along the Neponset River and stopped into each place for a drink, noting the pricing, atmosphere, and offerings for the magazine piece she and Amelia would later cobble together.
After a few beverages, she took an Uber from South Boston up to Beacon Hill, where Boston Common was located.
