After Berkley, Brent, and Amelia had staged their intervention last summer, Lexie had thought she’d moved past this kind of behavior.
But apparently, old habits really did die hard.
Berkley’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, unable to form a sentence. “I—what?”
“Ididgo to see him.”
“But when we asked about it, you said you chickened out. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“He didn’t want to see me,” Lexie said, hanging her head. With the admission, her cheeks flamed, exactly as they had that day. “It was dumb anyway, thinking after everything, after so much time had passed, that he’d be willing to see me.”
“He didn’t want to see you?” Berkley asked dumbly.
“That’s fucked up,” Amelia said.
“So that’s why you went off the rails again,” Berkley said softly, and Lexie looked up to meet her pitying gaze.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, pointing her finger at her friend. “Yes, he didn’t want to see me. Yes, I went on a bender for the last three months because of it. No, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I wish you would’ve told me. I can’t believe you just let me scream at you and call you selfish.”
“Yeah that was a low blow, Berk,” Amelia piped up, and their blonde friend hung her head, chastised. “Lex is one of the most selfless people I know. In fact…”
Lexie’s head snapped up, guessing what was about to happen. “Ames, are you sure? You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s time, Lex. I need to come clean.”
Berkley’s puzzled expression would’ve been funny had Lexie not been terrified of her reaction to the bomb they were about to drop on her.
Amelia took a deep breath and said, “Lexie’s been helping me with my magazine column.”
Berkley’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “You…what? Helping how?”
Amelia’s shoulders relaxed, and she launched into the whole tale. From stealing Lexie’s travel stories and passing them off as her own, to Lexie finding out and agreeing to help her.
“She’s been traveling double to make sure I don’t lose my job.”
“But…why?” Berkley asked.
“It’s not that I don’twantto travel,” Amelia said. “Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t want to travel. I want to open my own fitness center. Lexie is helping me earn money to do that.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” Berkley said, picking up her full wine glass and draining it in one go. “Seems like a lot of work to go through for money.”
Lexie shrugged. “Honestly, I love it. It gave me something to focus on after Mitch left. I spent a few incredible couple weeks in Boston in December, just wandering the city. If I didn’t love Detroit so much, I’d move out there for sure.”
Amelia smiled and reached out to grasp Lexie’s hand, squeezing it and mouthing, “Thank you.”
“I thought you were in Boston for work!” Berkley exclaimed.
“Well, I mean…I kind of was. And actually, Ames, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this.”
“About what? You’re not bailing on me, are you?”
“No, of course not,” Lexie said. “I want to make this a full-time gig. Start our own blog or magazine or website or whatever.”
“But our arrangement is working so well,” Amelia whined.
Lexie laughed. “Sure it is, for the magazine. But you’re making pennies off your stories, can’t work with any sponsors, and I’m not making anything at all. Why not keep doing what we’re already doing, but do it for ourselves? You can keep writing the stories, and maintain the social profiles, the website, whatever else. It’ll give you more free time to open your gym, and then we can expand the scope of whatever platform we decide to use to include fitness tips and workouts and such, too. Since I’m already doing all the traveling, and I have a business degree, I’ll manage everything, broker our sponsorship deals and handle partnership requests. The day to day stuff. And I get to keep traveling full time, which is really where my heart is at these days.”
