I eyed her suspiciously. “What?”
She widened her eyes. “What do you mean, what?”
I waved a hand at her. “Your skin is glowing, your cheeks are flushed and your eyes are literally sparkling. You’re a goddamn cartoon character. This is not the appropriate energy to bring into this house of mourning. So, what is it? What are you so happy about?”
“Oh,Lee.” Alexis sank into the couch next to me and somehow found my hands through the blankets. “You’ll never guess what happened.”
“Ben and Governor Mane got their penises chopped off in a freak ice storm, and now they’ve committed to life as eunuch monks.”
That threw her for a second, but she rebounded, flashing that thousand-watt smile. “Chris called.”
Mentally I took out my creaky flagpole and started spinning the red flag up to full mast. “Oh? Did he want to talk about voluntarily chopping off his penis, too, in apologetic sacrifice?”
“No.Lee, you have intense Lorena Bobbitt energy right now. It’s disturbing.”
I made a “well, get on with it” gesture.
“He told me he loves me, and he’s so sorry, and he wants to get back together.” Her eyes shone.
I laughed. “That’s hilarious. He did not.”
She frowned. “He’s serious.”
“What happened to that woman he left you for?”
“He broke up with her when he realized he was still in love with me.”
I snorted. “Alexis, please don’t tell me you fell for that.”
Her face screwed up. “People make mistakes. He said he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to me.”
Her tone was earnest, urgent. It sank in: she was serious.
I kicked the blankets off. “Lex, please don’t go back to him. He treated you like shit. Worse than shit. He can’t just fix everything with a phone call. He’ll cheat on you again.”
Her eyes filled with tears, which—Shit.“No, he won’t. I trust him.”
“Just because you want people to be different doesn’t mean they are,” I said, desperate to make her see. “They show you who they really are through their actions.”
“He is showing me. He’s begging me to come back.”
“No—”
“Lee, I miss him.” A tear slipped down Alexis’s cheek. “It took that disastrous hookup with James at the Governor’s Ball to make me realize.”Senator James Janus, I mentally corrected her. “IloveChris. I tried not to, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it. I want to be with him. Be happy for me.”
Panic seized me. There was no way. Alexis was making a mistake. She was going back for second helpings of pain. Chris was going to take her heart and tear it to shreds. I couldn’t let that happen.
But before I could say anything, a tentative smile wobbled over her face. “Please tell me you’re happy for me,” she said softly, and leaned in to hug me.
I jumped back. “No. You’re beingweak. You’re being a doormat, Alexis. I can’t sit here and nod and squeal when I can see plain as day he’s going to break you again. You’re going to be right back here on my couch in no time.”
She froze, her arms still stretched to hold me. “I’m not a doormat.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
She leaped from the couch, the look on her face flashing from stunned to angry. “Not everyone is as intensely punishing as you are, Lee. Some of us make simple mistakes and move on. Some of us are capable of love and forgiveness.”
“Well, I guess when Chris cheats on you again and breaks your heart, you shouldn’t come running to me.”
