Page 33 of Fight for Me
“It’s only a few hours. I’ll be back soon, and then we can go out with Kate and Robin,” she said, meeting Olivia’s eyes in the mirror as she put on the extravagant earrings Colt had given her months ago. The heavy pear-shaped diamonds swung in their delicate pendants with every movement, already threatening togive Lexie a headache. She popped open a second jewelry case and removed a glittering tennis bracelet from its velvet resting place. The stones sparkled, even in the artificial indoor light, but as she pulled it out, her eyes jumped from the expensive gemstones to a small brown oval resting nearby. She picked it up, turning it between her fingers.
The penny had been flattened in one of those souvenir machines at the children’s museum in nearby Willow Creek. Lexie rubbed her thumb over the small princess now stamped into the copper where President Lincoln had been. She could still feel the brush of Jake’s hand as he’d slipped it into her palm during a staff meeting—like a secret only they would share. She started to set it back down, but as an afterthought, tucked it into her pocket instead.
“Hey, would you fasten this?” she asked, turning to Olivia and extending her wrist with the dangling diamond bracelet. Olivia stood with one eyebrow cocked, her gaze darting up from Lexie’s pocket.
“What’s with the penny?”
“What?”
“The penny. The one you just caressed with your eyes and put in the pocket of a designer dress,” Olivia prompted, fastening the bracelet as requested.
Lexie fought back the blush that crept into her cheeks.
“It’s just a penny. For good luck,” she hedged, but Olivia only smirked.
“This lucky penny wouldn’t happen to be part of your new collection, would it? Like the doodles taped to your mirror and all the comic strips on the fridge?”
Lexie rolled her eyes with effort, then slipped her feet into a pair of strappy silver sandals and fastened the tiny buckle around each ankle.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you don’t? Well, I guess we can get rid of these, then,” Olivia declared, reaching over to her friend’s bedside table and grabbing three four-leaf clovers, each carefully dried and pressed.
Lexie felt the blood drain from her face. “No!” she shouted.
Olivia paused with the treasures suspended over the trash can and eyed her friend in triumph.
“They’re from Jake, aren’t they? All these things are from him?” she asked, laying the fragile plants carefully where she’d found them. She picked up a small plush frog wearing a tiny Cardinals baseball cap—the kind of toy that might have come from an arcade game. She squeezed it, and it croaked.
Lexie, on the other hand, didn’t answer.
“Come on, Lex. Colt gives you expensive jewelry that you wear once a month, but these things... these are important to you,” Olivia said as she sank back down onto Lexie’s bed with a softer look on her face. “Why can’t you come out and admit it? You like him. You really, really like him.”
“Who?” Lexie asked, adding a spritz of perfume to the insides of her wrists.
“Jake!” Olivia all but screamed. “Don’t play dumb with me. Why are you still going to family brunch with Colt when you’d rather be here with someone else? Why waste your time?”
“It’s complicated,” Lexie said.
“No, it’s scary,” Olivia corrected, crossing her arms stubbornly over her chest. “I know you, Lex. I know you don’t like to make waves. But I also know you have the good sense to see that something’s wrong with this picture.”
Lexie ignored her and twisted around to see her back in the mirror.
“Colt will be here soon. Check me over and make sure I don’t have any snags,” she instructed, turning in a slow circle so Olivia could make a final inspection. Swirls of tiny silver sequinsspread across the front of her pink cocktail dress, making Lexie feel a bit like a disco ball as she twirled.
“You’re avoiding the issue,” Olivia observed.
“How perceptive of you,” Lexie said, her voice flat as she picked up her purse and made her way to the living room.
A single glance at the hallway clock showed she was right on time and, true to form, so was Colt. She could hear his heavy footsteps on the landing as she reached the door, and she opened it before he could knock. He looked impeccable, his tall, broad frame dressed in a dark sport coat and matching pants. The indigo in his shirt brought out the blue of his eyes, and Lexie couldn’t help but remember how handsome she’d thought he was on the night they’d met.
Fresh out of her first year of college, the attention of the most charming man in the bar had turned her head, and she’d relished the jealous whispers of other women as Colt had claimed every dance, ignoring his friends and making her feel like the luckiest girl in the room. After that, he’d started calling, sending flowers and pretty gifts to her apartment, and showing up to spirit her away to expensive restaurants in Memphis and swanky hotels in St. Louis. Only a year out of college himself, he’d already had the air of a successful young businessman. It had all felt too good to be true. Why would a guy like him think she was special? No one else ever had.
It wasn’t until later that he’d started criticizing her appearance, bossing her around and finding ways to make her feel small. But by then, she’d been in too deep to turn around.
“Take what you can get, my dear. Men are not generous with their hearts.”
She could still hear her mother’s voice as she said those words, though it had been nearly seven years since they’d been spoken aloud. Lexie had seen the truth of them play out in herparents’ marriage until the day it ended, and she’d yet to find a relationship of her own that could prove her mother wrong.
