Page 13 of Thank you, Next
“It’s been a long time, and you’re the last person I expected to see in my office.” Andrew’s words seemed so genuine that Alex had to fight not to slouch in her chair. It was deeply unhinged for her to be asking this perfectly decent man why he’d stopped calling.
“I have a really dumb question for you.”
“You’re way too smart to have dumb questions.” That was only because he didn’t know why she was there yet.
Alex was of the mind that it was always better to just be direct. “Listen, why did we break up?”
Andrew’s mouth opened and closed several times, but he recovered quickly. He’d dealt with enough bananas folks to have the skills to cover. “Were we ever together?”
Now, that was a real question. And maybe that answered all her questions. Maybe she never got close enough—even with guys who had potential—to classify any of her dalliances as actual relationships. Maybe she was like green juice—she had all the micronutrients required to keep someone’s liver humming along, but she lacked the substance to be an actual meal. That would explain Jason’s sudden change of heart when it came to his new fiancée.
“I guess I felt like we were a thing. We spent a lot of time together.”
When Andrew smiled at her again, there wasn’t any heat in it. It was the same smile that he gave to network executives and recalcitrant cast members—only slightly less saccharine than the one he gave to “friends of the show” who overstepped their bounds.
“I shouldn’t have come.” Alex rose and backed up toward the door.
“No, it’s just—” Andrew held up his left hand, twirling his wedding band with his thumb.
Alex’s face heated. “I didn’t come to start things up again. I just—I feel like this”—she pointed at the ring—“is a thing.”
Instead of looking weary of her presence, Andrew looked befuddled. He motioned for her to sit again.
After a split second of hesitation, Alex accepted his invitation. Andrew’s assistant appeared with a tray of water and coffee, as if she’d been summoned by magic. Alex guessed that Andrew had a button in his desk, and she was lucky that it wasn’t a button that made a hole open up under the feet of unwanted visitors.
“The last I heard you were seeing that venture-capital guy?” Andrew asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee with a heart-stopping amount of heavy cream. While they were dating, he’d explained that it had to do with intermittent fasting, but if fasting involved heavy cream, Alex would be fasting all the time when she ate dessert.
Alex poured her own coffee. “He was in mergers and acquisitions. And we broke up.”
“So you came here to find out why I dumped you?” Andrew sat back in his chair. “Because one other guy dumped you?”
“It’s more than one other guy, okay?” Alex felt her hackles rising, which was probably a clue as to why she was frequently dumped. She wasn’t very agreeable.
“I mean, you’ve been dating for a long time.” Alex gave him a look, and he backtracked. “Not that long, but long enough to know that men are fickle beasts.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“It’s also clear that you couldn’t be less interested in committing to one person.”
That made Alex’s heart stop for a second. Alex and Andrew had dated years ago. Early on, when she wasn’t quite so negative about her long-term prospects, she’d thought she was open to something serious. And she’d never told Andrew that she wasn’t sure that long-term relationships were viable. It tended to be a bummer when she started quoting divorce statistics. She’d learned to keep her mouth shut when people asked why she had never given marriage a try. It didn’t make sense to her in the long run. Sort of like an investment that was nearly guaranteed to fail or leave one without a home to live in. Why make that kind of investment when one could make others that might not have as high a yield in happiness but were infinitely less risky?
“I never said I wasn’t interested in commitment. I said that I think marriage is foolish.” Alex looked down at his ring. “I mean, not your marriage. Your marriage is fine. I’m sure you’re very happy and will have decades—centuries—of memories to share.”
Andrew’s mouth quirked up on one side, and Alex remembered why she’d found him so charming. “You know what your problem is?”
Again, her hackles were raised. It was one of those weird things. When she used to ask her father why she couldn’t spend time at his house during her summer visits, he always made it about her having a problem or wanting to pin him down. But Andrew didn’t know that, so she couldn’t blame him for making this—her showing up at his office to ask why their relationship hadn’t worked out when he’d clearly moved on almost immediately—about her. “What’s my problem?”
“I never felt like I could make you happy,” Andrew said. “You never let me in or let me know how you were feeling.”
“That’s not true—”
“After sex once you high-fived me and said, ‘Good game.’ ”
That was true. She had done that. But she never knew what to say right after sex. She would have wanted a cuddle but never wanted to seem clingy. She could see how post-sex performance dissection might push a guy away.
“I see your point.” Alex smiled and picked up her purse to leave. “That’s a good note. Maybe I’ll try silence next time.”
“Honestly, it would have been charming if I’d thought it was a joke. But I knew then that you were never going to let me in.” Andrew looked a little bit sad about it.