Page 26 of Thank you, Next

“What I did to you?” Alex asked, not believing what she was hearing. Lyle’s skin had lost all of its already paltry color when she’d walked in. He’d looked as though he’d seen a ghost. Alex had assumed that he would be indifferent or mildly annoyed. “You broke up with me.”

Lyle sighed, apparently resigned to giving her more information. “I only broke up with you after you destroyed my confidence completely.”

Alex had no idea what he could possibly mean by that, but she opened her mouth in hopes that he would keep talking. Lyle immediately started poking around with his mirror, hitting a sensitive spot in her back molar that made her wince.

“How did I do that?” Alex asked, though it would be a miracle if Lyle understood her.

Since he talked to a lot of people with their mouths agape, he picked it up. “I was really into you, and it was like you could take me or leave me. At first, it made me want to work harder for your attention, but then it became all I could think about. I couldn’t eat or sleep. If you texted me back, I was happy. If you were too busy to hang out with, I was dejected. I thought I was losing my mind.”

Huh. Alex hadn’t thought about his feelings that much—or maybe at all. She had thought it was annoying that he’d wanted to talk all the time. And she’d started ignoring his “good morning” texts. She hated those, because it felt like someone was trying to keep tabs on her.

She hated feeling like she had to check in with someone else. It felt like she was being controlled, and that was the one thing she couldn’t tolerate.

When Lyle was done poking around her mouth, she closed it and wiped off the drool. “I’m sorry that I hurt you.” Even though she hadn’t been able to see a future with Lyle more than she’d been able to see a future with any of her other exes, she didn’t like the idea that she’d hurt any of them.

His statements about their relationship also made her remember how she’d started to feel contempt for him before he’d broken things off. At first, it had felt sexy and fun. But as soon as they’d slept together and relieved the sexual tension, it had started to feel like Lyle was clinging.

“You didn’t really hurt me long-term, but dating you made me realize that I was only going after women who thought I was trash, and that I deserved better.” Lyle looked a little embarrassed to be sharing that with Alex, but she was grateful for it. This was what she’d wanted when setting out on this ridiculous quest.

Maybe she was too independent for a relationship and she needed to be even more up front about it.

“Gina is really great, Lyle.”

His face softened. “She really, really is.” But then his face changed when he looked back at Alex. “The bad news is that you need a filling, and you flinch enough that I’d like to use some light sedation. Is there someone who can pick you up?”

TWELVE

Will was irritated with life before he got a call from Lexi asking him to pick up Alex from the dentist’s office. He didn’t have time to leave the restaurant today. They were only weeks from opening. But he couldn’t say no to Lexi, especially when she mentioned that the dentist was one of the exes Alex had tracked down.

It took him about forty-five minutes to get from the restaurant to the dentist’s office. When he entered, the eyes of the woman in pink scrubs standing behind the receptionist’s desk widened. “Are you here to pick up Alex Turner?”

Will grunted, because apparently Alex owned his time. He wanted to deny it, but a part of him also didn’t. He liked the idea of Alex needing him, even though she claimed to need no one.

After his conversation with Lexi at her house the other day, he’d gotten to thinking a lot about how Alex and his ex-wife were different. At first glance, they were the same. Both of them were independent, badass women who didn’t need a man to validate them. Whenever a woman had seemed like she needed him and gotten too clingy, he totally disengaged. He didn’t like anyone looking at him like he was their hero. Not when he was a bad bet.

It was better if he was with a woman who could take care of herself.

He’d realized that he had chosen April because she had never seemed very emotionally invested in him. Their relationship had been convenient and definitely fun at first. Their lives meshed, and the relationship felt easy. Before they moved in together, April had never wanted to talk about feelings, and she’d never made him angry. April would have called an Uber in advance to take her home from the dentist instead of expecting him to drop whatever he was doing and pick her up.

Alex would always expect him to run to her rescue, because she wouldn’t even think twice about ruining his day. And if he ever made a move on her like Lexi had apparently been waiting on him to do for years, she would most definitely ruin his life.

“Yeah, I guess that’s my job today.”

The blonde in the pink scrubs raised her eyebrows suggestively and looked him up and down in a way he didn’t like. “It’s a good thing that you’re so strong.”

Will had no idea what the woman meant until they entered an exam room to find a snoring, drooling Alex drooped over a dental chair. Her cheeks were puffed up and swollen, and it made her look younger—like the teenager with puppy fat in her cheeks that she’d been when they’d first met.

But she also looked vulnerable, and Will didn’t like the idea that Alex was passed out in the office of one of her exes. He probably hadn’t done anything untoward—he was a professional—but Alex had terrible taste in men. But he might have been tempted to make the procedure extra painful if he’d had a relationship with Alex. Will could barely keep himself from strangling her half the time, and they’d never even dated.

“What the hell happened to her?” Will hadn’t meant the words to come out that harshly. The hygienist, who had introduced herself as Gina on the way back to the exam room, seemed like a nice person. “I mean, is she okay?”

Gina laughed. “She’s just a little out of it. The pain was a bit much for her, and she begged to have someone just put her out of her misery. Lyle gave her a sedative before she walked out with half a filling in her molar.”

Will wanted to laugh then. He would never let her forget about this. She was so invested in her self-image as a badass that being too much of a baby about pain to get a filling in her tooth was something he could needle her with for years.

He really liked the idea of teasing this woman too much. It made him feel more alive than almost anything but coming up with a new dish did. Instead of examining that thought further, he carefully picked up Alex from the exam chair, pulling her against his chest. He tucked her head inside his biceps so that he wouldn’t whack it on the doorjamb.

It was hard to tell himself that she was just an annoyance, a splinter that he couldn’t remove so that it had just become a part of him, when she shifted to get more comfortable. When she was in his arms, he didn’t want to drop her. He wasn’t annoyed that he would spend hours of his day taking care of her instead of working. He didn’t want to deny that he was hers.