Page 35 of Thank you, Next

Will turned so that his back was facing the door. Alex didn’t know if it was to protect her identity or because he didn’t want anyone to know that he’d been kissing her. She thought it was probably the former, because Will only cared what Lexi thought of him. But the part of her mind that doubted that Will Harkness had really just kissed her believed that it was the latter.

“This is where the drugs are, right?” the voice from the door asked.

Lexi’s hand was on Will’s jaw, so she could feel it clench when he said, “Get out.”

“Sorry, man.” And Alex heard the door shut.

But the moment was broken. Will stepped back, and when they weren’t touching, Alex started thinking. They shouldn’t have done that. Ever since he’d rejected her, they’d maintained their détente through a strict policy of bickering and no physical contact when they had absolutely no choice but to be in the same room together.

They’d shattered all that in the span of a few minutes. Alex waited to feel a pang of regret about it. She waited for the dread that they’d ruined something to rush in and make her nauseous. She waited for Will to turn on her and blame her for making him so crazy that he had to kiss her. Because he made her feel like a siren. What had happened in that room wasn’t wrong—they were consenting adults who were not related—but it was definitely complicated.

And while she waited for all her regret to rush in, she refused to look at Will. He mattered to her. What he thought about her mattered to her. No matter what happened between the two of them, he was never going to be out of her life. Even when Lexi— hopefully a long way into the future—passed, Will Harkness would loom large.

“I’m sorry” were the first words he said to her after tipping her center over on its side with that kiss.

“Why?” She wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. “For what?”

Then she ventured a look at him. How dare he look so good? He was a whole banquet of delicious man. A tasting menu of strength and heat and everything she desired. But he hadn’t wanted her before. What had changed now?

“I shouldn’t have been such a dick to that guy.” Alex hoped she didn’t show on her face how relieved she was that he wasn’t sorry about the kiss. Because even though the idea of them together was folly, she wasn’t sorry for kissing him at all.

“No, that was really rude. He should probably have kicked us out, not offered us drugs.”

Will nodded, his lips pressed into a line. That made her want to walk up to him and kiss him again. But she shouldn’t do that until they’d talked about it. And, knowing Will, he wouldn’t want to talk about it until he’d rolled it around in his head so much that he’d turned it into a disaster. That was just how his brain worked.

Alex was going to say something—she wasn’t sure what—when her phone chimed. Jane was looking for her, ready to leave the party. Alex was almost tempted to tell her that she and Will would call a car at some later point, but she knew that Will wasn’t ready to do more kissing or talk about the kissing that had already taken place.

It was time to go home.

FIFTEEN

Will turned his kiss with Alex over in his mind so many times that by the next time he saw her, a week after the party at Major Maximus’s house, he wasn’t sure it had happened. He’d known exactly what had come over him the night it had happened. He’d heard Alex laugh in a room off the corridor and been drawn to it. Spending so much time with her over the past few weeks had worn down his shields against Alex.

They were completely shredded now.

When he saw her standing outside the comedy club in West Hollywood where they were planning to see another of Alex’s exes perform, he wanted nothing more than to kiss her full on the mouth. She looked beautiful. She always looked beautiful. But now that he’d kissed her, he wanted to do it at every opportunity.

Even though he’d walked away from that kiss with blue balls and a lot of unanswered questions, he was sort of relieved it had happened. There had been over a decade of buildup to that kiss. He’d been wanting to kiss her and denying himself for so long that he’d stopped even imagining what it would be like. He’d stopped allowing himself to imagine how soft her skin was, how plush her lips would be when they opened under his. He’d never let himself imagine how she would sound when she was making little noises, how she would chase his lips with her own as he got to know her body as well as he knew her mind.

But he didn’t let himself kiss her again. Not in public. Not until they talked about what had happened and figured out if they were both on board with doing it again. He’d been an overbearing jerk, and he wasn’t sure she knew how sorry he was for that, even though he’d apologized.

They also had to figure out if and when to tell Lexi that they had a thing, although he didn’t trust her not to divine it on her own if they were all in the same room together.

The final reason he didn’t kiss Alex when he walked up to her was that she didn’t look as though she wanted to be kissed. Although she looked gorgeous, she had her arms wrapped around herself, until she grabbed his arm and gave it a friendly squeeze.

The other night, he’d felt electricity running though his skin whenever she touched him. Tonight, there was none of that. With April, he would have waited for her to finally tell him what was bothering her. But that hadn’t worked out so well for him in his marriage, and he had the feeling that it was an even worse idea when it came to Alex. She was probably the only person on the planet more stubborn than he was—as evidenced by the fact that she would rather continue interviewing her exes in light of all that had happened.

“Where are Jane and Lana?” he asked. This would be a lot less awkward if they had the buffer of her friends.

“Lana couldn’t find a babysitter, and Jane said that she’d rather dip her left tit in acid than go see a stand-up show.”

Will laughed but stopped when he noticed that Alex’s smile was strained. And he really wished that Jane didn’t hate stand-up as much as she seemingly did.

“Are you okay?” It probably wasn’t the most articulate way to broach the subject, but she was the one with all the pretty words.

She furrowed her brow, and he fought the urge to press his lips to that crinkly spot to soothe her. He was starting to not recognize himself. She aroused a tenderness in him that he had never felt for anyone before. He knew she wouldn’t appreciate it, though. She would be totally justified in being suspicious of his intentions.

“I’m fine.” She looked down. “The plan is that we’ll sit through the show, then go to the bar and wait for him to have two, maybe three drinks. That should be enough for him to slough off his comedy persona and be able to have a real conversation with a human being who is not a comedian.”