Page 41 of Thank you, Next

She really hadn’t lived through many earthquakes during her time in California. Most of them were small. The ones during which she was at her office were the worst—the building was on rollers, which kept it from falling down during the shaking but made her really nauseous.

Her condo building was old, even though they’d retrofitted it to meet the codes. But it was a disorienting thing to have the bed shaking when she wasn’t being railed. She tried to remember the rules when it came to earthquakes, and she rolled off her bed and made her way to the doorway.

It seemed to go on forever, and her entire life flashed before her eyes. She couldn’t believe that she’d spent the last few weeks sad about a man. A man she’d already spent time being sad about.

By the time it stopped, Alex was back to being pissed at Will. The lights had flickered for most of the quake, but they were definitely off now. Stabler and Benson were silent, and she was alone in her dark apartment, the one that probably had broken glass all over the floor. Barefoot.

•••

Will lived in an old warehouse, so he’d barely woken up during the earthquake. He usually didn’t even turn over during the minor ones, so he knew it had to be major for the light fixtures in his tank of a building to sway above him.

Once it stopped, he immediately went into worry mode. Charlee lived close to the restaurant and they texted him before he even got his phone out to let him know that the restaurant was undamaged and hadn’t lost power. Thank goodness none of the glassware had been delivered yet.

Then he remembered that Lexi was in Seoul for three weeks. Her music had resurged in popularity in Asia after a K-pop group had sampled one of her songs. His mind immediately turned to Alex. He wanted to make sure she was okay, but he also didn’t know whether she wanted to hear from him yet.

The instant he’d walked out of her place, he’d wanted to turn around and make her see that they didn’t need any more time. But his pride had kicked in. He knew how she felt about relationships. If she didn’t see that he was better for her than any of the other guys she’d been with, there was nothing he could say to convince her.

If she’d taken a beat and talked to him instead of asking him to leave, he would have told her that he didn’t want to keep their thing under wraps at all, that he’d only offered that because he knew how skittish she was about relationships. He’d been willing to take her on any terms she would accept.

But now he realized that he wouldn’t accept keeping a relationship with Alex a secret. They were both too old for that. And she needed to talk to him instead of putting up walls between them. Maybe that was the difference between him and the other guys she’d been with. Now that he knew he wanted her, he wasn’t going to let her walls stop him. He would climb over them.

As soon as she decided to talk to him.

He was fumbling around his room for something to wear—he’d probably have to file something with insurance for the restaurant even if there wasn’t damage, and he wanted to verify that all was well himself—when there was a knock on his door.

Only a few people had the security code for his building. Somehow, he knew it was Alex. Only she would elect to be a pain in the ass during a natural disaster.

He found pants and opened the door without his shirt. Part of it was that he’d put a load of shirts in the dryer before bed, and part of it was that he wanted her to see what she’d been missing.

The way her eyes widened when he opened the door told him that he’d succeeded.

“What are you doing here?” He probably shouldn’t be such a dick, but he was mad that she’d put herself at risk by driving around the city in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake.

“My power’s out, and I was scared.” The Alex he knew didn’t easily admit to being scared of anything. Maybe he wouldn’t have to climb quite as high as he’d thought.

“You came here first.” He liked that she came to him before going to her friends. That never would have happened before her stupid quest.

“Jane’s not answering her phone, and Lana’s kids have the stomach flu.” He’d definitely still have to climb over some walls, but he stepped aside and motioned for her to come in.

Alex trailed into his living space and stared at the couch. It was the old one from his study at the house he’d shared with April. He could attest from the last few months of his marriage that it wasn’t comfortable enough to sleep on. “I have a king-sized bed.”

A few weeks ago, the thought of sharing a bed with Alex would have been enticing, but now it would just be torture. They couldn’t even kiss once without things getting irrevocably weird, and now they were going to be bunking together. He wasn’t going to sleep with her until they’d had a real conversation. He pressed the heels of his hands on his eyes and let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry.” Alex hitched up her overnight bag in her hand and turned to the door. “I can just get a hotel.”

Will put up a hand. Now that she was here, he didn’t want her to leave. And she might be ready to talk if she was here. “You’re okay?”

Alex bit her bottom lip, and he wanted to touch her. Even though he was still irritated with her, he wanted to pull her into his arms. When he was touching her, he would forget all the very good reasons why this was a probably a terrible idea. He wished that they could just give in and save the questions and conversations for later.

But he knew better than anyone that surrendering to the sexual pull between them wouldn’t solve their complications. It would only make them worse. He knew it didn’t fit with the expectations that most people had of him—guy’s guy and hard-ass chef—but having sex with Alex would mean something to him. He knew it would mean something to her—why else would she have kicked him out of her home instead having a fucking conversation with him?

“I was sitting on the floor, waiting for the shaking to stop, and I felt like I needed to say some things to you if it was really the end of the world,” she said. “But my power really is out, and I don’t know when it’s coming back on. I didn’t want to be alone.”

“Is everything else in your apartment safe? No broken gas lines?”

“I turned off the gas before I left.”

“Good girl.”