Page 47 of Thank you, Next

“I rely on my friends. I rely on the two of you.” Alex didn’t know why she was starting to cry. She definitely needed to go back to therapy if Lana telling her things she already knew about herself was going to get the waterworks going in public. “I made you help me interview my ex-boyfriends. And you did it. I couldn’t believe that you did, but you did.”

“And we did it because you never ask for anything,” Jane said. “We literally could have told you that all of your relationships end because you have an avoidant attachment style and you date men—the vast majority of them are real dumb and think that your pathological indifference toward their feelings is sexy for a minute until they get too close. You get afraid, and then you shut down.”

“You date fuckboys, too, Jane.” Alex really didn’t have a rhetorical leg to stand on. She had always had a secret pride that she wasn’t like other women in this one respect. She didn’t need anyone to feel like she was complete. She was fine on her own. Men were dessert, and there was no point in catching feelings for any of them, because they would always let her down.

But she was exactly like other women. She needed. She needed a lot. And now that she’d gotten just a fraction of her needs met by Will, she was afraid that she’d grow addicted to it. That was why she’d hesitated about whether to tell Lexi and her friends. She didn’t want to be made a fool of. She didn’t want to have that feeling that she’d always had, waiting in baggage claim at LAX at the beginning of every summer.

Every year, she’d waited to see if her dad would show up and at least drop her off at Lexi’s. He did it once. The whole ride to his mother’s house, he’d listed off things that they were going to do for the summer. But when she’d called him the following Saturday to ask when he was going to pick her up for their trip to Disneyland, he’d told her that he was busy working on a paper. And she didn’t see him until about a month later. When she was sullen and borderline rude to him, he’d yelled at her and told her that she couldn’t speak to her father that way.

After that summer, when she was ten or eleven, she hadn’t bothered hoping to have her dad pick her up, or even spend time with her or ask about her life. She’d learned to assume that all men were self-absorbed and could only care about her to the extent that she made them look good.

“None of this is meant to hurt you,” Lana said.

Lexi rolled her eyes. “You actually could stand to risk getting hurt a little more. I know your dad was not a good father. And one of my major regrets in life is that I didn’t hold him accountable for the way that he treated you. I tried to make up for it, but—”

Alex put her hand over her grandmother’s, doing her best to ignore how fragile the bones in her grandmother’s hands felt. She didn’t want the woman who had helped her come out of her childhood whole feel like any of her emotional shit was her fault. “He was an adult, and he needed to know that on his own.”

“Jesus Christ. You should have told me that this was going to be emotional before I put on non-waterproof mascara,” Jane said, dabbing her eyes at the other side of the table. That made Alex’s tears flow, and Lana was close to full-out sobbing.

“Well, since we’re making announcements, you all should know that I’m dating Will’s friend Charlee,” Jane said. “So Alex’s very silly quest actually did something good.”

At least there was that. And when she thought about it, Charlee was pretty perfect for Jane. They were fun and loud and up for anything. Charlee had the kind of personality that could stand up to Jane’s brashness. And they lived their life unapologetically, just like Jane. They were also very, very hot.

“I’m glad my stupidity bore fruit.”

“Neither of us thinks that it was stupid for you to look at your past and why a certain pattern shows up,” Lana said. “The way you went about it was flat-out crazy, though.”

“Is that your clinical opinion?” Jane asked. And they all laughed.

“So, Lexi, did you meet anyone cool in Seoul?” They’d had enough heavy for breakfast. Alex was now sufficiently scared that she would repeat her avoidant pattern with Will and that she would probably ruin the relationship because of it. Or at least rack up a new batch of therapy bills so she could white-knuckle her way through the urge to flee.

Luckily, Lexi decided it was time to let the heavy stuff go, too. “I had a lot of fun, but the K-pop boys were a little too young for me.”

NINETEEN

Will should have known that everything was going to go to shit. His life was going too well for it not to. He was spending almost every night with Alex, and she’d given up her stupid project of talking to all her exes. According to her, she’d had an illuminating conversation with Lexi and her friends that made her think about a lot of things.

He’d been surprised when she’d told him that Lexi had guessed they were together. But he knew that Lexi would be happy about it. And she’d interfere, but that couldn’t be avoided. He’d thought that the fact that Alex had shared with friends that they were together meant that she thought this was something more serious than just “getting things out of their systems,” but he couldn’t help but notice that she’d pulled away from him after the fateful brunch with Lexi.

They hadn’t had any more deep conversations after sex. He felt like there was still so much that he wanted to learn about her, but Alex seemed to want to keep their conversation light. He wasn’t used to trying to parse out mixed messages from a romantic partner—he was usually the one doling them out.

But he didn’t have the time to focus on his nascent relationship with Alex as the restaurant opening date got closer. Every day was filled with finalizing menus and orders and giving tours to and cooking meals for his investors. He was up to his ears and overwhelmed from the time he woke up until the time he slipped into bed with Alex every night.

By the time he curled up next to her, all he could do was lose himself inside her. And she seemed to welcome it. But he couldn’t stop the sinking feeling that she was using the sexual connection between them—the one that only seemed to get stronger every time they were together—to hide from any growing intimacy.

It was familiar to him, too familiar. It was the same feeling that he’d had at the end of his marriage. He wished the way that relationship had turned out had taught him lessons that he could use to avoid something similar with Alex, but he was coming up blank.

Maybe that was why he was irritated that his publicist had scheduled another meeting with Alex’s ex Andrew. Apparently, Will’s rudeness hadn’t scared the guy off, and he still wanted to do a show with Will.

And maybe that’s why Will snapped at Andrew when the meeting time actually arrived.

“Is this a bad time?” the other man asked as he walked through the door.

Will tried his best to answer in full sentences rather than grunts, because his manager had asked him to be on his best behavior. He knew that a show would bring publicity to his restaurant, which would lead to other restaurants. It would lead to the kind of financial security that would allow him to build the kind of life with Alex that she truly deserved.

“No, it’s as good a time as any.” Will watched as Andrew took in the kitchen, which was finally full of chefs setting up their stations and putting everything in place so that they could do a soft open with critics that night.

“I wish we’d gotten started earlier, because this would be fantastic on film.”