Page 52 of Thank you, Next
“I wasn’t saying that—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “I saw the way you were looking at me. Like I was some sort of sad, pathetic thing who needs a lollipop because I had a hard week.”
Will knew why Alex was freaking out. Their years-long dance toward a relationship was moving too fast for her. She’d shared too much the previous evening, and now she was trying to push him away. It wasn’t anything he’d done; it was reflexive. If he didn’t let her see how much it bothered him and didn’t let her get away with it, she would stop. Maybe.
Just because he realized that this wasn’t about anything that he’d done didn’t mean that it didn’t irritate him.
Also she hadn’t had her coffee. He got out of bed and went toward the kitchen to remedy that at least.
“Where are you going?” Alex followed him naked. “I wasn’t done talking to you.”
“Well, I’m done talking to you until you’ve had some caffeine and an attitude adjustment.” He wanted to laugh at her, but he knew that would only make her angrier.
He made coffee, feeling her seething behind him the whole time as she found her clothes from the night before and one of his T-shirts to wear over her satin slip dress. “I wish you’d told me that we were going to stay here last night. I would have packed a bag.”
She was really just going to complain about anything she could think of. When she stomped into the kitchen, he pushed a mug across the counter at her and nodded. She would take anything he said in that moment as an attack, so he wasn’t going to give her any ammunition.
“Stop smiling at me like you think it’s cute.”
“Stop being so cute when you’re cranky.”
She muttered something that sounded a lot like “Fuck you” as she brought the mug to her lips, but then she fell silent. Since she didn’t want him looking at her like she was cute when she was cranky—and he was just lust addled enough to think that she was supremely cute when she was cranky—he went back to his espresso machine to make himself a latte.
He’d made an Americano with no sugar and a touch of cream, just the way she liked it. It only took until he turned around with his drink for her to say, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said before taking a sip. “Feel better?”
She said “Yes,” but the word sounded grudging. If she didn’t want to admit that she’d been hell on wheels this morning, he wasn’t going to make her grovel when he could see the remorse on her face.
They enjoyed their beverages in silence—his experience working as a barista as a teen really came in handy when dealing with a pissed-off Alex—until she started staring at him as though he were cute.
“What?”
She reached out her hand and wiped foam off of his top lip and mustache and then sucked her finger into her mouth. It made him want to drag her back to bed and demonstrate the benefits of intimate mornings that weren’t plagued by drama, when his apartment buzzer went off.
He waggled his eyebrows at her and said, “I’m going to get rid of this person and then make you come a couple times to make sure your good mood sticks.”
She licked her finger, even though she’d cleaned it off on the first try, and said, “Hurry.”
But when Will saw who was at the door, his plans for a sexy morning quickie with his girl went out the window.
•••
Alex knew that she wasn’t going to be getting any of those promised orgasms when Will turned from the little video feed on his phone and mouthed “Sorry” at her as he buzzed the person at the door in. And she thought he should probably be a whole lot more apologetic when he let his ex-wife in the door.
The insecure parts of Alex’s mind started to sound panic alarms that blared inside her brain and curtailed rational thought. Why would April be dropping over to Will’s place on a Saturday morning? Was this a frequent occurrence? Alex didn’t even know that they still spoke. She dealt with some couples who had fast and friendly divorces, but she hadn’t thought that was Will and April. She’d seemed so angry the last few times that they were together that Alex wouldn’t have thought she’d ever want to see Will again unless absolutely necessary.
And April looked no less surprised to see Alex sitting in Will’s kitchen drinking coffee. With sex hair and part of last night’s outfit sticking out from under Will’s T-shirt. It was more obvious why Alex was here than why April was.
Will, for his part, seemed unbothered by the whole thing. As though it was normal to be hosting a coffee klatch with his ex-wife and his current girlfriend, who’d been very much infatuated with him while he was still with his ex-wife.
“April, you remember Alex, right?” Will asked, as breezy as could be.
The other woman recovered her ability to speak first. “Little early in the morning for your stepsister to be here, isn’t it?”
“Ew, I was never his stepsister,” Alex said. And then she remembered why she hadn’t liked April, aside from the fact that she’d been jealous that Will had fallen in love with a woman who wasn’t her. She’d definitely always been too petty to want to see him happy. But she also thought that April was rude and sort of intentionally obtuse. “His father was married to my grandmother for about a minute over a decade ago.”
Will looked at her as though he was taken by surprise at the exchange. And then he looked back to April. “What’s going on, April? What are you doing here?”