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“Coffee grounds?” Alex choked out.
“Yes!” I knotted the fabric of my dress in my hands. “You know, the kind that follows an incredibly attractive couple through their wholesome and obviously sexy love life. Each morning, he pours his lady love a steaming cup of coffee—which tastes like piss—but she sucks it down because her strapping man made it for her. As the camera pans away from them snuggling and drinking their coffee, the voiceover says we should all start our mornings right, as if drinking cheap piss water will land us a man who looks likethatand stares at us like we’re the finest thing he’s ever seen.”
Alex peered at me like he’d never seen me before. “I don’t think I watch enough TV.”
I groaned, letting my body go limp in my chair. “TV isn’t the point.”
“It isn’t?”
“Alex.” My head popped up to make sure he was listening. “Focus.”
He took another bite of his Snickers. “I’m focused. Coffee. TV. Garbage bag.” He chewed for a second, then swallowed with a gulp. “For the record, I’ve seen you look like a garbage bag before and this isn’t it. There has to be a lot more alcohol involved before you reach that status.”
“Fine. I don’t look as bad as I did the time I got so drunk, I passed out next to a pool of my own vomit.” He cringed, and I did a little too. That hadn’t been my finest moment. “The point is, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have myPretty Womanmoment, and now I’m not sure I’ll get it.”
Understanding lit his eyes. “Ah, thebig mistakething?”
I clapped my hands. “Exactly. Instead, I was polite, which was—”
“Weird?”
“For me, yes. I mean, this is Allie’s weekend, so I wasn’t going to punch him or anything, but I would have liked to have caused a little scene.”
Alex tapped his wrist. “There’s still time.”
“I know, and if he had come at me all smarmy or aggressive, I would have had no problem being rude back. But he seemed nervous and…okay, I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but he also seemed like he released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding when he laid eyes on me again.” I released my own breath to demonstrate, stopping myself from cracking a grin when Alex looked at me like I’d grown ten heads.
“What—and I mean this in the nicest way possible—the fuck did you smoke while you were downstairs?”
My crack grew into a chasm, and laughter flooded out of me. “I’m sorry, I’m just being stupid to cover for how insane I feel right now.” I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath, calming myself. “Harris dumped my ass in a pretty catastrophic way without ever looking back. I’m not good at reading him, so I honestly have no idea how he felt seeing me.”
Alex rubbed his beard. “How did you feel? Besides the garbage part?”
I tore open my jelly beans with my teeth and dumped some in my hand. “I felt...unprepared.”
“No pain?”
I chewed a red jelly bean while considering. “No. No pain. A little pissed, but it didn’t hurt.”
“At least there’s that. Maybe you’re over him.”
I popped another jelly bean in my mouth as I nodded. “Mmmhmmm. Probably.”
Alex wadded up his wrapper and threw it down on the side table. “Thanks for the Snicks, Cool Girl.” He hopped up, stretching his arms over his head. His T-shirt rode up, and his jeans lowered, and my favorite part of him—the hips, the V, the line of copper and blond hair that disappeared into his boxers—revealed itself.
Then he moved to an open area of the room and flipped himself upside down, balancing on his hands. His shirt slid up even more, uncovering his entire torso, and the cords in his arms strained.
I couldn’t help but think of that first day we met, when he walked around on his hands for me. I’d be wistful for that day forever. I’d basically been a newborn baby, with my new face and clean slate, taking everything in for the first time. Alex had been the most colorful, exciting, and adorable boy I’d ever met. I’d always wondered what would have happened if Mo hadn’t shown him those pictures of me. Or if I hadn’t overheard him laughing, which transformed him from a treasure to a tormentor. Not that he’d ever truly tormented me. But that laugh...yeah, that had haunted me for a long time.
As I watched Alex, I chuckled to myself. After running into Harris for the first time in four years, he wasn’t the one I was thinking about.
My amusement slipped away with that realization.
I turned away from him and ate my jelly beans.
Alex was the last person I needed on my mind.
