Jane knew that Jason had a job. He was in mergers and acquisitions at one of the most powerful law firms in town.
“And why are we upset about this?” Lana asked. Fuck if Alex knew. “The breakup wasn’t dramatic, was it?”
“I told him before we started dating that I didn’t do long-term relationships. I see too many of them break up to ever think about putting one of my own together.” Alex didn’t say the next part. That even the people who seemed to have everything figured out, like Lana and Greg, had a hard time making marriage work. And no one had ever made a case to her explaining why it was worth it to try.
Lana was one of the happier married people she knew, and her husband had suggested they open up their marriage while trying to take care of a newborn. Granted, he’d been incredibly sleep deprived and walked it back once they’d communicated. But it just seemed like so much effort that only bore fruit about half the time.
As far as Alex saw, marriage was a foolish gamble.
“Then why did you make the list?” Lana pressed. She’d clearly decided to hone in on Alex’s issues. That was the problem with having a friend who was a therapist—they were too good at compartmentalizing when it was time to focus on another person’s problems.
“I don’t know.”
Jane scoffed. “You know.”
Alex was momentarily saved when their cocktails and “cheese” plate arrived. She really didn’t know why she’d started listing the people she’d been involved with over the last decade.
“Maybe seeing Jason ready to commit to someone made me feel like . . . I don’t know . . . that he agreed too easily to no strings with me. But that he really wanted strings. Just not with me. But I don’t want strings. I take care of myself.” She’d always had to take care of herself—emotionally at least. Her parents made sure that she was clothed and fed but didn’t feel the need to coddle her feelings. And she’d only spent summers with Lexi. She’d always felt seen by Lexi, but she wasn’t exactly around for talks about the fact that the boy she liked didn’t invite her to the dance. “I shouldn’t even have feelings about this. We should be laughing at how bad his fiancée’s dress is.”
“It would bother me, and my heart is completely dead,” Jane said, lifting her drink to her lips. “Thank goodness my coochie didn’t suffer the same fate.”
“Maybe that’s it—I just don’t like to lose. And seeing him on TV signals some part of my lizard brain that says, ‘Must not lose man.’ ” Alex knew that dating and relationships weren’t a competition unless it was a season of The Bachelor.
“The fact that you’re thinking about this so much says a lot.” Lana took a sip of her drink and a bite of her “cheese.”
“You’re having therapist thoughts that you’re not sharing with me.” Alex knew that Lana really tried not to analyze her friends, but she could see that there was something that she wanted to say that she wasn’t saying. “Spill it. I’m in crisis, and I promise that I won’t be mad.”
“I think that you’ve been cut off from your emotional needs for a long time because your parents weren’t great,” Lana said. And then she stopped and took another big sip of her drink. Alex braced herself. “And I think that none of the men you’ve dated have been right for you.”
“Well, duh.” It had been years since she’d considered a really serious commitment. And the few men she’d considered committing to kind of sucked.
“I think they’re exactly like your father.” As soon as Lana said that, something clicked into place for Alex. She did tend to date men who were aloof and critical, and a picture of her father was in the dictionary next to both of those words. Every time she’d tried to share news about what she was doing growing up, he’d found a reason to make her wrong or bad. “And you seek those kinds of men out because you’re trying to fix it now. But you can’t fix it, because he’s dead. Part of you knows that, because you’re never emotionally attached to these guys.”
They were all silent for a long moment. Because Lana was right. And it pissed Alex off because she hadn’t known that she was doing something that was so obvious to someone who knew her.
“I used to get emotionally attached.” And maybe she’d been on the way to getting attached to Jason, despite her defense mechanism of keeping men at arm’s length? “I wish I could talk to these guys and figure out why they married the next person they dated after me. At least the ones who had potential. Like, why am I always a fling?”
“Do you want to be the ring?” That was Jane’s question—always going for the bottom line.
“Relationships are bad and gross. Sociologically speaking, the happiest people are single childless women.” Alex scrunched up her face. “Sorry.”
Lana said, “No, you’re right. Marriage is fucked.”
Jane took out her phone. “I still think you should get on Raya immediately.”
“But I still feel like I should figure out why no one seems to want more with me,” Alex said. “Because if I wanted more, I want to know that I could have it.”
“You already have a list of guys you’ve fucked. Maybe you should start there?”
“That’s way too many.” Alex might not be into the idea of marriage, but she was definitely not opposed to sex.
“Well, how about guys that you’ve had actual feelings for?” Lana suggested.
That got Alex thinking. There weren’t that many guys she gotten super serious with. And the number of guys she might have wanted to get a ring from—back before her defenses had hardened—was even smaller. “That’s like five guys.”
“Any of them sociopaths?” Jane asked.
“We really should stop labeling run-of-the-mill narcissists as sociopaths,” Lana said. It was one of her pet peeves, but the smile on Jane’s face said that she had asked for that precise reason.
“Pretty much all of them are the second thing, but I don’t think anyone will actually try to murder me.”
“I think we should make a short list, find these dummies, and figure out why Alex made them want to get married,” Jane said. Always to the point.
“To someone else,” Alex added.
* * *
• • •
Will went to the gym every morning after he visited his kitchen and placed orders with suppliers. It cleared his head and kept his body in good enough condition to work long, grueling hours in the kitchen and to not punch people when his publicist—the one Lexi had made him meet with after his first video went viral—trotted him out to do media hits. It had nothing to do with his image as a hot chef.