No. She hated herself because making the list had forced her admit to herself that some of these endings had hurt. She hated that she’d fooled herself into believing all the while, telling herself and her partners, that she could keep it light. That weakness made her feel like she was chewing on a piece of glass.
She loved her grandmother—she did. But she was bewildered by her willingness to depend on another person again and again. Alex knew that there were very few people she could depend on, and she could never depend on a person once she’d slept with them.
Even her family, she realized, was dependable in very specific ways. She could depend on Lexi for a dry martini, a shoulder to cry on, and innovative spa treatments. Lexi always had an open door, but there was never any telling what sort of chaos there would be inside that open door. Her mother was dependable for a dry, academic response to any problem, a spotty cell phone connection in whatever part of the world she was currently exploring, and—in Alex’s younger years—perfectly adequate financial support. Alex could rely on her sister to judge her as harshly as possible—even more harshly than she judged herself—all the while pretending not to know what their conversations were really about.
And Will was always there to antagonize her. And feed her. The second thing was the one that kept her from launching him into the sun.
But Alex had never truly relied on any of the men on the list in front of her. They had been momentary distractions that some part of her had hoped would turn into something more. Maybe it was the part of her that had always hoped that she’d be spending summer vacation with her father instead of being pawned off on his mother. It was the part of her that she hadn’t been able to harden up and cut off from her emotions.
She hated that bit, all the while seeing the necessity of it.
Alex didn’t know how long she’d spent staring at that list when her friend and former client walked into her office.
“Don’t tell me you’ve gotten married again and are already contemplating divorce,” Alex greeted her. Jane was a powerhouse talent agent who had a roster of clients that would make the guy they based Ari Gold on incandescent with jealousy. Essentially, if you were young, Black, and talented in Hollywood, Jane was the person you wanted representing you.
While Jane might be an excellent judge of talent, she was less discerning romantically. She’d eloped with her now ex-wife to Vegas without a prenup, and Alex had saved her millions of dollars. After that, they’d become friends on the condition that Jane would never, ever do that again. But Jane looked like a slightly older version of Jodie Turner-Smith and had incredible amounts of charm, so Alex wouldn’t put it past her.
Jane sat down in the leather chair on the other side of Alex’s desk and rolled her eyes. She unbuttoned her tailored Italian blazer and shook out her waist-length dreadlocks. Most people would be intimidated by that. It usually meant that someone’s movie wasn’t going to get made or that a studio had passed on a pilot that Jane had packaged and someone at that studio was likely going to be fired.
But Alex wasn’t. Once you’ve negotiated over the most intimate details of someone’s life, it was hard to be intimidated by them. It was one of the many reasons she hadn’t been able to take Will’s case. She didn’t want to see inside his marriage, because that would have meant seeing inside his mind.
Part of her wanted to keep the fantasy that Will was just Lexi’s stepson, and handling his divorce definitely would have shattered that for her. No one was a good person when they were getting divorced. It brought out all the pettiness, jealousy, and greed inside a person. Alex might resent him for rejecting her when she was teenager, but she didn’t need to delve that far inside his life. She’d probably start feeling empathy for him and then have feelings for him, and she was busy enough trying to sort through her unwelcome feelings about Jason getting married.
Jane snapped her out of her wedding-dress-show malaise. “I’m dating a total fuckboy right now.”
This was new. Jane usually didn’t have the time of day for fuckboys. It might be bad for Alex’s business, but she was all right with that if it was good for Jane. “Good for you.”
Alex must have sounded distracted, because that made Jane look at the legal pad before Alex had a chance to hide it. Jane was not used to having to compete with anyone or anything for attention, and she didn’t like it. “What the fuck is that?”
“Tell me about this fuckboy. Where did you meet them?” Alex made the mistake of trying to slide the list off her desk, and Jane wasn’t having any of it. She took the notepad and squinted while examining it. “Do you think it’s time for reading glasses?” That question earned Alex a look that would send most people into shock, but Alex was desperate.
She didn’t want to have to tell Jane about the dumb show with the dumb guy Alex should definitely not be thinking about anymore. She definitely didn’t want to tell Jane that the dumb show with the dumb guy had sent her into a tailspin of research on her own romantic history when she had plenty of real, billable work to do.
“Is this a list of everyone you’ve fucked?” It was the disgust in Jane’s voice that did Alex in.
She slammed her head on her desk before admitting it. She couldn’t look Jane in the eye. “Yes.”
“Why would you have this? Why would you make this?”
Alex rolled her head to one side and opened one eye. She couldn’t take the full force of this lecture. “You don’t want to know.”
But Jane was on her own track with this now. “Why wouldn’t you make a password-protected spreadsheet? Anyone could find this.” Jane stood up and started pacing, gesturing with the notepad. “This is not like you. Something happened, didn’t it?”
Alex straightened up enough to put her chin on her hands. “Sort of.”
“Tell me.” If Alex hadn’t been raised by her academic mother, she would have spilled her guts right then.
“You really don’t want to know.”
Jane dropped to her seat and put her face at eye level. Alex winced. “Now I have to know.”
“Can we do this someplace else?”
Jane’s whole face lit up; she knew that she’d won. She liked nothing better than winning. “I was coming here to bring you to lunch anyway.”
Alex leaned over and took her purse out of its locked drawer. Jane stood and they walked out of Alex’s office. “You have a password-protected spreadsheet, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I have my assistant update it biweekly.”
“Be careful you keep them happy, or they’ll publish it as the Bi Weekly.”
Jane laughed, and Alex was glad. She was probably going to blow a gasket at the dumb wedding-dress-show story, but at least Alex would have gotten one laugh.