Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie

Author:Jennifer Crusie
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HQN
Published: 1996-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

A WEEK LATER, a little past eleven, Nina sat in her window and waited for Fred to return from watering the Dumpster. Fifteen minutes before, she’d given a good-night kiss to Charity’s fix-up date, a terrific man named Phillip, and now she sat kicking herself for being so unenthusiastic about Phillip’s kiss, when he was so nice and so right for her. If she was going to trash perfectly nice men simply because they weren’t Alex, she was never going to find anybody to date. She pondered her dilemma until it dawned on her that Fred hadn’t come back in his usual ten minutes.

Before she could go out the window after him, the phone rang.

“Your dog’s down here,” Alex said when she answered. “Come on down and get him.”

“Just put him out on the fire escape,” Nina said, confused. “He’ll come up on his own. You know—”

“What’s wrong?” Alex said, his voice tense with concern. “Stop crying, Nina.”

“I’m not crying—”

“I’ll be right up,” Alex said. “Don’t do anything foolish. I’ll be right there.”

Then all she heard was the dial tone.

Alex wanted out of his apartment for some reason. It could only mean one thing: another date from hell. Nina tried hard not to be glad Alex was crashing and burning again. Where did he find these women? Suppressing a smile, she went to splash water in her eyes just in case tonight’s Antichrist came with him.

She did.

“Poor baby.” Alex came through the door, looking overdressed and adult in his navy suit, followed by Fred, looking bored and morose, as usual, and Alex’s date.

Nina held a tissue to her eyes and checked out the date.

She was a tall brunette, dressed in formfitting black, absolutely lovely and absolutely furious.

“Oh, Alex,” Nina said, and then he put his arms around her and pressed her head to his chest. There she was, too close to that chest again, and now that her cheek was pressed against it, she knew it was as warm and solid as it looked. She lost her place in the program for a moment until Alex said pointedly, “Stop crying, honey.” Then she tried a sob, and he held her tighter.

“You’re terrible at this,” he whispered in her ear.

“It wasn’t my idea to cry, you big ingrate,” she hissed back at him, not really angry as long as his arms were around her.

“Is this going to take long?” his date asked from the doorway. Fred’s nose was dangerously close to her leg, and she was glaring at him and Alex with equal disgust.

“Deirdre, I can’t leave her,” Alex said. Nina sobbed again and Alex patted her. “Let me get you a cab,” he said to Deirdre.

“I’ll get my own,” Deirdre said and shot Nina a look of pure venom before she disappeared down the stairs.

Alex let go of Nina to close the door after Deirdre. “Good,” he said to the door. “You have more money than I do, anyway.”

“What did she do?” Nina said, tossing the Kleenex away. “Offer to have your baby on the first date?”

Alex wandered into the kitchen.

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