Anyone but You by Jennifer Crusie Read Free Book Online Page A

lost her best friend of twenty years. If Charity could write a book, but it turned out to be unpublishable by Jessica's standards, Nina had just lost her job. If Charity could write a book, and Jessica through some miracle published it...
    ... it would be a hit and Howard Press would be on its way into the black and Jessica would love her and she'd be a success.
    "And pigs will fly," Nina said and sat back down to finish off the rest of Charity's milk shake. Fred was in the potato chip bag again, so she pushed him out of it and then absentmindedly ate a chip, trying to think cheerful thoughts. She wasn't sure what she'd started, but she was positive she didn't want to dwell on it or on the impossibly young distraction who lived one floor down, and now she had a whole Friday night all to herself just to dwell on both.
    Fred wiped his nose on her leg.
    "Hello," she said to him. "I hadn't forgotten you. Want to watch a video? Because no matter how pitiful you look, I am not publishing your memoirs. Not enough sex in your life, buddy." She thought of Alex and his damn fingers. "Or in mine, for that matter." Then she squelched the thought. She was not going to start fantasizing about Alex Moore.
    Fred put his paws on her leg and whined at her, so she gave him the last of Charity's milk shake. A scant inch of chocolate and Amaretto couldn't hurt him, and he was so pitiful when he whined. She watched him slurp the last of it, his nose jammed into the glass, and then she stood and threw out the rest of the chips and went back to the table to start on the twit's manuscript.
    It was worse than she had remembered, so she was grateful when the doorbell rang. She grabbed her blue seersucker robe and deserted the manuscript with indecent haste, only to feel her heart thump when she opened the door and found Alex leaning in her doorway, this time in a white tailored shirt and navy dress pants, his tie loose and lopsided around his neck.
    "Hi," he said slowly and distinctly. "Remember me?"
    "Yes." Nina peered at him. He did a little weaving on the doorsill, his eyes bright but half-closed.
    "Been drinking, have we?"
    Alex's laugh sloughed into an exhale. "I don't know about you, but I have. It's my birthday. My whole damn family bought me a drink. One at a time. All day." He frowned at her, as if trying to bring her into focus. "Do you have any coffee? I only ask because you looked like a woman who would have coffee when I was up here last night."
    Great. And she'd been thinking hot thoughts about this delinquent all day. God, she was pathetic.
    Well, somebody had to sober him up. "I have coffee." Nina tied the belt around her robe tighter and stepped back to let him in.
    He walked past her and stopped to stare at the papers on the table. "You're working. I don't want to interrupt."
    At least he had manners. "It's all right." Nina closed the door behind him. "It's a terrible book.
    Boring. Turgid."
    Alex frowned. "Turgid. He was the Russian, right?"
    Oh, terrific. "Not a big reader, I see." Nina pulled out a chair from the table and took his arm to guide him into it. "Coffee coming right up. You sit until it's done."
    "I took science courses not lit." Alex took off his tie and threw it on the table. Then he picked up a page from the book and began to read while Nina put a filter in the cof-feemaker and poured in the coffee.
    Fred wandered over to him, and Nina turned to shoo him away, but Alex said, "Hey, Fred," and leaned down to scratch his ears, and Nina forgave him everything.
    Alex was a nice guy. So he wasn't brilliant. Big deal. It wasn't as if she was contemplating a relationship with him; she'd already decided that would be ridiculous. What she needed was a friend, a neighbor.
    And Alex was nice to her and good to her dog. What more could she want in a neighbor?
    Fred looked as if he could want more. He nudged Alex's hand, looking for potato chips, and then collapsed under the table from disappointment when none were forthcoming.