Page 48 of Rivals to Lovers
Mo remembered Yuri wanted to catch her alone, then shook her head. “You know if there’s cheese, then I am legally required to eat as much as I can handle.”
Wes grinned and headed up the ramp. Mo, too, turned to find the cheese table as she’d promised. No reason not to follow through on the dairy before tracking down her agent, but she was surprised to see Loris still standing next to her.
“Hi,” said Loris. “Thought I’d chat with you for a second.”
His tone was guardedly friendly, but something in Mo’s gut iced over in preparation for the worst. She steeled herself for a few conversations all at the same time. Was this thefeeling out if you’re good enough for my friendtalk, ordigging up who you are, as someone with the personal and professional interest to want to know, or theI’ve got something serious to tell you, like I got a genetic test done and you’re listed as my closest living relativekind of talk? The last one was unlikely, but her writer brain did social anxiety well. “Sure. Hi.”
“I dated Wes,” Loris said simply, then rushed to say, “And we’ve been friends for, well, practically forever. But I wanted to tell you a little inside knowledge.”
Mo knew enough reporters to wonder what she had to give in exchange for this free info. “Sure, but why?”
Loris laughed. “This isn’t like me giving up his deepest secrets. You two seem like you have a nice repartee, and he’s never—literally never—brought someone to hang out with us. You are notjustfriends.” Loris said this with the simple certainty that came with lots of personal observation.
Mo didn’t confirm or deny this, but she did see Yuri standing near a huge painting of a former top network executive, who was depicted pinching a Power Ranger’s ass. “Fair assessment.”
“A hint about Wes. He acts very go-with-the-flow, adaptable, but he is terrified about not being in control of situations. He doesn’t know this about himself. He truly thinks he is easy, breezy.”
“Beautiful CoverGirl,” Mo finished automatically, then apologized.
“I set you up for it. Anyway, if you grew up with a mother whose entire life was magazine layouts and sprucing up a room and being the perfect host, you’d probably end up with some quirks too. He’s a fabulous friend—will do anything for you, seriously—but he has trouble trusting people. He will try to handle everything, emotionally and logistically, without bothering anyone. He doesn’t get that it’s not bothering someone and that it’s communication.”
You can’t handle the truth,echoed in Mo’s head, though she couldn’t even remember what movie it was from. There had to be a German word for quotes like that which grew so far beyond their original cultural relevance. And now she was distracting herself from an awkward conversation by trying to find specific vocabulary in a language she didn’t even speak. She thought about Wes’s reluctance to have sex the first night she stayed over, his worry about things changing. “I don’t know what you want me to do with this information,” Mo said honestly.
“I want you to be patient with him and tell him he’s an idiot when he needs it. He’s not one, so you won’t have to tell him more than once. Or a few times. I don’t think he lets himself make mistakes. I have this theory that everyone has trust issues, they’re just different trust issues. His trust issue isthat he doesn’t trust someone to love him after he fucks up. Usually he gives up on a relationship before he has a chance to be not perfect.”
The breakfast Wes made her could have been a magazine layout, complete with a tiny vase of posies from the corner flower stand. She remembered not just the food but the careful way he’d leaned across the table to brush a hair out of her eyes. Other times, too, in the past two weeks of their time together. His smile under his well-kept scruff. His warm and earnest eyes. The uncareful curl of his hair, and his voice as he read some of the best damn sentences she’d ever heard in her life out loud to her. He did seem perfect in some ways—most ways. “Thank you for the insight. I don’t know what my friends would tell someone in some corner about me.”
Loris pursed his lips. “Well, I’m not most friends. Figuring people out is kind of my job. Ajay and I adore Wes, but we are pushy in his life about two things: He needs a romantic partner to love, and he needs a dog. Then he’ll be fine.”
Loris excused himself after being called away by a short, bald person with a sleeve tattoo of Chappell Roan lyrics. Mo took a breath. It felt like someone had handed her a key, a big important user manual to Wes, and she didn’t know what to do with that information. She had known him just two weeks, thought it felt like much longer. She thought about what Loris said:Everyone has trust issues, they’re just different ones.
Not me,she thought.
Except maybe she did. She hadn’t trusted Aaron to understand her and love all of her. She hadn’t even trusted her family with the information that she was writing something she was proud of, because she didn’t want to hear the follow-up questions.
This was too much self-analysis for a Friday night. She chose a few more cheese cubes and took in the crowd of people around her as she tried to track down Yuri again, but her phone chimed before she could find her. It was from Wes.
You throw any of that cheese at anyone?
Lol not yet
Need to show you something. You should have come with me.
Her impulse was to text back an eggplant. She hovered over the emoji, then decided to send it. He replied with theha hareaction.No, not that—yet, he texted back. He was the kind of guy to use an em dash in his texts. How was he so perfect?
The word popped into her subconscious before she could think of anything else, and she repressed it with another bite, this time into a Camembert.
Maureen felt a tap on her shoulder, which made her swallow her bite and wheel around. When she coughed slightly from choking down the dry mouthful, Yuri patted her back slightly. “You all right?”
Mo held up a finger. “Snack issue.”
Yuri pursed her lips, trying not to smile. At least she looked less concerned than she had at their first greeting. “We need to talk about Wes,” Yuri said. We Need to Talk About Wes seemed to be the actual theme of the evening, not Power Rangers.
“Sure, okay.” There was something in Yuri’s face that made Mo’s stomach clench.
Yuri paused, looking at the ceiling for a second. “Since I can’t break my NDA with Wes’s family, I’ll have to be circumspect.”
“Uh …” Maureen said.
