Page 57 of Rivals to Lovers
If he were there in person, all five foot ten inches of him, she could have told him. It was so easy to say anything when she looked him in the eye, but when it was words on a phone—impossible. And if that was the case for two writers, what chance did anyone else have? She would see him this week. She could get her thoughts together better after she’d slept more and eaten more than a pancake. When she wasn’t wearing an apron or thinking about how to highlight tropical orchid displays at the head table, they would talk. They’d figure this out, one way or another, but for now, she had a wedding to attend to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Wes
It was Tuesday night and Mo was coming over. Wes’s relief at her decision to speak to him again was matched with his neurotic anxiety to ensure the meeting went perfectly. In preparation, Wes tried out one of the recipes from a cookbook he’d sold recently. The client worked as a chef in Ontario at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and while Wes’s finished creation didn’t look as good as the mocked-up picture they had subbed with the project, it smelled delicious. The stew was a traditional Provençal recipe that took two days to make—one day to make the broth and a second day for assembly. Wes planned to serve this soup with crusty sourdough bread and whipped butter from the co-op. For dessert, he’d made fresh lime-basil sorbet, which took up a majority of the freezer’s top shelf.
He’d already made up his mind to make tonight awkward. He owed it to her to feed her a delicious dinner, then tell her the truth about everything that had been going on in the past few days: him signing with an agent, Gary’s email,and sending the books to Elena Evans. He knew that Gary had emailed Mo too, but he hoped Gary hadn’t shared Talia’s and Flor’s full, caustic impressions with Maureen. They had scarcely mentioned his book at all, at least in a way that didn’t commodify it. No mention of the prose. No mention of the characters. No mention of the plot or themes. He believed in his book, but the email sat wrong with him, especially when they seemed to think so poorly of Maureen’s book, which he did love. He didn’t trust the opinions of a reality TV star and a real estate agent on the book she’d worked so hard on, even if they were the heirs of the heir of a literary mastermind. Certain things couldn’t be passed down, like taste.
Elena had sent Wes a quick email early in the week to let him know that his manuscript was at the top of her to-read pile. He got emails like this all the time from editors, but knowing it was about his project distracted him beyond all reason. But Elena had already read Mo’s book, probably marked it up as much or more than Mo had marked up his own book.
First, though, he would feed her. First, he would be present with her. Mo centered him, or more accurately, when he was around Mo, everything in him tried to center toward her. He felt like a sunflower tracking the daylight trying to read her body language and facial expressions. Making her smile was better than any acceptance he’d ever gotten.
“Come on in,” he said.
He didn’t know how to read the air between them when Maureen arrived at his place. He opened the door, and she smiled slightly, moving past him. With her came a breeze from the street. No rain this time, at least. At the door, she handed his manuscript back. Things between them feltcharged, but not in a sexual way—in a way that echoed the vibes of that first night at Estelle’s, a budding resentment set off by mutual admiration.
He received his book from her and tried to read her expression.
She took a moment to meet his eyes before she said, “I loved it.”
It was just a word, a word he read in blurbs for books all the time. It was one word in the dictionary, a single entry of a million, but it pinged in him. He shouldn’t read more into it, but she had read him. His words and his work and his late nights and the times that he felt like throwing his keyboard at the wall, all wrapped up in those ninety thousand words. “Thank you for reading it.”
“Well, thank you for letting me. I marked it up, for your reviewing pleasure.”
His heart kicked in his chest. He couldn’t wait to go in and look through to see what had caught her eye or where she’d stopped and picked it up again. It would be like spending time with her to spend time with her commentary and notes, and he would take all the time with her he could.
He could still sense the lingering weirdness from last week in her body language, though. The tense set of her shoulders. He could unveil the tapestry later.
Her eyes glanced around, and her nose twitched as she slipped off her shoes near the front door. “What’s for dinner?”
“Bouillabaisse and fresh bread.” She trailed behind him into the kitchen and glanced at the pot, which he uncovered with a flourish. Scrubbed, early-season red potatoes floated with carrots, pieces of cod, and prawns. He had fresh parsley chopped on the nearby wood cutting board for sprinkling on top.
She turned back to Wes, her face slightly green. “I am so sorry, but I’m allergic to shellfish.”
He didn’t swear, but he sure wanted to. He was such an idiot to cook for someone and not ask if they had allergies. He had lucked out during their first homemade meal together in that shrimp wasn’t a common breakfast food. “Don’t apologize for being allergic,” he said. “I’m sorry for being a dumbass.”
“No, I’m sure the soup is amazing. It just would maybe kill me.”
Wes flipped off the stove and covered the soup. While he opened a window to air out the kitchen, he considered alternatives for their meal and a place to home this stew. He certainly didn’t want it to go to waste after two days of work. “Just a sec,” he said, excusing himself from the kitchen. He called his neighbors, Lee and Ilsa. He hoped they hadn’t eaten yet. Luckily, they had recently gotten home from their shifts at the hospital and hadn’t figured out what they wanted. He convinced them, with very little effort, that what they truly wanted was fresh French fish soup fast—say that five times. They would be over in the next fifteen minutes to get it.
That problem solved, he reentered the kitchen to the sight of Mo waist deep in his refrigerator, bent over in such a way that accentuated her beautiful curves. He’d never thought that the refrigerator’s lighting could do a person justice, but it flowed around her like water. She looked good enough to eat like that, and he had to stop himself from coming up behind her and—
Instead, he cleared his throat, and she slammed the door closed. “Sorry. I’m not being nosy. Or maybe I am, but I wanted to see what we could make.”
“What we could make that wouldn’t make you break out into anaphylactic shock.”
“Right, unless you wanted that as the entertainment for the evening.” Her expression softened, a smile creasing her lips. Maybe she had had a long day. Maybe she had had a bad subway ride. Maybe he could fix whatever was wrong, but not with what he had originally planned for dinner. Maybe they could make something very good together tonight.
In the kitchen. Make something in the kitchen, obviously.
One thing was certain, with conversation flowing, the air had thawed slightly between them, though the room itself was cooler from the fridge being open for so long.
After a quick assessment, they decided on grilled cheese made with some of the fresh sourdough. He used the softened butter to spread on the outsides of the bread while she sliced a variety of cheeses from the cheese drawer. “You’re lucky that the cheesemonger knows me by name now. I’ve started to go there weekly.”
“Are the only things that people can mong fear and cheese?Mongeris underutilized.”
“Completely agree. Did you know,” he said, spreading the butter thinly, “some people use mayonnaise instead of butter on the outsides of their grilled cheese?”
