Page 65 of Rivals to Lovers
Wes glanced at Ulla, who was deftly flicking back the media that weaved around the room’s notable figures. “I think I have someone who could help you do media training.”
Wes hugged Gary again before leaving, tightly. As they broke apart, Gary held Wes by the shoulders. “I’m going to follow Estelle’s wishes for the estate. She chose Maureen’s book. I hope you know this doesn’t mean that I didn’t love your novel.”
Wes’s gut twisted, the ground wavering, but something else solidified under him too. At least here was an answer for the future of the Morgan estate, and an answer Wes found he was glad to hear. If his true passion in life was making sure the best books made it to market, here was another book that would soon find its audience.
It just wasn’t his book.
“I understand,” Wes said.
“It doesn’t mean never,” Gary added quickly. “Estelle was clear on that too. It’s only for now.”
So many things were just for now. So few things were promised, but here was a glimmer of something good on the horizon. Something that would change Maureen’s life for the better. Wes knew the will wasn’t open and that even Estelle’s daughters had yet to be told, but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to tell her.
“Now is what counts,” Wes said. He patted Gary on the shoulder and promised to talk soon. He had to get out of here, with a better excuse than escaping journalists. He rescued his mother—who seemed more than capable of frustrating the press for at least another hour—and started planning.
He’d made the mistake with Mo that he never wanted to make with his writing. He had let the idea of the perfect getin the way of the good. He had elevated the idea of what their relationship could be, this final finished product, and hadn’t trusted the mess that it took to get there. He had written a book by typing every morning until he had something he could work with. Maybe a good relationship was a shitty first draft that you agreed to write together.
He just needed to find a way to ask her to work with him.
It was late that night before Wes pulled up in front of Mo’s building. He found a meter a block away and parked, the sound of ambulances from the hospital chasing after him. The last time he had been here was to pick up the person he didn’t know would change his life. He didn’t know anyone else in town who would have the answers he sought, but he prayed that the roommates who had so eagerly sent eggplant emojis and made him lose his bet might let Wes up to talk for a few minutes.
He buzzed at the front door of the apartment building, waiting on the steps in the warm night. Wes didn’t know which apartment number was hers of the hundred buzzers in front of him. Suddenly from behind came a tall, dark-haired woman who exuded suspicion. She eyed Wes warily as she reached for the door, then paused to look him up and down. “Do I know you?”
Wes didn’t know how to answer this except, “Maybe? Do you know Maureen Denton?”
Her eyes narrowed further, and she reappraised him. “Oh, you’re the literary fuckboi.”
“Hi,” Wes said, uncomfortable but trying not to sound guilty. “Uh, maybe?” He was going to offer his hand, but he didn’t think she would take it.
“Come up. Mackenzie and I have been dying to probe you.”
The words might have sounded like a double entendre from anyone else, but this woman’s firm expression made him feel like he was about to be waterboarded. Still, he followed her up in the elevator and walked into Mo’s apartment for the first time. Probably, he mourned, for the last time. He should have come here when she invited him, but Wes had been too comfortable in his own sphere and space. This shouldn’t have been the first time he’d met her friends, her roommates that she had told him about on more than one occasion. The woman who let him up introduced herself as Sloan, making the other woman Mackenzie, a curvy, pretty blonde who must have tacked up the musical theater posters that lined the walls.
Sloan sat next to Mackenzie, unlacing her black sneakers and undoing her long black hair from its braid. It coiled around her shoulder, making her look a little bit Medusa, a little bit model. Mackenzie looked friendlier, smiling as she pointed to a spot on the pink chair opposite to sit on. Wes moved a fluffy yellow robe to make room.
“What are your intentions with our friend?” Sloan asked without further introduction.
Wes stammered, and before he could manage a response, Mackenzie added, “Take your time.” He realized that she was holding something small on her lap—a hedgehog.
“Oh, that must be Perkins,” Wes said, gesturing at the hedgehog.
Mackenzie gazed down at the little animal. “You can feed him a mealworm if you want.”
“No, I’m okay.”
She raised her eyebrows like this was obviously the wrong answer. Wes was failing this interrogation, even with the good cop of the pair.
“I really like Maureen,” Wes said. Understatement wasn’t usually his forte, and true to form, the phrase felt heavy and unexplored in his mouth. He wanted to unpack his adjectives like in that oldSchoolhouse Rock!song. Mo was incredible, electric, brilliant, hot, inventive, and hilarious. He had never felt so much like himself as he did with her, as if the Wes he was with her was the Wes he wanted to be all the time. Except the lying parts. Those parts he would change. “But this is about more than my feelings toward her. It’s about her book.”
“Is it good?” Sloan asked. “She hasn’t let us read it.”
“She hasn’t even letmeread it,” Mackenzie said, then she added, “I’m a librarian,” in the same proud tone of ownership that people used when saying they were from the Bronx originally, not transplants.
“It’s really good,” he said. Again, the weight of the understatement shook him. He was dying to say more—about how they would get to read it, soon, but he didn’t want to share that news with them first. “But more than that, she’s good. She’s amazing. I’m obsessed with her—her brains and her talent and her ridiculous sense of humor and her love of Ents.”
“She is such a secretLord of the Ringsdork, and she does not show that side to everyone,” Sloan agreed.
Mackenzie snapped her fingers like she had solved something. She looked sideways at Sloan. “Sam Gamgee. He has a total Sam Gamgee thing going on. With a beard, though.”
