Page 44 of Rivals to Lovers
He grimaced. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. That song is awful.”
“I like it in a corny way. No, I’m here because I want to be. And yes, I would be happy to stay over. My first event isn’t until ten tomorrow, but let me text my roommates so they don’t worry. I’m betting at least one of them will text some crude emojis back.”
“What odds are you putting on this?”
She grinned, settling a strand of loose hair back over her shoulder. “You don’t even know them.”
“I’m going to say they won’t, and the loser makes breakfast.”
“Deal.”
She texted them and borrowed some more of his clothes. She slipped into an oversized T-shirt he’d gotten from a conference in Atlanta a few years ago that saidGood Books, Good Lookswith sunglasses made from theo’s in each word. He wanted to take a picture of her like that and go all wife guy—she was so beautiful. The way her hair hung in loose waves on her shoulder and her face was so fresh without makeup, skin looking soft and kissable. Instead, he tried to remember this moment, take it in. How content he felt, not anxious about anything. Just happy.
She slid beside him on the couch downstairs, and he made tea. The rain battered the windows. The wet streets echoed the noise differently, making the city feel like a sister of itself. All thought of their books had fallen away with their clothes, and for right now, it felt like they could be any two people anywhere else in the world, sitting next to each other and fighting over what show to stream. She had, it turned out, terrible taste in television and watched all the new shows that her social media friends rapidly binged and lampooned on her feeds. “I don’t care if it’s trash,” she said. “Someone has to watch it, and I volunteer.” On her suggestion, they watched a concept dating show where all the contestants were dressed in astronaut suits and had their voices autotuned. You couldn’t tell what gender someone was, what they sounded like, or, obviously, what they looked like. The show was calledSpace Dates, and the winning compatible couple—determined by tests later or something—would get spots on a manned commercial space flight.
“I would totally do this,” Mo said. She glanced at Wes, biting her lip. “Not for any reason except for getting to go to space.”
His heart thudded, but he kept his face neutral. “Right, oh, totally. I wouldn’t want to wear pull-ups, though. I really don’t think I could do it. And here’s something about me—I hate to fly.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
“It’s true.”
She glanced down at the shirt she was wearing. “But you obviously have to travel for work.”
“Highly medicated only. And yes, first class. Money and the right prescription can make the situation better, but it’s still not ideal.” Not ideal as in if the plane hit turbulence, he had panic attacks that would register on a seismograph.
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at the screen. By the size of her triumphant smile, Wes knew he’d lost the bet. She didn’t know he had wanted to. He was a good cook and hadn’t had a chance to show her yet. “Savory breakfast person or sweet?”
“Savory,” she said. “I could eat lasagna for breakfast if it was acceptable.”
“I will make you a lasagna if you want.”
She grinned. “No, but something with eggs would be great.”
They finished the show, his hands resting on her thigh and her hand on top of his, lazily tracing his knuckles. He gestured his chin up at the painting above them on the couch. “My friend Ajay has a gallery opening next Friday night in Tribeca. Want to come with me?” He had aimed for a casual tone but was surprised by how hard his chest hurt in the seconds before she responded. Did he mean this to be a date? That felt like a lot of pressure. “As friends,” he said, just as she said, “Sure.” She seemed pulled up short by his clarification.
“Or not as friends?” he offered. He was not good at this. He was, in fact, terrible. He would be better off romancing a statue.
“As enemies, then,” she said, her eyes glittering. “I was trying to remember if I had to work, but I have a day shift next Friday.”
He felt like an idiot. It would have been a good time to say something sincere, but he played along. “Right, enemies. Enemies at the art gallery. Totally normal.”
“Sounds like an Agatha Christie title.”
By the time it was late enough to go to bed, the tea remained undrunk because they’d been talking too much. She’d insisted on poking around in his office to check his book collection and had selected two to tuck into her purse. “Once it dries out,” she said, shaking her still-soggy bag.
It was amazing to think she’d got caught in the rain only a few hours before. It was amazing to think that he hadn’t known her last week. He felt better, lighter, with her knowing about the manuscript that he had of hers.
They hadn’t read anything together tonight—they had just been together and given in to the dangerous temptation of normalcy. As they left his office, he took a bound copy of his manuscript off the desk and handed it to her. “To even the playing field, you can take this with you. To add to your stack of borrowed books.”
She accepted it with a smile, opening the cover to start reading as she walked down the hallway. She set the book gently by the bathroom door so she could brush her teeth. He was his mother’s son, always keeping spare toiletries around for guests. He handed her a fresh toothbrush from the linen cupboard. “I do have mini-toothpaste too, if you don’t want to share mine.”
“I think we’re past the cooties stage,” she said with a grin. They brushed their teeth side by side, bumping hips as they went to spit in the sink at the same time. She turned to him after wiping her mouth and kissed him, their fresh breath mixing like a commercial for dental hygiene. It would have sold him anything, to be honest. After she pulled back from the kiss, she said, “Listen, I do enjoy hearing your book. I didn’t come over here to get into your bed.”
“I know,” Wes said. He took a small breath, wondering how much to put out there. If he was going to come clean about the other thing, it should be now too. The thing where he’d been following her career for years. There had never been a right time to tell her, and maybe there wouldn’t be one.
But he could hold it a little longer. There was no chance, when they were holding up the pretense of being enemies and rivals, that she would tell her agent about him. He didn’t want the full weirdness of everything to come cascading out—how he’d found her book in the slush and gotten canned from the same agency.
