Page 49 of Rivals to Lovers
“Let’s find a place to sit down.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Wes
Wes took a picture but considered whether he should send it to Gary or not. He had no idea what the manners guides would say about sharing a picture of Estelle, who had been hospitalized until very recently, in a painting surrounded by children’s television characters from the nineties. It wasn’t that Estelle was portrayed in an unflattering way—the opposite, in fact. She was a superhero. In Ajay’s painting, she wore a pink Power Rangers costume, and her wheelchair was painted in the same cheery pink with black stripes. Though her money had originally come from her mother, she was famous in her own right as a woman in the finance industry and an advocate for many causes. She was portrayed near one of the playgrounds that she had paid for, one of the first barrier-free playgrounds in the city. Wes decided that Estelle might at least find it funny, and at most see it as the compliment it was.
He thought he would probably send it, but not before he got Mo’s opinion. Only because they had a similar frame ofreference on the issue. And because he trusted her judgment. And because he wanted to see how she reacted. Not because they were a couple or something.
He checked his phone on impulse, but she hadn’t replied since she sent the eggplant emoji. He hadn’t been trying to imagine which dark corner he could sneak her into to kiss her. Not at all. He definitely hadn’t noted that the corner with the burned-out lightbulb near the fire exit was perfect. He turned to Ulla. “I’ll be back. Need to get a drink.”
“Tell the drink I said hi,” Ulla said, not buying his excuse.
He walked down the ramp back to the lower gallery space, his eyes casting left and right to catch Mo in that floral dress. It wasn’t hard to find her; she looked like she was standing as still as a mannequin near the wall, and Yuri was hugging her. Wes felt his shoulders tighten in preparation to make more awkward small talk, but Yuri had left by the time he reached Mo.
During his one-minute walk, he tried to assemble a cogent way to explain the secrets he had kept from her. None of it was damning, exactly, but it was awkward. It was messy, and he didn’t do well with showing other people his mess. He should have figured the truth would out before he had a chance to out it. The book world, encompassing many huge conglomerates and small presses and genres, acted as a small town, and gossip traveled accordingly.
Sensing his approach, Mo turned, her mouth set in a straight, pink line. “Have your ears been burning?”
He stared above her head and said, “So, yes. You might have learned that I used to work with Yuri, back when I was first starting out.”
“She couldn’t tell me much. Something about an NDA your mother made her sign.”
Wes puffed out a breath. “Yeah, well—”
“She did warn me that you are ambitious.”
“You knew that.”You are toohe wanted to add, but didn’t.
“And Loris told me that you have trouble telling the truth.”
Wes felt like he’d been slapped. “Loris said that?”
Mo’s expression softened by half. “He didn’t say it in so many words. He said you have a hard time when you’re not in control of the narrative. And I’m honestly a little confused about the narrative at this point. Can you set me straight?”
Wes took a deep breath. The ambient noise of the gallery—its conversations and footfalls and laughter—was throwing him off. “Could we get out of here?”
They set off down Warren Street in the general direction of River Terrace. In Wes’s head, he could keep her talking and walking long enough to get to the river, to look at it together. In his head, he could keep her from turning up Chambers to get onto the subway. The air was temperate outside, calm and still, and the sidewalks were somewhat empty. This was the closest thing to privacy he was going to get.
“I worked with Yuri for about a year. This was my first internship, the one I didn’t use my name to get.”
“Lying hasn’t ever been hard for you,” she said, not breaking stride. Before he could respond, she continued. “Why did you leave?”
“Uh, I was asked to leave. This is where the NDA comes into play, if you’ll bear with me.”
“I always picture an actual bear when someone says that,” Mo mused. “Like Paddington getting in on the conversation.”
“Pooh with a hookah,” he said, grateful for a topic deflection.
She wasn’t so easily, or permanently, diverted. “Fill me in more about the reason you left Yuri.”
The gentle slope of the road pulled them toward the river. Wes took a breath before beginning. “There was an author represented by Yuri’s agency. I’m not naming names, but he’s the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. He’d been with the agency for years and had a habit of coming into the office and throwing his weight around. So one day, while I was there, he said some horrible things to Yuri’s other intern. She was a Black woman. Is a Black woman. She’s still with Yuri’s agency, I think. Anyway, I won’t repeat what he said, but it was the kind of stuff that people like him get away with all the time in those private spaces where they have too much power.”
“You have power too,” she said.
“I mean, I was only an intern, but yes. Social capital. White, cis, male privilege. And yes, I should have probably considered how to better use my power rather than punching the guy in the middle of the office.”
She halted in the middle off the sidewalk. “Really? You punched someone?”
