Page 33 of Rivals to Lovers
“Well, text me and we can figure out when to do some more readings when we’re back.”
They fell asleep after that. It had been a long time since he had stayed to cuddle with someone, but she had almost taken that as an assumed right, and he loved that from her. They were bound to be under the same roof tonight anyway, sothey might as well be in the same bed. It was just natural. It was easier to let two magnets attract.Why not?he asked himself, drifting to sleep.
Around four in the morning, they both woke with a start to the whir of sirens outside the window.
PART TWOThe Lost
“To have the lights of the city dare to shine in this torrential rain—well, that must be a sign, mustn’t it,” Eliza said. Clive raised her delicate hand to his lips.
—E. J. Morgan,The Proud and the Lost
“Oh, heartbreak. If my heart could be a truly broken thing, I could replace it. I could patch it and find another like it,” Eliza said. “As it is, I am broken, too.”
—E. J. Morgan,The Proud and the Lost
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Wes
Breakfast was somber and rushed, the staff trying to serve Wes and Mo the best they could with Gary and Estelle gone. After breakfast, they had no one else to say goodbyes to before packing into Wes’s Civic. In the middle of the night, they had watched a stretcher take Estelle away, Gary climbing in with her, a folded wheelchair and packed bag in tow. Wes wondered if the choreography of an emergency was one Gary knew well, if this wasn’t the first ambulance ride Estelle had taken lately.
Wes received a text from Gary as they were loading their suitcases. “Heart attack,” he told Mo. “She’s not doing so well.”
Unspoken: how lucky that Gary had been there. It hadn’t really been luck, it had been love, or something like it. Gary, Estelle’s assistant and lover, had been with her. In a different version of this life, in a different version without their affair, the staff would have found her lifeless in the morning. Wesdidn’t even want to think about it, but he couldn’t help picturing Estelle in the same pale crepe pants she’d worn at dinner, paired with her cashmere sweater, stiff on top of a mattress.
Wes and Mo didn’t talk much on the drive. Even after all they had said—and done—to each other last night, he didn’t know how to begin a conversation after they’d watched an ambulance pull away from the estate together, holding hands as the sirens whirred down the long driveway. It wasn’t even like they knew Estelle very well, but there was no code of conduct for what to say after a tragedy.
Wes pulled into the fire lane in front of Mo’s building. They both hesitated as she reached for the door handle. She settled on leaning over to give Wes an awkward peck on the cheek. He’d smelled her soap the whole ride, and with her mouth on his cheek, the scent was intoxicating. Did women know how good they could smell? It seemed illegal. “Want me to get your bag from the trunk?”
“No, I got it.”
“Say hi to Perkins for me,” he said.
After dropping Mo off, Wes drove to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Sunday traffic wasn’t as bad as weekday traffic, but an accident near the Washington Bridge caused him to stop and process for a few minutes, which he didn’t want to do. Instead, he rolled down his window, hit random on his music app, and turned up the car stereo. It was a game he’d played since he was a teen. Hit random, and whatever song came on was your song of the day. He believed in it more than horoscopes. When “Total Eclipse of the Heart” came on, though, he decided he got one veto. The next song was “SexyBack,” which made him think of Mo slightly less. The car next tohim had their window rolled down too, and a fiftysomething man with graying hair bopped his head along to Timberlake’s singing, mouthing theuh-huhs.
You couldn’t beat this city.
NewYork-Presbyterian was a huge metal-and-glass structure overlooking the river that could have passed as a fancy hotel. Wes didn’t think he’d be allowed in to see her, nor did he really want to. Wes was uneasy around hospitals—the smells, the sounds—it all got to him, even at this hospital, which was admittedly the nicest one he had ever been in. He purchased a card-and-flower arrangement from the gift shop and took the elevator up to the designated floor.
He wrote the card in the elevator, using the wall as a desk.Estelle,he wrote.Wishing you improved health and grateful for you. All the best from Wes.
As he walked down the hall on the correct floor, there was Flor, sitting in the waiting room. She wore a sweater as green as Wes felt. He took a seat next to her, and she glanced up from her phone. “Oh hi, Wes,” she said, as coolly as if she’d expected him there ten minutes ago.
“I’m so sorry about your mother’s condition. I came to check in and see how she is.”
Flor’s lips pursed. “Well, if we could all be in there at once, they would be going marvelously, but as it is now, we can go in pairs only. And of course that means that only one of her children can really be there at a time because of Gary.” At Gary’s name, Flor rolled her eyes, and Wes could picture her as a teen. Maybe she even sold real estate back then.The finest locker this side of seventh-period geometry.“Anyway, such a shock. I mean, not a complete shock at her age, but still.”
Wes nodded, unsure if Flor wanted him to agree that it was a shock or not a shock, or if she wanted any input at all. “Well, I’m here if you need anything.”
“Even a kidney?” she asked.
He must have gaped, because she laughed. “Oh, Wes, kidding. It’s her heart, her too-big heart in every sense, that’s got her in trouble. No kidney needed. But I am glad you stopped by.” She glanced around, as if the nurses were spying on them. After a second, she turned to him again, voice lowered conspiratorially. “I chatted with Talia, and of course we’re on the same page aboutP&L. We are absolutely rooting for your project.”
Wes hadn’t come to talk about the book, but now he could see how it looked that way. It didn’t seem like the time or place, and there was no way anyone could have read the entire novel since yesterday. He truly had come to check in on Estelle as, if not a friend, then a longtime associate.
“Well, the way we see it, your adaptation could sell very well, especially with the gay angle.” She said the words quickly, and it came outgangle, which sounded even worse.
“I wouldn’t call it anangle—”
