Page 8 of Rivals to Lovers
“My hedgehog?” Maureen had never considered her hedgehog’s preferences before. Then what Wes meant registered with her. “Oh, inP&L? I’ve never really thought about it.”
Weshmm-ed. “I’ve always thought of Clive and Perkins as a did-they-or-didn’t-they thing,” he said, then ran a hand through his hair. Somehow, despite the sunglasses, it seemed to be falling in his eyes.
“I never really read Clive as gay,” Mo admitted.
“He’s bi,” Wes said with surety.
“Like you.” Mo froze, embarrassed. “I mean, I know from the internet. From you posting about being bi.”
Wes laughed. The sunglasses came off and he glanced toward her, waving an SUV in to merge. “So you know me? Threads or BlueSky?”
Every pubescent horror or gaff in front of a class had been erased to crown this moment. “I follow you on LinkedIn.”
He laughed. “We can make that a formal connection after this weekend,” he said.
The wordconnectionsnagged her brain. The sound of the word withneckin it, said from his perfect mouth, made hers get warm. “Should we listen to something?” Mo asked, changing the subject.
“Should I trust you with the aux?”
“Hey, I have very good aux sense.”
“Fine.”
Mo scrolled through her phone. She couldn’t read him, but she didn’t want to put on something he hated either. “How about aughts alternative?”
“How alternative?”
Instead of answering, Mo started the playlist. She wasn’t going to give him a doctoral thesis on her music curation. She started with the New Pornographers, then led into Matt and Kim, transitioning into Tilly and the Wall.
“Interesting percussion,” he commented.
“Live tap dancer. Their concerts were amazing.”
When he didn’t complain about the first few songs, she settled in and looked out of the window at the passing scenery. New York had slipped behind them. More comfortable with her music behind her, she said, “The Clive/Perkins discussion reminds me of the Frodo/Sam headcanon inLord of the Rings. I never really considered them as a couple until I started reading fanfic.”
Wes glanced at her. “Read much LOTR fanfic?”
She was not going to tell this stranger, this big-deal agent, this possible LinkedIn connection that she hadwrittenfanfic, and that Sam had been her crush since—forever. “Some. Butafter I started reading more of it, I couldn’t watch the movies in the same way. It really was the most tender relationship in the films, and there was something more than friendship there.”
“We agree on that. So can’t you see how that scene inP&L…” He tapped the steering wheel, nervous energy thrumming through him. “You know the scene I’m thinking of. That level look they give each other over the dinner table. Clive and Perkins, I mean. The way Morgan describes Clive writing the letter to Perkins, the way he labors over it.”
“I always thought that was because of their shared war trauma, the way they didn’t get a chance to fully have an adolescence, and so when he, you know, joins the party scene a bit later than everyone else, he never fits in there. But he never fit in with his unit either,” Mo said, working things through aloud. It was surreal to be having a deeply literary conversation in the car, with a hedgehog starting it all.
In Maureen’s retelling, Clive was a man who saw people as stepping stones. People were valued based on their utility to him, and if those people dared to step outside of those norms, well—consequences. It was only too easy to recast him in the modern day as a Wall Street bro. Yes, he partied, but then again, how could he not want the familiar world order that supported him, making as much money as he could and having a traditional family to boost his image as he earned it? After a moment, she cleared her throat. “I could see a Perkins-and-Clive thing. The way Clive touches his jacket in the hallway. I always read that as acknowledging the medals of valor they shared, but the intimacy is something.”
“Exactly,” Wes said. He tapped the steering wheel and looked over at her. “It’s nice to talk about the novel with another fan.”
“I’m guessing, as the estate rep, you get to do that a lot,” Mo said.
“Not with another writer.”
“You write too?”
He gave her a look. “Yeah.” He seemed to be about to say more, but instead he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of “Read My Mind” by the Killers.
Was she supposed to know his writing? All she knew about him was his emblematic and usually funny posts on a social media site usually designed for cringing your way through the job market. The buzzing of her phone conveniently drew her attention away from him. A text from her sister, Anna, with a link to the proofs of her wedding invitations.
For the moment, Mo put that text aside and opened one with Sloan. She couldn’t easily Google Wes in any depth from the car, but her roommate was a regular internet sleuth.Who is Wesley Spencer?she texted.
