Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Wes
Finally, finally, he could appreciate the benefits of this huge shower.
By the time he had warmed the water, Mo had joined him in the bathroom, and together they lived up to its potential.
Wes knelt before her, worshipping her under the jets until she fell back against the wall and landed next to his shampoos on the seat.
He had never brought a partner in here before.
There’d been a woman a few months ago, but that hadn’t lasted long and the only connection she cared about was the ones Wes could make for her.
Then he’d seen a guy for about three months about a year ago, but the guy broke it off when someone else came along.
Wes hadn’t even been heartbroken. He hadn’t been ready to make a commitment anyway, and it felt like serendipity to let him go.
But gazing at Mo’s face under the running water, soaping her as she sat on the seat afterward—gently, not sexually, from her toes to her thighs—made Wes realize that he couldn’t not do this again.
He needed her, needed to be able to explore every room of this brownstone with her, but also every corner of this city.
He wanted her to meet Ajay and Loris. He wanted to ask her thoughts about bookstores—which ones did she go to, and which booksellers did she ask for recommendations from?
He wanted to know her coffee order—it felt wrong that he didn’t already, when he knew so much about her body and her book.
They toweled off—or rather, he wrapped a towel around himself so he could grab her one from the hallway. She stood at the doorway, completely naked, watching him fetch it for her. “So fancy and domestic. You even have a linen closet.”
He handed her the towel, and she dried her face before wrapping it around her body like a dress. Her skin, the part that wasn’t covered, had goose bumps up and down from the few seconds’ delay, and he felt a twinge of guilt. “Are you … can you stay over?” he asked.
“I mean, it is pretty late.”
It was only nine thirty. “And it could rain again at any moment.”
“This feels more and more like ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’ ”
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 said Good Books, Good Looks with sunglasses made from the o ’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 called Space 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.
Soon. He would tell her soon. He didn’t want her to think he was stalking her or worry that seeing him in any capacity might damage her relationship with Yuri.
She stood looking out of his window toward the rainy street. He touched a hand to her back lightly, and she turned around. “I’m not sure which side of the bed I’m supposed to get into.”
“I need to be near the door. If there’s a fire,” he said. He realized how strange this sounded and corrected himself. “This is probably neuroticism I picked up in first grade from a visit to a firehouse or something, but the fastest exit in a fire.”
“If the door isn’t hot. Then it’s out the window, right?”
“Right. Touch your hand to the back of it. Not that I wouldn’t save you in a fire. Or—” Here he paused, unsure of how they’d stumbled into such a weird conversation. It was too easy to be too honest with her. “Wouldn’t let you save yourself? God, this got morbid. Sorry.”
She laughed, relieved. “Morbid is fine, and I will be honest: I like sleeping away from the door. Robbers.”
“The extra few seconds to grab something.”
“Oh, definitely this lamp here,” she said, gesturing to one of his solid-bronze table lamps.
“Different kinds of anxiety. I appreciate that.” He slid onto the bed.
She got in next to him, folding the comforter around her legs like a fort. “I don’t trust people who aren’t anxious. I’m serious. If someone is too Zen, I assume they don’t pay attention to things.”
He wanted to fluff her pillow, and that wasn’t even a euphemism for anything.
God, he needed to stop it before he really did something that freaked her out.
He wanted to take care of her, this damp-haired genius in his bed.
He wanted to find out what kind of muffins and birthday cake she preferred.
He wanted to know if she grew succulents in her apartment.
He wondered what her library holds list looked like, if any of it overlapped with the ten thousand advance copies of novels he hadn’t gotten around to reading lately.
Part of him wanted to know about her ex, about what he had done that had made her know he wasn’t a forever guy.
He’d never had a partner who he felt nervous might hurt him, but she held all the cards without either of them knowing the full game they were playing.
He woke up with her still in his arms. They’d kicked off the comforter and lay wrapped in only the thin silk sheet.
He could see in the morning light the outline of their legs tangled underneath it, the way you couldn’t pick them apart if you tried, but he felt those limbs.
He felt her heat against his back and could smell his shampoo in her hair.
He slid out to make her breakfast, pressing a kiss to her hair before he left her in bed.