ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪᴠᴀʟꜱ ᴄᴏɴᴛʀᴀᴄᴛ - ₀₂₃

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𝘞𝘙𝘌𝘕 𝘑𝘈𝘔𝘌𝘚

THE MEETING WENT AS GOOD AS I expected. Surprisingly Rhys pulled through and held up his end of the presentation. And his tie was the most perfect knot ever. Kudos to none other then me.

I’m still in my business attire while we drive home. Rhys is too, I suppose-minus the jacket, tie, and about three buttons. The urge to crawl back in his lap is strong. Very incredibly strong.

I text Lex when we’re an hour and a half away.

𝙢𝙚: 𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙤𝙢𝙚.
𝙞𝙣 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙
𝙡𝙚𝙭: 𝙞’𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙩 𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙬/ 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙖
𝙢𝙚: 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙞𝙣?
𝙡𝙚𝙭: 𝙞’𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙪 𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧 ;))

I turn off my phone and take out the clip holding up my hair. Then slip off my heels. Rhys is being weirdly quite. No witty remarks since the last car ride. He’s only said ‘ladies first’ when he opened the door, and ‘nice job Miss James’ when we finished the presentation.

I pop the top button of my shirt and Rhys’s gaze sweeps to me for a second. I debate doing a second button-to even it out-but my phone rings. It’s from a number I don’t recognize. I pick it up.

“This is Wren James.” I say.

“Hello Wren. This is Jeniffer at The New York Hospital. How are you?” A soft voice greets me.

“Fine. Is something wrong?” I trace my lips and see Rhys peak over at me.

“It’s your mother, Margo Perry, i’m afraid she took a turn for the worst.” Jeniffer explains.

“What exactly happened? Do i need to…pick her up?” I regret the question when it leaves my mouth. I wouldn’t pick her up. Not after everything she did.

“No sweetie. We’re keeping her here-monitoring her. And as for what happened, she was brought in because the workers at the facility she was at, called and explained that she was having trouble breathing. And it looks like she has a collapsed lung. And the other isn’t doing well either.”

I pause. Rhys’s eyes feel heavier. My stomach feels like it’s going to fall from my body. My throat restricts my breathing.

“And, what can you do for her?” My voice remains even.

“I’m afraid because of her condition, she wouldn’t survive extensive surgery. She seems to be stable as of now, but we’ll inform you if anything changes.” She says.

“Okay.” I manage.

“Alright, take care.” I hang up the phone, and place it in between my legs.

“What was that about?” Rhys asked from beside me.

“The hospital called to let me know my mother is dying.” I say before i can stop myself. Rhys’s eyes widen slightly.

“Do you want me to drop you off there?” He’s acting too nice. I wonder if he has a good relationship with his mother.

“No.”

“Alright.”

After sitting in silence for twenty minutes, my phone rings again. I huff before looking at the screen. It’s Lex. My mood instantly brightens.

“He-“

“The fucking magazine! Wren! What the shit! Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?!” Lex shouts so loud I push the phone away from my ear.

“I did-“

“I mean about the pose! Wren! Holy shit! Holy fucking shit! You look-he’s- you guys are so hot! I’m talking wank worthy hot! I had no idea it was going to look like you two were banging!” Lex practically screams.

“Lex, stop yelling, i’m in the car with-”

“Oh my God! His hand placement! His jawline! Wren, you have to answer me truthfully. Did you jump his bones after this? Because I can feel the sexual tension-” I cut off her rambling.

“Lex i’m in the car with him right now. He can hear you screaming about his hands.” I look over at Rhys and he’s wearing a cocky smirk.

“No…” She whispers.

“Yes.” I put her on speaker and bring the phone to Rhys’s mouth. He rasps a, “Yeah.”

“Oh God. I’m sorry. You guys are really hot though. I already bought ten copies.” I can hear her shrug.

“Thank you. We are.” Rhys says, focusing on the road, but talking to the phone.

We are. We, as in me too. As in he thinks i’m hot too?

Lex quietly squeals and then clears her throat. “Well, Wren, i’m already at your house, and I have homemade pasta I was testing out.”

“Alright, i’ll see you later.” I bring the phone back to me.

“Bye Wren. Love you. Bye Rhys.” Lex adds in.

“Bye.” He says, surprisingly alert. I hang up the phone.

The smirk is back on his face. “She seems…excited.”

“She is. She probably has about twenty more copies in the mail.” Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen the final product. Just snippets.

I look it up.

The picture does in fact look like we are fucking on a desk-or close to it. I look good, so does Rhys. But it’s nothing special. Probably because I had to live through it-which seemed like I was going to catch on fire and burn up.

The title on the top of the magazine was written in fancy font that read; ‘𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘌𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘎𝘰𝘵 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’ then there was a blurb on the left side of the magazine.

21 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘭𝘥, 𝘞𝘳𝘦𝘯 𝘑𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 22 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘭𝘥, 𝘙𝘩𝘺𝘴 𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦. 𝘉𝘰𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘧𝘶𝘭, 𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘺 𝘣𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘩. 𝘛𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘦 5.

I clear my tab and roll my shoulders back, relieving the tension there. I haven’t had a moment to think. About my mom, or how Lex embarrassed herself, or how she was right about his hand placement.

Throwing my head back, I close my eyes and breathe through my nose, then exhale out of my mouth. I don’t feel Rhys looking at me, so I untuck my shirt front my skirt; immediately feeling less tense.

__________

Puff greets me when I open my apartment door. She’s sitting on the counter, all cute and eye-wide. Then Lex attacks me in a hug. I pat her back with my free hand and put my stuff down-i’ll put it away later.

“I’m so glad you’re back-because yes I missed you-but also because I want to know everything about your weekend with Mr. Handsy.” Lex pulls me onto the couch.

I kick off my heels and reach for the plate of pasta on my side table. The pasta is pink and purple in little bow-tie shapes. It looks like plain pasta until i eat it. It takes like cheese and meat.

“How’d you do this?” I ask as I take another bite.

“Oh, I was practicing food science. Y’know to improve the café. And I found out that you can take a liquid and add in a powder-it’s a long name I can’t remember- and it will make that liquid a powder. But before you put the powder in, there’s another liquid that you add to the other liquid and it makes it clear. So I made cheese and meatball clear powders and added it onto the pasta.” Lex rambles, and I let her because i’ve missed her too.

“It’s good.” I give Puff a pasta bow-tie and she devours it.

“Enough about me. I need all the juicy details about Handsy.” Lex sits criss-cross and narrows her eyes at me.

“There’s really nothing. We drove in silence-” Mostly. “We had separate hotel rooms, and we ate at different times. We talked only for the presentation and now i’m here.” I shrug. Lex looks disappointed.

“I thought I taught you how to seduce a man in high school. Don’t tell me you’re rusty.” Lex says grumpily.

My mind travels back to the lap shenanigans, or the ‘i’m going to pull on your waistband and pretend to be your girlfriend’. Or the talk of blowjobs. I’m not saying anything to Lex about this.

“I’m not rusty. I’m just not interested.” Kinda.

“Mhm.” Lex presses her lips together like she doesn’t believe me.

“How’d you get in my house?” I change the subject.

“Max gave me your key.” She says it like the most causal thing ever.

“Maxon? I knew there was something going on there.” I poke at her shoulder and she smiles.

“We’re just friends. That occasionally make-out from time to time. It’s nothing, trust me.” Lex picks up Puff and pets her tiny head.

Liar.

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