If I'm Being Honest

by Emily Wibberley

  I love him in spite of it. I love him because of it.

  Brendan puts a hand on my hip, releasing a faint breath. “I never imagined this, not even in my wildest dreams.”

  I purse my purple lips. “You’re saying you’ve never had wild dreams of me dressed up in some sexy costume—”

  “Of you ever being in my life again,” Brendan cuts me off gently. The joke dies on my tongue. “I couldn’t bring myself to hope you’d ever want me, couldn’t convince myself you ever had,” he continues. “But . . . you’re a hard person to predict, Cameron.”

  You make me unpredictable, I nearly tell him.

  “Can I speak honestly?” I ask instead, stepping up to him.

  He smiles, irrepressibly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I lean in, tilting my chin up toward him. “You’re an idiot if you don’t kiss—”

  He instantly presses his lips to mine before I can finish. And it’s a dream come to life.

  Four Months Later

  THE THEATER IS TINY AND TOO HIP for its own good. The entire front façade is painted blue, with an Instagram hashtag of the theater’s name in white on the bottom corner of the wall. To the right of the door, a mural features twin mermaids wearing the comedy and tragedy masks. It fits perfectly on Venice Beach’s Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a haven for hipsters citywide.

  I toe my sneaker distractedly on the curb as we wait for Paige, Brendan’s hand in mine. I’m only giving up an afternoon to this theater because Kowalski promised us extra points if we went to a Shakespeare performance. I wouldn’t have chosen The Taming of the Shrew, personally, but I lost a bet to Paige over her newest hairstyle. In return, she’s forcing me to watch my favorite play because she thinks it’s hilarious.

  Pulling out my phone, I send a text to my mom confirming I’ll be home in time for dinner. She’s invited over her new boyfriend, a photographer who does headshots for the students where she works. I’m honestly really excited to meet him. My mom’s been paying the rent on her own, and when my dad was in town in March, she didn’t even try to contact him. I never told him I got into UPenn. UCLA has given me enough loans and scholarships that I don’t need to go to him for tuition.

  “Paige is never this late,” Brendan mutters beside me.

  He’s wearing his Naughty Dog T-shirt, which I’ve noticed he’s worn no less than once a week since he placed second in the contest and won an internship. His first day is in a couple weeks, right after the school year ends.

  His hand tenses in mine. I look up and find Paige walking toward us, the reason for her lateness immediately obvious.

  Her hand’s clasped in Andrew’s. There’s an uncharacteristic exhilaration on her face.

  Brendan groans. “Tell me they’re not a thing.”

  I elbow him playfully. “Be happy for your sister.”

  When they reach us, they nonchalantly unlink hands as if we didn’t just totally observe the giddy epilogue of what was probably a pretty epic makeout session. I give Andrew a teasingly raised eyebrow. “It took you long enough, dude.” I’ve watched the unbelievably slow burn of Paige and Andrew for the past six months. The glances in class, the hangouts to which Andrew was first innocuously and then conspicuously invited, the precise seating order for movie nights and restaurant booths.

  “Go easy on him, Bright,” Paige says dryly. She winks, and her warning isn’t enough to hide how obviously thrilled she is. Her cheeks are bright pink, in contrast to her newly platinum blonde hair—the hairstyle that lost me the bet. I didn’t think she’d really go through with it, not with how conventional and stereotypical a hair color it is. But she did.

  “We running tomorrow?” Andrew asks me.

  “Of course,” I reply easily. “I found the most brutal hill, if you’re up for it.” Andrew’s eyes spark to the challenge. In the months since we decided we weren’t right for each other, we’ve both made efforts to become real friends. He read my essay, and over coffee, we talked about the play and about us. Weeks later, he told me he wanted to ask Paige out but didn’t know how, and I eagerly took on the role of matchmaker.

  “Brendan?” Paige says, eyeing her brother. “Is there a problem?”

  I turn to find my boyfriend badly covering a scowl. I exchange amused glances with Paige, while Brendan fidgets uncomfortably. “Isn’t it a little weird?” he asks. “Earlier this year you walked in on Andrew and Cameron making out.”

  “I’m glad she did,” Andrew says gracefully, wrapping an arm around Paige and pulling her to him, “otherwise this wouldn’t be happening.” He nods to Brendan. “And Cameron definitely wouldn’t be dating you, either. If you think about it, you should be thanking me for making out with your girlfriend.”

  My eyes return to Brendan, who does not appear to appreciate this observation.

  I thread my fingers through his. “Besides,” I say, “I made out with Paige, too. That wasn’t a problem.” Brendan shudders exaggeratedly, and I leave the thought hanging, jokingly contemplative.

  Andrew only laughs, opening the door to the theater. They walk in, leaving me and an unamused Brendan, who rolls his eyes at me and pulls me inside like he’s afraid of what I’ll say next.

  The lobby is packed. I recognize a few faces from school, including Morgan and Brad near an obnoxiously vintage concessions counter on the other end of the room. Morgan gives me a soft smile, which I return. Our friendship hasn’t been the same since Elle, but we do hang out occasionally.

  People begin to file through the heavy double doors into the theater. The play’s supposed to start in a few minutes. “I’m going to run to the bathroom,” I tell Brendan. “Save me a seat?” Brendan nods, his gaze still fixed protectively on Paige and Andrew. I roll my eyes and head for the bathroom.

  Finding the bathroom empty, I hurry into a stall. When I come out to wash my hands, a harried brunette rushes in wearing a medieval gown she’s somehow twisted halfway inside out. Startled, I stare.

  “Said I was never going to do this again,” the girl grumbles feverishly, struggling with her straps in the mirror. “But no. SOTI just had to have an acting requirement. This is ridiculous,” she gasps, wrenching a piece of skirt from her waist.

  “Um,” I finally interject, “do you need help?”

  For the first time, the girl seems to register my presence. Her eyes find mine in the mirror, and she doesn’t look even a little embarrassed to have been caught talking to herself. “Could you go find the extremely hot Japanese guy with the great cheekbones waiting in the lobby?” she asks without hesitation.

  I consider requesting a more helpful description until the girl begins waging war on her straps once more, and I decide it’s best not to interrupt. I return to the steadily emptying lobby, where I’m mildly surprised I can immediately pick out the boy she wants. He’s wearing a well-fitting gray sweater and black jeans. While he leans on the concessions counter, he’s writing with ink-stained fingers in a worn notebook.

  I walk up to him. “Excuse me,” I say, and he raises his brown-nearly-black—and very nice—eyes to mine. “You wouldn’t happen to know a very unabashed brunette in a medieval dress who recently fled into the bathroom, would you?” I go on.

  He grins, obviously finding this description amusing. “Do I ever,” he says. “Why?”

  “She’s having a costume crisis,” I reply. “She needs your help—urgently, it looked like.”

  He laughs, hard, and I feel like I’m left out of the joke.

  “Thanks,” he says. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I could go into the theater and wait with Brendan for the performance to begin. But I’m kind of invested in whether this girl’s going to free herself from her tangled dress. I follow the boy into the bathroom.

  The girl is contorted, craning her neck to see a knot of straps on her back. The boy pauses in the doorway. I notice the way his gaze
drinks her in.

  “This looks familiar,” he drawls.

  “Don’t even start with me, Owen,” she fires back, a note of humor in her exasperation. “This is entirely your fault.”

  “How, exactly?” The boy—Owen—replies. He glances hesitantly around the bathroom and, finding it empty except for the girl, crosses the room and begins straightening her dress, spinning her to face him.

  “You’re the reason I’m late.” I catch the fondness in her eyes even though her words are accusatory.

  “You’re the one who, uh, insisted in the car we . . .” He blushes, and I do the same, picking up on why this girl who’s clearly in the play was nearly late to her own performance. I wander to the sink and wash my hands very slowly, pretending I’m not eavesdropping.

  “God help me,” the girl chides, gently this time. “A year together and you still blush like the first day I flirted with you. No wonder I can’t keep my hands off you.” She runs one down his chest like she feels she needs to demonstrate. Owen throws a glance behind him, toward me. But the girl doesn’t appear to care. “Of course, I might have more self-control if you hadn’t surprised me and flown here from New York just to watch this sure-to-be-disastrous performance. The things a gesture like that does to a girl . . .” She gives Owen a meaningful look. “In conclusion,” she says dryly, “your fault.”

  The amusement fades from Owen’s expression, replaced by something softer. “I go to all your performances, Megan,” he says. “And I missed you.”

  “You made that very clear in the car.” Megan eyes him, flirtatious and goading.

  Owen’s cheeks flame brighter. I find myself liking this girl and her forwardness. I feel like we’d be friends. He gives the dress a final determined yank, and the fabric comes free.

  Megan grabs Owen’s wrist and checks his watch. “Crap,” she breathes. “Carly’s going to kill me, or force me to cast only freshmen in my next production. I don’t know what’s worse.” She smashes a quick yet heated kiss to Owen’s lips, then tears herself—a genuine effort, from what I can tell—from him and races from the room.

  I’m left alone with Owen, feeling distinctly awkward for having overheard everything. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I just, um”—I scrounge for a non-sketchy excuse—“I didn’t know if you’d need help,” I finish lamely.

  “What?” Owen holds open the door for me. “Oh, no, Megan delights in embarrassing me with shameless public flirtation. It’s basically how our entire relationship started.” From the way he says it, I understand he enjoys her efforts just as much. “Sorry you had to be dragged into it. She really does have a shocking lack of sympathy for innocent bystanders.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “She’s definitely entertaining.”

  “That’s an understatement.” He glances up at me like he’s just remembered something. “Don’t listen to a word she said about the play being a disaster. She’s going to give a great performance. She always does. I’m taking a gap year to write plays in New York, and I spend every cent of the tips I get waiting tables going to her performances. And it’s not just because she’s my outrageous yet beautiful girlfriend.”

  “Who’s she playing?” I ask, finding his compliments of Megan charming.

  “The lead. Not that she wanted to, of course . . .”

  Intrigued, I feel my eyes widen. “She’s Katherine?”

  Owen’s eyebrows rise. “You’re familiar with the play?”

  “You could say that,” I mutter.

  “Well, you won’t be disappointed. The Southern Oregon Theater Institute was going to put Macbeth on tour. But once the professors saw the depth Megan brought to Katherine in her performance, they changed their minds. I already caught the show at a college theater festival in New York, and it completely changed the play for me.” His expression takes on a wistful quality, a faraway contemplation. It only makes him cuter. “It even got me thinking about writing a new play drawn from Shakespeare in which Katherine has her own reasons for remaking herself.”

  I nearly choke on a laugh. “Give me your notebook,” I tell this young playwright who’s probably barely older than I am.

  Guardedly, Owen turns over his notebook. “What are you doing?” he asks protectively when I open the cover.

  I jot down my phone number. “Call me if you want any character insight for your play,” I say, handing back his notebook. “I had my own ill-advised self-taming project this year.”

  I expect him to laugh it off or politely decline. Instead, his eyes brighten. “Really?” he asks intently.

  “Yeah,” I say. The lights flicker, indicating the performance is about to begin.

  “I definitely will,” he says and heads for the doors on the right.

  I enter the theater through the center doors. I hope Owen does call me, I find myself thinking. I’d like the chance to talk to him and this Megan.

  I see Brendan’s head poking up in the middle of his row, inches taller than the rest. I edge down the row into the empty seat next to him. His gaze remains sternly on Paige and Andrew sitting in front of us.

  “He better not just be with her because she’s blonde now,” Brendan grumbles. I laugh. “This isn’t a joke, Cameron.” He turns to me, exasperated. “He has demonstrated a penchant for blondes.”

  I school my features into sympathy, forcing down a laugh over how he’s Not Handling This Well. “He genuinely likes her,” I tell him.

  “I don’t trust him,” Brendan replies resolutely.

  I can’t contain the laugh any longer, earning a scowl from Brendan. “Being blonde has nothing to do with it,” I say patiently. “Think of us. We ended up together even though you told me blondes weren’t your type.”

  He rounds on me incredulously. “You believed me?”

  “Of course not,” I say easily. “I just wanted you to admit it.”

  Brendan throws me a look, sweetly annoyed. “Very helpful.”

  I reach over and with two fingers tilt his chin to face me. “You’re not just with me because I’m a blonde, right?” I ask, teasingly threatening.

  The annoyance fades entirely from Brendan’s expression. “No. Well, I won’t lie, I might have spent a few freshman nights fantasizing about you because of it.” I shove his shoulder, and he catches my hand to his chest. “It’s not why I love you.”

  The lights dim. I lean into him and whisper, “Why do you love me, then?”

  Brendan tips his head, pressing his forehead to mine. “Because you’re smart and funny, understanding and opinionated, kind and bossy. You’re a thousand things that make up Cameron Bright. You could never be just a type.”

  I grin, incalculably grateful to be nestled into this boy who says perfect things. “Exactly. And if Andrew doesn’t recognize the thousand things that make Paige worth loving, I’ll personally ensure he regrets it.”

  Brendan finally returns my grin. “Let’s add ‘a little scary’ to your list of wonderful attributes.”

  I shrug. “Good thing you love me for it, because there are some things I’ll never change.”

  “Better not.”

  He kisses me as the curtain rises.

  Acknowledgments

  THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE OUR WORDS PUBLISHED is a gift that—if we’re being honest—never loses its wonder. We’re grateful to everyone whose talent, encouragement, and friendship have brought us here.

  First and foremost, thank you to our readers. We would not have this opportunity without you, and we express our gratitude with every word we write.

  To our agent, Katie Shea Boutillier, thank you for continuing to champion the characters and narratives we want to write with precise guidance and endless enthusiasm. We’d be nowhere without you. To Dana Leydig, our editor, thank you for bringing this book to life with us from the beginning (even when the job called for dissing English class a
nd Shakespeare . . .), and for inspiring us with your thoughtful, careful commentary. Oh, and for comparing Brendan to various teen movie and Broadway musical characters, which was the best.

  Thank you to the Penguin Young Readers team for giving this book the perfect home. In particular, we’re grateful to Katie Quinn and Tessa Meischeid for wonderful, innovative publicity helping this book find its way into readers’ hands, and to Kristie Radwilowicz for our favorite cover art ever; and to Krista Ahlberg, Marinda Valenti, Janet Pascal, and Abigail Powers for thoughtful and diligent copyedits. To Kara Brammer, Caitlin Whalen, Felicity Vallence, and Friya Bankwalla, thank you for promoting our work and being wonderful humans.

  Thank you to our friends in the writing community—Alexa, Bree, Bridget, Britta, Dana, Demetra, Farrah, Lisa, Mae, Marie, Maura, and Zach, we’ve loved celebrating and collaborating and commiserating with you amid karaoke, festivals, and Koreatown coffee dates. We’re very grateful to the authors we’ve admired who have generously provided perspective on publishing and everything else—Julie Buxbaum, Sarah Enni, Morgan Matson, Kayla Olson, Romina Russell, Robyn Schneider, thank you for everything!

  Thank you to the friends who encouraged us in the days when publishing was just a dream of ours, and who have continued to celebrate the ups and be there for the downs of our writing process. We love you.

  To William Shakespeare, thank you for inspiration and for taking a beating in this book with grace.

  Finally, to our families, thank you for valuing creativity and writing, for encouraging us to chase this dream, and for every fortifying word and excited text message that’s come with this book. We owe you everything.

  Turn the page for an excerpt from

  Always Never Yours

  “An inventive, charming, insightful tale . . . Every page bursts with humor [and] squee-inducing romance.”

  —Entertainment Weekly