Wesley James Ruined My Life

by Jennifer Honeybourn

  Okay, it’s not fine. It sucks, but there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it. And while spending time with Wesley is its own brand of torture, I can’t seem to stop myself. We’ve somehow fallen into the habit of carpooling to work together. He’s giving me a ride home tonight, in fact, and my nerves are frayed because I’ve decided I’m finally going to give him Gran’s letters. Hopefully, he won’t be upset that I’ve hung on to them for so long.

  The restaurant has just closed and I’m hurrying to clear my table before my shift ends when Wesley comes up behind me and pokes me in the lower back with a foam sword he borrowed from the gift shop.

  “En garde!” he says.

  I sigh. “That never gets old?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re finished with your tables already?”

  “Nope,” he says with a grin. “But I could be done in ten minutes. Faster, if I had some help.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ll be right over.”

  I watch him head off to the other side of the restaurant, passing Rachel on his way.

  “When are you guys just going to get it on already?” she says, plopping down in a chair and resting her elbows on the table. She’s wearing thick tortoiseshell glasses, even though she has perfect vision. Fairly certain she bought them just to annoy Joe.

  “It’s not like that,” I say, and I almost sound convincing. “We’re just friends.”

  “Yeah, I don’t buy it. I’ve seen the goo-goo eyes you two make at each other.”

  Maybe she thinks Wesley prodding me with a foam sword is flirting, when really, it’s just Wesley being Wesley. He’s like that with everyone.

  “Rach, there’s nothing going on between us,” I say. My heart squeezes, because it’s the truth and it’s painful. And I guess Rachel can see that, because she reaches across the table and takes my hand.

  * * *

  “You want to come in?” I say as Wesley pulls his truck into my driveway.

  He raises his eyebrows. “You’re inviting me inside?”

  He’s surprised, I guess, because I haven’t asked him in before. Usually, he just drops me off out front.

  “There’s something I need to give you. Something I should have given you a long time ago, actually.”

  Clearly, he’s curious because he turns off his truck and follows me into the house. Mom’s at work and Celia is out with friends, so we have the place to ourselves. Under other circumstances, this would be a great thing, but being home alone with a boy I’m really into, who isn’t into me, just feels sad.

  “Been a while since I’ve been here,” Wesley says, poking his head into the living room. “Looks so different.”

  I nod. Mom redecorated after the divorce. New paint, new couch. New life. Took me a while to get used to it, but now I can barely remember how it was before.

  My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it as I lead Wesley down the hall to my room. I push open my door and flick on the light.

  “Well, well. Your room is still the same,” he says. He walks over to the sepia-colored poster of Big Ben hanging over my bed, while I go into my closet and pull his letters out of the shoe box I brought home from Gran’s.

  I hold my breath as I hand him the stack, neatly tied together with a grosgrain ribbon. “I should have given these back to you a long time ago. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  Wesley looks down at the letters. He runs a finger gently over the ribbon.

  “I didn’t read them,” I say.

  “It would have been okay if you had.” He clears his throat. “I can’t believe she kept them.”

  “Yeah, well. Gran’s sentimental. She also never threw anything out. Ever,” I say. “She had so much crap, Wes, you wouldn’t believe—”

  But I can tell he’s not listening to me. His attention has suddenly shifted to something over my shoulder.

  I freeze, quickly running through a mental list of all the embarrassing things I could have left out for him to discover. Granny underwear? Tampons? But when I turn around, all I see is the Gruffalo balloon on my desk, slowly deflating.

  Wesley brushes past me. He sets the letters on my desk and picks up the balloon, a strange expression crossing his features. “You saved it?” he says.

  My face is on fire. Saving that balloon, well, it’s basically a declaration of my feelings for him. And I’m pretty sure he knows it. “Oh, um. Yeah. I did.”

  Wesley’s staring at me intently. The air between us is so charged, the hair on my arms is standing up. “Why?” he asks softly.

  I swallow. This is it. The moment. I can continue to run. Or I can go for it.

  But here’s the thing: I’m tired of running. And really, I’ve got nothing left to lose. So I take a deep breath, and then I take the leap.

  “Because you made it for me,” I say.

  Wesley covers the length of the room in less than a second. He pulls me toward him and kisses me, and he’s such a crazy, blow-my-socks-right-off amazingly good kisser that I practically melt into the floor.

  I can’t even believe this is happening.

  I am kissing Wesley James.

  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  The balloon falls to the floor and my hands find their way to his shaggy blond hair, which is even softer than I imagined it would be. Wesley’s hands are sliding up my back, bringing me closer, until there’s no space left between us. We are all over each other and there is nothing “nice” about it, no wondering if this is right or if I like him. There is no thinking at all, just fireworks.

  Everything—everything—about this moment is perfect. And, like all the best things in life, absolutely worth waiting for.

  * * *

  “I knew you’d come around eventually,” Wesley says with a goofy grin. We’re standing at the front door and I’m trying to coax him out of the house before Mom or Celia get home. But he’s making it very hard.

  “Of course you did,” I say, halfheartedly trying to untangle myself from his arms. “Really, Wes, you have to go.”

  He tightens his embrace and buries his face in my neck. “I like it when you call me Wes,” he murmurs. Then he starts kissing my neck and all the resolve drains out of me. We start making out against the door and we don’t stop until a pair of headlights shines through the window.

  We quickly straighten our clothing and I run my fingers through my hair, hoping it’s not totally obvious that we’ve been pawing each other.

  Wesley sneaks in one last kiss, then takes a deep, calming breath and opens the door. Aunt Celia is standing on the other side, keys in one hand, a white bakery box in the other.

  If she’s surprised to see us, it doesn’t register on her face. “You must be Wesley,” she says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Wes shakes her hand. “All good things, I hope,” he says.

  She smiles. “All good things.”

  Not strictly true—unlike Mom, Celia knows I disliked Wesley for a very long time—but I’m glad she doesn’t tell him that. No need to rehash the past.

  “See you tomorrow, Q,” he says.

  I nod and close the door behind him. Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

  I want to go to my room, where I can comb over every detail of the past hour in privacy, but Celia holds up the box and says, “I’ve got cannoli,” so I follow her into the kitchen. Because who turns down cannoli?

  “Your young man is very handsome,” she says, cutting the string off the box.

  My face flushes with happiness. My young man! “What are we celebrating?” I say, watching as she lifts out two perfect pastries and sets them onto the fancy floral plates we usually only use for special occasions.

  She hands me one of the plates. “We sold Gran’s house this afternoon,” she says. “And your dad called me.”

  I pause, the cannoli halfway to my mouth. This is the first time Dad and Celia have spoken in months—it must have gone well if she’s bringing home baked goods. Still, I’m stunned. “Why?”

  �
��Well, he’s been trying to reach me for a couple of days, but I’ve been avoiding him because I thought he wanted to talk about the house,” she says. “I thought he was looking for money. And, as it turns out, he was. Just not for himself.”

  “I don’t understand.” Hope flickers inside me, but I’m afraid to get too excited, in case this conversation isn’t going in the direction I think it is.

  “Your dad told me that you gave him money and he gambled it away.” She grimaces and closes her eyes briefly, but when she opens them again, she’s smiling. “Quinn, honey, your gran would never want you to miss that trip,” she says. “And neither do I.”

  And then Celia tells me that she’s put aside some money from the sale of the house for my trip.

  I squeal and grab her in a hug, getting cannoli cream in her hair. She doesn’t seem to care, though, she just squeals and jumps along with me.

  I’m going to London. I AM GOING TO LONDON!

  epilogue.

  LONDON, TWO MONTHS LATER

  London, as it turns out, is everything that I expected it to be. And nothing like I expected it to be.

  For one thing, the weather is crazy miserable—at least in November. I knew it would be dreary, but I’m used to dreary. Seattle totally rivals London for rainfall, so I was pretty sure I’d get plenty of use out of my Union Jack umbrella. And I definitely have.

  It’s the mist I didn’t expect. It’s thick and cold and settles over everything. It heads right for your bones, taking up residence until you don’t think it’s possible to be any colder, until warmth feels like a distant memory. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve already discovered that the only thing that can get my blood circulating properly again is a hot bath. I’ve taken three in the past twenty-four hours, and I’m planning to have another when I get back to the hotel.

  The crappy weather doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind the rain or the mist, or even the fact that, on the walk over here, I got splashed by a double-decker bus and the bottom half of my jeans are completely soaked. I’m way too happy to care.

  Because London is the most amazing place. I feel like I’m trapped in the pages of a history book. Every building, every cobblestone street, holds part of the past. Gran’s past.

  I walk onto Westminster Bridge. It’s still early, but there’s already a rush of cars behind me. By the time I make it to the exact center of the bridge, the mist has started to lift. I can see the glowing round face of Big Ben across the Thames. I shiver, but it’s not because of the weather. It’s because I’m here.

  Finally.

  It was dark when I slipped out this morning, leaving Erin snoring, twisted up in her sheets. I should be in the hotel, too, catching some sleep with the rest of my jet-lagged bandmates, but I feel like I need to make every moment here count. Sleep is not part of my schedule.

  Besides, I’ll have plenty of time to catch up later, when I’m back at home. I need to pack a lot into the next seven days—more than I can possibly do in such a short span of time—and I have to be focused. Although I’m already planning to come back next summer, after graduation, I want to make sure my first time in England includes all the places Gran told me about. Starting with this bridge.

  The rain has let up enough that I can put my umbrella back inside my bag. I’m pretty sure I’m in the right spot—the place where my grandfather proposed, more than fifty years ago. The place, Gran used to say, where it all began.

  I reach up and touch the ruby hairpin she gave me. Feels like she’s here with me.

  The night before I left, my family had dinner together for the first time in five years. My mom doesn’t believe Dad’s resolution to quit gambling will stick—she’s been through it too many times with him already—but I’m happy he’s trying. It’s something. And I have to believe he means it. The alternative is just too sad to think about.

  The sun is starting to paint the sky pink. I imagine my grandparents standing right here, looking out at the River Thames. Happy.

  I dig my phone out of my pocket. This is a moment I definitely want to capture, so I can show Gran when I get back. I know she won’t remember this bridge, or London, or even me. But that’s why it’s even more important that I remember it for her.

  I’m lost in thought when I feel a pair of arms wrap around me, drawing me back. I smile and burrow into Wesley’s arms. “You got my text.”

  “I would have been here sooner but Mr. Aioki almost caught me sneaking out.” He buries his face in my neck. His nose is cold, an ice cube against my skin, but he tightens his arms to keep me from bolting away from him.

  He lifts the phone out of my hands. He turns me around, so our backs are to the railing, Big Ben rising behind us in the background.

  Seattle is five thousand miles away—a million miles from where we started—and for once, I don’t need to know what comes next. For once, I’m happy exactly where I am.

  Wesley holds the camera an arm’s length away and we squeeze together, as close as possible. And then he snaps the photo.

  acknowledgments.

  So many people are behind getting this book—and getting me—to this point. My name may be on the cover, but it’s thanks in part to the time, love, and effort of many others, including:

  Eric Brown, Nicky Darwin, Stella Leventoyannis Harvey, Abby Wener Herlin, James Leslie, Linda Quennec, Claire Sicherman, and Eljean Dodge Wilson—my wonderful writers group. Thank you for your support and encouragement through the years.

  Kat Brzozowski and Holly West, two amazing editors—your keen insight has made this book infinitely better, and I’m so lucky to have had the opportunity to work with both of you. Lauren Scobell and the rest of the Swoon Reads team—thank you doesn’t begin to capture it, but I’ll say it anyway: thank you. The Swoon Reads community, for reading and rating this book and helping it get published.

  All of my friends who cheered when I told them I had a book deal. Jennifer McKenzie, for a thousand years of friendship, advice, and support. Amanda James, the original “James” (although it must be said that you have definitely not ruined my life). Leiko Greaves, Pam Morrison, Stacie Palivos, and Katie Zachariou—I’m so grateful to have all of you in my corner.

  My parents, Brian and Joy; my sister, Dallas; her husband, Todd, and their family; my in-laws, Jim and Jela Stanic.

  My husband, Tony, for always believing I could. And my daughter, Lila, for being the best kid in the universe.

  How to Make a Balloon Sword

  Want to be like Wesley and impress your friends with your mad balloon-twisting skills? Blow them away with this balloon sword, straight out of Tudor Tymes!

  Supplies:

  • 260Q twisting balloons (can usually be found in party supply stores)

  • Balloon air pump (or the power of your own lungs)

  Steps:

  1. Inflate a balloon and tie a knot in the end.

  2. Create the handle of the sword by folding one end of the balloon, making a loop just big enough to get your hand through.

  3. Twist the two sections at the bottom of the loop together three times to secure.

  4. Push the end of the balloon through the loop handle.

  5. Pull the “blade” of the sword straight.

  A Coffee Date

  with author Jennifer Honeybourn and her editor, Holly West

  “Getting to Know You”

  Holly West (HW): What was the first romance novel you ever read?

  Jennifer Honeybourn (JH): I’ve always been a big reader, so I can’t remember exactly what the first romance novel I ever read was, but Susan Elizabeth Phillips made a big impact on me when I was a teenager. I loved her books. (Still do.)

  HW: Who is your OTP, your favorite fictional couple?

  JH: I would have to say Anna Oliphant and Etienne St. Clair from Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. I love love love both of those characters! But a very close second would be Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls.

  HW: Do you have any hobbies? Other
than writing, of course. I don’t think writing counts as a hobby when you are a published author.

  JH: Reading. I would almost rather read than do anything else in life. There is nothing like getting lost in a really great book.

  HW: In Wesley James Ruined My Life, Quinn dreams of visiting England. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you visit?

  JH: So many places! I’d like to go back to Europe; there are a lot of countries there I have yet to see. I would also love to road trip through the southern U.S. And I am dying to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida.

  HW: And my favorite question, if you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

  JH: Probably time manipulation. It would be great to speed up time when I’m really impatient (like commuting in heavy traffic) or slow it down when something great is happening, like extending a moment you don’t want to end.

  “The Swoon Reads Experience”

  HW: How did you first learn about Swoon Reads?

  JH: I came across Swoon Reads on Twitter, actually. I was following a bunch of literary agents and one of them retweeted Katy Upperman’s announcement for her book, Kissing Max Holden. Katy’s book was chosen by Swoon Reads, and I found the crowdsourcing model of discovering new books really interesting and exciting.

  HW: What made you decide to post your manuscript?

  JH: Well, as I write YA romance, I felt like my book might be a good fit with the Swoon Reads imprint. I don’t have an agent and the doors to traditional publishing are usually closed without one, so I really appreciated the opportunity to submit my book directly. I also loved that I would have the chance to get reader feedback on my manuscript.

  HW: What was your experience like on the site before you were chosen?

  JH: Posting on Swoon Reads was such a great experience. It’s a very supportive, positive community. And I really liked how Swoon Reads involved the readers, whether it’s through rating and commenting on manuscripts or voting on cover designs. Working with the Swoon Reads team behind the scenes has been just as wonderful. I feel incredibly lucky to be part of it all.