Wesley shakes his head good-naturedly, but the tips of his ears start to turn red.
Flirting? Is that what Ryan thinks we’re doing? Is that what Wesley thinks we’re doing?
I am so not flirting with him.
Am I?
“You know what? I’m going to go inside,” I say coldly. Let Wesley go back to playing basketball with his Neanderthal friends. He has no business being nice to me and making me feel things I shouldn’t be feeling.
When I stand up, Wesley’s brow wrinkles. I can see he’s trying to work out what just happened. “Uh, okay,” he says. “See you later?”
Unfortunately. I will never not see him because he’s everywhere. And that has to change, because I just can’t take it.
eleven.
“You ran away from your grandmother?” Erin’s holding up one of the cardboard signs she made using a whole lot of purple glitter glue. We’re standing on the sidewalk in front of a gas station, hollering at every car that passes by—and most of them do. We’ve only managed to persuade three cars into the parking lot in the past hour. So, yeah, this fund-raiser pretty much sucks. Like everything else in my life.
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Well, it’s hard, right? Seeing her like that?” Erin waves her sign at a guy in a red convertible trapped at a stoplight. “I mean, I get why you wouldn’t want to go. I don’t think I could handle it, either.”
Tears unexpectedly sting my eyes. Erin’s the first person who seems to understand where I’m coming from. My mom and Celia both think I’ll regret it if I don’t at least try to visit Gran again. Even my dad, the king of bad choices, thinks I was wrong for running away.
“So guess who was playing basketball at Ryan Anderson’s when I got home?” I fill Erin in on my conversation with Wesley yesterday. I’m still working through what happened with him. I was superemotional, obviously, and I’m willing to admit I may have overreacted a tiny bit.
“Hm,” Erin says.
“Hm what?”
She smiles. “He left his basketball game to talk to you.”
“So?”
“So you think he would do that if he wasn’t into you?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I shake my sign at a passing car. The kid in the passenger seat sticks his tongue out at me. I stick my tongue out back at him. “All that proves is he has some human qualities after all.”
But there’s a fluttering in my stomach when I remember the way Wesley looked at me yesterday. Like he really cared about my feelings. Like I mattered to him.
No one has looked at me like that for a while. Maybe not ever.
And how did I react? I shut the door in his face.
“Where is Wesley anyway?” I keep my voice casual, but Erin is smart and I can never get anything past her.
“Why do you want to know?” she asks in a singsong voice.
“He’s supposed to be helping us.” My arms are tired from holding up this stupid sign. I’ve been here all morning, slaving away washing cars, and I’m not even going to London. Wesley doesn’t even bother to show up, but he’s still going on my trip. I can barely stand it.
“He’s babysitting his sisters,” Erin says.
I turn and stare at her. I wasn’t really expecting her to have the answer. “And you know this how?”
“Well…” I know Erin well, too, and the big show she’s making out of examining a tiny mole near her elbow is all so she can avoid meeting my eyes. “Travis is sort of friends with him now.” Her gaze flicks up at me, gauging my reaction, then quickly away when she catches my scowl. “I was going to tell you, but you’re so sensitive about anything to do with Wesley. Travis felt really bad about what happened at the restaurant, so—”
“Nothing happened at the restaurant,” I interrupt. “Wait, did Travis tell Wesley that you’re his girlfriend? Erin, he’s going to ruin everything!”
“Calm down, Wesley doesn’t know anything about your crazy-ass plan. Travis told him that we just started dating and he hadn’t met you yet and that it was a complete coincidence he was even in the restaurant.” She grimaces. “I’m not thrilled that he lied. And if Wesley thinks about this for even a second, he’s going to put the pieces together. So can you just give up already?”
“Why would I do that?” Sure, Wesley may have demonstrated he isn’t completely soulless by trying to comfort me, but that doesn’t get him off the hook for destroying my family. Even if I did like him—which I don’t—I wouldn’t know how to get past that.
Talking about my plan, though, reminds me that I don’t currently have one. I am fresh out of ideas on how to get Wesley fired. But if Erin believes I’m going to give up so easily, then she doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does.
“Quinn.”
“Erin.”
She pinches my arm. “You’re seriously messing with your karma,” she says. “It would be so much more fun to forgive him! You know, London is supposed to be one of the most romantic cities in the world.… I’ll bet you won’t be able to resist each other once we’re over there.”
England. Right.
“About that…” I guess now’s as good of a time as any to tell her. This was never going to be an easy conversation. I take a deep breath. “I can’t go.”
The smile slips off her face. “Can’t go where?”
“To London.” The lump in my throat is so big it hurts to swallow.
“I don’t understand,” she says.
Neither do I, really. “I … don’t have the money.” My face burns. It is nothing short of humiliating, telling her I can’t afford to go on the trip. I guess I should get used to the feeling; everyone else in band is going to find out, soon enough.
“But you’ve been saving all summer. You said you were almost there!”
“Yeah, well…”
“What did you do with all that money?”
I really, really don’t want to tell her. I don’t want her to know about my dad’s gambling problem. I don’t want anyone to know about that, ever, but Erin won’t let this go without some kind of explanation. “I spent it,” I say.
“You spent fifteen hundred dollars? On what?”
Quick! Quick, brain, what did I spend it on??
“Just … stuff. I don’t know. Clothes.”
She narrows her eyes, taking in my ratty old T-shirt with a map of the London Underground on it that I wear almost every other day.
“And other stuff, too. I don’t know. I wasted it.” God, this is the worst. From the way Erin’s looking at me, it’s clear she doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
“You must have some money left, right?”
I shake my head. I feel terrible about lying to her. I really do. But I can’t tell her the truth. I just can’t.
“Okay … well. The whole reason we’re doing this car wash is to help us all get there, right?”
“We’ve only made a hundred dollars so far,” I say. “It’s nowhere near enough. Besides, that’s supposed to be split between everyone.”
“You can have my share.”
That lump is back in my throat. I smile weakly at her, feeling like the worst friend ever. “Thanks. But it still wouldn’t be enough.”