Page 44 of Never Been Worse

“Maybe,” I say with a smile as I slide into the seat. His eyes take me in, a small smile on his lips like he finds me endlessly entertaining before he grabs the seatbelt, leans forward, buckling me in.

“Gotta keep my little wife safe,” he says, then presses his lips to my forehead before slamming the door and jogging around the car. I’m dazed by the small movement as he starts the car and pulls out of the drive, taking me to my favorite coffee shop.

“Were you always an Atlas Oaks fan?” the female interviewer at the first studio asks me, making my stomach turn.

I bite my lip and give her a tight smile.“Honest answer?” I ask awkwardly. Wes laughs out loud, but I continue. “Not really. I’m kind of an I’ll listen to everything kind of person, but we had mutual friends, so that’s really how my interest was piqued.” I bite my lip once more, and look at Wes, who is still smiling and decide to drop a bit more truth.

“Truth will make you likable,”Leo told us when he called us this morning. He’s in California with Willa, so he couldn’t be here to coach us today, but he made sure to call us and give us—okay, me—a pep talk.“The public can sniff out a lie from a mile away, so only do it when you have to.”

So I tell the truth. “I actually started listening to their music a lot more after I met Wes,” I explain, leaving out that I used to not listen to the band just because Jeremy was a fan. God, how many signs could there have been that things between us were never going to work? “We were at a bar celebrating my friend’s pageant win?—”

“Ava Wilde, right?” the interviewer asks. It still sounds so crazy to me for people to call Ava by Jaime’s last name, but still, my smile widens, and I nod.

“Yeah. And Ava saw the band in a VIP section. She went to school with Stella and wanted to say hi.”

“Was it love at first sight?” she asks with starry eyes, and I shake my head, smiling, opening my mouth to speak, to explain we were friends before dating as planned, but Wes beats me to it.

“For me, definitely. At the time, Harper was taken. But we saw each other a lot because of mutual friends, so I kept on falling for her from afar.”

The woman lets out an awww, but my mind can’t focus on anything but the way Wes is looking at me, heart eyes and everything.

Who knew he was such a great actor?

“So, as soon as she was single, I swooped in. I saw my chance, and I took it.” He winks at me, and I can’t help but smile and shake my head. “Got her to go on a few dates with me, dated for a bit, and then we decided it was stupid to waste time,” he says.

“That’s quite literally the sweetest story ever,” the interviewer says. “So you were patiently waiting for her to be ready for you?”

Wes meets my eyes, his hand reaching out to grab mine, and suddenly, it’s like this isn’t an interview but a private moment just for the two of us.

“No one has ever tested my patience the way Harper has, and I mean that in the best way possible. They say good things come to those who wait, and I’d wait forever if it meant I’d get her at the end of it all.”

My heart skyrockets at his words, at the hidden meaning in them and the way he looks at me, and I’m pretty sure the interviewer lets out another loud aww, but I’m lost to reality.

“Your necklace is beautiful,” the interviewer says. “Can we assume it’s a W for Wes?”

My hand moves to the heart necklace, and I smile gently, looking at my husband. “It is. Wes gave it to me on our wedding day.”

“It’s kind of a tradition Riggins and Stella started,” Wes says with a smile, eyes on the necklace.

“Oh?” the interviewer asks, leaning in like she’s excited to get some new piece of information no one else has yet.

“Well, when Riggins and Stella got married, they got each other's initials tattooed in a heart on their wrist. Their hearts on the other’s sleeve, so to speak.”

I remember reading about Stella and Riggins’ tattoos in an article after they were reunited, and I’ve seen it in person now more times than I can count. My pulse goes erratic as he turns to me and smiles, something in his eyes like he knows he’s about to send me spiraling, and he can’t wait.

His fingers move out to the necklace, grabbing the heart with the letter W on it and tugging a bit so I move closer to him, my eyes locked on his.

“My wife doesn’t have any tattoos, so I got her this necklace,” he says, and my pulse pounds.

Last night, I asked him about all of the tattoos I could see with one shirt sleeve pushed up, but I didn’t bother to ask about the other arm since it was blank on our honeymoon.

But what if…

“And you?” the interviewer asks, nearly chomping at the juicy story before her. “Do you have Harper’s heart on your sleeve?”

I let out an involuntary choked laugh, starting to shake my head, but he doesn’t stop looking into my eyes when he nods.

“Of course,” he says, his hand moving to the arm of his sweater, the one with no tattoo sleeve, and shows the interviewer—and me—a small cursive H in a heart on the inside of his wrist.

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