Picture-Perfect Boyfriend

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Text copyright © 2023 by Becky Dean Cover art copyright © 2023 by Libby VanderPloeg Love & Other Great Expectations excerpt text copyright © 2022 by Becky Dean. Cover art copyright © 2022 by Libby VanderPloeg. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. GetUnderlined.com Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request. ISBN 9780593569917 (trade pbk.) — ebook ISBN 9780593569931 Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read. Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader. ep_prh_6.0_143634257_c0_r0 To G and G CHAPTER ONE Hawaii was totally messing up my plans. To be fair, I rarely made plans, and when I did, they generally went badly. But this one was facing an extra challenge. Why did Maui have to be so insanely beautiful before we’d even reached the ground? As the island grew larger beneath us, I inched the airplane’s window shade up to reveal more details. Vivid turquoise-and-blue water. Brilliant green hills. Bright white line of waves. My imagination filled with images of sights that awaited, begging me to photograph them. Towering waterfalls wreathed in rainbow mist. Ocean sunsets of tangerine and pink. Turtles and whales and tropical flowers and— No. That was the old Kenzie. The version of myself I’d left behind eight months ago. The impractical dreamer with impossible wishes. The new Kenzie had to pretend not to take too much notice. She could enjoy the scenery, objectively. But she didn’t obsess about the best camera angle to highlight a waterfall’s height, about the time of day to shoot the ocean to show the brightest shade of blue, or about the proper shutter speed to capture a leaping whale. She didn’t spend the day getting sunburned while waiting for just the right shot of a turtle coming ashore, or developing prune fingers from hours of snorkeling with her GoPro, filming colorful fish. And she definitely didn’t think about the Nikon DSLR camera tucked into the back of her closet at home in its nice leather bag, alongside the tripod, assortment of lenses, and portfolio full of landscapes and animal photos. New Kenzie cared about college applications and chemistry club and Future Healthcare Professionals of America meetings, and this week would be full of air-conditioned dinners and sitting quietly under umbrellas on the beach, and possibly days on the golf course, where the waves were a distant backdrop without sound or sea spray. New Kenzie was utterly boring. But also safe, family-approved, and free of criticism. So this was my path, and I would continue on it, even though that had been growing harder lately, taking a steep climb up a rocky hill. Pushing the limits of how long I could try to be someone else. I would not let Hawaii be the thing that sent me tumbling back down. Our descent grew choppy, wind buffeting the plane from side to side. Beside me, Mom clutched her book to her chest. Not a romance novel or thriller or other vacation-appropriate fiction, like normal people read. Instead it was a too-long optometry text for her latest continuing education course. Based on how tightly she was squeezing it, she would have been better off holding a barf bag. Although if the book were covered in vomit, that might be an improvement. A distraction seemed in order. “How’s the book?” I asked. “Can I borrow it when you’re done?” Her eyes got slightly less glassy. “I’m learning about a new method of detecting glaucoma. The idea is fascinating, but the writing style leaves something to be desired. I don’t think this editor should be reviewing professional publications.” “Ah. Um. Well, great topic, though.” So not-great. But over the last eight months, I had to admit, my feigned interest in the family career sure had made her a lot less frowny when she looked at me. Plus, the question had achieved the desired goal of distracting her from imminent puking. Finding things to criticize about others often had that effect on her—and for once, the disapproval wasn’t directed at me. “Jacob mentioned he read an article about that,” I added. The glow in her eyes intensified. The only thing she loved more than my made-up, newfound love for optometry was my made-up, future healthcare professional boyfriend. It was good to know my imagination was able to please her, even if I rarely was. We jostled against each other as the plane dipped lower. “Close the shade, please. Or put on your sunglasses. The UV rays are terrible for your eyes.” I sighed and shut out the beautiful view. Maybe it was for the best, to keep me from dwelling on out-of-reach dreams. “I hope your sister and Neal had a smoother ride.” Yes, Alana, my twenty-two-year-old sister, was dating a guy named Neal. It was like she’d set out to find the most boring guy possible and had ended up with the only college-age guy with that name, just to prove she continued to be the perfect daughter. The one destined to achieve the ideal balance of collegiate-career success and a stable, predictable relationship that my family valued. “I’m sure they’re fine,” I