Wanderlust, p.1
Wanderlust, page 1
Advance Praise for
Wanderlust
“From the first page, I was all in for this thoughtful, thrilling, and romantic trip around the world. Everhart’s writing is both light and cinematic, tying the reader’s heartbeat to every moment of Dylan and Jack’s love story.”
—Annabel Monaghan, author of Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer
“Wanderlust is an absolutely stunning rom-com debut! Elle Everhart masterfully crafts a heartfelt and adorable love story while also delving into complex family relationships and seriously relatable real-life issues. On top of characters I immediately fell in love with, the book takes us on a gorgeous trip around the world—I was left with major travel envy! This romance had me smiling the entire time, even through my tears. Elle Everhart is a writer to watch!”
—Falon Ballard, author of Lease on Love and Just My Type
“Elle Everhart more than delivers with a sparkling voice, mastery of craft, and character chemistry that sizzles off the page, all while unpacking the timely and critical topic of reproductive justice. Carefree yet complex Dylan and adorably uptight cinnamon roll Jack stole my heart and swept me around the world in this cinematic, immersive, steamy dream of a ride!”
—Courtney Kae, author of In the Event of Love
“Elle Everhart’s debut is laugh-out-loud funny, sizzling hot, and full of heart. Jack and Dylan are undeniable proof that opposites do attract, and following them around the world is the great escape we all need right now!”
—Jenny L. Howe, author of The Make-Up Test
“Wanderlust is perfect for anyone who’s longed to travel the globe seeking love, adventure, and even themselves. This is a soaring escapist romance that unpacks timely real-life issues and reminds us that trusting your own heart can lead to destinations unknown and unforgettable, that going away means coming back, and that the best journeys are in memories, not miles. Wanderlust is a book to be whisked away and enjoyed in a sun-drenched somewhere.”
—Lillie Vale, author of The Shaadi Set-Up and The Decoy Girlfriend
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2023 by Elle Everhart
Penguin Random House 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 of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
Ebook ISBN: 9780593545096
Cover design and illustration: Sandra Chiu
Cover images: (cities) Tettygreen
Book design by Elke Sigal, adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt
Title page art: Suitcases © Tomacco / Shutterstock.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
Advance Praise for Wanderlust
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments
Discussion Guide
About the Author
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To Emmet, who makes the whole world brighter, and to everyone who needs a reminder to be brave x
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.
—Anthony Bourdain
Chapter 1
Dylan Coughlan was having an absolutely shit day.
The Northern line was delayed fourteen minutes (just long enough to piss her off and one minute less than she needed to get the journey refunded), and when it finally arrived, every carriage was completely packed, so she spent the duration of her commute tucked into a stranger’s armpit, which, while less offensive than it would have been on a blistering-hot day, was still not the ideal way to spend the first twenty-five minutes of her morning. That would’ve been bad enough—should’ve been bad enough—but some arsehole in a suit slammed into her the moment she walked out of the station and sent her £5 emergency splurge coffee flying into the window of the Hard Rock Cafe. Then, of course, Chantel, her editor, had shouted at her in no fewer than six separate emails before nine thirty, and now, she was sitting at her desk, dangerously under-caffeinated, drafting another pointless quiz.
A task that was next to impossible because, on top of everything else that had gone wrong today, her parents were now blowing up her WhatsApp. And, worse, they showed no signs of stopping.
Even her brother, Sean, though well-intentioned, was starting to grate on her nerves. He was using every bit of his training as a therapist to keep them all from going nuclear on one another (again), but it was making Dylan wish she could go home and crawl under her duvet for the next month and a half.
A solution that wouldn’t be effective anyway, because—apparently—hiding from your problems didn’t do anything in the way of solving them.
Dylan wouldn’t say she planned on getting into rows with her parents, but if she even so much as breathed in their direction these days, they ended up arguing. Today’s fight had started with the annual so what are we doing for Christmas conversation, which, in an impressive seven messages, devolved into her parents berating Dylan for having the audacity to make decisions they disagreed with.
Though she supposed “disagreed with” was putting it lightly.
Dylan locked her phone and flipped it over with a bit more force than was probably necessary. At the hard clack of the screen against her desktop, her deskmate, Afua, looked up, eyes wide with surprise.
“Everything alright?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Dylan was lying through her teeth, and judging by the way Afua’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, Afua knew it. “Just need a cuppa. ’D you like one?”
Afua’s expression immediately brightened. “Yeah, cheers.”
Dylan dragged her phone off her desk and, in a show of surprising self-control, dropped it into her pocket rather than checking her messages. She was almost positive that there was at least one from her brother that was probably bearable, but Dylan didn’t think she could keep reading the family chat if she wanted to retain her (basically) positive reputation in the office.
Buxom’s office was like every other trendy, millennial-dominated workplace in London, although the magazine covers adorning the walls and the endless stashes of makeup, sex toys, face products, and clothes likely differentiated it from the others. She liked the open space and the feeling of being around everyone all day—having someone else to stare at, cry to, or talk things through with was instrumental when she was writing. Not that she was doing much of that these days.
Their small kitchen was tucked away in a corner behind the fire exit stairs, down a short, dark, brick-lined corridor that played a sharp contrast to the bright, open office. It had taken Dylan six months to realize this kitchen was here.
Dylan grabbed a pair of mugs off the mug tree in the corner and, after refilling the kettle, leaned back up against the cupboards.
She shouldn’t check WhatsApp.
She knew she shouldn’t.
The first few times Dylan’s mam had spouted off, Dylan had been reduced to tears (in this very kitchen, in fact), but now, after nine months of this, she knew what to expect. It was the same line of argument, the same “points,” and as much as Dylan wanted to say it didn’t faze her anymore, the hard knots in her gut begged to differ.
She clicked out of the family chat without reading the most recent wall of texts and popped into her private conversation with Sean.
Dylan: nothing like a bit of family drama to spice up the morning
Typing appeared almost immediately underneath Sean’s name at the top of her screen.
Sean: mam literally needs to get herself together I’m sick of this
Dylan exhaled, the knots in her stomach pulling tighter. It was easy to hope that it really could be that simple. That her mother could just . . . decide not to care about something that really wasn’t worth all this emotional turmoil.
Dylan: couldn’t have put it better myself
Sean: funny, seeing as your the writer
Dylan snorted.
Dylan: *you’re
Sean: asksdf piss off you know I dont care about grammar
Sean: its a social construct, etc etc
Dylan: I mean yes, but I think we can also agree you only think so because you were rubbish at English
Sean: I can’t be good at everything dill
Sean: it’d be massively unfair
Dylan: alsjdhdiskahdka
Sean: it would be
Sean: im an adonis
Dylan: omg
Sean: god at maths
Dylan: do people LIKE people who are good at maths???
Sean: im basically a comedian
Sean: [replying to: do people LIKE . . .] yes. Yes they do
Dylan: right. That makes sense given how many friends you had at school
Sean: THAT WAS OUT OF ORDER
Dylan laughed, a deep, genuine laugh, for the first time that day.
For as long as she could remember, Sean had been the main constant in her life. They were only eleven months apart, but as children they’d moved as a duo, inseparable, as though they were actually twins. Most of her school friends hated their younger brothers, but (barring the Attempted Drowning of 1993) Dylan and Sean had always been as thick as thieves.
Dylan: somehow I think your ego will survive it
Sean: you’re cruel
Dylan: that’s what they tell me
Afua smiled up at Dylan as she approached, five minutes later, with their tea.
“Ah, cheers, Dylan.”
Afua accepted the mug and took a sip, and Dylan tried not to drop too pathetically back into her chair.
She loved her job—really, she did—but she also knew that the people who told you they loved their job (that they really did) were also the same people who spent at least thirty-six of the unnecessary forty hours a week staring up at the ceiling tiles wishing everything about said job was completely different. But Dylan did love her job.
Really.
It was just that her editor was fucking sadistic.
“How’s it coming along?”
Afua was eyeing her over the edge of her mug. Dylan groaned and leaned back in her chair, barely stopping herself from going full teenage angst and throwing her head back against the headrest.
“I don’t know anything about astrology. Chantel just gave me this assignment to torture me.”
Afua laughed softly, her box braids sliding over one shoulder as she leaned forward and set her mug down. Afua had a small coaster in front of her pen cup, a neat resting place so she didn’t end up with rings and tea stains all over her desk. (The same could not be said for Dylan, whose desk looked, most days, like the recycling bin had thrown up on it.)
“I doubt she wanted to torture you.”
“This is my payback for asking about a column again.”
“Well, that might not be entirely off the mark,” Afua said, “but I still think calling it torture is a bit extreme.”
“You know I deal only in extremes.”
Afua snorted. “Fair enough.”
Dylan had thought that after writing something as popular and contentious as her March feature, she’d finally be able to have a conversation with Chantel about getting her own column without getting laughed out of the room. Dylan hadn’t made it a secret that she was angling for her own column—she’d been talking about it since she joined Buxom three years ago after a long stint writing freelance—but she’d only brought it up three times, once for each year she’d spent languishing behind a desk here, her name scattered across the lesser pages of the magazine. The last time she’d asked had been in March, right before The Article™ had gone live, and she’d thought, finally, that she and Chantel had been getting somewhere.
“We’ll see how the feature does,” Chantel had said, barely even looking up at Dylan as she speed-walked—yes, she actually did this—at her treadmill desk and furiously typed on her laptop. “We’ll revisit it next week.”
Next week never came. Or, well, it came, but instead of rich, fulfilling conversations about her future, it was Dylan buried under her duvet at home writing harmless things about Real Housewives and Made in Chelsea without her byline in hopes the trolls would stop flooding the comments with threats.
Apparently putting her mental health, safety, and relationships on the line wasn’t enough for Chantel to believe that Dylan deserved her own dedicated column in the magazine.
“You know she’s going to be breathing down your neck even more if you don’t get the quiz in on time.” Afua paused for a second, thinking. “When’s she expecting it?”
“Today.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Tell me about it.”
Afua traced her index finger along the edge of her mug. “Is this the moment?”
A simple question, but Dylan knew what she meant. They’d been talking about it in hushed whispers in the kitchen, the loo, the lifts, everywhere possible for the last three years. Every time one of them got even vaguely close to snapping, it always came down to this exact same question.
Was this the moment you valued yourself more than the promise of a paycheck?
“I don’t know.” Dylan frowned at her computer screen, the bright white blank document blinking sharply against her retinas. “If I go in now, she’ll think it’s about having to write the quiz.”
If Dylan was being honest, it was partially about the quiz. She knew she was a complete disappointment to the queer community because she didn’t know the first thing about astrology, and this assignment wasn’t going to change that. But she couldn’t let Chantel think it came down to the quiz alone. They’d only leave that meeting with Chantel thinking Dylan was “not a team player.” Because apparently the only way you could be a team player was by lying down on the tracks and letting Chantel drive the train over you.
“Maybe casually mention it when you send the quiz in,” Afua suggested.
“Yeah.” Dylan smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, babe.”
Before she could let herself get too distracted (again), she plugged in her noise-canceling headphones and opened Radio 1’s website. She didn’t listen to the radio often, but there was something about letting go of control of what was playing that helped ease her mind into concentration.
Apparently, though, her bad luck wasn’t finished, because the song (one of her favorites) was fading and the announcer was speaking when the site finally loaded.
“That was the latest smashing single from Little Mix off their new album. Stay tuned because we’ll be back with Maisie Peters next. But before that, I know you’re probably most excited about this, we’re finally opening up phone lines for the Around the World contest we’ve been teasing all week. We’re giving away a holiday around the world, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way to kick off the new year. This is the biggest giveaway we’ve ever done, and it’s all thanks to Plum Tree Hotels, whose gorgeous hotels will greet you at every destination. Get ready because we’re opening up those lines now and we’re looking for caller number ten!”
Dylan wondered how the host managed to talk so quickly without drawing breath.
She lined up Post-it notes on her desk and started drafting her quiz questions, half listening to the announcer telling people they hadn’t won and half wondering what the hell kind of sex a Sagittarius was supposed to have.
The more she tried to rack her brain for questions, though, the more her thoughts started drifting to the vacation giveaway caller number seven had just missed out on. It would be glorious to be sitting on a beach somewhere, far away from Wi-Fi and even farther away from her family (excluding, exclusively, Sean). It was the kind of thing she’d dreamed about—fantasized about—but even her most serious thoughts had only featured a weekend away. Going around the world felt like a radical wiping clean of the slate, the perfect opportunity to finally take a deep breath and start moving forward from the hell her life had become.
