The first Golden Explorer is Vanessa, which surprises no one. The literal golden compass Katharine hands out is palm-sized and beautifully ornate, and Vanessa holds it in the air like an Olympic medal. Obviously, I’m not jealous. A scholarship would be nice, but I can do without it. I can live with roommates. I’m in a very healthy place and I’m excellent at setting boundaries.
The second Golden Explorer is a quiet, hardworking guy named Nick, who is so shocked he almost walks right off the edge of the stage. I clap for him like I did for Vanessa.
Maybe I could get a job so I can afford to live alone? I’m certainly not about to ask my parents for help, not when they have to put money toward my sister studying abroad and—
Katharine announces the third winner, Bradley Graeme, and I pause in my thoughts to clap again. No one steps forward, though. Laughter ripples through the room, and Sophie smacks me on the shoulder. “Brad.”
I blink. “Yeah?”
“What’s your name, genius?”
What—
I look over at Celine and she is laughing so hard, a hand over her mouth, her eyes bright and happy and…I think proud? I look into the crowd at my parents, sitting beside Neneh and Giselle, and they’re all beaming and waving their hands at me as if to say Go. Then I look at Katharine, who is waiting at the podium with an amused smile and one last golden compass. She leans into the mic and says, “That’s you, Brad.”
Jesus H. Christ. I won a Golden Compass. I won a scholarship. I all but run over to the podium. “What? Thank you, but…I didn’t finish the expedition! Surely I shouldn’t…”
Katharine says into the mic, “Bradley is now explaining to me why he should not receive this award.”
Celine cups her hands around her mouth and calls, “Brad. Be quiet.”
Everyone laughs some more.
“It’s true that, due to an unfortunate accident,” Katharine says to the crowd, “Brad could not finish his final expedition. However, our team decided to average out all the data we had for his performance as a Breakspeare Explorer, and the results were undeniable. Brad scored a 4.9 on our matrix.”
I. Did? WHY? HOW?
Actually, never mind. I’ll take it.
Katharine’s still talking. “His performance was consistently high. Therefore, we made an executive decision to honor the work he was able to do, rather than count him out based on what he couldn’t complete.” She hands me the compass. It’s heavy and slightly warm and mine. “You are a Golden Explorer, Bradley. Congratulations.”
“…Thank you!” I manage. The next few minutes are a daze. Some closing remarks are made before Katharine instructs us all to party and we’re allowed off the stage.
I stumble down the steps and head straight for Celine who hugs me—carefully, thanks to my ribs, but it still counts—in public, without a second’s hesitation. Like she’s just overflowing with the need to touch me. The cocoa-butter scent of her skin fills my lungs as I murmur into her neck, “I love you.”
She pulls back, shock and pleasure merging in her expression. “Brad!” But she’s grinning like she can’t help herself.
“What? You started it with all the hugging!”
“People can hear us!”
“So whisper,” I tease. Of course, I don’t really expect her to announce her feelings in public like this—
But she does. “Fine. I love you, too, obviously.” And then—even though we have seconds before our parents rush over to crowd us, even though our friends are already swarming with congratulations—she grabs the back of my neck and kisses me. Hard. My heart grows wings and flies away.
Me and Celine, we’ve been best friends. We’ve been enemies. We’ve even been a secret.
But right now?
We’re everything. Anything. Whatever we want.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Obsessive-compulsive disorder runs in my family, so I wasn’t surprised when it finally kicked down the door of my brain, waltzed right in, and made itself at home. Upon receiving my diagnosis, I tutted a bit, panicked a bit, made several emergency cups of tea, and finally decided I’d better stick the whole thing in a book.
Which brings me to the first person I’d like to thank: Bradley Graeme, the hero of this novel, who’s been dealing with OCD for years and is enviably sensible about it. I have no idea if I’ll ever be as good at coping as Brad is, but I do know that writing him inspired me to take better care of myself. So…cheers, mate. Couldn’t have done it without you.
I also couldn’t have done this without the help of numerous real people. Thank you to my mother for steering me through the angsty Celine years and giving me a name to be proud of; to my baby sisters, Truly and Jade, for being delightful pudding cups; to my best friend, Cairo Aibangbee, for supporting me through multiple creative breakdowns and assuring me that I did in fact still know how to write and had not actually lost my grasp of the English language.
Thank you to Chessie Penniston-Hill for her creative （and teenage） perspective, to Aaliyah Hibbert and Orla Wain for helping me to seem Young and Hip, and to Adjani Salmon for answering my emergency spelling questions.
Thank you to the wonderful authors and literal inspirations （I know, but seriously, it’s true） I’ve had the privilege of befriending since my career began. Therese Beharrie, Kennedy Ryan, Dylan Allen, Ali Williams, and so many more—your books, your kindness, your friendship, and your invaluable advice get me through every single project. I am so lucky to know you.
Many thanks to my incredible agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, for always having my back, finding solutions, and reducing my professional anxiety by a solid 90 percent just by existing. （You exist in a very badass manner.）
Thank you also to the whole team at Joy Revolution who worked to make this story happen. Nicola and David Yoon, Bria Ragin, Wendy Loggia, Beverly Horowitz, Barbara Marcus, Casey Moses, Mlle Belamour, Ken Crossland, Lili Feinberg, Colleen Fellingham, Tamar Schwartz, Jillian Vandall, Adrienne Waintraub, Katie Halata, Shameiza Ally, Elizabeth Ward, Caitlin Whalen, and so many others, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to such an exciting mission and for having a truly beautiful book to show for it.
Thank you to the good people of Nottinghamshire and of the Trossachs for kindly not pointing out the enormous liberties I have taken with the geographical realities of Sherwood Forest and Glen Finglas （there: now that I’ve said that, you can’t complain or you’ll seem awfully graceless）。
And finally, thank you to my fiancé for…well, where to start? For driving me six hours to camp at Glen Finglas in your crumbling Volvo, and for promptly transferring us to a hotel when it turned out camping really did not agree with me. For lending me entire portions of your countryside childhood, including that time you did a Bradley （although it would be more accurate to say that Bradley does a you） out in the forest. And most importantly, for bringing me approximately 12 kilos of chocolate and 78 liters of raspberry tea over the course of writing this book. Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute was powered by you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TALIA HIBBERT is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who lives in a bedroom full of books in the English Midlands. She writes witty, diverse romances, including Get a Life, Chloe Brown; The Princess Trap; and A Girl Like Her, because she believes that people of marginalized identities need honest and positive representation. Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute is her debut novel for teens. Talia’s interests include beauty, junk food, and unnecessary sarcasm.