Unconventional Read online

  About

  Everyone’s a fan of someone…

  Lexi Angelo has grown up helping her dad with his events business. She likes to stay behind the scenes, planning and organizing…until author Aidan Green – messy haired and annoyingly arrogant – arrives unannounced at the first event of the year. Then Lexi’s life is thrown into disarray.

  In a flurry of late-night conversations, mixed messages and butterflies, Lexi discovers that some things can’t be planned. Things like falling in love…

  Six conventions, a girl with a clipboard, a boy with two names – and one night that changes everything.

  Praise for

  “Deliciously slow-burning romance, with characters that demand to be adored from the very first page and the most unique setting in contemporary YA ever.”

  Lauren James, author of The Next Together

  “A gorgeous one-of-a-kind novel, perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell.”

  Maximum Pop!

  “Breathlessly brilliant – spine-tinglingly romantic, unashamedly geeky, smart and funny… It’s a perfect meeting of worlds: fantastic fandoms, books you want to live inside and a completely gorgeous love story.”

  Miranda Dickinson, Sunday Times bestselling author

  “Unconventional is the ultimate love story for the age of fandom and, much like a meeting with your favourite celebrity, it will leave you breathless.”

  Meredith Russo, author of If I Was Your Girl

  “Maggie Harcourt is the UK’s answer to Rainbow Rowell. Unconventional is original, funny and I wish I could transport myself into it, amongst all the characters who stole my heart right from the beginning.”

  Lucy the Reader

  “Unconventional is the swooniest swoonfest.”

  Melinda Salisbury, author of The Sin Eater’s Daughter

  For Juliet and Rebecca.

  Lexi couldn’t have asked for a better team – and neither could I.

  CONTENTS

  About UNCONVENTIONAL

  Praise for UNCONVENTIONAL

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  APRIL: HOME

  THE WRONG SIZE TREES

  APRIL: HEATHROW

  ARRIVAL

  PINEAPPLES EVERYWHERE

  THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF THE ORDER OF THE CLIPBOARD

  OH, BROTHER

  MAY: HOME

  BROUGHT TO BOOK

  MAY: BRISTOL

  HAYDN SWIFT

  SELF-CENSORSHIP

  SUNG IN A MINOR KEY

  JUNE: HOME

  JUNE: BRIGHTON

  PIN-UP

  LOCK-UP

  LOOK UP

  LIGHT UP

  CLEAN UP

  JULY: HOME

  AUGUST: YORK

  GET ME TO THE CHURCH

  QUITE A RECEPTION

  SURFING THE EDGE OF CHAOS

  SEPTEMBER: HOME

  SEPTEMBER: CARDIFF

  SCAVENGERS

  ALL THE BROKEN PIECES

  SIREN SONG

  OCTOBER: EDINBURGH

  TRIBES

  GHOSTS

  ROOTS

  MAGIC TIME

  PIECEKEEPERS

  CHAPTER 1: MANTUA & VENICE

  BEDE’S TOP FACTS ABOUT PINEAPPLES

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  MEET MAGGIE HARCOURT

  THE LAST SUMMER OF US

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  There is a very specific sensation, right in the pit of your stomach, that comes from realizing that because you sent that stupid confirmation email from your stupid phone on the stupid bus while you were thinking about the stupid history essay that was due yesterday, you put a hyphen in the wrong place…and now, instead of having a box of inflatable three-metre-high palm trees sitting on your doorstep, you have three boxes of inflatable metre-high palm trees. You have, essentially, palm trees that wouldn’t impress a toddler…never mind the seven hundred book, film and comic fans who will be pitching up just in time to look down – literally – on them.

  And this very specific, palm-tree-related sensation?

  It’s not good.

  It’s not good at all.

  There is only one person I want to talk to right now, so I dig my phone out of my bag on the hall floor and dial her number.

  “Angelo!” She draws out the “o” of my surname the way she always does when she answers. “What’s up?”

  “Help!”

  “What did you do?”

  This is Sam through and through. Straight to the point. “I did a thing.”

  “You did a thing.”

  I nod. Two hundred miles away in Leeds – and at the other end of the phone – my best friend can’t see it, but I’m nodding anyway.

  “Lexi…” Her voice sounds way calmer than I feel. “What did you do?”

  “The palm trees.”

  “Yes?”

  “I shrank them.”

  “You shrank the palm trees.” Down the line, I can hear that Sam has gone very still – like someone who’s just realized they’ve wandered into a minefield. “Shrank them… how?”

  “I have really bad grammar?” I say, hoping this somehow makes it less bad.

  “These palm trees. These are the inflatable ones, right? The ones your dad had you order.”

  “Yes.”

  “The ones that are supposed to be lining the walkway?”

  “Yes.”

  “In three days.”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit.”

  Another thing about Sam. She tends to say what she thinks.

  In fairness though, that was the first thing that went through my mind too.

  That, and: Dad’s going to kill me.

  I kick the closest box. I hate the palm trees. I do. I hated them from the second Dad told me he wanted the first convention of the year to have a theme in the registration area. A tropical theme.

  “Palm trees? It’s not very…fantasy-y, is it?” I’d said, poking my chopsticks into the box of noodles between us on the table. “Doesn’t exactly go with the guests we’ve got.”

  Dad had waved at me vaguely. “That’s the point. Anyone can bung a couple of plastic rocks in reception and say it’s the moon or Mordor or…wherever.”

  “As opposed to plastic palm trees, you mean?”

  “Lexi.” He’d put his chopsticks down on his plate and frowned. “Look. Last season, people said we were good. I heard them. Good. It’s not enough! This year, I want people saying we’re spectacular. I want people to talk about Max Angelo conventions with a look, you know. That look. Awe and wonder. This year, next year…every year.”

  “You stick a load of palm trees in reception, Dad, and you’re going to get them talking about you with a look. And not a good one.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Send them back. Send them back and he’ll never know,” says Sam.

  “I can’t! The courier’s already gone.”

  Gone is too gentle a word for it. He dumped the boxes on the doorstep, shoved a manifest in my hand and was back in his van and zooming off in a cloud of dust before I could even open my mouth.

  Sam whistles tunelessly, then makes a humming noise like she’s thinking. After a long, long, long pause, she says, “Well, then. You’re just going to have to own up, aren’t you?”

  “Thanks for your help, Samira.”

  “Good luck…”

  I hang up on her before she can make any more helpful suggestions.

  I eye the boxes.

  They’re still there.

  I try closing my eyes, turning round three times and looking again.

  Still there.

  She’s right.

  I’m going to have to tell my dad. And it is not going to be pretty.

  Hundreds of p
hotos judge me on my way up the stairs to Dad’s home office at the top of the house; pictures going all the way back to when he first started running fan conventions. I mean, now Dad is “Max, the boss of Angelo Events” – the best events company around – but then it was just him and a few friends getting together in a pub to talk about books they loved. After a couple of these chats, more people started turning up, and within a few years those little get-togethers had turned into weekend-long conventions. The whole history of it plays out across our walls: photos of Dad surrounded by writers, artists, film stars…all of them beaming out at me as I plod up to his office.

  It’s his life and he’s proud of it, and I guess I am too. His company runs all kinds of big events now – like that celebrity wedding last year, the massive one in Venice? That was Dad’s company. And the one the year before that – the one with the castle and the snakes that made all the papers? Dad’s company. But the weddings and the conferences, that’s not what he cares about, not really.

  What my dad cares about, what he insists on planning and arranging and running personally (with a little – or a lot – of help from yours truly)? It’s still the fan conventions; the ones that run from Easter through to Halloween every year.

  The first one of which is in three days.

  And it looks like I’ve already managed to screw it up.

  His office door is closed, but he’s obviously heard me coming because I don’t even get the chance to knock before it swings open.

  “How was schoo…no, sorry – sixth-form college?” he says, stepping back so I can get inside. The floor is awash with paper. It actually looks like a paper tsunami just came through here. “Don’t touch anything,” he adds, hopscotching back to the desk. “There’s a system.”

  “It was fine.” Which isn’t quite true, strictly speaking – but seeing as my last term report is somewhere under this lot, and he’s not even opened the letter about yesterday’s meeting with my form tutor (mostly because I hid it behind the bread bin downstairs), I don’t think I need to worry too much about him catching me out on this one.

  “Great. Look, I need you to… Wait…” He ruffles his hands through his hair like he always does when he’s remembering something. “I know I had it a minute ago…” He starts scouring the piles of paperwork, looking for that one specific printout with yet another job for me to do…

  This is my moment. While he’s distracted.

  “Dad?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Dad.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s definitely me.”

  “About the palm trees…”

  “Oh. Yes. Right.” He pauses; stoops and picks up one sheet, then shakes his head and puts it back down again – on the wrong pile, but I’m not going to stick my neck out.

  “The courier’s just dropped them off, and—”

  “Could you call Davey and ask him to come deal with them?”

  “Davey?” Davey is Dad’s PA. His actual PA in his actual company office. The one who works for Dad because it’s his job and he gets paid, rather than just because he has the privilege of sharing a load of Angelo DNA like I do. “I thought…”

  “No. You were right. Scrap the palm trees. Terrible idea. What was I thinking? Davey’ll take care of it.” He hops over another pile of paper to reach his desk, and turns his laptop to face me, pointing at a photo on the screen. It shows the main entrance to a large convention centre, in the rain. And lined up in a neat row leading up to the doors, dripping gently are…guess what? “Besides,” he says, “Comic-Con did it last month.”

  Huh.

  “Lexi?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” I study my fingernails intently. “Why d’you ask?”

  “It’s just…that sounded like a laugh.”

  “No. No…”

  I can’t hold it in much longer.

  “You, umm, want a cup of tea?” I take a step towards the door. He’s already back peering at his piles of paperwork.

  “Tea? Yes. Cup of tea would be…” He tails off, and I could wait around till next Tuesday but it won’t make any difference: he’s forgotten I’m here.

  I gulp down the rest of the laugh, close the door behind me – and by the time I’m halfway down the stairs, somewhere in a room on the other side of the country, Sam’s phone is already ringing…

  Hotels built for conventions are not what you’d call glamorous, and this one is no exception. I mean, it’s fine and everything: it’s got a fancy automatic revolving door like they have in airports (the kind where someone always stands in front of the sensors and makes it grind to a halt so everyone trips over everybody else) and a couple of big concrete planters outside the entrance with a selection of flowers and tiny trees. Inside, it’s all polished tile floors and monogrammed carpets and basically the clone of every other convention hotel I’ve ever set foot in.

  In short, it’s my second home.

  Dad drives the car right up to the door, ignoring all the No Parking! signs.

  “It’s only for five minutes. Ten at most,” he mutters when I point at the sign right outside my window. The boot and back seat of the car are loaded up with boxes of paperwork, registration cards, folders, name badges, lists, lists and more lists. Everything you need to run a convention. Well. I say “everything”. Most of it’s in the van that he drove over yesterday, and left parked around the back. As I said, hardly glamorous.

  Noon on a convention Friday. We have exactly five hours before the first of the early arrivals turn up. No pressure.

  The faint click-click-click-click from the driver’s seat tells me Dad’s already back on his emails. He can plan a massive convention almost single-handedly (almost) but has yet to work out how to turn off the stupid keypad noises on his phone.

  Someone bangs on my window, making me jump. The clicking pauses as my dad peers round me, then sighs.

  On the other side of the glass is a tall olive-skinned girl my age with bright red hair. Bright red, like scarlet-lipstick red. She’s grinning and waving madly at me, shaking her hair from side to side.

  Sam.

  “Go…” Dad says wearily. He knows that if I don’t get out, she’s going to get in. Or try to, anyway.

  My hand rests on the door handle. “Do you want me to help unload the car?”

  “Paul and Marie can help, I’m sure. Go. Get checked in while you’re at it, but be in the lobby in fifteen minutes. We’ve got work to do.”

  I nod, and open my door.

  “You!” Sam throws her arms around me like she’s on a mission to squeeze all the air out of my body. Sam’s hugs take some getting used to – and, ideally, enough warning to be able to brace yourself. I guess it has been a couple of months since we saw each other face-to-face; apparently Skype doesn’t count.

  “You!” I croak back with the last of my available oxygen.

  “Sorry…” She lets me go, and suddenly I can breathe again.

  “What the hell did you do to your hair?”

  “New wig. You like it?”

  “It’s very…red?” It’s the best I can do. And it is. Very red.

  “I’ve got a different one for every day. You’ll see.”

  “I am veritably breathless with anticipation.”

  “Oooh. What’s got into you?” Sam narrows her eyes at me and pulls back as we shuffle through the revolving door into the lobby.

  I immediately feel guilty. I shake my head. “Sorry. Nothing.”

  “Mmm. Nothing.” She snorts. “It’s either your dad or college, right? Did your tutor have a go at you again?”

  “No. It’s not that.” I hesitate. Do I tell her? I don’t know. It’ll sound stupid, and sulky, and like I’m some silly kid having a tantrum…

  Oh, of course I’m going to tell her. She’s Sam.

  “Dad and Bea. They’ve set a date,” I say, hoping it doesn’t sound as bad out loud as it does in my head. “It’s really happening.”
>
  “Uh-huh.” Sam makes an interested sort of noise, but doesn’t actually answer. She’s too busy looking at the floor, at the glass around us, at a bit of fluff on her top…anywhere, I realize, other than at me.

  “Sam?”

  “It’s not like it’s a massive surprise though, is it? Technically, they’ve been engaged for a bit, right?”

  “Yeah, but…” If I close my eyes, I can still see the writing on the neat little save-the-date card Dad plonked in front of me at breakfast. His name alongside Bea’s, and there in black and white: a time, a date, a place.

  How can I explain to Sam that – being my father’s daughter – it’s always been drilled into me that nothing happens until the date is locked? If you don’t have it on a schedule, it doesn’t exist. It’s one of our unbreakable convention rules: set the date first, then plan it. So when Dad originally told me a few months back that he and Bea had decided to get married, I braced myself – waiting for the when. But it never came, and as minutes turned into hours turned into days, it showed no sign of coming either. It’s not like I ran away from it – I dropped hints, I left sentences hanging; gave him every possible chance to provide that crucial piece of information. But he carried on as though nothing had happened. After a while, I assumed it was just one of those Things Dad’s Going To Do – like how he’s going to get the leaky landing window fixed, or call someone to sort out the light in the kitchen that hasn’t worked for five years…all stuff he says is going to happen and never does (because, obviously, no date locked). Nothing was different. Bea didn’t move in, and she didn’t even cut down the travelling she does for her own events business. Dad didn’t mention the “M” word again, so I figured I could just forget about it.

  And then: save the date, because – surprise! – Max Angelo’s getting married again.

  He actually thought it was funny, springing it on me out of nowhere, and a bit of me wondered whether that was Bea’s idea. (The cards definitely felt like her; Dad would never have chosen that font.)

  Except – and this is where I know I sound ridiculous, and much as I hate it, where I know Sam’s right – it wasn’t out of nowhere and I can’t pretend it was. He’d told me – they’d told me – and I’d just kind of assumed the same rule applies to people as to conventions.