Read Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) for Free Online

three-hundred-and-fifty-seven days out
of the year. His tight black jeans, matched with the black shirt, made him look so Hollywood.
    He grabbed his
gingerbread latte and sat down across a small table from me, crossing his legs
in a way that suggested he was a celebrity, or, at least, the most important
person in this small coffee shop. “You look good, Cam.”
    “So do you.”
    “I mean, you
look a whole lot better now than you did at the end of our senior year, that’s
for sure!”
    I didn’t try to
laugh.
    “Sorry,” he
said. “Is it too soon to joke about everything that happened?”
    I shrugged. “No,
I mean, after all the time that’s passed it almost feels like it never did happen.”
    He smiled. “Well
that’s good, I guess. How’s your family doing?”
    “They’re fine.”
    “And Liesel?”
    “She’s the
greatest.”
    Wesley tapped
his already half-empty cup against the table and shook his head. “I can’t
believe you’re getting married. Settling down already, huh?”
    “I don’t really
look at it as settling down . I look
at it as starting afresh, a whole new life, with the person I love.”
    “But we’re
eighteen. You don’t want to have sex with anyone else the rest of your life?”
    I cracked my
knuckles and took a sip of my hot tea. “You’re one to talk. Please tell me,
Wes, that you’ve finally gotten some.”
    “You’ll be happy
to know I have.”
    “Good.”
    “But you won’t
want to know who to.”
    I was stumped. Isn’t Wes the only person I know in L.A.? “Tell me you didn’t screw Paris Hilton.”
    “Nope. Tried.
She doesn’t go for hot geeks.”
    I pondered.
“Mary Kate Olsen?”
    He shook his
head. “I hooked up with Charisma.”
    I thought my brain
would explode. “Come again?”
    “You heard me.”
    “Uhh… how…
what…”
    “It’s a long
story. She messaged me on Facebook. Wanted to make a good impression on me,
since she’s trying to get her whole acting thing off the ground. Let’s just say
I couldn’t keep my hands off her.”
    I started
massaging my forehead. “Wes, I dated Charisma for almost all of senior year,
and she never gave it up for me. You’re telling me she gave it up for you in one day ?”
    “Gave it up?
Cam, I hate to break it to you. The girl’s gotten around.”
    I put my hands
up in the air. I wanted to change the subject. “I don’t want to talk about
Charisma.”
    Wesley
re-arranged himself in his chair. “You don’t still have feelings for her, do
you?”
    “Of course not.
I haven’t thought about her in forever. That girl was a total bitch. She had no
sympathy for me. At all.”
    Wesley nodded.
“Yeah, I guess when you were going through all that you saw who your true
friends were, didn’t you?”
      “Yeah… you know, Wes… about that…”
    “What?”
    “I never
properly thanked you… you know… for what you did for me.”
    He took a sip of
his latte and eyed me with anticipation for what I was to say next. “What did I
do?”
    “You know. That
video you made for me. The photo montage. You didn’t exploit my disease. You
easily could’ve…”
    He shook his
head and put his hand out to stop me. “Cam, if there’s anything four months at
USC has taught me, it’s that to get ahead in life, you have to be merciless
with others, including your friends. Last spring I was devastated by what
happened to you. I really was. And I wasn’t about to turn in a video for my
film class, or to you, that showed the horrors of your final days. That
would’ve been too traumatic… at the time.”
    “Yes, thank
you,” I said. “I just think it showed a lot about your character—”
    “But, you know…
some time has passed now…”
    I didn’t know
where he was going with this. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, I waited
until I got to L.A… when I could really clear my head, you know?”
    I shook my head. No, I don’t know.
    “And then I
looked at my footage again. You know, there was some great stuff in