Better then the movies
For my amazing mom, who’s always been my
biggest fan, harshest critic, and the woman
single-handedly responsible for my distrust of
those asshats in the shoe industry. Thank you
for letting me read under the blankets when I
should’ve been sleeping.
And for my beloved dad, who saw the cover but
never got to read the book. He would’ve loved
the Stella’s scene and remembered the ketchup.
RIP, Jerry Painter (5/17/39–5/18/20)
—L. P.
PROLOGUE
“I’m just a girl, standing in front of a
boy, asking him to love her.”
—Notting Hill
My mother taught me the golden rule of dating before I even hit the second
grade.
At the ripe age of seven, I’d snuck into her room after having a nightmare. (A
house-size cricket might not sound scary, but when it speaks in a robot voice and
knows your middle name, it is terrifying.) Bridget Jones’s Diary was playing on
the boxy television on top of the dresser, and I’d watched a good portion of the
movie before she even noticed me at the foot of her bed. At that point, it was too
late to rescue me from the so-not-rst-grade-friendly content, so she snuggled up
beside me, and we watched the happy ending together.
But my rst-grade brain just couldn’t compute. Why would Bridget give up
the cuter one—the charming one—for the person who was the equivalent of
one ginormous yawn? How did that even make sense?
Yep—I’d missed the movie’s point completely and had fallen madly in love
with the playboy. And to this day, I can still hear my mom’s voice and smell the
vanilla of her perfume as she played with my hair and set me straight.
“Charm and intrigue can only get you so far, Libby Loo. Those things always
disappear, which is why you never, ever choose the bad boy.”
After that, we shared hundreds of similar moments, exploring life together
through romantic movies. It was our thing. We’d snack-up, kick back on the
pillows, and binge-watch from her collection of kiss-infused happy endings like
other people binge-watched trashy reality TV.
Which, in hindsight, is probably why I’ve been waiting for the perfect
romance since I was old enough to spell the word “love.”
And when she died, my mother bequeathed to me her unwavering belief in
happily ever after. My inheritance was the knowledge that love is always in the
air, always a possibility, and always worth it.
Mr. Right—the nice-guy, dependable version—could be waiting around the
very next corner.
Which was why I was always at the ready.
It was only a matter of time before it nally happened for me.
CHAPTER ONE
“Nobody finds their soul mate when
they’re ten. I mean, where’s the fun in
that, right?”
—Sweet Home Alabama
The day began like any typical day.
Mr. Fitzpervert left a hair ball in my slipper, I burned my earlobe with the
straightener, and when I opened the door to leave for school, I caught my next-
door nemesis suspiciously sprawled across the hood of my car.
“Hey!” I slid my sunglasses up my nose, pulled the front door shut behind
me, and hightailed it in his direction, careful not to scu my pretty new oral
ats as I basically ran at him. “Get o of my car.”
Wes jumped down and held up his hands in the universal I’m innocent pose,
even though his smirk made him look anything but. Besides, I’d known him
since kindergarten; the boy had never been innocent a day in his life.
“What’s in your hand?”
“Nothing.” He put the hand in question behind his back. Even though he’d
gotten tall and mannish and a tiny bit hot since grade school, Wes was still the
same immature boy who’d “accidentally” burned down my mom’s rosebush
with a recracker.
“You’re so paranoid,” he said.
I stopped in front of him and squinted up at his face. Wes had one of those
naughty-boy faces, the kind of face where his dark eyes—surrounded by mile-
long thick lashes because life wasn’t fair—spoke volumes, even when his mouth
said nothing.
An eyebrow raise told me just how ridiculous he thought I was. From our
many less-than-pleasant encounters, I knew the narrowing of his eyes meant he
was sizing me up, and that we were about to throw down about the most recent