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The Meet-Cute Project - Hardcover

Richardson, Rhiannon

 
9781534473522: The Meet-Cute Project
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1534473521 ISBN 13: 9781534473522
Verlag: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

“A sweet and honest rom-com that you don’t want to miss.” —Rachael Lippincott, New York Times bestselling author of Five Feet Apart

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before meets Save the Date in this sweet, hijinks-filled rom-com about a teen girl who will do whatever it takes to find a date for her sister’s wedding.

Mia’s friends love rom-coms. Mia hates them. They’re silly, contrived, and not at all realistic. Besides, there are more important things to worry about—like how to handle living with her bridezilla sister, Sam, who’s never appreciated Mia, and surviving junior year juggling every school club offered and acing all of her classes.

So when Mia is tasked with finding a date to her sister’s wedding, her options are practically nonexistent.

Mia’s friends, however, have an idea. It’s a little crazy, a little out there, and a lot inspired by the movies they love that Mia begrudgingly watches, too.

Mia just needs a meet-cute.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rhiannon Richardson was born in Oreland, Pennsylvania—a town she has yet to find featured on a printed map. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor’s in English literature and writing. When she isn’t writing, she can be found exploring local cafes in search of the best vanilla cappuccino and hunkering down with a cozy read. She’s the author of The Meet-Cute Project and Sweet Clarity.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE
There’s a difference between expecting something and wanting something. That’s why I always close my eyes when I’m swimming. I close them right after I turn my head and take my last breath. I don’t need to see where I’m going. I just know. This gives me an edge over the other swimmers, the ones who reach uncertainly, desperate for their hands to make contact. My opponents search for an ending that I have already found.

As soon as I touch the concrete side, I pop out of the water. My chest heaving, I hit the lap timer on my Apple Watch with a wrinkled fingertip. Not bad. But not great. I lift my goggles, breaking the tight suction around my eyes, and immediately get hit in the face with a tidal wave of overchlorinated pool water.

“Incoming!”

I rub away the water clouding my eyes and watch Harold in the lane next to mine close his final meters. A pale white pinball bumping off the lane dividers, he flings water up with his inefficient backstroke as if he were starring in his own aquatic ballet.

Harold and I met at the beginning of last summer. I got my driver’s license and my sister’s old car, and I didn’t have to wait anymore for Mom or Dad to wake up to drive me to the community pool. Harold and I both came to swim laps when the pool opened first thing in the morning. We bonded when Harold complimented my backstroke and mentioned how he can’t stand the younger people who come to the pool just to sit on the benches or float on noodles and talk instead of swim. I told him that I, too, noticed that most people around my age don’t actually swim at the community pool, which is why I started coming early. I’m glad that Harold—even without goggles and with his questionable technique—takes swimming as seriously as I do. Now that school and swim team have started, I can only come on weekends. Still, we manage to make the most of it.

“I’m surprised you haven’t cracked your head on the wall yet,” I say, making both of us laugh.

“Well, I’m sharper than you think,” Harold says, still laughing.

“You know you can borrow my goggles,” I say for the second time today. I’m so conditioned to swimming in a straight line, it’s like second nature to me. Harold, on the other hand, bounces around so much, I’m afraid he might bounce into me one of these days. I always look for his silver hair to figure out what direction he’s going.

“I don’t need those silly things,” he insists.

“Would I be a good friend if I let you repeat whatever it was that just happened?” I add, gesturing to the water still thrashing back into place.

“We’re only friends on land,” he says, tapping the side of his head to shake some water out of his ear. “In the water we’re competitors.”

“Harold.”

“Rematch?”

I raise my eyebrows, pretending to be surprised, even though we race almost every day. But I take the hint of competition—Harold’s smack talk—as far as I can, and pretend that all of his misguided splashing is an opponent in a swim meet, coming up beside me. The hardest thing about summertime at the South Glenn Community Center is that there aren’t meets. Up until a couple of weeks ago, Harold was my only taste of competition. Now he works to keep me on my toes so that I can still prepare for meets outside of swim practices.

“There and back,” Harold says, eagerly pointing to the other end of the pool. “Breaststroke. On the count of three. One. Two—”

“Harold, just please wear my goggles. I—”

He sucks in a huge breath. “Three!”

I shake my head.

Even when people have to double up in lanes for laps, no one swims in Harold’s lane. I watch his silver hair bobbing up out of the water with each stroke.

When he reaches the other end of the pool and starts swimming back, I reset my lap timer, pull my goggles down over my eyes, and streamline into the breaststroke.

Even after practicing all summer, doing the most to get ahead before swim season started, it’s still my weakest stroke. I should probably start going to the gym to strengthen my legs. I slip under the surface and savor the feeling of the water pulling at every hair on my skin. I envision the wall ahead of me, and let the water muffle every sound. I don’t think about my day, everything that will begin once I step out of the pool. I don’t think about my upcoming math competition or the history paper I still have to outline. I just focus on the water. Every stroke releases another ounce of tension.

I pretend it’s last year’s championship meet.

Except this time I win.

I pass Harold making his way back down the lane, the water around him looking like a small-scale storm at sea, but I know I still have plenty of time. I focus on my form. Focus on pulling my body through the water, on my breathing.

I reach the end of the lane, tap the wall, and streamline into the next lap.

At the shallow end of the pool, there’s a cloud of bubbles. I see a pair of legs beneath the water in Harold’s lane, legs that lead to a daisy-print bikini bottom. Instead of kicking off into a stroke, the legs start running. I watch as Daisy Print shifts to the side and then back, and I realize she’s trying to dodge Harold, who is blindly swimming right at her.

Her legs buckle, and both of them appear under the water. I suck in a deep breath and push off again. I watch them as I close the space between me and the end of my lane. Daisy Print’s hair floats around her like white smoke. Harold struggles to get his footing on the slick tile. He grabs the woman’s arm, making her slip again. I push myself to the end of the lane, gasping for air when I finally surface.

“Miss!” I hear Harold say. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she tells him.

“See! I told you that you need goggles!” And to the lady I say, “Maybe you should go sit down?”

“Here,” Harold says, springing to action. He lifts the lady out of the water with surprising strength and then hoists himself out too, and escorts her over to a bench.

I try not to focus on how this sixty-something-year-old woman looks amazing in her bikini and how sixty-something-year-old Harold just picked her up like it was nothing. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

“I’m fine, dear, thank you.” She smiles at me, but holds out her hand to Harold. “I’m Gladys.”

“Hello, Gladys. I’m sorry I bumped into you,” Harold says, running his hands over his face to stop the water droplets from getting into his eyes.

“?‘Bumped’ hardly describes what just happened,” she says, but kindly, with a forgiving laugh.

“Mia’s right. I should get myself a pair of goggles. If I had some, I would have won.”

I roll my eyes. “Harold.”

“I was in the lead.”

“I was letting you win. Like always.”

“Actually, I made it to the end of the lane before you, so technically I did beat you,” Harold replies. To Gladys, he says, “Mia is a star swimmer. She’s here almost every morning swimming with me.”

“You’re so… dedicated!”

I would take it as a compliment if it didn’t hit my ears so weirdly.

“It’s important to keep practicing,” I...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1534473521
ISBN 13 
9781534473522
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
webstar
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