Today Tonight Tomorrow meets A Pho Love Story in this whip-smart young adult novel about a girl who embarks on a “breezy road trip romp” (Publishers Weekly) with her longtime rival to win back her best friend and his girlfriend. There’s no one Kelsie Miller hates more than Eric Mulvaney Ortiz—the homecoming king, captain of the football team, and academic archrival in her hyper-competitive prep school. But after Kelsie’s best friend, Brianna, moves across the country and stops speaking to her, she’ll do anything, even talk to Eric, to find out why. After they run into each other—literally—at the last high school party of the summer, Eric admits he’s been ghosted by his girlfriend, Jessica. Kelsie tells him she’s had zero contact from Briana since she left their upstate New York town. Suddenly, a plan is formed: they’ll go on a road trip to the University of Pennsylvania the following week when both Brianna and Jessica will be on campus. Together, they’ll do whatever it takes to win back their exes. What could go wrong? Used to succeeding in everything, Kelsie and Eric assume they’ll naturally figure out the details on the drive down. What they don’t expect is that the person they actually need may be the one sitting next to them. Product DetailsISBN-13: 9781665906982 Media Type: Paperback Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers Publication Date: 10-31-2023 Pages: 288 Product Dimensions: 8.25h x 5.50w x 0.88d Age Range: 12 - 18 YearsAbout the Author Meredith Ireland was born in Korea and adopted by a New York librarian. Her love of books started early and although she pursued both pre-med at Rollins College and law at the University of Miami, stories were her fate. She currently resides with her two children, and Bob, a carnival goldfish, who’s likely a person. She writes young adult books, some of which you may like. She is the author of The Jasmine Project and Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller.Read an Excerpt Read an Excerpt Chapter One CHAPTER ONE My parents love this old song where the girl knows down to the hour how long her lover has been gone. I’d never come close to feeling that way about some dude, but I had the same tragic energy as I missed my best friend. It’d been twenty-two hours and thirty-six days since I’d last seen Brianna. Two hours and thirty days since she’d last responded to my texts—not that I was painfully aware of the time to the minute or anything. But second after lonely second had passed, and somehow it was another Saturday night in our small town—or, I should say, my small town. Brianna Hoffman had moved across the country to Seattle, so it wasn’t like Saratoga was “ours” anymore. Yet it was still a summer weekend, and I had plans. I was acting like a saddo at a house party. All around me girls shouted elaborate toasts before spilling shots down their gullets. Future frat boys showed off their flip-cup skills in the dining room, hoping for the girls to notice them. Guys who were way too old for high school parties creeped in the corner of the living room. And in the kitchen, a crowd was celebrating someone eating a full can of whipped cream in record time. It was the worst place on earth to be sad. But I’d gone in with a mission. It just wasn’t working out. I stood alone by the sliding-glass door, nursing the contents of my red Solo cup while repeatedly scanning the party. The mystery green punch tasted like apples and aftershave, but the liquor had made taking a duck-faced selfie marginally bearable. I’d posted it online in a pathetic attempt to say: Look how I’m having fun without you! Like Brianna was even going to check my socials. “Oh em gee, we should do karaoke!” some girl screeched. Like that. Like the letters—O. M. and, you guessed it, G. “Hell yeah!” was the reply. No. I tossed my cup and slid out into the backyard. I could handle only so much in my fragile state. It was dark, but it wouldn’t be too dark to wander the few blocks home. Crushing loneliness aside, it was a perfect night. The humidity had dropped, and the late August air held the crispness of the impending fall. I paused on the deck and let out a long exhale, both glad to be free and bummed my plan had been a resounding failure. I’d even tried to look cute—like my headband/sundress combo was going to clinch it with Teagan, my other former friend. We’d been friends through Bri, and I’d also lost her when Bri left. But I figured Teagan would be so wowed by my fashion sense that we’d be friends again and she’d immediately tell me why she and Brianna had ghosted me. It was foolproof. All right, it was more wishful thinking than a plan, but I was running low on options. I’d tried messaging, calling, a hyper-aggressive unsolicited FaceTime, Snaps, and commenting on every one of Bri’s Instagram posts, and none of it had worked. I started to move again and was almost to the edge of the deck when I felt the vibration of my phone. I rummaged around my purse, missing my cell over and over again in the small bag. Was it Bri? Please be Bri. My hands shook as I tried to unlock the screen, overeagerness getting the best of me. I cursed my lack of text previews and was on my second attempt to unlock my phone when my foot missed the top deck stair. The thing about top steps is, they’re crucial. Miss that one and the others don’t matter much. So I went tumbling on down, only instead of hitting the ground, my fate was worse: I slammed into the broad chest of Eric Mulvaney Ortiz. And then we fell into a rosebush. Yeah. All six-foot-two of the star quarterback of our mediocre football team and all five-foot-one of my should-be-valedictorian-so-at-least-I-have-that got tangled up in an enormous rosebush. “What the—” he said. “Where did—” I said. We paused a breath away from each other, noses almost touching. Eric smelled like charred wood and cologne with a touch of smugness. I smelled like lilacs and, I don’t know, probably pariah. I locked eyes with him, adrenaline coursing through my body. His heart was also beating fast, thumping through his T-shirt. After an uncomfortable amount of time, he looked away and cleared his throat. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. It was the kind of greeting you’d give a ladybug you don’t want in your house but you won’t kill because it’d be bad luck. I should mention here that we’d been rivals since kindergarten and not to throw around the word “nemesis” but... accurate. We both tried to get up, but between my limbs, his, and the branches, we were hopelessly enmeshed. Eric fans from our high school would’ve killed to have been in my shoes, with him on top of me. I, however, just wanted out. “Let me—” he said. “If you would just—” I huffed. Again I moved, but he shifted at the same time. He pulled my long hair, and I elbowed him in the ribs (“accidentally”), and we both stopped. Everything hurt and was only getting worse between the thorns and his heavy-ass limbs. Eric was perennially in my way. As rising seniors, he was the one thing standing between me and a clear path to valedictorian. Of course he couldn’t have been a brainless piece of muscle. Nooo. One, my life wasn’t that easy, and two, our school didn’t have any of those. Funded by eccentric billionaire Jim Carver, Carver Preparatory High School, one of the best in the nation, was tuition-free but you needed a 93 average in middle school just to be invited to apply. Eric and I had easily qualified with 100s from Saratoga Public Intermediate School. Then we’d ended junior year with 99.89s. Both of us. I know.... Intolerable on many counts. “Look, I’m going to stand and then I’ll help you up,” he said. I didn’t trust him. At all. But what choice did I have in the rosebush? The last thing I wanted was one of his football bros discovering us and snapping a pic. In a flash I saw the social media post of a Korean girl (me) making a doughnut-hole surprised mouth and his rumpled Irish-Dominican good looks with a #CaughtInTheAct type sticker. No way. Death before dishonor. I nodded and Eric managed to stand. As promised, he extended his arm and helped me to my feet. Once we were upright, we flung our hands apart and checked our phones. Although I would’ve sworn on my little sister’s life that I’d gotten a text, I had no new messages. From the look on Eric’s face, whatever he’d expected wasn’t there either. Probably his eight thousandth unneeded scholarship offer. Even though we were only juniors, the contest of who could get the most merit scholarships had already begun, as it did for upperclassmen every year. Eric slid his phone into his pocket and smoothed himself out. We both had little scrapes on our arms and legs and bigger cuts on our hands. He sighed and pulled a tissue out of his pocket. Yes, Eric was a teenage boy who carried around a pack of Kleenex—like my grandma Mimi. “Do you want one?” he asked. I could’ve used one, but I shook my head no. “Put some Neosporin on your hand when you get home,” he said. I doubted he actually cared about my risk of infection, but he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to impart medical wisdom. “Uh-huh,” I said. We idled in three seconds of awkward silence. “What are you doing here, Miller?” he asked. Aside from Mr. Broadsword, our AP US History teacher, Eric was the only person who called me by my last name. “Oh, you know, just waiting to sack the Hero of Carver,” I said. After the team barely won half their games last fall, the local newspaper still had the nerve to do a spotlight piece on Eric. They called him the “Hero of Carver”—hands down the most obnoxious thing I’d ever seen. And I had to see it every time I went in for a checkup since his doctor dad had laminated and framed it. In two spots in the waiting room. Eric rolled his eyes at me. “I meant you’re not usually at these types of things. Or dressed like that.” “Are you keeping track? I’m touched.” I pointed to my chest and batted my eyes. “Good talk,” he said. He turned but didn’t step away, and for some reason I was relieved he lingered. Which w