If Not You

Five years of history. Four weeks on the road. Two rival copywriters learning love is the hardest sell of all. Mattie French has always known how to tell a good story. It’s why she stopped at nothing to land her dream career as a copywriter at a scrappy independent advertising agency. In fact, if it weren’t for one person, Mattie would probably be the most-talked-about rising star in town. Campbell Porter is a senior copywriter at Chicago’s slickest agency. Absurdly talented, incredibly aware of it, and the bane of Mattie’s existence since they were interns together, Campbell is always just… Mattie would love nothing more than to avoid Campbell forever. But when their agencies are pitted against each other to compete for a luxury resort account, it’s her chance to prove she can beat him--and earn the promotion she covets. During the month of travel required for the pitch, Mattie and Campbell are thrown together as fierce competitors and, slowly, as unexpected witnesses to each other’s hidden wounds and softest parts. As their trip barrels toward its final pitch, Mattie is forced to confront the increasingly obvious truth: the story she’s crafted for her and Campbell over the years might need a new ending.

Autorentext
Ellen O’Clover writes stories about love, identity, and belonging for both teens and adults. She grew up in Ohio and studied creative writing at the Johns Hopkins University before moving west to Colorado, where she lives in a little green house under a giant aspen tree with her rocket scientist husband and two perfect bulldogs.

Klappentext

**AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

Five years of history. Four weeks on the road. Two rival copywriters learning love is the hardest sell of all.**

Mattie French has always known how to tell a good story. It’s why she stopped at nothing to land her dream career as a copywriter at a scrappy independent advertising agency. In fact, if it weren’t for one person, Mattie would probably be the most-talked-about rising star in town.

Campbell Porter is a senior copywriter at Chicago’s slickest agency. Absurdly talented, incredibly aware of it, and the bane of Mattie’s existence since they were interns together, Campbell is always just…there, with his golden-boy smirk and the familiar gaze that never fails to taunt her across a crowded room.

Mattie would love nothing more than to avoid Campbell forever. But when their agencies are pitted against each other to compete for a luxury resort account, it’s her chance to prove she can beat him—and earn the promotion she covets.

During the month of travel required for the pitch, Mattie and Campbell are thrown together as fierce competitors and, slowly, as unexpected witnesses to each other’s hidden wounds and softest parts. As their trip barrels toward its final pitch, Mattie is forced to confront the increasingly obvious truth: the story she’s crafted for her and Campbell over the years might need a new ending.

Leseprobe
One

Mattie!" Ava's voice is muffled through the wall between us. "Can you hit the pipe for me?"

From my bed, Pancake lifts her head with muted curiosity.

"Nothing to see," I assure her, reaching for the wrench on my nightstand and clanging it against the painted-over pipe that tracks up my bedroom wall into the ceiling. The sound echoes through our apartment, and Ava shouts a thank-you before I hear the shower turn on.

"What was that?" Dexter asks. His face looms larger on my laptop screen, like he could peer around the corner of it to see the rest of my room.

"We have a curmudgeonly water heater." When I hold up the wrench, Dexter's mouth drops open. "Sometimes you have to whack the pipe to get the hot water to work in the morning."

"Matilda." His expression darkens. "Please tell me you've reported this to your landlord."

"My landlord lives in Boca Raton and could not care less about the state of this Lincoln Park hovel."

"Is this why you're always exercising at the office?" Dexter and I have been on video chat since five thirty, nailing down our slides for a client presentation this morning. "So you can use a functioning shower?"

"My shower is functioning," I say, primly. I spin the pen I'm holding-blue ink-between two fingers. Pancake hops to the floor and stretches in the patch of sun arching in off of Halsted Street. "I exercise at the office because it's free."

Dexter shakes his head. "I feel like we're good here, do you? You'll intro the concepts and I'll jump in to present design?"

"Indeed." I pinch the back of my neck, trying to alleviate my tension headache. "I'll see you in an hour."

"I'll bring Downpour," Dexter says, and I groan in pleasure. "Least I can do for someone without a functioning shower."

"Iced caramel latte with extra syrup," I say, leaning toward my screen and grinning at him. "Please."

"Yes, yes, I know your order." Dexter flaps a hand at me and, in the background, Krishna passes through their kitchen.

"Morning, Krishna!" I call, and he raises a hand as he reaches for the coffeepot.

"He's mad at you," Dexter says, his voice dropping an octave. "Says he never gets back to sleep when you make me wake up early to rehearse like this."

"The early bird catches the worm, Krish." I can practically feel him rolling his eyes at me from the pixelated depths of his and Dexter's kitchen. They moved in together last fall in River North.

"See you soon," Dexter says, now. I wave, and the meeting window zips shut.

Knuckles rap at my door, and then Ava pokes her head in. She's in a towel, her red hair wet and wavy over her shoulders. "Were you on the phone? It's barely seven o'clock."

"Dexter," I say, as Pancake saunters over to Ava. I drop my pen into the jar on my desk. "We have a presentation at nine."

Ava makes a little hum of understanding, then pulls the towel tighter around herself. Her engagement ring catches the light from the window. "You want a smoothie? I have bananas left over from that bread I made this weekend."

"Sure," I say, smiling. Without Ava, I'd be living on Downpour coffee and fun-size chip bags from the kitchen at work. "Ready for the first day?"

Ava grins, her eyes crinkling. "I'm so excited. I started crying while I was brushing my teeth, just thinking about their little faces."

I laugh and stand from my desk. "Well, it doesn't take much."

Ava's quick to cry-quicker over something happy than something sad. When I step into the hallway I tower over her, 5'11'' to Ava's 5'2''. She smells like the peony bodywash from our shower.

"I'm too soft for this job," Ava sighs.

I drop a hand onto her shoulder as Pancake circles my ankles. "You're perfect for this job."

The truth is that sometimes when I'm stressed, I imagine myself as one of Ava's kindergarteners. Small and safe in her sun-dappled classroom in Wicker Park, learning the alphabet from the kindest human being I've ever known.

"Thanks," she says, smiling as she nudges Pancake with one foot. "Maybe they'll even help me narrow down the reception flatware."

"Kindergarteners," I say. "Famously opinionated about dessert forks."

Ava's getting married over her spring break next March. She met Lev the day we moved to Chicago, the miraculous sort of serendipity they'll tell grandchildren about one day. He was the herald of her new life, its next chapter. We'd only been out of our tiny Central Illinois college town for nine hours when he intercepted her hoisting Jewel-Osco bags up the L station stairs and offered to help.

I like Lev. There's no one in the world who could ever deserve Ava-my best friend since elementary school, my roommate all through college and these five years in Chicago as we've learned to be grown-ups. And before, when w…