Smart Girl by Rachel Hollis Page A

really have to get a better departing line.
    The melancholy about my lack of witty comeback doesn’t last long, though, because my head fills with everything he said. The whole way back to my office, I go over the monologue he just gave.
    How did my interview questions take us so off track? And was it off track if we actually talked about what’s going on between us? And what about his speech? It was kind of a prick move. I mean really, if you think about it, he basically just told me he was interested but not interested enough . He can date half the town, but I’m too complicated? And I’m naive and young and apparently transparent, since he did notice not only me but also all my less-than-stellar wiles.
    I wipe my hair back out of my face. I should be pissed, or annoyed at the very least. My head bounces in agreement with my thoughts. Then, just as quickly, I’m shaking it at the notion, because who am I kidding? I’m the opposite of pissed. Someone else might be upset or put off, but my heart keeps latching onto all the other words he used: gorgeous, beautiful, kind, wonderfully weird . And now I know something I didn’t before. It’s not that Liam doesn’t like me back; it’s just that he’s not convinced we’d be good together.
    My hair falls in my eyes, likely pulled there by the wild energy I’m putting off. Yes, he is kind of a jerk, but jerky hero falls in love with sweet heroine is one of my favorite tropes!

Chapter FOUR
    “It didn’t work at all like I thought it would,” I grunt as I push the small faux–French Regency sofa back at an angle. Moving furniture is a precarious mission when you’re wearing a stylish cocktail dress, but event planners are supposed to blend in, which means we have to look similar to the party guests. We might do the work of teamsters, but we’re dressed like the hostess of a high-end steak house. Stylish but conservative, with sensible flats and enough body spray to cover up the eighteen layers of sweat we’ve accumulated over the course of this day.
    Landon shoves a club chair forward two feet to align it with the ornate vibrant-blue rug we just moved.
    “How so?” she calls over the heavy bass beat wafting through the walls from the reception next door.
    It’s the fifth time we’ve changed the layout of the lounge area for this wedding’s after-party. We have half an hour before the guests will wander into this ballroom from the one next door—it’s the kind of event transition that’s only possible if you’re hosting a party at a five-star hotel. That segue from reception to after-party is the last and final stage of a wedding that cost more than half a million dollars. They’ll come in here sweaty from dancing and looking to soak up the top-shelf liquor with the midnight snacks we brought in just for that purpose. The new lounge setup looks great, just like it did in the four iterations before this one. Changing things around is totally unnecessary, but we’ve already been on-site for fourteen hours, and we’ve found that the remaining time flies by much faster if you keep yourself occupied. I swap the throw pillows in one lounge area with those from another.
    “Because not only did we not grow any closer, but I actually somehow managed to piss him off by asking totally innocuous questions.”
    “Are you sure your questions were innocuous?”
    “Yes.” I add one more side table to my arrangement and then plop myself down on the closest flat surface. “He doesn’t like talking about his success, apparently. That question took us on a random and thoroughly agitated tangent.”
    I bounce on the cushions as she plops down beside me.
    “Wait, isn’t the success question the very first one in that scene?”
    I gesture emphatically since this is my point exactly.
    “So you managed to throw him off right out the gate?”
    “Yes!” I pull a bag of Skittles out of my pocket and pour some into her hand before she can even ask. It’s a known fact that