What If You Fall for Me First? - Hardcover

Miller, G.F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1665966432 ISBN 13: 9781665966436

Publisher: Aladdin, 2025

Synopsis

A girl determined to ditch her goody-two-shoes image and the cool guy classmate she enlists to help her get more than they bargained for in this relatable and swoon-worthy middle grade rom-com.

Sofia has had enough of everyone thinking she’s sooo nice. “Sweet,” “innocent,” and “goody two-shoes” are how her classmates would describe her, but there’s more to her than that. She wants everyone—especially her forever crush, Mark Chen—to see that she has other sides.

To help her level up to Official Cool Girl, Sofia enlists trendy and confident Holden—the guy who everyone else has written off as a total player and a first-class jerk. Under Holden’s guidance, Sofia learns to revamp her style, ride a skateboard, and stand up for herself. At the same time, Holden learns that when he’s alone with Sofia, it’s safe to drop the cool guy act and just be himself.

When their efforts start to pay off, Sofia is faced with a choice. Should she stick with the plan—and risk losing herself in the process—or take a chance on the person everyone says will break her heart?

About this title

About the Author

G. F. Miller absolutely insists on a happy ending. Everything else is negotiable. She is living her Happily Ever After with the love of her life, three kids, two puppies, and some chickens. She cries at random times. She makes faces at herself in the mirror. She believes in the Oxford comma. And she’s always here for a dance party.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: How to Never Get Noticed by Your Crush Chapter 1 How to Never Get Noticed by Your Crush
Nobody washes their coats. That’s something you don’t think about until you’re half buried in a mountain of crusty, musty outerwear at a junior high glow party. At least, Sofia hadn’t.

If she’d known what was about to happen—or, frankly, how bad two hundred coats smelled—she would have gone all the way outside. But, of course, she didn’t know. So there she was, huddled behind Coat Mountain, praying that she wouldn’t humiliate herself in front of the one person she loved most in the world.

To be honest, Sofia had been hiding behind coats—metaphorically speaking—ever since Mark Chen had asked her to be his partner for the slime lab in science last year. (Seriously, any teacher who just waves their hand and says, “Partner up,” has no idea what it’s like to be an introvert in middle school. Those are panic-inducing words.) But Mark had swooped in and saved her. And he’d been funny and nice and good at science, and Sofia was smitten.

Ten months. That’s how long Sofia had been living off the breadcrumbs of Mark’s attention, dreaming that he would notice her again, and spending all day every day trying not to ruin her chances with him by publicly embarrassing herself.

Her streak lasted up to about five minutes ago. The drumline was performing in the gym at Glow Night—their white drums glowing under the black light, their faces and hair painted neon colors. There were glow sticks, glow paint, and glowing decorations. There was even a strobe light. The whole school was having the best party ever.

Sofia had come with her friends from Cross Country—Destiny, Nina, and Eve. Almost as soon as they’d gotten here, she’d seen Mark batting a glowing balloon around with his basketball friends. And he looked right at her. Which should have been great. Except he made this exaggerated sad-clown face, and she’d instantly started worrying about him and mouthed, “Are you okay,” with some improvised sign language that probably looked more like miming, and then he’d cracked up and pointed at her shirt.

She’d forgotten she had painted a gosh-awful neon frowny face on her shirt (long story). The point is, Mark was laughing at her, and she deserved it because she’d been being at least three kinds of cringe. So she’d grabbed all her friends’ coats as an excuse and run away.

No. To be honest, she hadn’t run. She’d scampered. Scampering was running’s embarrassingly girlie and mousey little cousin.

While Sofia subjected herself to a moment-by-moment mental replay of her failures, one of the drummers was hyping up the crowd between cadences. Everyone except Sofia screamed and stomped their excitement. Why couldn’t she be like them? Cool and happy and fun and not at all hiding in a giant pile of dirty laundry?

A brief burst of cold air touched her hot face—someone must have opened the gym door—and snapped her out of her pity party. Her friends were probably wondering where she was, and surely Mark had moved away by now. Determined not to miss the most exciting event of her life so far, she stood.

And came face-to-face with Mark, just a coat pile away.

She froze as her eyes locked on his, the whites glowing in the black light. Her heart pounded and her mouth went dry, and she just knew that if he talked to her, she would turn beet red and say something incoherent and then pass out. She needed to find the perfect time to talk to Mark, when she could act casual and laugh breezily while she flipped her hair. Like Ashlyn was doing right now as she walked toward them.

Ashlyn. She was a beautiful, confident, tall blond volleyball player. If you searched up “fierce girl,” the first twenty hits would be pictures of Ashlyn. Of course Mark looked right past Sofia to gaze at her. Sofia couldn’t blame him at all. But, seriously, she would give just about anything—including nonvital organs—to trade places with Ashlyn.

For reasons Sofia had missed in her Mark-induced meditative state, the crowd went, “Ooooooooooh.” It felt like everyone in the room knew how pathetic her inner monologue was.

There was the sound of a single drumstick hitting a rim—tink, tink, tink, tink—and the drumline launched into a new, earsplitting cadence. From behind the coats, Sofia watched enviously as Ashleyn challenged Mark to a thumb war. Mark won, and Ashlyn wrenched her hand out of his grip and punched him in the arm, laughing.

Then Ashlyn said something in Mark’s ear that made his lips part over glowing white teeth. He’d gotten his braces off eighteen days ago, and his smile was absolutely perfect. He brushed his glossy, chin-length black hair away from his face and leaned in to say something. As he spoke—his words swallowed by the deafening drumming—Ashlyn shifted closer to him, so close that Sofia was almost positive his lips brushed Ashlyn’s earlobe.

She couldn’t take it anymore. While Mark was completely absorbed in the blond goddess, Sofia escaped out the door, unnoticed.

It was early November in Illinois, and the night was dark and chilly. With a primal noise born of ten months of longing and frustration, Sofia kicked the rough brick wall before letting herself slide to her butt on the cold pavement. Then she tore the glow bracelet off her wrist and threw it as far away from her as she could. Out here, she didn’t have to try to glow along with everyone else. She could disappear into the dark—if it was even possible to get more invisible.

“Hi?” came a guy’s voice from above her.

It turned out that someone could see Sofia. Just the worst possible person.

Edition details

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1665966432
• ISBN 13: 9781665966436
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368