Ready or Not (The Love Game Book 4) by Elizabeth Hayley (pdf ebook reader .txt) 📕

put anything in writing. And it’s not like he tried to attack me or anything. He hasn’t even verbally threatened me. Technically, he hasn’t done anything illegal. He’s just creepy and doesn’t listen when I say I want nothing to do with him. He knew most of my friends at school before I did, so it’s not like they’d be rushing to see my side of things. Brad’s good-looking and charismatic. He’s funny, athletic.” I sighed heavily. “He’s one of those guys that other guys wanna be and girls wanna be with.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Sophia said, giving me a small smile that comforted me more than her words did. “You’re my ride or die. The Thelma to my Louise.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna kill him and then take me on a road trip?”

Sophia shrugged. “I’m not ruling it out.”

That made me laugh out loud, and I felt a little better when I pictured Sophia and me driving down some unnamed highway in a convertible. “You know the end of that movie is them driving off a cliff, right?”

“So maybe that wasn’t the best pop culture reference. Hillary and CC from Beaches?”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“You can be CC since she’s the talented one who lives.”

“Love you,” I said.

“Love you too. I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Me too.” I felt tears starting to form, but I managed to stop them from falling. “How about Janis and Damian? Can’t go wrong with a Mean Girls reference, right?”

“No. You can’t.”

After a few moments, Sophia said, “Just try to forget about it for now. You’re hundreds of miles away from him.”

I hated how Sophia was always right. “I’ll try. Though that may mean extending our girls’ night to dinner and drinks with the rest of the group. I might need some antics with my alcohol if I’m gonna try to ignore what a disaster my life is right now.”

She was already taking out her phone. “I’ll text everyone now.”

R A N S O M

“Whose idea was this?” Taylor asked after her ball hit a stone around the edge of the putting green and popped up into a flower bed beside the course.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure it was yours,” Sophia told her.

“That’s untrue. When I suggested we go over to the old apartment, I was thinking we could hang by the pool or the fire pit, not compete in a sport.”

I put my ball down and lined up the club behind it. “It’s not really much of a competition when there are only three holes and five people.”

“It’s also not much of a competition when most of the people playing have absolutely no golf skills,” Toby pointed out.

We’d all been hitting the balls around for the past fifteen minutes or so, and almost everyone needed a minimum of six shots to get it in the hole.

When Sophia texted all of us after she and Taylor had finished dinner, I didn’t expect anyone to be free to hang out. It was a Friday night, so Drew, Brody, and Xander were working at Rafferty’s, and Aniyah and Cody both had plans already, so it ended up being just the three of us and Carter and Toby.

I was happy I could make it. There were very few Fridays I was free, and this happened to be one of them.

“Let’s make this interesting,” Toby said.

“But it’s so interesting already,” Sophia said dryly. “I don’t know how it can possibly get any better.”

Toby seemed oblivious to her sarcasm. “A bet.” He sounded more excited than the moment called for. “Guys versus girls. We’ll add up the total shots it takes for every member of the team to get it in the hole. Winners buy the losers drinks at the place of their choosing.”

“Okay,” Taylor said. “This shouldn’t be too difficult since there’s two of us and three of you, and all of us are horrible.”

“Yup. The catch is that if you lose,” I said, “You’re buying three big guys drinks, and the tab’s split between two people. If we lose, we’re buying two lightweight girls drinks and the tab’s split between the three of us.”

“I passed fifth grade math, so yeah, I understand how it would all work,” Taylor said with a smirk.

“So you’re in, then?” Toby asked.

“I’m in.”

“Me too,” I said, mainly just to spend a little more time with Taylor.

Carter and Sophia agreed too, and Toby said, “Ladies first.”

Sophia set up and managed to get her ball in with only four shots, which was probably the best she’d done since we’d started. “Okay, one of you go now.”

Carter was the first to putt, and even though he hit the stones in the middle of the green, he recovered and sank his in four shots too.

Then Toby went so the girls wouldn’t finish their shots before two guys hadn’t gone yet. With Taylor and I the last to go, the score was seven to four, with the girls in the lead. As long as Taylor didn’t fuck up royally, they’d win.

“It would’ve made more sense if one of you had gone first,” Taylor said, pointing out what the rest of us were all probably thinking.

“It’s fine. Shouldn’t make much of a difference. I’ll get a hole in one, and you’ll probably get a nine like you did earlier, and we can all go to Rafferty’s to celebrate our win.”

“I’m not gonna get a nine,” she said with an exaggerated laugh most likely to show how ridiculous she thought my prediction was. “This is the easiest hole.”

“Guess we’ll see in a minute.”

Chapter Ten

R A N S O M

“Who eats wings naked?” Taylor asked as I brought the drumstick up to my mouth.

“I’m not eating wings naked. I’m eating naked wings.”

“Semantics.” She pulled off the chunk of pineapple from the small straw in her drink and took a bite.

“It’s not semantics. The way you worded it not only sounds like I should be arrested, it also sounds extremely dangerous.”

“We can get the others to weigh in if you