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

Taylor’s face contorted with thought. She bit her lip and pressed her eyebrows together like she was making an important life decision. “Gummy Bear?”

Okay, at least it’s something with a mixer. “Sure. I haven’t had one of them in a few years.”

After waiting a few minutes without the server coming by, I volunteered to go up to the bar to get them.

“What are you guys up to?” I asked Brody while I waited for him to make our drinks.

Unfortunately, Xander wasn’t anywhere to be found. I considered asking Brody to go light on the alcohol since he typically overpoured, but I didn’t want anyone to overhear me asking to make Taylor’s drink weaker. Even though my intention was not to have her show up to her shady apartment completely wasted, she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions.

I chatted with the gang for a few minutes, but once Brody came over with our shots, I headed back to the table. Taylor’s head was so buried in her phone, she almost didn’t notice me sit down.

“Everything okay?” I asked as I slid the drink in front of her. She looked…worried. Or sad. I didn’t know her well enough to take an educated guess at her emotions, but I knew without a doubt they weren’t positive.

When she lifted her head to look at me, she smiled, though I could tell it was forced. “Yeah. I’m good. Just some annoying emails, that’s all.”

She put her phone away, and I lifted my drink. “I always feel like there should be a toast with shots.”

Though a bit lazy, her smile looked more genuine now. “To my win?”

“Eh, that’s like toasting to my own loss. I don’t think the athlete in me will let me do it.”

Taylor thought again, her mouth twisting like it did when she was deciding which drink to get. “How about to new beginnings? Both of us are pretty new here and starting new…stuff.”

I laughed at Taylor’s choice of words, and thankfully so did she.

“To new beginnings, then,” I said with a wide smile. I like the sound of that.

Taylor had two more drinks before Sophia noticed her leaning over the side of the deck.

“What the…”

“She’s been like that for at least ten minutes,” I told her. “She said she likes how being upside down makes her head feel.” I wasn’t about to leave her alone like that, mainly because it was probably a ten-foot drop to the yard below, and she’d likely fall on her head if she tipped over completely.

“Tay?”

Sophia leaned over the deck rail in an attempt to see Taylor’s face when she didn’t respond to her.

“Why are men such dicks?” Taylor muttered.

I really hoped she wasn’t talking about me. I had no idea what she could possibly be referencing, but since I was the only guy she’d talked to in the last hour or so, I couldn’t be totally sure.

“Can you stand up so we can have this conversation, and so the gravitational pull is working on my feet and not my head?”

“It is at your feet,” Taylor said.

The girl was still smart and a smartass even when she was wasted.

“You know what I mean.”

Taylor groaned loudly like Sophia’s request would be severely inconvenient for her but complied anyway. She swayed a little once she stood upright, and I had to put my hands on her arms to steady her before she fell.

It would be ironic if she fell onto the deck instead of over it, considering she’d spent the better part of the last half hour with half her body hanging off the side.

“Would you maybe just get us a glass of water, Ransom?” Sophia asked.

I headed to the bar, where the rest of our group was hanging out, and got Taylor some water. A minute or so later, I found Taylor and Sophia sitting at the table we’d been at earlier in the night. It still had some of our appetizers on it, though neither of us probably would’ve eaten any more of them. I sat down across from them and put the water in front of Taylor.

“Here, drink some,” Sophia told her.

“Hang on.” She was scrolling through her phone, a hardness to her face that I hadn’t noticed before. “Look at this.”

“Holy shit. He wrote all that in one text?”

“Yeah. Well, it’s not all one. It’s broken up into different ones, but I never responded. He just kept firing them at me.”

The two stared at Taylor’s phone for a minute, and Sophia seemed to be reading the texts. I suddenly felt like I should be doing anything except hearing this conversation. I guessed it was an ex texting her, but I obviously had no plans to ask about it. It wasn’t any of my fucking business, and I didn’t have any intention of making it mine.

“Jesus,” Sophia said. “Just block him.”

“I should go,” I told them. I was already pushing the chair back to stand.

“No!” Taylor practically yelled, and her voice made me stop immediately. “You can sit. I think I’m gonna call it a night. Just call me tomorrow, Soph. ’Kay?”

“Yeah, sure. How you getting home, though?”

“Walking,” she answered like the question had been a dumb one.

We’d walked to Rafferty’s from my apartment because it wasn’t too far, but Taylor’s was on the opposite side of town, and it would probably take her an hour, and it was already midnight. I hated the thought of her alone as she trekked back to her place.

“Can’t you at least take an Uber or something?”

“You know I don’t take Ubers alone.”

I could see Sophia’s frustration. “Yeah, but how is walking miles alone in the middle of the night any safer?”

“It just is, okay?” She slung her bag over her shoulder. “Or maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. But I’ll be fine. I’ll call you when I get home.”

“Just wait until one of the guys gets off work. They can drive you.”

Taylor looked flustered, but