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

a calculus problem—“I don’t know, a million years or something. They always gave me two pieces of marital advice. My mom always said marry a man who ruins your lipstick, not your mascara.”

“Oooh, I like that one,” I said. “What was your dad’s?”

“Never waste a piece of cake or a hard-on.”

The room filled with sounds of horrified disgust, along with a few fits of laughter.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Aamee said. “You have to know my dad. It’s more like his vulgar way of saying that if you love the person and they turn you on, don’t let moments slip away.” At our silence, she added, “Okay, maybe it is as bad as it sounds. But it’s sweet if it didn’t come from my dad.”

“It is kinda sweet,” I admitted. “To have that much passion after so many years.” I wondered if one day I would have that. I saw how happy Sophia was with Drew, and as far as I could tell, Mr. and Mrs. Mason seemed pretty happy. Not that I knew for sure. But I was definitely familiar with dysfunctional relationships. My own parents had divorced when I was young, and though my mom loved the life she was living, I wasn’t sure she felt the same about the man giving it to her.

It didn’t make her a bad person. Mainly because I wasn’t sure she knew what it felt like to really love someone. Or to be loved, for that matter. And I couldn’t help but wonder if I was destined to follow in her footsteps.

I’d been lost in my own thoughts as the girls shared advice their moms had given them, everything from don’t sweat the small stuff because it’s all small stuff to more sentimental advice for the future like everything your child says is important.

“What about you, Tay?” Sophia asked. “What advice do you think your mom would give me before I marry Drew?”

I thought back to the random shit my mom had told me over the years, but I couldn’t really remember her giving me much actual advice when it came to relationships. At least she knew her wheelhouse.

“The only thing I remember her ever saying about marriage was never marry a man you wouldn’t divorce.”

All of us burst out laughing, myself included.

“Only your mom,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “I guess it makes sense, though.”

“It makes zero sense,” I told her.

“It does. Like there are so many combative relationships out there between exes, and that affects the kids. But if you think about how your future husband would act during a situation like that, it can say a lot about who they are as a person.”

“Huh.” I hadn’t thought about it like that because I’d never actually given much thought to it to begin with.

“So would you divorce Drew?” Aamee asked.

“Yeah,” Sophia said. “I think I would. I mean, I hope we don’t, but Drew’s a good guy. What about Brody?”

“I’d divorce his ass no problem.” She took a sip of her drink as everyone stared at her. “In the context we’re discussing, of course.”

I thought about Brad and what a piece of shit he was. We hadn’t even been together long, and our “breakup” had resulted in something that caused me to move. Definitely not someone I’d want to marry, let alone divorce.

But then my mind drifted to Ransom—the guy who loved working with kids, offered to help someone he barely knew move apartments and then put their furniture together. The guy who worked for everything he’d gotten in life and was appreciative of the little that was given to him. He and Brad weren’t the same person. Not even a little bit. How did I not take a chance on a guy like that?

But before I could really formulate any solid thoughts about the situation, Aamee turned up the music that had been playing softly on the TV in the background, drowning out any more images of Ransom or us together. And maybe that was for the best right now.

“Okay, now enough serious talk,” Aamee said. “Let’s have some fun!”

R A N S O M

I rarely had a gig booked with another guy, but tonight I’d be teaming up with Darius. He’d been stripping for longer than I had and had taught me the entire Magic Mike routine one afternoon with the promise that it would make me some extra cash, especially with the thirty-something crowd.

He was about that age himself and, to my knowledge, had no plans of settling down anytime soon. Never hiding the fact that he was a stripper pretty much ensured he only hooked up with women who wanted something casual too. It was actually a genius idea. Too bad I didn’t have the same goal.

“So what’da you know about this crew?” Darius asked. He fixed his vest in the elevator mirror and rubbed a hand over his short beard.

“Not any more than you do.”

“Well,” he said with a slap to my shoulder, “hopefully it’s a bunch of drunk college girls and not a group of middle-aged moms, right? That eye all healed up?” He lowered his sunglasses so he could inspect my face.

“Funny. And having the party be college girls doesn’t exactly guarantee our safety, you know.”

“It’s not my safety I’m worried about. Been doin’ this for a decade and haven’t gotten a scratch.”

The elevator stopped at the eighth floor, and an elderly couple boarded.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” the man said, and his wife smiled sweetly at us.

“Don’t you both look handsome,” she said, referring to our suits.

“Thank you,” we both said back with a nod like we were Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones getting ready to fight some aliens.

It occurred to me that I should’ve pointed out that we were going up, not down, but it was too late for them to exit, and I felt like an asshole pointing it out now. Maybe they’d meant to go up.

“Were you just at the wedding downstairs?” the woman asked.

“Oh.” Feeling guilty about