Ready or Not (The Love Game Book 4)

by Elizabeth Hayley

  It wasn’t going how we’d planned.

  For one, I’d wanted to have this discussion after dinner, when I could get him alone. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have in front of my two younger half-siblings. And I never wanted to have any conversation with or in front of my stepmother. But she’d just had to ask me when I was going back to school, which had really thrown me off my game. My stuttered answer of “never” had been a severe lapse in judgment and decidedly not part of the plan.

  But I hadn’t wanted to lie when she’d asked. Who knew being honest would turn out to be such a big mistake?

  “I transferred to online classes for the fall,” I explained. I pushed food around on my plate to avoid eye contact with anyone, which I was sure really highlighted my maturity.

  The sound of my dad’s utensils clattering against his plate made me wince. “Why on earth would you do that without discussing it with me first?”

  I took a deep breath. Sophia had talked me into telling my dad the truth about why I didn’t want to go back to school. But blurting out that I had a stalker since last October that I hadn’t told him about wasn’t something I wanted to get into with my brother and sister in the room. It was important to tell him what was going on, but I didn’t want to scare Lila and Sawyer.

  Casting a quick glance at them, hoping my dad would get the message, I asked, “Can we talk about this later?”

  “No, we cannot. We don’t keep secrets from each other in this family.”

  Really? Because I distinctly remembered Rita being on the brink of giving birth before they’d told me I was going to be a big sister. As if I hadn’t noticed she’d grown a bowling ball in her abdomen.

  “Besides, maybe the younger kids can learn something by seeing you be so irresponsible with your future.”

  Wait…what now? “How am I being irresponsible?”

  My father shook his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you move in with Sophia this summer. You always let her get you into trouble.”

  “I’m not in trouble. And what does that even mean? You’ve always liked Sophia.”

  “Of course I like her. She’s a nice kid from a good family. But she’s also headstrong, and you’ve always done whatever she’s said.”

  I stared at my dad for a moment, unsure if I’d ever met him before. “Are you calling me a follower?”

  “Now, now, let’s not put words in my mouth,” he said, his voice reaching a level of patronizing I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard before.

  “I was the chairperson of two different campus clubs this past year. I don’t think someone overseeing dozens of coeds would be considered a follower,” I argued, feeling the need to defend myself. I felt it especially noteworthy that I’d done a damn good job of running those clubs, considering I’d simultaneously been trying to dodge a sociopath at every turn. But the timing felt wrong to throw that tidbit out there.

  “Right. And then you spend a few weeks with Sophia, and you’re giving all that up to move closer to her.”

  “I’d already given those positions up because I’m graduating in December. It wouldn’t have been fair to keep them when I wasn’t going to be there for the entire year.”

  My mind whirled through the past few summers: my dad encouraging me to stay on campus and take extra classes and take internships close to school during summer breaks. He’d been happy that I’d finish a semester early, thanks to all the extra time I’d put into my degree during summer sessions. But now that I thought about it, he’d been decidedly less enthusiastic about my intention to complete an internship closer to Sophia this year.

  The opportunity had been a good one, so he hadn’t fought me on it, but he’d been curt in the discussion of my game plan for the summer, requesting I email him a list of what I needed from him. I’d thought he’d been busy with work, but had he been worried that the daughter he so clearly thought had the backbone of a Wheat Thin would succumb to some kind of bizarre peer pressure from a girl he’d known since she was three?

  It was utterly surreal to stare at a man who’d been instrumental in not only my creation but also my entire upbringing and realize he had absolutely no idea who I was. It was also more than a little painful.

  “Maybe it would be better if we tabled this for another time, Dennis,” Rita said, her voice somehow being both calm and condescending. The way she stared at me when she spoke made it seem as if she were implying I was the one who’d started this argument over her too-dry roast. Though I also could’ve been reading into it. Maybe the look was meant to be one of commiseration, but her face couldn’t quite get it right due to all the Botox she had shoved in there.

  “I don’t think we need to table anything,” my dad said. “As far as I’m concerned, this discussion is over.”

  His words made panic claw at my chest. “Dad,” I started, hating the way my voice broke as emotion clogged my sinuses. “I can’t go back to school.”

  He looked at me for a moment as if he were trying to figure me out. “Why not? Did you get into trouble there?”

  I took a deep breath. I hated that his first instinct was to ask if I’d gotten myself into trouble. Couldn’t I just be in trouble without also being at fault? I was an honors student, and I hadn’t ever had to call him to have him bail me out of anything. I’d never overspent on my credit card. I’d never done…anything.

  But here he was, blaming me for something I’d done everything in my power to deal with on my own.

  I swiped at my eye, willing the tears back. “No, of course not.”

  He stared a moment longer. “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”

  I gaped at him. “Yeah, but it’s not what you think—”

  My dad banged his hands on the table—not in anger, but more in a celebratory way, as if he’d guessed a punchline and needed his own cymbal clang. “I should’ve known. It’s always a boy. Let this be a lesson to you, Lila,” he said, pointing a finger at my ten-year-old sister. “If you want to have a successful future, you’ve got to keep your head on your shoulders. Being boy crazy won’t get you anywhere.”

  I wanted to say that crazy boys wouldn’t get you anywhere either, but I’d grown weary of trying to explain myself to a man who simply refused to listen. Seemed like I was having quite a bit of bad luck with them recently, and quite frankly, I was fucking over it.

  My dad had been there for me my entire life. He’d pushed me to be the best I could be, he’d celebrated my successes with me, and he’d encouraged me through my failures. Then I’d left for college. And it suddenly hit me that he’d been basically encouraging me to stay away ever since I left, suggesting I attend summer sessions, convincing me to return to campus early from winter break to make sure I purchased my books and supplies in time to get a head start on studying. It was a jarring thing to realize.

  Did I think the man loved me? Yes.

  Did I think he knew how to show it anymore? No.

  And at this point in my life, I just couldn’t work with that. I picked up my napkin from my lap and dropped it on my plate. “The student housing office said they would refund eighty percent of my housing costs for the fall. You should be getting a check in the mail within the next week.”

  He scoffed. “And I guess you expect me to give you that money so you can rent a place with Sophia.”

  I turned my head and looked at him somberly. “I don’t expect anything from you. I’ll give you back the twenty percent you lost too.” I stood and looked around at my family. “Thanks for dinner.”

  When I started to walk out of the dining room, my father said, “I’m serious, Taylor. Your tuition is already paid, but beyond that, if you don’t return to school, I’m not helping you with anything else.”

  I blinked back tears as I walked to the door and reached down to grab my purse from the chair I’d left it on. My dad had a clear line of sight of me as I walked back, withdrew my wallet, took out my credit card, and dropped it on the table next to his plate. “You want me to leave the car?”
I asked, my voice ragged.

  He looked from the credit card to me, seemingly stunned silent. He cleared his throat. “No. That was a gift.”

  I smiled, but it was joyless. “Got it. Gifts I can have. Your understanding I can’t.”

  His mouth opened and closed as if he were trying to figure out how to reply, but I didn’t wait for him to. I walked around the table so I could drop a kiss on Lila’s and Sawyer’s heads and then got the hell out of there.

  Sophia hadn’t prepared me for that conversation at all, and I couldn’t wait to tell her how bad her fortune-telling abilities sucked.

  Chapter Two

  R A N S O M

  “What the fuck is on your face?”

  I could see Brody’s reflection in the mirror of the apartment gym, and I slowed down my run to a steady nine point five so I could answer. “It’s a training mask. You’ve never seen one?” The mask was a black Under Armour one, and like any training mask, it covered the majority of my lower face.

  “Nope. But you should probably know you look like a cross between Bane and Hannibal Lecter.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been compared to a hybrid of two iconic villains, and it’s actually not as insulting as you probably meant for it to be.”

  “Not an insult, really.” Brody put his water bottle on the floor next to the leg press machine and began contorting his body into different positions that he seemed to think were stretches. “More of an observation. You know, in case any females come into the gym. I wouldn’t want you to be reported or anything.”

  I slowed to a walk and pulled the mask off before wiping the sweat from my head and neck with a towel. “Shouldn’t you be the one who’s worried about being reported? You don’t even live in this apartment complex.”

  I met Brody when he was hanging by the pool, even though his girlfriend, Aamee—the one who actually lived here—was nowhere to be found. He’d also gone to a few of the events the complex had held for its tenants.

  “Whatever,” Brody said, waving me off as he hopped on the leg press machine and moved the pin down on the weights without really looking. “I’m here all the time. I’m sure people think I live here.”

  He was probably right, and I couldn’t exactly blame him for spending so much time at Aamee’s place because one, the property was gorgeous with high-end amenities, and two, for most of the summer, a woman named Veronica was staying at Brody’s while the two of them faked an engagement so Brody’s dad wouldn’t think he was irresponsible and would invest money in a bar that Brody and Drew wanted to eventually open.

  “I’m gonna miss this place when Aamee moves,” Brody said after struggling to push the weight he’d chosen.

  “The gym?” I couldn’t help raising my eyebrow at him because I was here almost every day, and this was one of the first times I’d seen him.

  “Yeah. Well, all of it, I guess. But the pool will probably close soon anyway. It’s almost Labor Day.”

  “Nah, they said they heat it in the cold weather so people can use it and the hot tub in the winter if they want.”

  Brody gazed off into some imaginary place I couldn’t see. “I forgot about the hot tub,” he said slowly. “I feel like I didn’t really take full advantage of it while I lived here.”

  “You didn’t live here,” I reminded him as I walked over to grab a barbell and load it. “So when’s Aamee actually moving?”

  “Saturday,” he said through a long sigh. He’d stopped his reps a little while ago and was resting his feet against the platform, looking like a toddler who’d just been told he couldn’t have dessert.

  “You should put your feet down.”

  “Huh?” My suggestion seemed to bring him out of his own mind long enough for him to look over.

  “Your feet. In between sets you should put them down to allow the circulation to go back to normal in your legs.”

  “Right,” he said, placing his feet on the floor. “Thanks. What’s the mask do anyway?”

  “It regulates air intake so you can breathe more efficiently. Trains your lungs like you train the rest of your body, pretty much.” I’d used them when I’d played college football, and since I’d found them effective, I’d made them a habit even though now my workouts were for my own benefit and not for the sake of the game. Two knee injuries had crushed my dream of playing professionally before I had a chance to make it a reality. But still, I had plenty to be grateful for.

  “Oh, cool.” Brody finished the last two sets of his leg presses before moving on to the machine next to him. He studied it for a second before turning to me. “You wanna work out together?”

  “Sure. I mean, if you don’t mind following my routine. I can walk you through it as we go.”

  Brody was in good shape, which, considering the way he ate and drank—and the fact that he didn’t seem to know his way around a gym—probably had more to do with genetics than it did any sort of training regimen or diet.

  I kind of envied him. I’d worked hard to get into the shape I was in, and I worked just as hard to keep it. There was so much in life that wasn’t determined by our actions. I at least wanted to control what I could, so I’d made my health a priority.

  “Sure, man. I’ll do my best, but I’m sure I won’t be able to keep up with what you’re doing.”

  I shrugged that off, and we got started. For the next twenty minutes or so, I led him through a series of mobility exercises before moving on to some back squats. Surprisingly, Brody’s form wasn’t too bad. He definitely had more body awareness than some other people I’d seen in gyms who worked out more frequently than Brody did.

  “Did you play sports in high school?”

  “Baseball,” he said. “That’s all, though. What about you? Anything other than football?”

  “Baseball and basketball. I swam a few years too.”

  “I feel seriously inferior right now.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t. I wasn’t very good at anything other than football. Considering I was almost this tall as a sophomore, I should’ve been a ringer in basketball, but there were a lot of guys who were much better than me and were almost a foot shorter. I really just played the other sports for the fun of it.” I also did anything that kept me busy, and sports were always a great way to make friends, especially in new places. But I didn’t tell him any of that.

  “That makes me feel a little better. But not much,” Brody admitted with a smirk. “Where’d you grow up? I don’t think I ever asked you.”

  Even though Brody’s question had been a typical one, it wasn’t one I was comfortable answering. At least not with full disclosure. I liked Brody. And I trusted him as much as I was capable of trusting anyone I’d met since I moved here a few months ago.

  But my childhood wasn’t something I shared openly. “Moved around a good bit,” I said because it wasn’t a lie. I’d also been careful not to say it was only me who’d moved. That would’ve opened up a barrage of questions I had no interest in answering. Instead, I just added, “But I went to high school in Georgia, pretty close to Florida.”

  “Oh, nice!”

  It wasn’t.

  “You could’ve been part of the band.” And because Brody probably knew much of what he said only made sense to himself, he explained further. “Florida Georgia Line.”

  “Oh, yeah.” I was thankful for the levity Brody’s suggestion provided. “You think they’d be up for another member with absolutely no musical talent?”

  “Never know.” Brody shrugged before taking a drink from his water bottle. “And I knew I detected a hint of a southern twang.”

  “No way,” I told him. “Impossible.”

  “Totally possible. I’m like the Rain Man of accents.”

  I finished out the last few reps of my current set. “That’s a very odd skill that I don’t believe for a second you have.”

  “See! Did you hear the way you said, ‘you have’? It was more like ‘ya’ve.’”

  “Nope.”r />
  Brody rolled his eyes but thankfully changed the subject. “Got any big plans for tonight?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, if you wanna hang out, the gang’s coming to the Yard around ten or so. There’s a good band playing tonight.”

  “Cool. Thanks for the invite,” I said, careful not to say whether I was going.

  “So can we count you in?”

  “Umm…probably not, actually. I have a party I have to go to later on.”

  Brody looked understandably confused. “But you just said you didn’t have anything?”

  “Not anything worth mentioning.” I tried to focus on my workout, hoping he wouldn’t recognize my lack of eye contact as my hesitance to talk about this. Which was exactly what it was.

  “Uh, a party’s definitely worth mentioning.”

  “Not this one. It’s more of a…work thing.”

  “You work at a kids’ sports camp. Are you spending your Friday night with a bunch of little kids? Because that’s…weird. And maybe illegal. Make sure you don’t buy them any alcohol. Drew and I almost got in some serious trouble when we accidentally delivered beer to some underage frat guys when we had our Nite Bites business.”

  “I’m not buying anyone alcohol. It’s more of a…” I tried to think of any way to explain the party without disclosing my actual role there. I hated lying, even lying by omission, and I’d already had to do that once with Brody today. But that was serious. This was just…potentially embarrassing? Though I didn’t think Brody was the type of dude to judge other people’s choices, especially considering the ones he’d made during his life.

  “A what?” he asked, making me remember I hadn’t finished my sentence.

  The more I thought about it, the more I was fine with telling Brody about my other job. But then he’d probably tell Aamee, which was pretty much like replying to everyone on a company email when you’d only meant for it to be seen by one person. And I didn’t want the whole crew finding out because I was still a relatively new addition to it.