Ready or Not (The Love Game Book 4) by Elizabeth Hayley (i wanna iguana read aloud txt) 📗

“He was okay at first. Sweet, thoughtful. But after date three or four, I started to notice that he was getting a little…controlling. Wanting to know where I was going, who I’d be with. When I told him he was suffocating me, he said it was just because he cared so much. And I fell for that for almost four months.”

Taylor looked down as if ashamed, and I wanted to reach over and lift her chin so she knew she didn’t have to hide from me. But at that moment, I wanted to hunt this Brad fucker down, punch through his sternum, and rip his heart from his body—and I wasn’t sure how well I was concealing that rage. So it was probably for the best if she didn’t look at me for a few seconds.

“I was so stupid,” she whispered.

“Hey, none of that,” I said softly. “This is all on him. None of this is your fault.”

She took a shuddering breath, and when she looked up, her eyes were full of tears. “I never told Sophia about him.”

“What? But you said she knew?”

“No, I mean while I was dating him. I never told her because I knew she’d hate him. I just…knew it. So I didn’t tell her. I came to visit her in the fall and everything, but I never breathed a word about him.”

“That doesn’t make you responsible for his fucked-up actions.”

“But the writing was on the wall. And I saw it, Ransom. I saw it and ignored it. Even after I got back from seeing her and found him waiting for me outside my apartment, yelling at me that I was thoughtless and inconsiderate because I hadn’t checked in with him enough, I still didn’t stand up to him.”

She laughed, but it was a humorless, awful sound that I never wanted to hear from her again.

“I even apologized to him. Said it wouldn’t happen again. It wasn’t until I went home for winter break and got some distance that I got clarity. I broke up with him through text an hour before I was supposed to get on a train to spend New Year’s with him. I didn’t take his calls anymore after that.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t stop trying, though?” I knew the answer. She wouldn’t be telling me this story after calling me in hysterics if he’d left her alone after that. But I wanted to help her along in this story as best I could—provide the transition between plot events.

“I refused to see him after that. I wouldn’t answer my door when he came to see me when school started up again, wouldn’t respond to his texts or emails. Nothing. But then he started showing up places I was. He’d come up to me and my friends and strike up a conversation as if everything was fine. But he’d inevitably always try to get me alone, and it was exhausting trying to dodge him.”

“Didn’t your friends have your back?”

“They would’ve. If I’d told them the full story. But I was embarrassed. So I said we broke up and that he wanted to get back together but I wasn’t interested. A few of them thought I was being too hard on him, and he used that as a way to get to me. It ended up distancing me from my friends, which in retrospect, was probably exactly what he wanted.

“Last semester was horrible. I couldn’t wait to pack my shit and get out of there. I drove straight to Sophia and tried to forget all about him. But then the texts started.”

She told me about the things he’d said, and when she got to the picture he’d sent earlier that day, she broke down again.

I pulled her close to me, wrapping my arms around her and hoping that she’d know she could lean on me. That I wouldn’t let that fucker hurt her.

After a while, she pulled away and rubbed her hands over her face. “God, I’m sorry. This is way more than you should have to deal with. I can call Sophia if you want. I just… I was panicked, and my first thought was to call you, but you barely even know me, and this is way, way too much. So it’s okay if—”

“Taylor,” I interrupted, waiting until she actually made eye contact with me. “Breathe.”

“Yeah, okay. Breathing is good.”

I let her regain her composure for a minute before continuing. “I’m glad you called me. I wasn’t sure…with how we left things.”

“Ransom?”

“Yeah?” I responded, lifting my head and forcing myself to lock eyes with her.

“I didn’t tell my family or almost all my closest friends that I’ve had a stalker for the majority of last year. You being a stripper is really pretty tame in comparison.”

She smiled at me, and I chuckled in return.

“I still should’ve said something.”

“Maybe, but…” She shrugged. “You would’ve told me eventually.”

The surety with which she said it warmed me from the inside out. “Yes. I would’ve.”

We stared at each other for a moment, and I wondered if she was as lost in me as I was in her. Probably not, especially with everything she had going on. But maybe one day she could get there.

But even if she didn’t, it didn’t change the fact that I was going to have her back.

“Okay, show me the text he sent today, and then we can come up with a plan.”

She handed her phone to me with a small, sweet smile on her lips that I was absolutely not reading into. We were friends, and maybe we could be more one day or maybe we wouldn’t, but I was damn sure going to see to it that we’d always at least be that.

And no one fucked with my friends.

Chapter Eighteen

T A Y L O R

Over the next hour, I filled Ransom in on everything I knew about Brad. I even showed him Brad’s social media. I slunk back into my couch and