Plays Well With Others

PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS LAUREN BLAKELY CONTENTS About Did You Know? Plays Well With Others Author’s Note 1. Did I Just Flash Him My Boobs? 2. The Word of the Day 3. Have You Considered A Georgia O’Keeffe For Your Unicorn Dick? 4. And The Dress Code Tonight is… 5. Hello, Cheese Grater 6. A Shirtless-ness Hangover 7. Bright Ideas 8. Sweet Unbangable Me 9. I Can Be Delightfully Underhanded 10. How to Sabotage A First Date 11. The Beast and Me 12. Shiny Object, Do Your Thing 13. Fuck Off, Flutters 14. Very Braid-able Hair 15. Jackass Couch 16. The Shower Show 17. Left-Handed Night Cream 18. A Dick Review 19. Proportionalism 20. Un-Dating and Ultra-Sexing 21. Nice Scarf 22. Win Some, Lose Some 23. A Sea Urchin Thingy 24. Face Time 25. Dangerous Ground 26. If You Give A Moose A To-Do List 27. The Life Doctor 28. My, What A Big Eggplant You Have 29. Rain Check 30. The Lucky Spatula 31. Someday 32. Smack Talk Lessons Melt My Heart 33. Eyes on Me 34. Pancake Fantasies 35. My Unreal Boyfriend 36. Carter Time 37. The You Effect 38. The Romance Play 39. Déjà Vu 40. Rain Check Woes 41. Just Everything 42. Empowered Me 43. I Object 44. In Other Words 45. The Friend Zone is The Best Zone Epilogue Dear Reader Be A Lovely More Books by Lauren Contact Copyright © 2023 by Lauren Blakely Cover Design by Kate Farlow, Photo by Ren Saliba All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ABOUT Am I fake dating my best friend? Hear me out... So I'm throwing myself a breakup party, a glittery fete where I envision I'll lift a glass and celebrate being free and single again. What I actually do: Drink too much champagne and blurt out to my best guy friend that I'd really like to get back on the horse. But what I truly don't expect is Carter's answer - he volunteers as tribute. With his sinful brown eyes and too-good-to-be-true body it'd be no hardship for me to say yes, though I certainly don't want him to feel obligated to, um, service me, just because my failed, loveless marriage was a s-e-x desert. But since the charming and confident pro football star owes five public dates to his dating app sponsor, we make a deal to help each other out. Pretty soon, our public how to date lessons turn into, ahem, very private ones. And I'm a star student, graduating quickly from flirty banter and lingering looks to toe-curling, sheet-grabbing, mind-blowing hours of physical education. The problem? Turns out learning to date again feels a lot like the real thing. Can our friendship withstand all these late-night bedroom sessions? Especially since I'm suddenly longing for my best friend and there’s nothing fake about my feelings... DID YOU KNOW? By Lauren Blakely To be the first to find out when all of my upcoming books go live click here! PRO TIP: Add [email protected] to your contacts before signing up to make sure the emails go to your inbox! Did you know this book is also available in audio and paperback on all major retailers? Go to my website for links! PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS BY LAUREN BLAKELY A Standalone in the How to Date series AUTHOR’S NOTE BY LAUREN BLAKELY Hi! Sometimes authors like certain names a lot. Like the name Rachel. Some eagle-eyed readers might recall that in The Boyfriend Comeback the character of Beck had an ex-girlfriend he remained friends with and her name was Rachel. When I went on to write The Good Guy Challenge, Two a Day and My So-Called Sex Life, I introduced a new Rachel as a sidekick of the various heroines. Now it’s new Rachel’s turn for her romance. But she’s not the same Rachel who was in The Boyfriend Comeback. I just forgot I’d used the name recently! Oops! In any case, enjoy Rachel Dumont’s romance! You don’t need to have read any of the other titles to enjoy this standalone. Also, Carter plays professional football and the team names are fictitious and so is the name of the biggest game of the year. 1 DID I JUST FLASH HIM MY BOOBS? Rachel Where are my lucky spatulas? I swear they were in this box in the corner of the kitchen. The one marked Very Important Things. Because my baking supplies are vital. They’re therapy, dammit. Wait. There’s a box next to the stove labeled VIP Things 1 and a box on the counter designated VIP Things 2. Which one has my spatula in it? And why didn’t I label any of these things specifically? Oh, right. Because I fled Los Angeles faster than a twelve-year-old could stack plastic cups on social media. That, too, was a Very Important Thing. Now, I’m scrunched in with the boxes in the itty-bitty kitchen of my new townhome in San Francisco, hunting for the necessities of life—spatulas. How can I bake lemon cheesecake blueberry bars for my breakup party tomorrow night without them? Think, Rachel, think. I close my eyes, remembering the packing frenzy last week in my Venice Beach home, seeing clothes flying, hearing the screech of packing tape, feeling the