Role Playing

Role Playing (2023) Cathy Yardley

Maggie Le thought being divorced was hard. But her son Kit living for college was worse. Now she had no reason to leave her house, except to get food.

“Second: I have changed markedly since my twenties,” she said. “I don’t want to wear bandage dresses and club all night . . .”

Kit made gagging noises. “Ack! Brain bleach!”

She ignored his outburst. “I’m not saying that other women can’t wear whatever the hell they want and feel however they want to feel. My point is, at this age, I don’t want to get negged by some fifty-year-old douchebro who thinks I care about his opinion, just because he wants to sleep with me. I don’t want to wear makeup or shave my legs or buy matched underwear . . .”

“I regret everything,” Kit groaned. “You’re right. You’re old. You don’t need to date, and I never want to have this conversation ever again.”

Aiden moved back to Fools Falls to help out when his father was dying. Now he feels responsible for his mother, and trapped in a place he never wanted to return to, with friends he has possibly outgrown.

“But I bet with some makeup and maybe some clothes that . . .” Riley stopped, chuckling and shaking his head. “Okay, I’m lying. You can’t even tell what her body looks like. She’s swimming in that shit. How’s a guy supposed to know what he’s dealing with when a woman wears that?”

“I know, right?” a new voice chimed in.

Aiden and Riley spun to find Maggie standing in the kitchen doorway, obviously hearing them.

“For Christ’s sake, what was I thinking?” she added, with an amused smile. “It’s like I’m doing it on purpose or something.”

When Maggie is invited to join a gaming guild, she assume that Aiden is like the rest of the guys–just barely out of high school. Which leads to a serious misunderstanding about each other’s ages.

“Klara said some friend of hers wants to get involved with that crazy video game thing you do,” she said. “Sounds like the lady’s housebound or something. I don’t know, I wasn’t really listening.”

In addition to a character who has deals with anxiety, there is also an ace character.

“But that attraction? Doesn’t happen that often.” He let out a little jagged laugh. “Like, really not often.”

“So . . . ,” she drawled slowly, as if she was processing it. “You’re . . . what, ace?”

This was not the reaction he was expecting. “I’m what now?”

There were parts of this story that were unpleasantly familiar.

“She’ll listen to you. She likes you better, anyway.”

“Aiden, that’s not fair.”

Aiden shrugged. “I’m not trying to be passive aggressive with that, or anything. It’s certainly not your fault. I’m just stating facts.”

It didn’t bother him as much as it used to that he wasn’t her favorite. Although it did still bother him.

I honestly thought this book would be harder to read than it was, but mostly I think I’m numb.

I liked the ace rep, but since the character was demi, there ended up being a good deal of boinking.

Which I skimmed and skipped.

Publisher: Montlake

Rating: 8/10

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