S:3 E:31: Spicy Audiobook Club - "Two Can Play" by Ali Hazelwood

all right welcome back all my nerds geeks blurbs and freaks to another episode of geeky sexual and intellectual i'm your host q and we are back for another episode it took a minute because my sister got the flu from the nasty folks at work that don't know how to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze yes we've all been victim to that so it took me a little longer i got the first um well speaking of this is our first episode of the uh spicy audio book club because i have a local chapter of a book club that i would like to be a part of and they don't have their applications open yet to be a part of it and it looks fabulous and i can't wait till they reopen application because i want to commune with other like-minded women read some good books talk them out have a good time have some drinks so until then i wanted to do my own little book club and i don't really mean until then because i want to keep this going but um i decided to do this you know to uh fulfill that need that i have and i hope you all um find joy in it as well so the first book that we are doing in our spicy audio book club is called the spicy audio book club is uh by the author her name is ally hazelwood and the book's title is two can play so to give you a little backstory on who ally hazelwood is ally hazelwood is a best-selling author known for her quirky heartwarming and often steamy romantic comedies with a background in neuroscience she brings a unique perspective to her stories often setting them in academia or science related fields her witty writing relatable characters and slow burn romances have made her a fan favorite in the contemporary um romance genre but let's see what uh amazon has to say about her ally hazelwood is a multi-published author uh alias wow i didn't know that um her peer-reviewed articles about brain science in which no one makes out and the ever after is not always happy originally from italy she lived in germany and japan before moving to the united states to pursue a phd in neuroscience when ally is not working she could be found crocheting eating pop cake pops or watching sci-fi movies with her three feline overlords and her slightly less feline husband so sounds good to me now a little bit of a synopsis about the book two can play in two can play ally hazelwood delivers another laugh out loud steamy romance that combines her signature enemies to lovers tension with a deliciously nerdy twist when two fiercely competitive rivals are forced to collaborate on a high-stakes project sparks fly and not just from their arguments can they overcome their differences or will their rivalry consume them this book is packed with humor sizzling chemistry and unexpected moments of vulnerability now i just want to let y'all know from time to time it's going to sound like i'm winded because i shoot my podcast from the inside of my car inside of my garage in texas and for some reason we are on a uh a what you call it a heat uh i don't know it's not a heat advisory i forgot what it's called when the temperatures just shoot up for no reason because last week it was freezing and now it is extremely hot so i am baking in this car so bear with the system so just to let you know i'm going to be doing a little bit of a podcast about i was a little overzealous i thought i could read all uh i don't know how many chapters this book is uh i think it's 16 and sorry for not knowing but um what my overzealous part came in is when i thought i could just oh i'll just listen to it because it's listening it's a four-hour listen i'll listen to eight chapters and then i'll break them down so now so the way this is going to go down i'm going to break it up uh into three chapters uh i'm going to give you a brief synopsis on the chapter and then i'm going to go into my review of each chapter so chapter one i'm calling this the setup okay so my little brief synopsis is the story begins with our two protagonists brilliant yet fiercely competitive game developers meeting for the first time in a tense boardroom discussion both work for rival gaming companies forced into a joint collaboration to develop the next groundbreaking project the stakes are high and neither is thrilled about teaming up with their so-called enemy the tension in i'm sorry the tension is palpable as they clash over creative this uh i'm sorry creative visions and strategies to make matters worse their bosses announce a mandatory company retreat for both teams to foster collaboration cue the eyeball rolls and sarcastic remarks as they begrudgingly prepare for a weekend of focused bonding in the name of teamwork okay so now bear with me because i have my little scribbling notes so our main characters are go by the name of viola and jesse now viola is an old ass name i don't know where she got that and i apologize if it's one of her family members but viola okay anyway so viola and jesse uh viola is a top game designer for a company called uh fly butter so in the end of the story viola and jesse are in the middle of the game and viola is the best friend for the game developer um lets her know hey we got this game coming down you know it it did really well in the market and they have um given us this opportunity to develop its uh second uh installation uh basically um it's just like oh cool bet he was like no there's a catch though uh we're gonna have to work with our rivals uh to get this uh collaboration done and so viola and jesse are in um in time and she's like what the fuck so they call a company meeting so all employees they spill the beans let them know hey we're gonna have to work with um the other game development and i can't think of it right now but it's in my notes when i get to it um so uh star play program uh for game development that's the name of the game star play um and i think the other game company is called limerence yeah oh no that's the name of the game limerence is the name of the game so there's the two companies to create the um i think that's the other company is called nephilim i think that name the the competitive um gaming company that they work for and they have to go on this company retreat so they can do team building yay i really really hate this shit when companies make you do that but here we are again doing it in the book so the two teams come together and um well they hadn't come together yet everybody in the in the boardroom you know uh it's talking about you know how they you know they'll snap x and fist fight and yada yada yada you know how it goes nobody wants to do it and they're ready on bellyache so it was like now y'all gonna do this shit because we we need we need this money and we need this game title under our belts and so viola is of course not happy with ethan and that's pretty much the gist of chapter one uh you know everybody uh that works for fly butter just you know bellyaching and cursing and like throwing up their hands at the situation but they all still get to have an opportunity to work on this famous game so chapter two we're gonna get into the history so here's what i wrote about that uh this chapter flashes back to the first time viola and jesse met a moment that was equal parts awkward and charged with tension fate or some cruel joke keeps throwing them together in random aspects of life from coffee shops to gym sessions for viola it's impossible to ignore jesse's charm especially when she starts having steamy dreams about him that she can't shake things take an even more awkward turn at her own cousin's wedding where jesse shows up as an old high school friend of the groom uh determined to avoid him viola makes a hasty exit only to bump right into jesse he's inconveniently standing under a mistletoe the family chats for them to kiss but jesse shuts it off uh that won't be necessary leaving viola humiliated later her cousin privately scolds jesse saying that he could have just kissed her to spare spare embarrassment but jesse flatly replies that he wants nothing to do with viola that was a year ago and now viola can't help but wonder if she and jesse can truly work together on this high stakes game development project or if their tangled stories will get in the way okay so my notes that i put uh besides my my summarization here uh viola goes over all the discrepancies between the two teams uh the bad blood they have but then she also talks about um when she met jesse uh it was about six years prior to this current retreat that's taking place uh jesse's boss was a super asshole um when uh viola met him i think it was at an interview process because i think she wanted to work for that company But he was one of those, you know, douchebags that was like, the girls don't really play games she was like oh i don't understand why he is saying that shit because i'm visibly standing here and who still says that shit and so jesse like stands up for viola against his boss and i'm like oh i kind of like him too if he's standing up putting his job on the line for somebody he don't know but hey i'll in the name of righteousness like sir don't come at her like that she's here for her interview so you're probably gonna run to a couple of women today so why would that be any response that you would have at any point of these interviews um jesse compliments her on her portfolio which uh viola's you know she always remembered that um she reminisces about how good he looked so you know we love some nerdy boys okay so just because you're nerdy don't mean you can't be fine as fuck as well um she hates uh the stereotypes on gamers being bottom feeders yeah that's always the case been weird to me as well because it's just a freaking hobby so it's like people that watch football why is that weird that they dress up you know in the garb of their team and religiously watch games on the days that their teams play and yada yada yada it's just a hobby it's a thing that you love oh my god let me try to crack this door because i am burning up but the dogs in my neighborhood keep barking and i don't want that feed to come across okay so let's get back into it um let's see uh jesse was the captain of his soccer team in high school um and mila is one of the girls uh that um viola works with and so she they bump into him at a conference and mila you know starts talking about jesse to viola she's like oh yeah we went to high school together he was a great guy he was on the he was a captain of the soccer team and i'm like oh that's probably why he's fine um let's see i put dave what does that mean they ran into each other at a gaming convention okay with mila her co-worker um mila thinks jesse doesn't like viola when he had to leave their discussion so yeah somebody pulled him away and he was like really abrupt and i'm like that was weird i mean you could have been you know courteous or something it was just like he just has this awkwardness when he's around viola and it's unexplained really like okay is it a competitive thing or is it uh i really don't i don't like this chick i don't like the vibe she gets she gives off i'm just trying to be professional but let me get the fuck out of here type of vibe uh viola kept running into jesse um in a in all aspects of life so yeah like uh my little synopsis is you know at the coffee shop at the gym um just anywhere uh the store it was it was just weird like something kept you know you know like a magnet kept bringing them back together at this point um let's see and it says um she was majorly crushing on him for years so she her awkwardness was coming because oh my god i want to jump his new phones you know he's really i like him he has charisma he has charm you know he's that quirky nerdy guy of my dreams but why is he treating me like this so let me just you know stay back i guess um she wished he was a what does it say she wished he was a gamer bro so it would be oh yeah she was saying it would be easier if he was a gamer bro like his boss was and then it would be easy uh to write him off but he was just you know cordial and didn't um didn't seek her out um yeah so i get what she's saying like if he could just be a fucking dick then i wouldn't have to worry about i just write him up like every other motherfucker i've run into on the street but he's always nice he's cordial he doesn't lay it on thick he doesn't um toot his own horn he's not conceited he's not arrogant so what the fuck can i do to really hate him besides he you know he's just awkward around me and that i guess that doesn't you know it's not an ick for her um and she basically wants him and she can't figure out why he doesn't want her as well or just even to be in her presence um she was having a lot of sex dreams about him uh and it was like 13 it happened like 13 times after she um she met him at the convention and she's just like she was in relationships and she was having sex dreams about him so she was you know really feeling bad about that but girl just it's just a dream just chill out you know it's not gonna hurt your relation your current relationship um let's see so it says that fly butter and uh nephilim began their feud and she saw him less and less which you know kind of hurt her feelings she she liked to see him when she could see him but you know i mean that's just the way the cookie crumbles when you're the ops okay even if you're sexy ops um then like i said in my synopsis she met again at her cousin's wedding um which i feel like everybody was an asshole in this situation i feel like she was an asshole uh viola because she could have just you know professionally just acknowledged him like hey yeah how are you it's nice to see you yeah this is my cousin's like oh you know my cousin you guys you went to school together so that she was being an asshole running off you know bumping into him caused the issue then the family was the biggest assholes of all because why the family do that shit it's like they they can't let up they every opportunity to embarrass you i'm gonna take it science is delivered i'm gonna cash just check on your embarrassment um and they're just screaming kiss her you know he's standing on the mistletoe where she's trying to run up out of the engagement and um just for him to be just in front of all the people but you know what i you know what i can't give him though he's not faking funny he was just like nah i'm not trying to do this but he did kind of fucking embarrass her it's like nah you know that's not necessary we won't be needing none of that so when she tries to scurry off and she hears the cousin and jesse talking viola hears him talking and the cousin's like yeah man i'm not gonna let you go i'm not gonna you just you could have kissed her you know just to savor some embarrassment he was like i don't want anything to do with her like what the what does that mean i'm her cousin like what does that mean you don't have to elaborate you just can't say something like that and that's the end of it but okay so and the cousin too like don't don't feel pressure somebody to just kiss somebody you you've been an asshole like he didn't want to do it and just left it at that just like i'm sorry about my family maybe you could i'm sorry about my family they're assholes oh let's see here um sorry about my little paper sound um let's see she tried to stay what oh she tried to say goodbye and she bumped into jesse yeah we talked about that oh it was a funny line in there like i was talking about the family is a family full of assholes and it says the family starts yelling for them to kiss and so she had a line in there uh the book that says families need an hr department family acting like a frat house just think about that if your family had an hr representative oh motherfuckers will be catching cases let's play you'll probably corral it bullshit but do you know how how much you would have to pay that family hr agent to keep the family in check because families are horrible uh what is it uh training grounds i guess to grow up in because they will put your ass through a family which he drew worse than motherfuckers in the street and i found some of the best people in the in the street that have treated me better than family um let's see oh she did say his expression looked disgusted when he said no thanks i don't know like well fuck you too mister and everyone at the party could see it on his face like oh yeah i'm like just you could he would have done less damage if he would have punched her in the stomach like sir what what is really going on internally because i've never done anything to you um let's see i think i'm going backwards in my notes let's see um just didn't want anything to do with her violet wonders if she could ever work with him so yeah that's the that's the gist of chapter two um just their history of like just clumsily bumping into each other and then that horrific embarrassment at the family wedding um so yeah we're getting a backstory we're getting a history on the two of them and why it is the way that it is so now we're on chapter three i'm calling this um synopsis the ride to the retreat so we're finally doing the retreat that nobody wants to do so it said it's weeks before christmas and the team building retreat is off to a rocky start a fallen tree has disrupted the travel plans leaving viola's boss mike oh i said i don't know what i said his name was evan well his name is mike scrambling for solutions he asked viola to hitch a ride with members of team nephilim the rival company reluctantly she agrees after hearing the passengers included otto he's the owner of nephilim ashley another employee and a guy named fernando a nephilim employee but mike conveniently leaves out a crucial detail when the car pulls up viola's stomach drops behind the wheel is none other than jesse Making their first encounter since the mistletoe fiasco a year ago at the wedding, the tension in the car is thick, but Ashley's relentless flirting with Jesse stirs an unexpected wave of jealousy in Viola. To make matters worse, the Nephilim team members seem to treat her like an outsider, chatting and joking amongst themselves while excluding her. Despite her annoyance, Viola can't help but notice Jesse's sharp wit and charm during the ride, making it harder to keep her walls up. When they finally arrive at the luxurious snow lounge, Viola is struck by its grandeur. However, her mood sours again when Mike asks, "How was the trip?" She calls him out for lying about the passenger list, letting him know she's not in the limelight. As she vents her frustration, she catches a glimpse of Jesse in the corner of her eye, quietly carrying her luggage into the lounge, an act that leaves her both confused and intrigued. "I'm not telling her that Jesse was in the car, but he doesn't know, so he wasn't really lying. I don't know. I think that I've gone over everything. Oh, she said Viola thinks she's cursed from, I don't know what this note is here, and I'm sorry, this is jacked up. This is the first one, so I'll do better on the second one. Oh, she feels like a curse was put on her because she put her cat in a lobster costume for Halloween, so she's like, "I'm paying my penance. Maybe this is a curse. Maybe I cursed myself by putting cats in people's clothes." Fucking Ashley, what are you doing, girl? This is a professional business trip, and if you're going to be flirting with people, maybe that should be not in front of the other employees, or no, maybe you don't give a damn. I'm excited to see what happens at the hotel. Also, in the, like I said, the grandeur of the snow lounge, some fantasies could take place. Walls will fall down when you're comfortable and you're cozy, so we'll see. I know, like I said, the type of stories that Ally writes, it's going to be some high tension. It's going to be some lust mixed in with some, what do you call that, banter. I think the sparks are going to fly. Next, I am going to do chapters four through six, and that'll be in the coming weeks. I guess I should also say at the top of these episodes, spoiler alert, because I'm going through it chapter by chapter, detail by detail. This one, I think, is a smaller book. Like I said, it's a four-hour listen if you listen to the audio book. So yeah, that is how I want to do the future spicy audio book clubs. I hope you enjoy this again. Bear with me. This is my first, so sorry. This is my first one. I'm a little excited, and I'm very hot sitting in this car, so we'll see. The spice, the only book of Ally's that I have read is Bride. It was very spicy. Okay, on the spice meter, it was, what am I using on my meter? I'm using slaps, like butt slaps. So on the butt slap meter, I gave Bride a four out of five butt slaps. Yeah, it's very spicy, and it was a slow burn, and it was worth every second of it. So yeah, catch up on, not episodes, catch up on chapters one through three of Two Can Play, and then you can DM me or leave a comment below here. Let me know what you thought of those three chapters, if you've read any of Ally's books, what you thought about Ally's books. Yeah, and so then we can continue this, and then give me your feedback on how you would like me to do the formatting of the show, just any suggestions, I'm open to that. All right, y'all, so thanks for hanging out with me on the Geeky Sexual Intellectual Podcast. If you loved today's conversation, don't forget to show your support, join our community on Patreon at patreon.com/geekysexualandintellectual, where you can help fund this podcast and our Everyday Cosplay Collection, and so much more of our creative madness. Want to upgrade your wardrobe? Check out our Everyday Cosplay Collection at everydaycosplaycollection.com, and follow us on Instagram at @everydaycosplaycollection for fresh designs inspired by your favorite anime and fandoms. Also, shout outs to our amazing Patreon supporters, Manor Stories, 123, and Al Williams. You're the real MVPs, and I couldn't do this without you. All right, y'all, stay geeky, sexual, and I'll catch y'all next time on the Geeky Sexual and Intellectual Podcast. Bye. Bye.