The Best Kind of Forever (Riverside Reapers Book 1)

AERIS

“This game seems a lot more violent than the last one I watched.”

Lila currently has a large popcorn, a soft pretzel, and a plate of nachos. She takes a noisy slurp from her slushie. “The Atlanta Avocets are really good,” she says, breaking off a chunk of salted dough.

“You don’t think anyone’s going to get hurt this game, do you?”

“God, I hope so,” Lila mumbles through a mouthful of food, standing up to shout something at the referee.

I shrink lower into my seat to avoid any unwanted attention.

Now seems like a good time to bring up the fact that my father reached out to me about Hayes. Yes, the first part of my father’s statement turned out to be true—with Hayes confirming he slept with Sienna—but I have no idea if anything else my dad said holds any merit. I know I was making an executive decision to disregard his words, okay? But this tiny bud of self-doubt has been niggling at the back of my mind ever since.

Maybe Lila will have some advice as to whether I should tell Hayes. It’s killing me keeping this secret from him, but we’re in such a good place right now that I don’t want to mess things up.

Guilt maims my heart. “Li, I need to tell you something.”

Lila’s full-on cussing out the ref, but she turns to me like the nastiest curses didn’t just fly out of her mouth.

“What’s up?”

The throbbing in my head increases tenfold, and it tightens around my temples like an elastic band. I thought it was from dehydration, but now I know it’s definitely from the anxiety pinballing through me.

“My father called to tell me something…about Hayes.”

Lila’s mouth bends into a frown. “Your father? You mean, the embodiment of all things evil? The man who probably sacrifices newborn children to keep himself young?”

“The one and only,” I mutter, drumming my nails against the edge of my seat.

“What did he say to you? Do I have to fly to Oregon and make his murder look like an accident?”

“Not…yet.”

Uncertainty smacks me in the face with the force of a sledgehammer. “He told me that Hayes has been using me to save his image.”

When Lila looks at me, her stare holds the intensity of a thousand suns. “You’re joking, right? That’s a load of horseshit!” Her scream is loud enough to garner the attention of the people around us, and I awkwardly shoo them back to their avid watching.

“Do you think I should tell Hayes?” I ask.

I know I should. If it’s the right thing to do, then why does it feel so hard? Hayes is going to be so hurt to know I kept this from him. I’m a hypocrite. I asked him to be honest when I can’t even be honest myself.

“You don’t believe it, do you?”

My initial frustration has ebbed, and now I’m caught in a shower of meteor-sized fears all hailing down around me. “I don’t know. I mean, I shouldn’t. Hayes has proven to me how much he cares about me. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But my father was half-right. Why would he make this up?”

It makes me sick to think that I’m even entertaining this. It all takes me back to how badly Wilder treated me. I can’t believe I have such shit luck with relationships. You never truly know someone’s intentions. Wilder didn’t put up a front; he wasn’t trying to hide how manipulative he was, and I still somehow got hurt.

“This is up to you, Aeris. If he was the one who heard a rumor about you, would you want him to tell you?”

Fuck. I would. And the sinking pit in my stomach tells me I just got the answer I wasn’t looking for.