The Cruelest Kind of Hate (Riverside Reapers Book 3)

CALISTA

Remember when Gage said he took care of my Halloween costume? He did NOT take care of it.

I don’t know what I was expecting—since Gage has the creativity of a hand turkey—but I was at least expecting something wearable. A plain black T-shirt and cat ears to match. One of those blow-up animal costumes. I would’ve even settled for a bald cap and a mustache.

But this…this is so much worse than being a hairless dude in his mid-fifties.

My bikini top and bottoms are smothered in fake ivy leaves, but despite their abundance, they don’t begin to cover up the amount of skin I’m showing. Thin vines coil up my arms, sparsely speckled with more synthetic material, and a wreath of foliage rests in my heat-curled hair, matching the green, glittery eye shadow dappling my eyelids.

“Gage, I can’t wear this,” I say, looking down at the small, revealing bra and the even smaller thong pulled low on my hips.

Gage’s costume matches mine, except his underwear covers everything, including the massive baguette he’s packing down there. It’s huge. Like, yeah, his muscle mass kind of hints at him being well-endowed, but he’s not even erect, and there’s this mouthwatering bulge just begging me to take it to the back of my throat.

I can’t tell if him opting to wear next to nothing is a good or bad thing. On the plus side, I can see every oiled-up and stone-carved ab of his, the chiseled contour of his pecs, the protruding biceps barely contained within his own bracelet of vines, the naturally unattainable musculature of his thighs—which has to be a hockey thing—and the broad sculpt of his shoulders that could probably block an entire doorway.

On the downside, my hormones are whipping into action faster than a Bugatti’s turnaround speed. Bad, salacious thoughts are marinating in my sex-deprived brain, urging me to rip his poor man’s loincloth off and have him fuck the living daylights out of me. With each not-so-subtle glance at his physique, desire lubricates the gusset of my bikini bottom.

“Sure you can,” he chirps happily, rubbing his hands down my arms.

I look down at my pillowing boobs, which do not fit into the too-small bra Gage got for me. “I’m going to flash someone tonight.”

“That was the last size they had in stock,” he replies, though he doesn’t look the least bit regretful about it.

“And were you planning for this to be a couple’s costume?” I probe, placing my hands on my hips. “We said just friends. Not friends who occasionally wear coordinating outfits.”

“I—this—it’s—this isn’t a couple’s costume,” he stammers, running his knuckles along his clean-shaven jaw. “It’s a group costume. My best friend, Fulton, is the apple! Yep. He’s the apple.”

That’s right. We’re Adam and Eve. The rated R version.

“He’s the apple?” I repeat, hoping he can hear just how ridiculous he sounds. There’s no way in hell Fulton agreed to a threesome costume with his best friend and his situationship.

“It was his idea. He’s very…religious. Loves God and all that. Yeah. But he also loves, um, feminism. And the freedom to wear provocative clothing.”

“Uh-huh.”

I don’t need to be some human lie detector when it comes to Gage. I’ve pretty much memorized every tell he has.

I rub two fingers into my temples, trying to vaporize the headache that’s drilling into the backs of my eyes like an out-of-control nail gun. “I can’t believe you got us a couple’s costume,” I groan.

“If it makes you uncomfortable, you can always just put my jersey on,” he offers.

I gag. Like I actually feel bile scald my esophagus. “You know what? The costume is fine.”

Gage’s eyes are as big as globes when he plants them back on me, but their beguiling twinkle is masked by a sadness that was never there before—or one that was well-hidden under sarcasm and sharpshooter wit.

“I’m just asking for one night, Cali. One night where I can pretend that maybe there’s more to us than just being friends with benefits.”

This is tearing me up inside. It probably doesn’t look like it, but it is. My heart wants the same thing, I know it does. It doesn’t fucking shut up when Gage is around. It pounds a million times per minute. My stomach gets all queasy, my knees turn to gelatin, and it feels like the heat in my body is frying me from the inside out.

It’s just one night, right? Nothing bad can happen in one night. And how bad could it really be if I want to play pretend too?

If I had to play pretend with anyone, it would be Gage.

I only realize my hands are shaking when Gage silences my nerves with his touch, rubbing his thumb over the back of my knuckles. “It’s okay if you don’t⁠—”

“One night,” I agree, nodding.

His previously sapped energy has backtracked and blasted into him, livening those sulking features and returning the glimmer of hope I was afraid I’d never see again to his emerald eyes. He immediately hugs me, nuzzling his nose into the crook of my collarbone, arms sandwiching me in a squeeze that tells me he isn’t planning on letting go any time soon.

Please don’t let this be a mistake.

The night before Halloween, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…except about three hundred bodies.

I spent the entire day at Gage’s place, but I wasn’t expecting the party to already be in full swing by the time we got downstairs. The mansion is fully decked out in tacky Halloween decorations, red cups infiltrate everywhere I turn, and half-naked bodies rave to the energized tempo of house music. Multiple foldable tables have been constructed for drinking games, and a few familiar faces mill about in hockey-related costumes, greeting newcomers with a raucous howl and more booze to shove down their gullets.

I lose Gage when he gets stopped by three different people, and I have to maneuver past a tipsy throng of girls all belting out the wrong lyrics to a Shakira song. It’s like crossing a goddamn battlefield to make it to the keg in the kitchen, and with this amount of people, I’m going to need to catch up on a few drinks before my social battery’s at a cool yellow. Grasping my drink, I take a hefty swig and wince when the lukewarm beer tumbles into my gut. It’s grainy and tastes like piss, but I’m not going to search for anything harder.

I nearly get trampled exiting the kitchen. This place is dangerous. And definitely breaking fire code laws. The lack of oxygen in this place seems to finally be getting to me because I walk straight into someone and clench the ever-living life out of my cup to keep it from spilling.

A girl dolled up in a green bodycon dress turns toward me, and I heave out a string of apologies after steeling myself.

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I⁠—”

But my mind buffers when my gaze absentmindedly slides to her slightly engorged belly—which is accentuated by the tightest dress I’ve ever seen—and the hand she has placed over it.

“Are you okay?” I blurt out, glancing at the protective way she cradles her midsection, like maybe I inadvertently knocked into her stomach somehow.

“Oh, I’m fine. Are you okay?” she replies, a smile adorning her lips instead of the judgmental frown I was expecting.

“Yeah. Sorry. I should’ve been watching where I was going.”

I didn’t think my gawking was that obvious, but she follows my line of sight to the hand still resting over her belly, and she chuffs out a laugh once she connects the dots. “Don’t worry. You didn’t elbow me in the gut. I know my baby’s just the size of a raspberry, but I guess I’m already a little overprotective.”

Baby? She’s pregnant? What’s a pregnant woman doing at a party? Her baby bump is almost nonexistent. If I wouldn’t have known any better, I would’ve thought it was just a bit of alcohol bloat. And she looks young, like around my age. Her costume also starts to make more sense, as her stomach’s covered in this brown fabric to signify what I think is supposed to be an avocado pit.

“You’re pregnant?” I comment in shock.

She rubs the area on her lower belly, crinkling the skin-tight fabric of her dress. “Two months now.”

I blink a few times. “That’s—wow. Congratulations.”

She waves her hand nonchalantly. “It was an accident.”

Great. Now I’m speechless too. My brain’s the consistency of pulp, and my throat’s dry despite the beer I’ve been nursing. It’s also like a hundred degrees in this Easy Bake Oven, the stench of body odor and marijuana undercoating the precious air.

After what feels like a full minute of us just staring at each other, I force myself to open my cotton mouth. “I’m sorry if this is forward, but, uh, should you be at a party right now?” I ask, perusing the sea of bobbing heads for the person I’m hoping accompanied her.

“I’d honestly love to be in bed right now, but I’m here visiting my boyfriend,” she tells me, sounding far more enthusiastic than I would be if I were two months pregnant and yanked to the equivalent of a frat party.

“Your boyfriend?”

As if on cue, the tallest man I’ve ever seen saunters over to us, bending down to peck a chaste kiss to her belly. His tan, light-brown skin complements the inked lacework of tattoos spiraling up his arm, and his beefy chest stretches the T-shirt he’s wearing, which includes a cartoon image of a piece of toast right in the middle.

“I brought you some ginger ale for the nausea,” he says, handing her a small metal can, his lips giving way to a smile that so obviously proclaims the love he has for her. The crinkles under his eyes are a dead giveaway, same with the fact that he stares at her longingly like she’s the most beautiful girl in the entire world.

I feel like I’ve seen that stare before.

“Ugh, thank you,” she whispers, taking it from his hands and sipping it in graduated increments.

Suddenly feeling like a third wheel, every awkward molecule in my body seems to seize the lapse in conversation and respond with a verbal word vomit. “You know, my aunt was pregnant once. Said it almost tore her vagina when she pushed out her eight-pound baby. Her husband was significantly shorter than, uh, than your boyfriend, though, so maybe you’ll have like a nine-pound baby? Is that physically possible? I mean, I’m sure your vagina won’t rip in half or anything. Ha…that would be, that would be bad. But they can stitch you up! You just don’t really have control over your bowels anymore.”

Oh my God! Stop talking, Cali! You’re embarrassing yourself.

I snap my lips shut several moments too late as they both stare at me, as still as obelisks.

With a rough-sounding throat clear, I drown myself in a generous pull of beer, downing the rest of it to avoid having to look them in the eyes. I can’t believe I just commented on the future state of this woman’s genitalia.

Where’s Gage? Why did he leave me alone? I’m blaming this on him. I blame everything on him.

When I resurface, praying that the buzz mellows me as soon as possible, the pregnant girl explodes into goose-like honks of laughter, her shoulders shaking endlessly. “Knowing my luck, the baby probably will be a mammoth,” she chuckles.

And then she turns to the panicked man beside her and deadpans, “And it’s all your fault.”

He grimaces. “I’m sorry for impregnating you with my monster spawn.”

“Thank you.” She beams, giving him back her drink.

I definitely don’t want to get pregnant any time soon, but it makes me fantasize about what my life might be like in ten or twenty years—who I’ll settle down with, where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing, how Teague will be off in college and on his own, how my mother might finally be at peace. I’ve never allowed myself to look into the future. I’ve always lived in the present, with the occasional steps back into the past. I know these people are just strangers, but seeing the way they act around each other…it reminds me that I’ll still have a purpose even when the people currently in my life don’t need me anymore.

I’ll have a purpose to live for myself rather than for others.

And when I think about living for myself and what my heart wants, I think about⁠—

Gage suddenly bowls into my side, the amber liquid in his cup sloshing over the rim just a little from the impact, an impish grin lifting the corners of his beer-slicked lips. “Cali, you found Faye and Kit!”

His eyes are blacked out and glassy, there’s a canopy of blush on his lean cheekbones, and he lolls his head onto my shoulder.

“Hi,” I greet quietly, waving.

“Wait a second. Cali. As in Gage’s Cali?” Kit asks, and the implication of Gage and I being together has my heart conducting a discordant beat.

“She’s…we’re not…together,” Gage hiccups.

I gently pry the cup from his fingers, using our close proximity to whisper while maintaining a polite smile, “How much have you had to drink?”

I have no idea how much time has passed, but I guess it was more than I thought.

He twines his finger around a strand of my hair. “Not that much. A drink or two. A lot of shots, though,” he answers groggily, the rumbling vibrations of his voice nurturing the ache between my legs.

“But I’m kind of buzzed. I think.”

Kit chortles, which means that our conversation wasn’t anywhere near quiet. “You have to watch out for him. He’s a lightweight.”

Oh, great.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.” I jab my elbow hard into Gage’s side, causing him to bounce straight back up.

Gage sticks his finger in the air and wiggles it. “For your information, Kit, I’m not a lightweight. I just get drunk very easily.”

“That’s the definition of a lightweight,” Kit says.

“You’re just jealous because I can outdrink you,” Gage slurs.

“Outdrink me, my ass. The last time we had a chugging contest I beat you by a full minute and you yacked in the bushes. Or do we need to have a redo to jog your memory?”

“Faye, tell your boyfriend he’s a dick.”

“Cali, tell your non-boyfriend he’s a bitch.”

“O-kay.” Faye claps her hands together, defusing the testosterone bomb about to consume everyone in a ten-foot radius. “I think the rest of the team is getting a drinking game ready in the living room. We’ll meet you guys over there, yeah?”

I nod as I watch her shove Kit in the general direction of the living room, and Kit gives Gage the universal I’m watching you sign, forming a V with his fingers and pointing at his own eyes before whipping them around.

Gage, however, is too focused on caging me with his gaze like some lovesick fool. “You’re really beautiful, Cali. Not just right now. Like, all the time. Every day I’m in awe of you. You deserve someone who’ll always tell you how beautiful you are, and I feel like I don’t tell you enough. I’m thinking it, though,” he murmurs, tapping his head. “Up here.”

Oh, Gage.

I set Gage’s cup down on the nearest flat surface I can find. The truth is, even though Gage does have an affinity for getting on my nerves, he’s always made me feel wanted, seen. He tells me I’m beautiful in every breath he can, so if that’s any indication of what he’s thinking, it must be a recurring thought.

“You don’t need to say anything, Gage⁠—”

He shushes me by jamming his finger into my lips. “I do. You’re literally”—hiccup—“the most gorgeous girl”—hiccup—“in this entire universe.”

“And you smell sooo good,” he adds drunkenly. “Like a Cinnabon store.”

My mouth opens to stop him, but he just keeps going, and the tingling sensation his touch imprints on my lips leaves me comatose.

“I love your hair. It’s the prettiest color I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know this shade of orange even existed before you. It’s like a sorbet orange crossed with a sunset orange. It’s my favorite color. It wasn’t always my favorite color, but after you came along, it became my favorite color,” he blathers, tangling his fingers in my hair like a newborn. “Fuck. Sometimes it hurts to look at you and remember that you aren’t mine.”

He’s drunk. He doesn’t mean this stuff…right?

My stomach sinks. “Gage…”

“I have to tell you something, Spitfire. And it’s important.”

Uh, uh, uh. What do I do? WHAT DO I DO? That sounds super serious, and I know we said one night of pretend, but once you say something serious, it never really goes away. And the worst part is he probably won’t remember any of this after tonight, so I’ll be left with the agonizing truth for as long as I live, and it’ll weigh me down until I implode from the pressure.

“Gage, please don’t say⁠—”

“Come closer,” he whispers, beckoning me like he’s on his goddamn death bed.

Run away, Cali. That’s a perfectly appropriate response. Or maybe don’t leave him alone because he’s inebriated and bound to do something reckless.

I shamble an inch closer.

“Closer.”

Another inch.

“Closerrr.”

With a suspended breath, I finally get as close to him as I can, trepidation setting up camp in my chest and pistoling through every part of my body with dead set determination. I think I stop breathing for a full minute. I think my sweat is deteriorating the copious amounts of hot glue on my costume.

Here it goes: the sentence that’ll change everything. The farewell to our friendship. The death to our dynamic. The bon voyage to our banter.

And when Gage leans in slightly, he belches loudly and blows it in my face.

“Gage! Oh my God!” I instantly cover my nose before all my nose hairs get singed off, and I flap my hand to air out his sulfuric breath cloud. “That’s so fucking disgusting. It smells like something died in there.”

He laughs like a maniac. “Hey! You have to be nice to me tonight. Thems the rules.”

“Um, no. That was never a part of the agreement.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“The day I stop being mean to you is the day I’ve kicked the bucket,” I growl, pinching his earlobe between my fingers and dragging him toward the living room.

I need a drink. Or like twenty.