The Cruelest Kind of Hate (Riverside Reapers Book 3)

GAGE

When I get home from the weirdest…dinner…I’ve ever had, all the guys are waiting for me in the living room, the vague, muffled noise of a video game rumbling through the house. I live in a two-story mansion with five of my hockey teammates, most of whom have a significant other that occupies a good portion of their time. Which brings me not only to the strangeness of them all sitting together, but to them all staring at me as I half-drag myself through the door.

I feel like I just walked in on some weird secret meeting they were having. “Uh, hey, guys,” I greet warily.

“Hey, Gage. How was dance class?” Kit asks, and it would be convincing if not for the poorly stifled snicker tacked on at the end.

Dance class. Right.

A bead of sweat cascades down my temple as I look to Fulton for help, but judging by the sanguine blush warming his entire face, I’m looking at the fucking snitch who just cost me my now-tattered masculinity.

Bristol, our captain, is splitting his focus between the screen and my utter humiliation, while Hayes is stuffing his face with popcorn and Casen is very conspicuously whispering something into his ear.

I dig my thumb into the crease between my brows, massaging the oncoming headache threatening to skewer my brain. “You told them?”

Fulton’s gaze hopscotches around the room, and a nervous tick pesters his jawline. “They forced it out of me!” he squawks.

“He told us willingly,” Hayes corrects.

“I did tell them willingly,” Fulton sighs.

Kit raises his hand lazily, a pleased smirk curling up one side of his lip. “I’m the one who did the research, which I’m surprised you didn’t do before you went.”

My teeth barely act as a barricade for the growl in my throat. “I was busy.”

“Weren’t you late?” Casen chimes in.

Have I mentioned how much I hate my teammates sometimes? Because I do. Hate them. Sometimes.

I can’t believe I made that deal with Cali. I mean, I can believe it. I just can’t believe I agreed to it being purely…transactional. I was seconds away from sprouting a half-chub just by sitting across from her in that scrap of fabric she called a shirt. Fuck. She’s even more beautiful up close. Up close, I noticed that her hair isn’t just red, but that it’s highlighted with marmalade streaks, that she has eighteen freckles on the bridge of her nose and one hiding on the left side of her cheek, that she smells faintly of cinnamon, and that her eyes are such a deep blue that the ocean must’ve used her as inspiration.

But she barely looked at me. She was curt and weird and paler than usual. Did I just force a helpless girl into some negotiation with me? Does she feel indebted to me now that I promised to make her brother a champion? (I can, and I will, but maybe I was throwing promises around too carelessly.) I do need her help, but I also don’t want to make her uncomfortable. I mean, it’s clear she isn’t interested. I’m surprised we got through the conversation without her throwing her milkshake in my face.

How am I supposed to abide by our agreement when she’s touching me in all the right places? When she’s gripping my leg and outturning it for a better stretch? When her breasts are hanging mere inches from my face? When I’m so enraptured by her scent that I accidentally get turned on in the middle of a session? I’m strong, but no man is that strong.

And aside from her witty remarks and fast quips—which I’m already dying to hear again, even though they’re usually aimed at me—her body is fucking perfect. When she was threatening to run over my foot with her car, the only thing I could think about was turning her around and bending her over the side, raveling my fist through her hair, smacking her half-exposed ass in those cheeky bottoms, then taking my cock out and teasing her dripping slit.

I’ve never experienced hunger like that before—so primal, so painful. I think being that close to her actually made my brain malfunction and overheat. I couldn’t think; I could barely speak. She occupied every cell, nerve ending, muscle, and stream of consciousness in my weak little body. The only reason I didn’t eat with her was because all those…feelings…were using my stomach as a bouncy house.

That was a meal between two strangers. I’m losing my shit over a meal between two strangers in public. I can’t imagine myself keeping my cool when we’re stuck together, in a closed room, for a full hour, using our bodies as instruments or whatever the hell you do when you dance.

This is it. This is how I die. Not some freak accident where I’m driving behind a logging truck and one of the logs goes straight through my head. Not from old age or a murderer or some flesh-eating bacteria that I picked up from an impromptu vacation to Monaco. No, I die from Cali Whatsherlastname.

HERE LIES GAGE ARLINGTON: BELOVED TEAMMATE, TALENTED HOCKEY PLAYER, SELFLESS SON

SIMPED TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN AND WENT UP IN FLAMES LIKE ICARUS

A snapping sound halts my spiral of self-doom, and the guys are still looking at me when I come to, except their brow raises of judgment are replaced with brow raises of confusion.

“Hello? Where did you just go, dude? You disassociated for like a full minute,” Hayes says.

I didn’t realize it had been that obvious. “I…uh…”

Kit’s raven-black eyes narrow, and the thin line of his mouth slowly transforms into a grin. “Wait a second, I know that look. Dazed, slightly sweaty, unable to speak. He was thinking about a girl,” he announces to the whole room.

I’m going to kill him. And then kill myself.

“How do you know?” Fulton questions, his own forehead pursed in deep thought.

“The same look I had when I saw Faye’s boobs for the first time,” Kit explains.

Hayes immediately pauses his popcorn chewing, looks up from the bowl, then creepily turns his head eighty degrees to the side to stare at Kit. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Kit coughs into his fist. “I meant when I saw her b-beautiful face for the first time.”

“Uh-huh.”

Faye is Hayes’ younger sister and is currently pregnant with Kit’s child. Which was not planned. Happened when Kit visited her during UPenn’s welcome back rager. When Hayes heard the news, he almost fainted. Hayes is a protective guy—to put it lightly. So they pretty much had to sneak around for a full summer behind his back, but I knew about them. Yeah, I have stellar detective skills.

And apparently Kit’s getting back at me for all the shit I put him through, because now I’m the one whose ass is burning in the hot seat.

Fulton perks up, hope twinkling in his eyes. “Did you meet someone in class? Is she cute? Is she nice?”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I lie, praying that downplaying my crush for this girl will prevent all my ooey-gooey feelings from pouring out.

“That usually means it’s a big deal,” Bristol intervenes, the periodic click of his controller’s buttons underlying the amalgam of voices. There’s an animated zombie shuffling over to his character with oozing pustules and flaps of bloodied skin, and then Bristol does some karate high kick to decapitate it.

“It’s not,” I retort, limping over to lean against the wall since I’m guessing this interrogation will exceed the cutoff of my leg standing capabilities.

Cali’s more than just “cute.” Her beauty can’t be conceptualized; it can’t be reduced to a single word, and definitely not when it’s a word that impassionate. So breathtakingly beautiful and gorgeously stunning that it causes angels to weep? I’ll accept.

And nice? Yeah, no, Cali’s the meanest person I’ve ever met. She’d probably get along great with my asshole friends, though.

“Come on, Gage. Tell us about her,” Casen goads, swiping a kernel from Hayes’ popcorn bowl.

I fold my arms over my chest, trying to approach this situation with the utmost caution, scrambling to maintain a level of calm that won’t have my friends asking more questions or sticking their noses in places they shouldn’t. I’m usually an oversharer—which I’ve been told to stop doing when I’m pissing in public restrooms—but this time, maybe I just hold back a little. I’m getting way ahead of myself. I only learned Cali’s name tonight, and already, she’s infected every corner of my mind.

I don’t know why, but my heart tremors and my mouth dries. “Uh, it was actually the girl from the rink,” I admit, causing every head in the vicinity to turn toward me.

Bristol drops his controller, and Hayes sets his popcorn down.

“Wait, the girl you got into a fight with at practice?” Kit asks, mouth half-agape in shock.

My tongue prods the inside of my cheek. “That’s the one.”

“Didn’t she t-bone your car?” Hayes follows up.

I curb the laugh wanting to barrel up my throat, aware of the incessantly fast and entirely unrhythmic cavort of my heart. “Something like that.”

Fulton’s eyes have doubled in size. “Oh my God. So she’s in your dance class with you?”

“Yep.”

“Is there any way you can, like, go at a different time and not run into her?”

Aside from the blush I can feel tingeing my cheeks, my anxiety has made a return visit, drenching me in sweat and stirring bubbles of nausea in my belly. “Not…really,” I say vaguely, swallowing down the profuse saliva in my mouth.

“Why not?” Casen inquires, speaking for the rest of the group.

“She’s the instructor,” I mumble under my breath.

“What?”

An exaggerated sigh. “She’s the instructor.”

“Oh my God…” Fulton covers his mouth with his hands.

I don’t need to go around the room to take note of everyone’s expression, because I can guarantee that shock takes the lead. Only someone as unlucky as me would seriously find himself in this situation and then voluntarily make it harder for himself by asking her to rehabilitate him.

Kit’s quiet for a second, and then he keels over in obnoxious laughter. “That’s…holy…I…that’s incredible,” he wheezes.

Fucker. Where’s my crutch? I’m going to shove it up his ass and make him rotate.

“Yeah, yeah. We get it. Gage fucked up. Again.”

“It’s not like you have a thing for this chick, do you?” Kit manages between wiping the tears from his eyes and the breath-stealing guffaws rocking his chest.

“What? No! Of course not,” I answer a little too quickly.

Hayes offers me a sympathetic grimace. “You can’t just find another dance studio?”

I dial my focus on the frayed hem of my jacket sleeve, picking at the pigeon-gray strands with my bitten fingernails. “Not really. And, uh, we kind of made an arrangement with each other.”

Why am I still talking? Gage, stop talking! This is embarrassing!

Bristol squints. “That sounds…”

“A SEX arrangement?” Fulton screeches, so pale that he looks like he’ll be taken out by a light gust of wind.

As much as I present myself as a playboy, I’m not. I’m not fucking a girl every single night. I’m not flirting with the shortest skirts or highest heels. I’m not keeping tally marks on my wall of how many pussies I’ve “conquered.” And because it’s been a hot second since I’ve been with anyone, me and Fulton don’t talk about our…extracurricular activities. Not to mention that Fulton has the sexual prowess of a scarecrow: stiff, unsettling, and should be posted up in a field far away from women. I’m pretty sure Hayes thought he was gay for the longest time because he never talks to girls.

The day my boy finally gets his cherry popped, I’m buying a cake from the store and writing YOU GOT FUCKED in red frosting on it.

“God, no. No. She’s helping me with my hip, and I’m giving her brother hockey lessons,” I divulge, finally mustering the courage to tip my head up and take in the unblinking faces surrounding me.

Casen scrubs a weary hand down his stubbled jaw. “I feel like I’m going to regret asking this, but helping your hip…how?”

I open my mouth to shut down any possible alternative explanations, but Kit beats me to it when he jumps up from the couch and humps the air, all while employing his best pornographic moans. “Oh, yes, Gage! Faster! Harder!”

Yep, that guy’s gonna be a father in seven months.

Unfortunately, that scenario will never happen for as long as I live. There’s a better chance of me tearing my other hip flexor than Cali ever wanting to have sex with me.

“Stretches,” I grouse, not wanting to elaborate. I hate being indisposed. I would’ve resorted to violence way sooner if it wasn’t for this brace hindering me.

Three months of stretches with the most beautiful girl that has ever graced this planet, touching me at every little convenience. I may be a competitive hockey player, but this is one game that I’m going to lose.