The Cruelest Kind of Hate (Riverside Reapers Book 3)

GAGE

“Dude, I’m so fucked,” I groan, face-planting onto our table and rattling the silverware.

I feel Fulton pat me comfortingly on the head. “Aw, Gage. Everything’s going to be okay,” he tries, but his pity is practically tangible at this point, and it’s almost as hard to swallow as the now-cold refried beans merging with the soggy tortilla chips on my plate.

“I had no idea the night was going to end like that. Like, yeah, I’m glad it ended like that, but now I’m headed straight for Caliville, and the brakes on the fucking car don’t work, and I’ve never really fallen for a girl before, and it’s all so scary, and⁠—”

“I’m gonna be honest with you. I heard, like, none of what you just said,” Fulton tells me.

I lift my head up with an exasperated sigh, embarrassment slingshotting through my entire body and making it that much more difficult to sulk in peace. “I think I’m really falling for this girl,” I rephrase, and I’m ninety-nine percent positive that all my admission has done is exacerbate the blush pooling in my cheeks.

This is a big change for someone like me. Someone who’s never fallen for a girl before. Someone who prides himself on being a ladies’ man, when in reality, I couldn’t be further from it. I can’t stop thinking about Cali. I can’t stop thinking about the incredible night we had together, and how it ended on an even more incredible high note with her giving me a glimpse of the soft, vulnerable side I know is under that cold exterior. Getting physical with someone too early never bodes well in the, um, emotional development side of things. If I was already feeling drawn to Cali emotionally, eating her out—which I don’t regret one bit, obviously—just made everything ten times more complicated.

I know I’m going to keep falling for Cali, and I also know she’s probably not going to fall for me. It hurts, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t just force myself to stop feeling things for her. And I can’t force her to feel things for me.

Fulton scoops up a hearty mountain of cheese, beans, sour cream, and chopped tomatoes on a flimsy tortilla chip, shoving the whole thing into his mouth while my own meal sits untouched, wasting twenty expensive dollars for gas station-quality nachos. I couldn’t eat if I wanted to. Nausea tears through my stomach, accented by those wonderful butterflies that have decided to take permanent residence in my gut for the foreseeable future.

Fulton’s brows pitch upwards. “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”

“It is! It’s a terrible thing, Ful. I don’t think she feels the same way about me.” I’m one unsteady breath away from hyperventilating.

“I’m sure that’s not true⁠—”

I lean over and yank Fulton by the collar of his shirt, shaking the table from the sudden hitch of movement, and I bring him so close that our foreheads are inches from touching. I want him to see the lunacy in my eyes. I want him to see the disastrous state of my appearance because Cali’s been haunting me ever since that life-changing night. My hair hasn’t seen a shower or comb in days, I’m riper than a jockstrap, and I’m wearing a jacket with so many mystery stains that it should be a goddamn health hazard.

“It is true. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. And I really, really fucking like her. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should keep investing time in this…situationship…if she’ll never truly be interested.”

Fulton’s shaking in fear, and the volume of our not-so-private conversation has broken through the quiet calm of the restaurant, garnering some particularly hateful evil eyes from the people around us.

“Dude, you’re scaring me,” Fulton whispers, eyes so wide I can see my crazy, disproportionate reflection in them.

“You should be scared,” I hiss.

He gulps and glances down at the death grip I have on his shirt, and I reluctantly release him, slumping back into the booth with another sigh that seems to echo off the brightly painted walls. I’m losing it, and the worst part is, Cali has no idea what she’s doing to me. I’m suffering all by my lonesome. I’m the only person to blame for being in this mess. I just had to make a deal with her for the next three months.

I’ve always kept women at an arm’s length to abstain from growing close to them, probably because of a harrowing loss I experienced in the past. I know firsthand how losing someone destroys a person. But I don’t want to choose that route this time. Cali’s different.

I always felt a surface-level attraction in my past relationships. They were great girls, but I never experienced any deeper emotion for them aside from a few skipped heartbeats here and there. With Cali, I can feel my heart everywhere. In my throat, in my stomach, in the soles of my feet. Anatomically speaking, I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to happen.

Fulton sweeps a hand through his hair. “Okay, okay. I can tell that this is really bothering you, so I might have a solution.”

The last bit of my composure nearly boils over like a shrieking kettle on a too-hot stove. “What? Oh my God. I’ll do whatever I have to.”

I just need to…relax. I need to take it down a few hundred notches and realize that I’m blowing things out of proportion. What if Cali does like me, but she just shows it in a different way?

No, Gage. That’s ridiculous. Cali doesn’t look at you like anyone other than a fuck buddy. I mean, that’s what we are, aren’t we? We’re not together. And she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be together. So the smart thing to do would be to nip this thing in the bud before I make our business relationship more complicated.

But I’ve never been very smart. At least, not in the ways it matters.

“Did you bring weed with you?” I ask in a conspiratorial whisper, my gaze darting to where a joint may or may not be hiding in his pocket right now.

“What? No!”

“Ohhh. The harder stuff?”

Fulton deadpans, “No, Gage. I brought⁠—”

I feel the weight of an arm sling over my shoulder, and then my body gets cramped into the furthermost side of the booth when my fucking teammates squeeze in next to me. Three of them, with their stupid, hockey-built walls of muscle. Physiques that clearly overcrowd the capacity of this booth and squash me into the wall like a sad, little bug.

“Fulton sent us an SOS text,” Kit explains, showing me his phone screen.

Fulton: Help. Gage is losing it in the middle of Taco Bout It.

Fulton: Update: I think he’s going to shank me with a plastic spork.

My lips pinch together to make a psh sound, and I flap my hand. “I wasn’t going to shank him. I was just having a strongly worded talk with him.”

Bristol scoots in next to Fulton, and if you’re wondering, no, he didn’t barge into Fulton’s personal space and flatten him against the wall. “It’s alright, Gage. We’re here to help.”

Kit reaches for a laminated menu and begins poring over the afternoon specials. “Actually, I’m starving. I think I’ll order a carne asada burrito. Ooh, how are the nachos here?”

A smile teases Fulton’s lips, one of those blatantly clueless and slap-happy smiles that chubs out his cheeks. “Oh, they’re great. You should get the beef-loaded nachos. Those are the best. Though I’d ask them to add their spicy guacamole for a good kick.”

“Okay, but how spicy? Like on a scale of one to ten? I need a seven at best. Anything lower and I can barely taste it.”

“Hmm. Maybe like a six? I know their hot sauce is really spicy. So, like, with the combination of the two, it’ll be a fifteen or something.”

I slowly reach for my spork with murder on my mind, but Bristol just shakes his head and moves it out of my reach like a parent confiscating something pointy from a child.

“Look, I appreciate all of you coming down here, but I don’t need an intervention,” I growl, shoving Kit and his gigantic body over so I can breathe without my lungs being crushed.

Hayes frowns sympathetically. “No offense, man, but you’ve been a bit of a mess these past few days. Clearly something’s up. I went into your room to get a load of your laundry earlier, and it smelled like an opossum died in there.”

Kit nods in agreement. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you do smell⁠—”

Rage rumbles through me so profoundly that it could’ve been a 7.5 earthquake on the Richter scale. “If you finish that sentence, so help me, God. I. Will. End. You.” And I mean it. Bristol may have confiscated my weapon of choice, but my fists are just as effective.

“Gage, the first step to overcoming a problem is admitting you have one,” Casen says, completely ignoring my empty threat as he swipes a chip from my plate.

“This ‘intervention’ will never work,” I counter, doing air quotes in lieu of the middle finger I want to give them.

“Just try it. Maybe you’ll feel better talking about your problems rather than threatening us with the pointiest thing in the vicinity,” Bristol offers, throwing me one of his I’m-your-captain-and-I-know-what’s-best looks. He just has one of those inviting faces, you know? The face of a man you can tell your deepest, darkest secret to and he won’t alert the authorities.

“Fine. I have a problem. A Cali-sized problem. A five-foot-seven problem that I’m going to be stuck with for three months.”

One of the waitresses comes by to take the table’s orders—which end up covering a page and a half of her notepad—and Kit busies himself with working on the appetizer that just so happens to be my abandoned pile of nachos.

“What makes her so different than the rest of the girls you’ve been with?” Fulton asks.

Just thinking about Cali has my blood pressure rising. I’m surprised my brain’s even functioning enough to form a response to that. Usually it’s a hit or miss situation. She gets in my head and ties all my wires together, right after she gets done sucker-punching me in the gut with feelings. “I don’t really know. Everything? She’s just…she isn’t wooed by my status. She doesn’t want to get with me for the fame or the money. She doesn’t suck up to me either. She challenges me, and I guess a very twisted, masochistic part of me likes that,” I confess darkly like a time-weathered alcoholic confessing his problems at an AA meeting.

“Damn, dude. You must have it bad,” Kit mumbles through a disgusting mouthful of chips and cheese.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Hayes ponders me with a crinkled brow, then he holds his hand out. “Can I see a picture of her?”

“What?” I choke out.

“I’m just curious.”

I fish my phone out of my pocket and go to the Sexy Stilettos website—which I was NOT stalking—and scroll down to Cali’s professional headshot. I hand Hayes my phone, and he looks it over with concentrated focus. Everyone else at the table leans over to assess the rationality behind my minor breakdown, all murmuring in agreement with themselves.

“Mm-hm,” Hayes concludes. “Just what I thought.”

“What?” I ask, a low-level panic beginning to take the shape of a lead weight in my stomach.

Hayes pretends to shake his head like he’s harboring bad news, and then a chuckle sneaks out of him. “She’s way out of your league.”

I groan and fold my arms over my eyes to block out the teasing looks on my teammates’ faces, slouching further into the booth to hide from the humiliation that never seems to give me a fucking break.

“Don’t you think I know that? She’s beautiful. That just makes it ten times worse.” My words are muffled against my arms, but I’m not ready to face their annoying grins or pitiful stares. So far, Fulton’s “solution” hasn’t fixed anything. The only thing that’s come out of this intervention has been a half-baked plan of revenge for those who’ve wronged me (i.e. my teammates) and the bruised state of my dignity.

If you’re wondering, I’m going to glitter bomb their rooms. Glitter on the ceiling fan. Glitter in their beds. Glitter everywhere.

“They’re being idiots,” Bristol says to me, branching out from the main conversation that all the other guys seem to be having.

“What’s really going on, Gage?”

I slowly begin to move my arms off my face, feeling heat lick the back of my neck. I’ve walked this familiar path of shame before, and it’s a dead end. Actually, it’s a bluff that leads to a very jagged rock at the bottom. “I really like Cali, but she doesn’t reciprocate my feelings…at least, not to the same degree. And I don’t know whether I should see things through with her in hopes that maybe one day she’ll feel the same way, or cut things off completely before she stomps on my heart with her perfect stilettos.”

Would she actually stomp on my heart? Probably not, but what do I know?

“You’re worried if the relationship is worth pursuing,” Bristol summarizes.

“It’s not even a relationship,” I admit, swiping my finger through the condensation on my water glass.

I feel like this is an endless cycle. Me chasing after Cali—her giving me the “just friends” speech. Just because she was vulnerable with me for a single moment doesn’t mean she’s ready to be vulnerable with me in other areas. And of course I’d be willing to wait for her…but there’s a part of me that feels like a giant idiot who can’t take a simple hint. I don’t want to get my heart broken, and I know she has the strength to do it if she chooses. Hell, she has enough strength in her pinky finger alone.

She’s got me in the palm of her hand, and she doesn’t even know it.

Bristol’s lips nudge into a warm-hearted smile. “I don’t know if this is what you want to hear, but if your girl is worth the heartbreak and the waiting and the sleepless nights of overthinking, then she’ll also be worth the possible love. You don’t know how she feels. Maybe she just needs time, or maybe she’s feeling the exact same way you are.”

My head perks up. “You really think so?”

“You talk about her all the time. It’s clear you really like her. I know you’re scared of wasting your effort and getting your heart broken, but you shouldn’t keep those fears from pursuing a connection that may truly be there. Heartbreak and love go hand in hand with one another. It just depends on whether that heartbreak is permanent.”

Bristol’s right—like he always is. I can’t predict the future. I can’t feel other people’s emotions. I’m only in control of myself. The heartbreak and the waiting and the sleepless nights of overthinking are worth it for Cali. Everything is worth it for Cali.

Even if she never felt the same way about me, that wouldn’t stop me from being in her life. As much as it would pain me to know she doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, it would pain me even more to stop being around her. She makes me sane. She makes me happy.

“Is she worth it?” Bristol asks, grabbing a chip from the nearly demolished plate on the table.

She is, my heart says. I know she is.