Page 19 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
I push his arm away. “Yeah, no. I’m not putting on your smelly ass jersey.”
He throws his head back—dramatically, mind you—and expels a long groan that has his breath misting into the frost-blanketed atmosphere. “This is me asking nicely,” he threatens, something dark passing through his eyes.
Asking nicely? What is he, a mobster? We’re in public. And Gage doesn’t have the balls to do anything.
“O-kay. Sure, buddy.”
Before I get the chance to move, Gage throws his jersey over my head like some kind of amateur kidnapping attempt, yanking it past my chin until it billows into place on my body. It dwarfs my arms and ends halfway at my thigh, covering every needed aspect, and surprisingly, it doesn’t smell like the earring backs I was expecting it to. I’m not saying that it smells like Boy Scout wishes or anything. It smells like…him. A clean sort of musk with a masculine undertone that I want to inject into my veins or huff like whiteboard markers.
Finally, Teague glances over in my direction, lighting up as he waves at me.
Satisfied with my obedience, Gage turns around to wave back at Teague. “Cute kid.”
Aside from the ever-present desire to choke Gage, contentment seems to settle over me at the thought of the two of them bonding over hockey. “Yeah, he is,” I agree quietly.
Maybe Gage is the role model Teague needs. God knows I’m not. I may look like I have my shit together, but I don’t. I can’tbelieve I’m complimenting him, but Gage actually seems…levelheaded for a twenty-something. He’s already dominating in his career, which is more than I can say for myself. It shows that he’s committed, and that’s something I wish I was better at being. I have one foot in and one foot out of Teague’s life, when all Teague needs is for me to be a hundred percent in.
Teague skates over to us, that fire helmet of his sticking out like a sore thumb, a megawatt smile plumping up his cheeks. “Holy shit. You’re Gage Arlington!” he squeals, hockey stick gripped in his little fist as he bobbles on his feet.
“T, don’t say ‘shit,’” I chastise.
Gage chuckles, squatting down as best as he can to be eye level with my brother. “Hey, Little Man. That’s me. And you are?”
“I’m Teague!”
Look, I know the parameters of my Grinch heart don’t allow for a lot of love room, but seeing Gage’s big, burly body next to Teague’s small one makes weird, tingling warmth blossom in my stomach. And the worst part is, no matter how hard I try to extinguish it, that fire remains lit like a trick candle.
“It’s nice to meet you, Teague. Your sister has told me a lot about you,” Gage says, the incandescent twinkle in his eye accompanied by a knee-weakening grin.
Teague’s jaw practically hits the ground. “You know my sister?”
“I do. We met in this rink, actually.”
I don’t bother to cover my pig-snort of laughter.Actually, Teague, this is the colossal dickwad who blocked us in. And the colossal dickwad whose car I destroyed on a justified rampage.
“Really?! Cali, you didn’t tell me you knew Gage!” My brother, bless his heart, is too young to be very observant of underlying tension.
Gage wobbles to a stance and slings his arm over my shoulder,pulling me into the side of his body before I have the chance to bat him away. “Your sister’s just being humble. Knowing someone as famous as me must be exhausting.”
My whole face puckers in revulsion despite my traitorous vagina yawning awake after a yearlong hibernation. He’s so warm that I can feel the heat sizzling off his body like a desert-warped mirage, even with the layers of polyester swaddling his physique. And he’s…hard. Not, like, his penis. His body. I could probably use him as a makeshift raft if I were ever stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean. That’s if I didn’t eat him beforehand to stay alive.
Teague’s comically large eyes zigzag between the two of us, head angled innocently. “Are you my sister’s boyfriend?” he asks, hope shining through his tone.
I choke on my own saliva, and it nearly results in me doubling over in a hacking fit. The audacity my brother has!Is he my boyfriend?What—what kind of question is that? I’m a ten, and Gage is at best a five point five. Maybe a six on good days. I clearly need to take my brother back to the eye doctor.
Thanks to Gage’s stupid, fat mouth, he manages to answer at the same time I do.
“No!” I shriek a little too loudly.
“Not yet,” Gage replies with a smirk, that pesky arm of his slowly skimming down my shoulder and nesting in the curve of my side. I don’t miss the grip of his fingers on my skin, the urgency there, the promise of more when his roaming touch unlocks full access to every vulnerable crevice of my body.
Not yet? Is he serious?
I turn my head to face him, biting out through clenched teeth and a gum-showing smile, “Never happening.”
He fully ignores me, pinching the fat of my hip in a nonverbalyeah, right.
I disengage myself from his grasp, choosing to change thesubject before I projectile vomit all over the floor. “Teague, Gage is gonna help you work on your hockey skills. He’s been so…generous…as to offer you free hockey lessons. Because he’ssucha good guy.”
