Page 52 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
GAGE:You act like I haven’t already done that.
18
EVE WAS BIBLICALLY A…
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 coverseverything, including the massive baguette he’s packing down there. It’s huge. Like, yeah, his muscle mass kind of hints at himbeing 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 donotfit 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 acouple’scostume,” 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 toa 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.
