Page 90 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
“I did?”
“Yeah, you did. Literally a second ago.”
“Oh.”
Oh? OH? What in the hell does that mean?
I’m losing it. Like, Chuck Noland inCastawaylosing it. Did he make a mistake? Was he only saying that because I gave him head? Why did he say it so casually? Am I missing something here? Am I overthinking? Isn’t it too soon for him to be saying that? Oh my God, we’re not even actually together.
“What the fuck, Gage?” I exclaim, anger broiling in my gut,confusion the only thing holding me back from whacking some sense into his fat head.
It takes a second for Gage to catch up to me, and I’m not sure how he understood my freakout—because I didn’t myself—but his eyes widen, and he imposes immediate damage control.
“Shit. I didn’t—I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I mean, I did mean for it to come out eventually, but I was picturing like a thousand roses and a yacht. I think I’ve gotten so used to saying it in my head that it kind of just slipped out.”
I freeze, feeling a tsunami of suppressed emotions finally sneak up on me, rising too fast for me to scramble to higher ground. “You say that in your head…about me?” I whisper, trying to negotiate with the tears to subside.
Gage blushes, and I feel heat sear the back of my own neck.
“Yeah, I say it all the time,” he answers, characteristically clueless to the internalMayday, Mayday!distress happening inside me right now.
I don’t have time for an internal monologue. I don’t have time to even catch my breath. This is—AHHH!
“I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”
He cracks his trademark smile—the one well-fitted to his perfect lips, the one that could stop traffic and probably the hearts of half the teenage girls across America. “Of course I do. I love you, Calista Cadwell. I’minlove with you. I’ll alwaysbein love with you.”
The tears have revisited me in gradual drops, and I don’t bother with wiping them away. I don’t bother with quieting the volume of the sobs trying to make themselves known.
This is all so much. I know I feel the same way about him, but I can’t bring myself to say it. Why can’t I bring myself to say it?
“I—”
“Hey, I didn’t say it to hear you say it back. I said it because I wanted to.”
Gage takes my second of uncertainty to lean in and kiss me, sponging up the salty tears on my lips, cradling my face in his hands as if he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to hold me again. In this moment, nothing else exists except for him. No fears for my mother, no tireless duties of my daily life, no yawning hole of self-deprecation telling me I’ve failed or I’ll never be good enough. I give him my fears and he swallows them, locks them away so I’m able to breathe through the lifted smog that I’ve been used to all these years.
I scoot closer to him, not caring that we’re on the cold ground or that the sky’s splitting into a dark storm right outside the window. He readjusts his legs to make room for me, and when I’m close enough to squeeze between his thighs, I feel something hard poking me in the belly.
I look down at his already-swelling erection. “Already? I thought these things have, like, a cool-off period or something.”
He grimaces. “Kind of a permanent state when you’re around.”
“Oh, uh, I’m sorry for constantly making you hard?”
Gage pulls me onto his lap, his large hands clamping around my sides as his lips graze mine. “Never something you have to apologize for.”
I’m about to say something before he reroutes his attention to the tender spot on my neck, diving in and lavishing butterfly kisses over my still-aching throat, tickling me with the slight stubble sprouting on his jaw. I giggle and squirm in his grip as he attacks me with more playful nips, letting my laughter drown out the growls of thunder cruising overhead.
“Speaking of”—kiss—“life-changing declarations”—kiss—“will”—kiss—“you”—kiss—“be”—kiss—“my”—kiss—“girlfriend?”
The smile that’s become a permanent fixture on my face sags. “What?” I somehow flub over the single syllable, my stomach simmering with nervous acid instead of fluttering wings.
“I mean, I wanted to ask you with pants on, but here we are.” Gage’s expression is completely unafflicted by hesitancy, meaning that he’s probably thought long and hard about this.
I gulp. “You want me to be your girlfriend?”
“Of course,” he says confidently. “You don’t have to say yes, but it’d be great if you said yes. Really fucking great.”
