Page 94 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
“I know my time is limited, but I need to know that she’ll be okay when I’m gone. Promise me you’ll take care of her,” she begs, more tears trickling past the curve of her jawline, disappearing and reappearing in an infinite cycle.
Moisture condenses in my eyes, and I figuratively tuck her words against my chest for safekeeping, love filling every nook of my body. “I will. I promise.”
32
ROMANCING THE GIRL
CALISTA
“Gage, where are you taking me?” I ask, only able to see slivers of light through the hands currently over my eyes.
He’s been suspicious all day—giggling to himself, curt responses, darting eye syndrome. And now he tells me he has a surprise for me, which could mean one of two things. One: it’s the greatest surprise of all time that doesn’t pose a risk to my already-high blood pressure. Two: it’s the scary equivalent of going bungee jumping while we’re naked and stuck together. And knowing Gage, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up with us getting naked.
“You worry too much,” he says, leading me over unfamiliar terrain, hypercautious of navigating me past invisible obstacles. “You’ll love it, I promise.”
“I love very few things in this world,” I grumble, feeling blindly through the air with my hands like an idiot, all while Gage indulges in my ridiculousness with some not-so-discreet snickers.
He guides me through a door, and since it’s night, I can’t gauge where we are through the gaps in his fingers. A whirlpoolof nerves starts in my belly, and my heart clunks rather haphazardly against the scaffolding of my ribs. I don’t like surprises. Never have. And although I trust Gage enough not to murder me in the woods, my body doesn’t have the capacity to chill the fuck out if it doesn’t know what the hell is going on. I feel like I’m walking blindly into artillery fire.
I’m about to open my mouth and bargain for the truth when my eyesight is restored, and I’m met with the dazzling image of a romantic dinner laid out on the floor of my dance studio. Flaming candles border the red, satin blanket draped over the wooden floorboards, and a rose centerpiece sits in between piles of overflowing dishes. There’s pasta, grilled chicken, salad, champagne, breadsticks, some kind of rich, chocolate dessert—pretty much an entire restaurant’s worth of delicious-looking food. My jaw falls open.
“You did this?” My expression fractures into one of shock, and the anxiety spidering throughout my bloodstream like some black miasma of death slowly burns out into a fuzzy warmth.
A shit-eating grin tips up the corners of Gage’s lips, the low light from the candles reflecting asterisms in his dark eyes. “Seeing as we’re officially boyfriend and girlfriend now, I thought it was time I treated you to that first date.”
I don’t know what to say, which is ironic considering I’m always equipped with a quick and witty response. I can’t even use my extended vocabulary to maim or insult. I have to—shudder—dig in my archives and find something nice to say. Gage is a giver. He always has been. So to walk in on something as thoughtful as this…it’s hardly a surprise. The real surprise is him keeping this a secret for the entire day.
Still behind me, he wraps his arms around my midsection, resting his chin on my shoulder. He christens my bare skin with silky kisses, and I let myself fall into his touch. That pine scent of his must imbalance some chemical reaction in my brain tomake me froth at the mouth for him—it’s all working together to test my self-restraint, gambling away my dignity with each deliberately placed pucker of his lips.
My breath cinches tighter than a drawstring, breaking off the moan stirring in my throat. “Gage, you didn’t have to do all of this.”
“For you? Of course I did,” he rumbles against my flesh, slowly directing us over to the center of the room while we’re still entangled in each other. And then he lifts his head up, turning to whisper against my neck, his voice steadier than the chugging of my heart.
“Italian food. I was going to cook for you, but uh, I sort of guessed that you’d want something edible.”
I quickly turn around to face him, so wrangled in an adrenaline-fueled undertow that I don’t bother with talking. I slam my lips onto his, linking my arms around his neck and pulling him into me. My tongue chases after his, colliding with an urgency that has the bottom half of me squeezing in anticipation, and we take turns hungrily devouring one another as if there isn’t food just feet away from us.
“I would’ve eaten whatever you made,” I gasp against his mouth, nearly crumbling to ash when he grips my waist tightly, curling his fingers into the curves of my sides.
He chuckles, and the glorious vibration tings through my bones, way too hot and husky to be legally safe. Especially at this dosage. That irresistible, lower-than-low tone of his conspires with the pulse between my legs like they’re two partners in crime.
“Didn’t want to take any chances and accidentally poison you. I wanted this date to be perfect.”
Perfect.I’d grown to accept that perfection doesn’t exist. And I would know, seeing as my life is far from perfect. But Gage…he’s…well, he might be the only person to be able to change my mind.
My cheeks sizzle with a blush probably as vibrant as the heavily seasoned cherry tomatoes scattered on white porcelain. “When did you even have the time to do this?”
We both take a seat on the ground, and Gage gets busy with popping the champagne, doing it as carefully as he can over the ice bucket so none of it splatters the floor. There’s a fizzy stream that glugs out of the opening, and he quickly grabs my flute to fill it with a bubbly, light pink mixture.
“Earlier today. When you took Teague to practice.”
“And how did you get in?” I question, my eyebrow going full arch mode.
He shrugs bashfully, handing me my glass and moving on to fill his own. “A little birdy might’ve helped me.”
Right. A little birdy whose name starts withAand ends ineris.
I can’t believe he took time out of his day to set this up for me. The “first date” he promised months ago in a desperate attempt to upstage Dilbert.
