I Hate You More

by Moody, Alexandra

  What really concerned me though was my own reaction to him just now. There must have been something seriously wrong with me, because I had liked it when he touched me and a twisted part of me wanted him to touch me again. He despised me, and I hated him, and I was left wondering why my body hadn’t got the memo.

  15

  Chase

  I shouldn’t have left my room.

  That was all I could think as I joined my friends by the pool. I kept glancing back toward the house and my hands were clenched into fists at my sides as I tried to stop recalling the feel of Ally’s soft skin.

  We’d run into each other by accident, and I didn’t mean to touch her, but now that I had, I couldn’t seem to erase the memory from my mind. My hands were still prickling from the contact, and the strawberry scent of her shampoo lingered in my nostrils. I struggled to understand how a girl I hated could elicit such a response from me. I didn’t like it and couldn’t let it happen again.

  I blamed that flimsy red bikini of hers. I’d been minding my own business in my bedroom, but then I’d taken a look out the window to see how the pool party was going, and I’d seen what she was wearing. She’d been prancing around the backyard with Luke, and the sight had pissed me off enough that I’d decided to join the party. I’d been trying to do the right thing and give her some space until she came to her senses about the poster prank and finally realized I wasn’t the culprit. But on seeing the bikini, I’d changed my mind. How could she get upset about stripper posters and then wear something like that?

  And now, thanks to that stupid bikini, I knew she didn’t blame me for the posters anymore. She’d actually apologized, which I was still unable to believe, and she had looked at me like she saw more than just her enemy for once. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d regarded me without hatred clouding her eyes, and I found myself both wishing for that hatred to return and fearing it at the same time. It was so much easier to dislike her when she so clearly despised me.

  I hated that her big blue eyes were so alluring when they weren’t filled with spite and that she’d fit so perfectly within my grasp. When she’d stumbled into me, our bodies had seemed to meld together like two puzzle pieces, and a small, stupid part of me hadn’t wanted to let her go.

  I let out a groan and rubbed my eyes. Our bodies fit together like two puzzle pieces? That girl was making me lose my mind.

  “Everything all right?” Shane asked, coming over and handing me a beer.

  I took the cold bottle and opened it, knocking back a long drink before I replied. “Just bumped into Ally.”

  The corner of Shane’s lips lifted in a smirk. “Did you now?”

  I nodded, not liking the knowing look in my friend’s eyes.

  “Avoiding her isn’t going very well then?” he asked.

  I let out a short laugh. “You noticed that, huh?”

  “I notice everything…” My friend’s eyes bored into me as he spoke, and I wondered if he could read minds. I certainly hoped not, because he was the last person in the world I’d want to know about my puzzle-piece moment. Well, aside from Ally.

  “So, are you guys over it?” he prompted.

  I shrugged. “She did thank me for dealing with Declan.” But that didn’t mean I was done avoiding her. Given how confused I’d felt toward her lately, steering clear of Ally was probably still a good idea.

  “Good,” Shane replied before a frown creased his brow. “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me he was behind the posters so I could help you defend my sister’s honor.”

  “I had it handled,” I replied. Shane was talking a big game, but he’d never do anything to risk getting in trouble during football season. He was too important to the team, and I would never have put him in that position by telling him what Declan had done. I’d already let all those boys down when I stopped playing last year, and I couldn’t let them down again.

  “Did you guys see Jordan’s backflip?” Luke asked as he came to stand at Shane’s side. I’d barely said two words to the new kid since he started at Fairview, but Shane seemed to have taken him under his wing. “He nearly hit his head on the side of the pool. That guy’s crazy.”

  Shane smiled and shook his head. “He’s taken so many knocks to the head in football that I doubt the pool edge would do much more damage. I swear his skull is made out of metal.”

  I chuckled and nodded in agreement. “There was a party last year where he charged guys twenty dollars a go to hit him over the head with a log he found in the woods. He was rich by the end of the night, but I had no idea how he was still standing.”

  Luke’s eyes widened as I told the story, and he glanced over his shoulder toward Jordan. “That’s absolutely mad.”

  “That’s Jordan.” I shrugged. If you looked up mad in the dictionary, he would be right there as one of the examples.

  “I saw you talking to my sister earlier,” Shane said. His eyes were trained on Luke, and he appeared surprised the two of them had interacted. I’d seen them barrel into each other at lunch on the first day of school, so it wasn’t news to me they had met. Still, my hand instinctively gripped my beer bottle a little tighter as I waited for his response.

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “Ally’s really sweet. I mean, she’s got a bit of attitude, and I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her, but she’s been really nice to me since I started at Fairview.”

  Shane laughed. “True, Chase somehow got on her bad side years ago, and he’s still paying for it.”

  I probably would have nodded, but I felt frozen by a strange churning anger that was swelling in my stomach. Why did the new kid automatically get on Ally’s good side? I made one mistake a few years back, and I’d been banished to her bad side for all eternity.

  Movement caught the corner of my eye as Ally strode out of the house. She met my gaze and immediately averted her eyes, her steps quickening as she went to join her friends. She’d changed into a one-piece bathing suit, and a part of me wondered why. I thought she’d been enjoying the attention she was getting in the red bikini. She’d changed so quickly that I wondered whether I’d misjudged her.

  I tried to draw my attention back to the conversation with Shane and Luke, but I couldn’t stop myself from glancing across the yard in Ally’s direction. She seemed totally unaffected by our run-in inside. She was smiling brightly as she talked with Tessa and appeared completely oblivious to the fact that I couldn’t stop looking at her.

  I took another swig of my beer before forcing my eyes away from her once more. Ally Lockwood hated me, and I really needed to stop thinking about her. I also needed to stop protecting her at nightclubs, rescuing her from school cafeterias, and threatening douchebags who bullied her at school. I’d told myself that each of those actions were intended to help Shane, but I was beginning to reconsider if that was the truth.

  Shane hadn’t asked me to do any of that, and though Ally and I butted heads constantly, protecting her felt as natural as breathing. I couldn’t help myself. I’d been looking out for her when I’d first convinced Declan not to pursue her at the dance all those years ago, and I was doing it again now. I wasn’t quite sure of the reason for my actions now, but all I knew was I didn’t like seeing her in trouble.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound of Ally’s voice. It felt like only a few seconds ago I’d been watching her from across the pool, and I hadn’t noticed her approaching. I slowly turned and found her standing at my side, her attention completely focused on me.

  “You want to talk to me?” I could hardly keep the disbelief out of my voice. Hadn’t we just talked?

  “Define want,” she muttered before she finally nodded. “Yes, I do. Can we go inside?”

  I most definitely didn’t want to go back into the house with her. Not when I needed to keep as much distance as possible between us. Whenever she was close to me these days, my thoughts about her became jumbled, and all I wanted was to clear my mind again
so I could go on back to hating her. But, apparently, I’d lost all self-control since I’d come to live at the Lockwoods’ house, because somehow I found myself nodding and following her inside.

  We walked into the kitchen, and she opened the fridge, pulling out two cans of soda. She passed one to me, and I frowned down at the can, trying to remember if she’d ever done anything as friendly as pass me a soda.

  “You don’t want one?” she asked, drawing the can back from me when I’d been staring at it too long.

  “No, I do,” I said, quickly stealing the can from her grasp. My fingers lightly brushed against hers as I took it, and I swallowed a lump in my throat as I tried to ignore the tingle she left on my skin.

  “So, you want to talk?”

  Ally nodded, but her eyes were struggling to meet mine. It was like she couldn’t figure out what she wanted to say, but then she finally let out a hard breath. “Our fighting has to stop,” she said. Her words came out in a rush, leaving me in a stunned silence. All I could do was lift one eyebrow in response, unable to work out if I should believe what she was saying.

  “I mean, I’d like it to stop,” she clarified. She let out another breath, and her eyes lifted to meet mine. A small, nervous furrow formed between her brows as our eyes connected, and there was a hint of apprehension in her stare. The vulnerability and openness I saw drew me in with surprising force, and I found myself unable to look away from her sapphire-tinted gaze.

  An array of emotions seemed to flicker across the connection between us, but one sentiment seemed clear. She hoped I would agree. She seemed honestly tired of our bickering, and I felt the same. I found myself nodding before I’d even made up my mind.

  Note to self: Ally’s eyes are hypnotic and should be avoided at all costs if I ever want to disagree with her.

  “You think we can just pretend we don’t hate each other?” I asked. She flinched a little as I said the word hate.

  “You were the one who suggested a truce,” she murmured. “And the truth is, I’m not even sure I do hate you. I’m just so used to fighting with you that I don’t know how to be any other way.”

  My mouth popped open with shock. Had the ice princess really just admitted that aloud?

  “We can’t just decide to be friends overnight, princess,” I said.

  Her eyes hardened a little as I used the nickname, and I resisted the urge to grin back at her. I wasn’t completely fooled by this new, amicable Ally, and I could see her true feisty self was lurking just beneath the surface of her gentle expression.

  “I wasn’t saying we had to be friends,” she fired back before seeming to quickly remember that we weren’t supposed to be fighting.

  “So, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we give this whole truce thing a go,” she said. “So, truce?”

  She held out her hand like she wanted to shake on it. I eyed her palm warily but doubted that a simple handshake could hide a trap.

  I let out a breath and took her hand in mine. “Truce.”

  She smiled brightly up at me, and the skin around her eyes crinkled with genuine happiness. When she smiled like that, her beauty was devastating, and I forgot how I hated her. When my senses snapped back to me, I quickly dropped her hand and stepped away.

  “I better get back to my friends,” she murmured before giving me another smile and moving past me.

  As I watched her leave, something inside me changed. For me, the truce had always been about surviving the year, but I wondered if it could mean something different. I had no idea what our future interactions would be like, but after the brief glimpses I’d seen of Ally today, I couldn’t wait to find out.

  16

  Ally

  I could feel Chase’s gaze against my skin as he followed me back out to the pool area. I wasn’t as uncomfortable as I might have been in the past though, and it seemed like the usual animosity he had toward me was missing from his stare. Maybe that meant we’d already made some progress.

  My heart was still fluttering in my chest after plucking up the courage to offer him a truce. I’d been nervous to talk to him so openly, but it had been surprisingly easy, and I’d almost enjoyed lowering my walls for a second to connect with him.

  It was a risk, but it would be worth it. Tessa was right: we were never going to get anywhere until I’d cleared the air between us.

  “How did it go?” Tessa asked as I came to join her. She nodded at the other side of the pool, and I didn’t need to look to know she was indicating in Chase’s direction. I could sense him across the yard like we were connected by a taut piece of string.

  Miles and Mia were in the pool with some of Shane’s friends. It was a really strange gathering as our two groups never mingled at school. The guys didn’t seem to mind though, and my friends weren’t exactly complaining.

  “He agreed to the truce.”

  Tessa grinned. “I have to admit, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Well, put you and Chase in a situation where you have to interact, and you both tend to self-combust. I wasn’t sure you could handle being cordial enough to come to a truce with him.”

  “I don’t self-combust,” I grumbled.

  “You kind of do.” She laughed. “You guys just can’t help but set each other off.”

  “Hence why I can’t handle living with the guy for the next year of my life,” I replied with a sigh. “If he didn’t set me off, or I could control my temper around him, this wouldn’t be the problem it is.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to control it now. At least, in the short-term,” Tessa said. “I’d say stage two is coming along pretty nicely.”

  I stole a glance in Chase’s direction. He was talking with my brother and Luke and was actually smiling as he spoke. Chase looked like a completely different person when he wasn’t scowling. I always thought of my brother as a sun and Chase as the thundercloud that followed it everywhere it went. But, when Chase smiled, he transformed into a star of his own that shone far brighter than I ever realized.

  When he looked like that, a part of me felt bad that I was try to get rid of him. But the moment I recalled his true nature and the unforgivable things he’d done to me, I was easily able to ignore any surfacing guilt.

  As it started to grow dark, everyone moved inside. Shane ordered us some pizzas as some of the boys were starting to get a bit tipsy from the beers they’d been drinking. I had a quick shower and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before heading back to the rest of the group. I knew Tessa would be disappointed with my outfit, but after a day out in the sun, I wanted to wear something comfortable. Besides, according to her, I’d already accomplished step one and was making good progress with step two.

  As I headed back downstairs, I noticed the music had been turned up and was blasting so loud it was impossible to hear any of the voices in the living room. It was a miracle I managed to hear the doorbell ring when I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  I went to get it, expecting it to be the pizza delivery. Instead, a large group of kids from school were standing at the door. They didn’t wait for me to invite them inside and barreled past me into the house before I could utter a word of protest.

  I frowned as I slowly trailed after them, and my jaw dropped when I entered the living room to find it packed with people. Miles was the only one of my friends I could see and I grabbed him by the arm, turning him toward me. “When did all these people get here?”

  “Just in the last twenty minutes or so,” he replied. He looked just as annoyed as I was that our casual gathering had become a full-blown house party. Neither one of us were really party people.

  “But what are they doing here?”

  “I think you’ll have to ask your brother that,” Miles replied. “And if this is the way tonight is going, I might head off. I got a bit too much sun this afternoon, and this music is giving me a headache.”

  I could tell Miles wasn’t lying becau
se the bridge of his nose had turned bright red. Still, I knew him well enough to understand a house party wasn’t his scene. If the party wasn’t happening in my house, I’d probably have bailed as well.

  I smiled at him and sighed. “Take me with you?”

  Miles laughed and held his arms out wide. “You’re more than welcome to come if you want.”

  I shook my head though. “No, I should stay.” I couldn’t just abandon my house at a time like this. “Someone needs to keep an eye on things here.”

  “Good luck then. I’ll see you on Monday,” he said. “Tell the girls I say goodbye.”

  I nodded and gave him a little wave before turning back to the room to try to find my brother. He was over by the kitchen, and I made a beeline straight toward him. Well, as straight as I could. I had to weave my way through the growing crowd of partying students that separated us.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked, pulling Shane aside. More people seemed to be arriving every minute, and the party was escalating quickly. Dad would kill us if he found out we were having a party, and I really didn’t want to spend my senior year grounded—especially with the latest addition to our house.

  Shane grinned down at me and threw an arm across my shoulders. “Are you kidding? This is the best idea we’ve ever had. Dad’s gone until Monday night. This might be our one chance to throw a party in high school.”

  I found it interesting that suddenly the party was our idea rather than his. Apparently, Shane would be making sure I got my fair share of the blame if Dad found out what we were doing.

  I let out a sigh and looked across the room. People were already dancing on the kitchen counter, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock at night. I had a bad feeling things were going to get out of hand.

  “Here.” Shane passed me the can of beer in his hand. “Drink this and loosen up a little. Have some fun.”

  I stared down at the drink. I knew it was a bad idea, but the party was already in full swing, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. If I was going to be eternally grounded, I might as well enjoy my freedom while I had it.