Page 9 of I Hate You More

It was an appealing thought, but there was no point in pursuing it. Chase wouldn’t last a week in a truce with me, even if it was his suggestion. Plus, I certainly wasn’t going to simply forget all the times he’d been an ass to me and there was no way I was forgiving him for pulling that stunt at the dance three years ago. He didn’t deserve to be let off the hook. It would make my life so much easier if the truce worked though…

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Do you really hate me so much you won’t even consider it?”

“I said I’d think about it.” I pushed him from my room. He moved easily, stepping back into the hallway with barely any pressure from my hand. I slammed my bedroom door and squeezed my eyes tightly shut as I tried to pretend that Chase Williams wasn’t still standing on the other side of it. Chase was chaos in my orderly world; he’d only been here ten minutes, and already, I was a mess. There was no way I could spend an entire year with Chase living across the hall from me—truce or not.

It was like someone had dumped a pile of radioactive waste in the room across the hall from me. They knew it was dangerous and that the toxic material would probably make me sick, but nobody seemed to care. Already, my room was contaminated, and I was certain it wouldn’t be long until the poisonous affects began to overcome me.

Like all hazardous substances, being close to Chase was going to slowly but surely destroy me.

2

Chase

She’d slammeda door in my faceagain.

I blew out a tense breath and resisted the urge to reach out and force my way into the sanctuary of her room. It didn’t matter how many doors Ally slammed in my face though; it didn’t change the bitter truth of my situation. I was stuck in this house for the next year of my life, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

“Your sister is impossible,” I growled as I returned to the Lockwoods’ guest room. I supposed it wasmyroom now. Everything about the bedroom was sterile and boring. The carpet was white; the walls were white; even the quilt cover was white. Just standing in it made me feel like I was an unwanted dirty mark in otherwise flawless surrounds.

Shane grinned in response. “There was a time when you thought she wasimpossibly hot.”

My nose crinkled in disgust. “Please don’t remind me.”

Shane laughed and lay back on my bed to look at the ceiling once more. “I guess that was a while ago now.”

More like a lifetime. I’d been completely infatuated with Ally a few years back, and Shane never let me hear the end of it. She wasn’t like the other girls at school though. There was something so innocent about her beauty. She had these huge doe eyes and sweet lips that were shaped like a love heart. I used to think she was some kind of angel. She had become significantly less angelic since I realized her long hair hid a set of horns and she carried a quiver of barbed arrows across her back that she enjoyed aiming in my direction.

Something had changed over the years. Once upon a time, I’d teased her to get her attention. I’d gone out of my way to try to protect her from guys who wanted nothing more than to use her. She should have thanked me the night I stopped Dirty Declan from kissing her, but instead, she told me she hated me and had been nothing but cruel to me ever since. The brightness in her eyes always dimmed when I was near, and her forked tongue loved nothing more than to spread her venomous thoughts when we talked. I was no longer blinded by her pretty looks. No, I now saw Ally for who she really was, and I couldn’t stand her.

“I tried to get her to agree to a truce between us,” I said, hoping to change the subject and move away from talk of the schoolboy crush I’d once had on Ally.

Shane snorted. “And how did that go?”

“Like I said, your sister is impossible.” I wasn’t sure what I’d expected though. I’d decided on the journey back to Fairview that, if I was going to live with Ally, we needed to put an end to the hostility between us, at least temporarily. I could barely tolerate the girl, but I could keep my mouth shut when I was around her if it meant a little peace for me. I figured she’d feel the same, but clearly, her opinion of me was worse than ever. Was it really that much for me to ask that we be civil to each other? Ally definitely wasn’t the same girl I had crushed on back in the day.

“I’m sure the two of you will work it out.” My best friend was always the optimist, and right now, I hated him for it. “I really don’t understand why you two don’t get along,” he added.

I didn’t reply. Ally and Shane weren’t the best of friends, but she was his sister, and I couldn’t exactly tell him that I suspected she was a descendant of Medusa and that her stare could turn men to stone. The fact I thought she was cute a few years ago counted for nothing now because absolutely everything about her rubbed me the wrong way. She was spoiled, spiteful, and stubborn as could be. It was unbelievable she still held a grudge against me for the Declan thing all those years ago—I hadn’t done anything wrong, but somehow, I’d become the bad guy. Living with her this year was going to be damn near unbearable.

I’d almost rather live with my parents in L.A. and start at a new school than be cooped up in a house with Ally.Almostbut not quite. Even living with Ally Lockwood was better than the strained environment of my family home.

I went over to one of my suitcases and began to unpack, trying to push thoughts of my parents from my mind. I already had enough on my mind without thinking about them. I couldn’t seem to ignore my irritation though, not when my parents hadn’t even bothered to drop me at the airport today. Not when they were so happy to abandon me in my senior year.

They frequently let me down, and I shouldn’t have been surprised to be disappointed by them again, but it felt like they’d reached a whole new level of disregard. There was a bright side to all of this though. I wouldn’t have to put up with my father’s criticisms for the duration of my senior year, and that was definitely something to look forward to.

“We missed you at football training over the summer…” Shane said the words slowly and tentatively, like he was ready to drop the conversation mid-sentence if I reacted the wrong way.

My lips pulled tight as I nodded.

“It’s been almost impossible to replace you. Are you sure you won’t reconsider joining the team again?”

I glanced up at him and found his eyes were ignited by tenuous hope. My teammates were the only reason I’d managed to play for as long as I did, and my best friend was the last person I ever wanted to let down. There was no way I was going to change my mind though. “Sorry, man. My football days are over.”

Shane sighed, and he slowly nodded. “Yeah, I know. I had to give it a shot though.”

“You wouldn’t be a very good team captain if you hadn’t.”

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