Page 131 of Cruel When He Smiles

Liam has a black Aston Martin DB11, and he does not allow anyone to drive it. Not even me. That’s when I know for sure, this isn’t just him blowing off steam. Something else is dangerously wrong.

The silence in the car is thick. I don’t bother trying to fill it. The quiet hum of the engine and the sound of tires against asphalt are enough, and I know if I press him too soon, he’ll shut down.

I take the long way out of town, winding through narrow roads until the noise of campus fades. By the time we hit the dirt road that leads up to the ridge, the only sound left is gravel crunching under the tires.

The lookout is empty, just as I hoped. A weathered wooden railing marks the edge, the kind that’s stood through years of storms and still hasn’t fallen. There’s a picnic table covered in carved initials and crude hearts—ghosts of people who wanted to be remembered here.

I kill the engine, pocket the keys, and push my door open. “Come on.”

Liam follows without a word, moving toward the edge of the lookout. The wind catches his hair and pulls his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are locked on the horizon, fixed on the fading light.

I join him at the railing, leaning my forearms on the wood. The air is cooler up here, and I let it sit between us.

Eventually, he speaks.

“I don’t understand you.” His voice is quieter than I’m used to.

I glance at him, catching the slight crease between his brow. “That’s nothing new.”

His lips twitch like he wants to smirk but can’t quite get there. “No. I mean, I don’t understand what you make me feel.”

That earns my full attention. “What do I make you feel, Liam?”

There’s a pause, long enough that I think he’s going to drop it. But then he exhales, eyes still fixed on the horizon. “Unstable.”

It’s not the answer I expected. “That’s—”

“Not a compliment, Pup.” He cuts me off, his tone flat but lacking the edge it usually carries. His hands curl around therailing, knuckles whitening. “You make me feel things I don’t fucking understand, and I hate it.”

It’s not said to wound. If anything, it sounds like a confession he’s fighting himself to get out. It wrecks me. Because for all the control he wields, all the ways he moves people like chess pieces, Liam Callahan doesn’t know what to do with something as simple as emotions.

“You’ve turned me into something I was never supposed to be.” He takes a step back from the railing, dragging a hand down his face, and I watch his left hand twitch. “I haven’t felt this fucking unstable since my mother locked me in that freezer when I was ten.”

The words slam into me, and my mind stutters, but he’s still going. “Not since I stopped taking those fucking pills that made my head heavy, that made me a fucking zombie so I wouldn’t feel this!” He motions to himself, to his rage, to his confusion, his fingers curling into fists.

“And it’s you, Nate.Youdid this to me.” His gaze snaps to mine, wild and furious. “You’re my fucking weakness.”

There’s venom in the word, but beneath it is something else. Something closer to fear.

“I don’t want this feeling from someone I was never supposed to want.” His voice cracks, his fists shaking at his sides. “I don’t want to be fucking weak.”

And that’s what it is, isn’t it? He thinks feeling anything for me, for anyone, is a vulnerability. But even with all this, my mind is snagged on one thing, one sentence I don’t even think he realizes he let slip.

Since my mother locked me in that freezer when I was ten.

And for the first time, I wonder what the fuck Liam came from.

But I push it down because now isn’t the time, especially since he’s still going, his voice spiraling into something more frantic, more desperate. “You’re my fucking weakness—”

I cross the space between us, grab his face in both hands, and kiss him—hard enough to shut him up, final enough to make the point that I’m not letting him twist this into something ugly.

Liam has spent months pushing me. Pulling me apart and putting me back together the way he wants, twisting me into something he can control, something that bends but never breaks. He’s owned every second of my fucking existence, every breath, every thought, every weakness.

And I’ve let him because he made me crave it. Because every time he praised me, every time he told me I was his, every time he made me feel it, I believed him.

If ignoring Liam all those months ago has shown me anything, it’s that I can break him, too. I don’t have to wait for him to unravel me, and I don’t have to give in every time he pulls. I don’t have to let him own me without taking something in return.

I can control this.