Page 33 of Cruel When He Smiles

None of it fucking works.

The more I try to bury Nate under other people, the deeper he digs under my ribs. He’s not supposed to live there. He’s not supposed to matter. He shouldn’t be the thing I think about when I’m fucking someone else. He shouldn’t be the reason I can’t finish. He shouldn’t be the echo in my ears when I run until I taste blood.

And yet here I am, running faster, harder, until my chest starts to burn and my vision blurs and every muscle in my bodyscreams at me to stop. My eyes sting with sweat, and I focus on the numbers ticking up. Time. Distance. Calories. None of it matters, but I pretend it does.

I press the stop button and step off too fast, and my vision tilts. I catch myself against the bar and breathe through it, one hand clutched to my side, the other dragging through sweat-dampened hair.

I leave before anyone can ask questions.

Back upstairs, I head straight to the shower, but not my en suite. The one in the spare room where no one ever goes; the one with no mirror. I strip down, peel the bandage away, and look at the wound in the half-light. It’s red, angry, and still seeping at the edges.

I stare at it for a long time, then step under the spray and let the hot water burn the memory of everything I touched and everything I didn’t cut out of my skin.

… I’m getting worse.

An hour later, I come down the stairs slowly, one hand gripping the banister, my legs still a little sore from the treadmill earlier. The house smells like garlic, oil, and something warm I can’t place—maybe chili flakes. Doesn’t matter. It’s good; the kind of scent that settles in your clothes and lingers in your hair.

Killian must be cooking again, which means someone’s either bribed him or we’re moments away from a passive-aggressive group therapy session disguised as a family dinner.

I wipe the last of the shower steam from my neck with my sleeve and take the last step down, drawn more by the noise than the smell. Voices overlap—some laughing, some sharp, one particularly agitated and spiked through with irritation that immediately puts me on edge.

The kitchen’s alive with movement when I walk in, and from the way everyone’s spaced out around the massive kitchen island, I can already tell something’s brewing.

Killian’s at the stove, shirtless, and stirring a pan like he’s not enjoying the tension thickening the air behind him. There’s a half-dressed Caesar salad on the counter and two different sauces in progress. One red, one cream. He’s making options, which is code for: he’s making peace before someone throws hands.

Roman’s leaning against the fridge with a bottle of sparkling water, face unreadable except for the tick in his jaw that says he’s choosing silence on purpose. Luca’s shoveling salad into his mouth, Julian’s passing garlic bread across the table, while Eli and Thorn are doing a terrible job pretending they’re not amused at what’s going on. Ryan’s wearing that grin that always means he started the fire but plans to watch it burn from a beach chair.

But Damien is standing next to Killian, flushed and tense. His arms are braced on the counter, and he’s glaring at Killian like he’s about to pick up the cast-iron skillet and throw it.

“He’s not even one of us,” Damien snaps, voice low and clipped. “He doesn’t belong here.”

Killian shrugs. “Ryan said he’s a swimmer.”

“Recreationally,” Damien hisses. “Not for the university or competitively. It’s a fucking hobby.”

“Bullshit, he’s got a full ride on the swim team and you know it,” Ryan offers, leaning back on his elbows with all the casual menace of someone who knows he’s untouchable. “Stop pretending you haven’t been keeping up with his progress.”

“You’re not serious,” Damien spits, turning his glare on Ryan.

Ryan just raises an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth twitching. “What, you afraid he’s gonna embarrass you by having more discipline in the water than you do on the court?”

Damien scowls. “Fuck off, Torres.”

I grab a glass from the shelf and fill it from the filtered tap, taking my time. No one notices I’m here yet, and that’s fine. I prefer it. The tension in the room is thick enough to chew, and it tastes like something personal.

Killian finally turns around, wooden spoon still in hand. He rests one hip against the counter and points the spoon at Damien and Ryan. “You two are going to make me fucking snap.”

Ryan raises both hands like he’s being accused of war crimes. “What? I didn’t do anything. I just asked for a favor.”

“That favor,” Damien snaps, “is Noah fucking Adams. The one who thinks I’m the devil because I apparently stole his birthday money when we were fifteen.”

Ryan laughs like it’s the best story he’s ever heard. “You did steal it, though.”

“I fucking didn’t. He wanted me to get in trouble and said if I didn’t take the blame, he was gonna tell Mom I made out with Trevor Marshall behind the dugout. And we both know how she loves‘the gays,’” Damien quips.

That makes Thorn choke on his drink from across the table, and Luca finally cracks a grin. I step toward the counter, watching all of this unfold with the kind of detached interest I usually reserve for dissecting a mouse.

“What exactly am I walking into here?” I ask, leaning against the counter near the fridge, taking a long sip and letting the silence that follows ring just long enough to make it clear I’m not just making conversation.