Page 79 of Cruel When He Smiles

I let out a breath, slow and exhausted. “I’m trying.”

Sage crouches in front of me, eyes still blazing with anger for me, but his voice is softer now. “Try harder. He doesn’t get to win, Nate.”

I huff a quiet laugh, shaking my head. “Feels like he already has.”

Sage smacks my knee, hard enough to make me look at him. “No,” he says firmly. “That’s what he wants you to think. That he got in your head so deep you can’t crawl back out. But you can.”

I exhale, rolling my shoulders, the weight of everything still pressing too fucking hard. “Yeah? And how do you suggest I do that, genius?”

Sage tilts his head, considering. “I could sic Luca on him.”

I snort, shaking my head. “Thanks, but I don’t need your boyfriend committing murder on my behalf.”

“Wouldn’t be murder,” Sage says, standing up and stretching. “More like… aggressive population control.”

I huff another laugh, running a hand through my hair. The weight is still there, still sitting in me, but for the first time in weeks, it feels… lighter. Manageable. Like maybe I can fucking breathe again. “I don’t want Luca to know,” I say quietly.

His mouth tightens. “Why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t want it to be about Liam. I don’t want it to be this big blowout revenge arc where you and Luca go hunting for his head. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

Sage sighs, nudging my foot with his own. “You need a distraction?”

I breathe out a shaky laugh. “From Liam?”

“From yourself.”

I glance over, and he holds up his laptop. “Help me storyboard this disaster of a scene before I fail Film Theory and have to start selling feet pics.”

The laugh that escapes me is real.

God, it’s real.

And for once, I don’t feel like I’m crawling out of my own skin. I just sit there beside my best friend, in the only place that still feels safe, and I let myself believe maybe things aren’t completely broken beyond repair.

Not yet.

Liam

He’schangingagain,andI don’t like it. It’s not even his words—it’s the silence. The looks. The absence. He stopped reacting, and now I’m unraveling by the second, bleeding obsession into places I swore I’d keep clean.

I notice it first at practice. It’s subtle, almost too subtle, like he’s trying to slip back into himself without anyone noticing. A few weeks ago, he was gone, dragging himself through the motions, his body on the field but his mind somewhere else entirely.

But today, there’s something different.

He still doesn’t push too hard, still doesn’t play like he’s got something to prove, but he’s present in a way he hasn’t been in weeks. He’s not checking out mid-play, not letting himself get shoved around like he doesn’t care. There’s a sharpness creeping back into his movements, an awareness that wasn’t there before.

And his eyes—fuck. They aren’t only alive, they smolder.

I wanted to break him just enough to watch him fight his way back, to see how he handled it, to see if he could crawl out of the pit I threw him into. Now he’s coming back from the ledge I pushed him toward, and all without my help.

By the time we make it to our last mandatory session with Ellis, I’ve convinced myself that I don’t care either way. I don’t need Nate to be broken, don’t need him to be whole—I just need to know where he stands. Because if there’s one thing I fucking hate, it’s unpredictability. Right now, that’s exactly what Nate Carter is.

I lean back in my chair as Ellis starts talking, my mind barely in it, my focus drifting toward him, toward the way he’s sitting, the way his posture is just a little more upright than before. He’s not slouching, not resigned, not radiating the same vacant disinterest he has for the past few weeks.

He’s engaged.

And then he speaks. “I guess I just—” Nate exhales, rubbing the back of his neck. “I regret snapping the way I did.”