Page 90 of Cruel Lies

I don't answer right away.

"You don't have to," she says quickly. "Forget it. I'm being nosy."

"No," I say. "It's fair. I've asked you plenty."

I look out at the street. I've spent my whole life not talking about this. It's a well-worn groove and it's easy to stay in it. But she's sitting here with her guard down for the first time, letting me see the damage she's been dealt, and it feels wrong to demand that of her while giving nothing of myself in return.

"My father was a large man," I say. "Larger than me. Louder, too. He filled up a room the way—" I stop and laugh when the obvious comparison comes to me. "—the way Todd wishes he could. But it was real, with my father. When he was pleased with you, it was like standing in the sun. And when he wasn't…"

I tap the bottle and the glass rings out. It reminds me of things I wish I could forget.

"There was a lot of glass in our house, growing up. Because he liked to throw it. Not always. That was the trick of it. If it was always, you could brace for it. But it came and went, and you never knew which one you'd get. So you learned to read him. You learned to read the room the second you walked into it, before anyone spoke. What his shoulders were doing. Where his hands were. Whether the good version or the bad version was home that night." I take a drink. "I got very good at reading rooms."

Cali is still and breathless beside me.

"My mother learned to make herself small," I say. "Smaller and smaller, year on year, until there was almost nothing of her left to see. She thought if she took up less space, there'd be less of her for him to be angry at." I feel like I'm floating out of my body and backwards in time, becoming a little boy again. "It didn't work. It never does. There's always enough of you for a man like that to find a new piece of you he can saw off."

"Ronan…"

"I swore I'd never be him," I snarl. "Every choice I've made since I was old enough to make choices, I made to defy him and everything he stood for. Most days, I think I've managed it." I look at her. "And then I'll hear my own voice come out of my mouth, and it'll be his, and I'll know I haven't managed it at all."

She doesn't sayI'm sorry, or reach out to fix my face for me. She just sits with me in the moment, and shares the pain.

"That's why you took the mirrors," she whispers. "The glass."

"Your husband taught you to make yourself small," I confirm. "I know what that feels like, because I watched my mother shrink into oblivion. I couldn't stand to watch you do it. So I took awaythe means. No glass. Not to be thrown and not to reflect how much more of you is left to lose."

Her eyes are shining again. She's not going to cry. I know that now. But her mouth quivers at the corners as she struggles to hold it all together.

"You could have just said all that," she says. "Instead of committing a felony in my bathroom."

"Where's the fun in that?"

She laughs. As she does, I watch her decide something.

I let her reach that choice. I don't move. I've learned that with her: You don't reach. You let her come.

Sure enough, she comes.

She puts a hand on the side of my face, cold from the bottle, and she looks at me for a long second. Then:

"Will you kiss me, please?"

I look at her mouth, pink and plump, so perfect, so ripe and beautiful.

"You'll never have to ask me twice," I say.

Then I bend down to seal my lips to hers.

Her mouth is warm and tastes like whiskey. She makes a small sound against my lips, and I feel it all the way down to the root of me.

The bottle rolls off the step and clinks somewhere below us. Neither of us reaches for it, though it must be worth thousands.

I work a hand into her hair. It's soft and coming loose from whatever she pinned it up with hours ago. She tips her head and I kiss her deeper, and she climbs half into my lap, the green silk sliding over the warm stone.

She's light in my lap, a mirage of warm silk and soft skin. I keep one hand in her hair and put the other on her waist, and I hold her there like she might slip away if I don't.

She won't. She's not going anywhere.