The grin that answered was quick and easy. “Only a little. Means I’ve got no idea what you actually think of me.”
Jacob tilted his head. “Does it matter?”
“Let’s say enough to keep me guessing,” Liam replied, a grin lingering.
Jacob didn’t smile back, but something in him eased, as if Liam carried a light he couldn’t help but feel. He liked the sound of Liam’s voice threading through the quiet.
“You’re always so in control,” Liam said. “Like nothing touches you.”
Jacob gave a half-shrug. “That’s the job.”
Liam shook his head. “No. That’s you. You don’t just act like that while working. You are like that in every room.”
He said nothing.
“I’m the opposite,” Liam admitted after a beat.
Jacob looked over and found himself asking, “Yeah?”
“I feel everything. And when I feel something it’s big, with no middle ground. I don’t really do the in-between.”
Jacob didn’t respond, but he was focused—more than he wanted to be. Caught on the need to learn more about him.
“My dad used to say I didn’t have brakes,” Liam went on. “Everyone else could ease up, pull back. I’d just go full speed straight into the wall.”
Jacob’s grip tightened slightly around the water bottle.
Liam smiled faintly. “One time, when I was six, I found this hurt bird on the sidewalk. His wing was all bent and he couldn’t fly. I sobbed over it, tried to shove him in my backpack like I was going to save him. Wouldn’t let anyone convince me otherwise.”
The image lodged in Jacob’s chest before he could push it aside. His voice came out before he thought better of it. “What happened to the bird?”
Liam blinked. “You care about the bird?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
Liam’s smile dulled into something almost rueful. His whiskey-colored eyes glinted in the dim light, pulling Jacob in before he could look away. “He didn’t make it, but my mom let me sit with him until he stopped breathing. She thought it would shatter me. It didn’t. It just… mattered. I guess that’s kind of been my thing ever since. If something matters, I can’t ignore it.”
Jacob’s voice lowered. “That’s rare.”
“Inconvenient,” Liam countered with a shrug.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty; it hummed with the pull between them.
“You make it look easy. Being like that,” Jacob said, words slipping free before he could stop them. He didn’t know why he wanted to give Liam that. He only knew that he did.
“What—messy?” Liam teased, though his voice wavered.
“Alive.”
The word dropped like a confession. Liam froze, lips parted, but for once, nothing came out.
“It’s not always,” he said eventually. “But… thanks.”
Jacob tightened his grip until the plastic bottle crackled. He needed something solid in his hands when everything else shifted in ways he didn’t like. He needed to remind himself this wasn’t him. He didn’t notice people like this, but his attention kept snagging—on the way Liam never stilled, on his full mouth, on eyes that carried too much warmth. Why was he looking at this boy when he normally didn’t like looking at people too closely?
He cleared his throat, forcing his voice steady. “Early call tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
