Page 63 of Not Made to Last

“Remember Timothy?”

“My guy?” he asks, his eyes lighting up, and this is the part of the video that steals my breath, holds it hostage. “I miss him! What happened to him? Did you guys have a fight?”

“No,” Liv says, and that’s all she gives him. “Are you going to open it or not?”

Max looks from the box to her and back again. Then, without another moment of hesitation, he rips off the wrapping paper and tears into the box.

What happens next—his reaction to the gift—the pure joy mixed with awe and excitement… it’s the reason I’ve watched it as many times as I have.

I tap out of Liv’s messages and ignore the unopened text from Mercedes before setting my phone on the cement block beside me.

I’m on the rooftop again, sitting on the half wall facing the alley with my legs hanging over the edge. It’s the same way I’ve spent most nights lately. Four floors high. Approximately sixty-two feet in the air. I might not die if I fell, but it would probably kill the people around me.

I haven’t been able to sleep much.

It’s likely why I’m having these thoughts again.

Ever since I told my parents that I wanted to stay, the nightmares have returned. And I don’t know if I’m losing sleep because I’m struggling to find the connection between the two or if I’m suddenly afraid of the dark again. And not the dark that’s real and alive and ever changing, but the darkness I see behind my closed eyelids.

I never had nightmares when Liv was beside me—a realization that hit me just now. Though, to be fair, I’d never truly spent a night with anyone else before. I mean, yes, I’ve been with girls and spent nights with them, but those nights didn’t involve a lot of sleep.

Not until Olivia.

I pick up my phone again—my thumbs deft with bringing up her contact—and I type out a new text. Three simple words that tell her everything she needs to know.

I need you.

34

Rhys

Liv:

Alley. Text me when you’re here.

Liv’s house is next to an alley—a path between two houses that’s used as a walk-through to the community playground behind her house. There’s a gate in her fence from the alley that leads to a little garden patio just outside her bedroom door. Through that gate is the only way I’ve entered her house since the first time I showed up. According to Liv, her brother had sent her screenshots of me walking up her driveway from a security camera they had installed above the garage door. I didn’t see the camera, but then again, I wasn’t really looking. Luckily, the footage was grainy as hell and my cap covered my face, so Delgado had no idea it was me. It didn’t stop him from teasing her about it in that annoying brotherly way—the same way I tease my sister about her boyfriend. But there’s a difference between Delgado and me.

He’s a fucking dickhead.

I’m not.

Anyway…

It’s safe to say my opinion on the guy hasn’t changed just because I’ve developed feelings for his sister.

Liv opens the side gate just as I get to it, dressed in baggy sleep pants and a tight tank, and I immediately wrap her in my arms and lift her off her feet until her legs wrap around me. She laughs into my neck, hugging me close, andthis.

Thisis what I needed.

Nothing more than Olivia’s touch.

Olivia’s presence.

“You have to be quiet,” she whispers. “Dom’s home.”

Truly, fuck that guy.

I graze my teeth along her bare shoulder, then bite gently. “I’m not the one who needs to be quiet,” I say, walking her into her room. I set her on her feet the second we’re inside and close the glass sliding door behind us.

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