Page 64 of Not Made to Last

When I turn back around, Liv’s on the floor with tin cans and a clew (thanks, Max) of thick twine in front of her. “Let me just pack up real quick,” she says, unplugging a glue gun.

“You don’t have to pack up,” I rush out. There’s cardboard laid out beneath all the supplies—to protect the floors, I assume—and I make sure not to disturb anything as I sit down opposite her. “What are you making?”

She laughs once. “It’s nothing.”

“Obviously, it’s not nothing,” I say, motioning to the stuff between us. “What is it?”

“I’m making some new planters.” She lifts one that’s already made. “I just glue the twine around it, and then I’ll probably dip the bottom in white paint to make it look a little nicer. Then I’ll go to a few thrift stores to find little plates for underneath them, and then Max and I—we like to walk around the neighborhood and steal cuttings from people’s front yards.”

“So,you’rethe one doing the burglary,” I tease, throwing back her assumption of me from the first night we met. “How hypocritical.”

“Hardly the same,” she says, rolling her eyes, before pointing to the window. “I think I’m going to line them up on the ledge there.”

I follow her gaze, try to picture it in my mind. “That’ll look pretty,” I tell her.

She giggles.

“What?”

“The wordpretty, from your mouth, it’s like a dichotomy.”

“That’s a big word,” I muse, picking up the twine and rolling it between my fingers. “And I’ve said ‘pretty’ before.”

“Not around me, you haven’t.”

“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I’ve definitely said itaboutyou.” I pick up an unused can. “Are you just making these for you, or do you plan to sell them?” For a long moment, she doesn’t respond, and so I look up, catch those muddy brown eyes staring back at me. “What’s up?”

“You just called me pretty.”

“And?”

She shrugs.

I look back down, focus on the project in front of me. “You’re insanely pretty, Liv, and if you don’t know this, then I’m sorry you’re surrounding yourself with people who haven’t already convinced you of it.” I lift the can up between us. “Can I make one?”

“Rhys…”

I glance up. “Yeah?”

Liv tilts her head, just a tad, and spends the next few seconds silently scrutinizing me. “You didn’t come here to craft with me.”

“I came tobewith you. This included.”

“So, you didn’t come here for…”

I raise my eyebrows, wait for her to say the word. S E X. It’s really not that hard. But the longer I watch her, the redder her cheeks get. “Did I come here for you to play with my dick and balls?—”

She busts out a laugh, and now I’m the one reminding her to be quiet. Not that I’d care if Delgado found me in here, but I’m not here to complicate things for her. Also, she mentioned that he’d asked her if the rumors were true—that I was now an assistant coach at his rival school. Liv said she played dumb; told him she didn’t know. But if Delgado discovers me in here, with his sister, astudentat the very school where I’m coaching, then there’s no way I’d be able to keep the job, which means I’d leave Oscar on his own, andfuck… maybe my being here is a bad idea.

“I have a spare glue gun,” she whispers.

My smile is stupid.

I don’t know how long we spend in comfortable silence, hot-glueing twine to tin cans, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so… weightless. So at ease. “This is kind of therapeutic, no?”

“It is,” she agrees. “Keep my hands busy, keep the anxiety at bay.”

I lift my gaze. “You get anxious?”

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