Page 18 of Not Made to Last

Rhys drops his gaze, his shoulders slumping as if he just realized we’re not alone.

“Let’s just never speak of this again, okay?”

His gaze roams my features, his dark eyes thinning to slits as he assesses me. “You got it…Olivia.”

I hate the way he says my name now. I jerk my head toward his door. “You can leave.”

“I could…” His shoulders lift with his shrug. “… But I won’t.” He stares out his window, and I stare at him. Just when I’m about to ask him to leave again, a brief flash of police sirens has me momentarily frozen. He slides down his seat, murmurs, “You better duck down if you don’t want people to see us together.”

“What?”

“Three… two…”

I duck down, matching his position, my heart hammering against my rib cage. “What’s going on?” I whisper, just as the sound of cars screeching and people yelling fills my ears.

Rhys is… smiling.

Great. I’m stuck in a car with a sociopath.

We’re on our sides, our legs bent in the floor space with our upper bodies resting on the back of the seats, and thank God I have a big truck because I can’t imagine this being possible any other way.

We’re facing each other now, his slate-gray eyes barely visible in the darkness.

My exhale comes out shaky as I try to breathe through the fear racing inside me. “Relax, Olivia,” he murmurs, his voice somehow deeper, richer. He reaches across the console, his fingertips running a line across my forehead, pushing my hair aside.

I can no longer breathe. No longer think. It’s almost surreal—the way my eyes close as he trails one finger down my temple, under my eye, back again. And then he…

He pinches my cheek.

I swat his hand away.

His low chuckle fills the cab and replaces the fear in my chest with another emotion. “I had fun tonight,” he says. “Even if you take away the last few minutes on that rooftop… I had a good time with you.”

This boy may be bipolar.

Either that, or he’s just as confused as I am. “So did I,” I whisper, and as soon as the words come out of my mouth, I know them to be true.

Outside, cars whip by us, their intermittent headlights creating a light show in the cab and across Rhys’s face. It takes a few minutes for silence to surround us again, and not once has he taken his eyes off me, and I…

…I can’t seem to look away.

“I don’t want you to worry,” he says finally. “I swear on my sister’s life, I won’t say a word.”

“Thank you,” I whisper. He doesn’t make a move to leave, and for some reason, I don’t feel compelled to ask him to. Headlights shine into my truck again, and I assume it’s just passing. It’s not. The car stops right behind us, and the lights cut off completely. A car door opens. Closes. Footsteps approach, and then I hear something that has my heart jumping to my throat, clogging my airways: a police radio.

“Rhys…”

Rhys sits up, and I follow his lead. His fingers search for the window button on the door, but it won’t go down because the car’s not on. I turn the key to the first click, illuminating the dash. Rhys winds down the window all the way and puts his fist out for a bump. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

The cop, whose features I can’t make out until he dips his head and looks farther into the truck—responds, “Anytime, bro. You know this.” He’s shorter than Rhys, but has a similar build, and he’s around his mid-to-late twenties. He smiles at me, and I attempt to smile back.

“This is my friend, Olivia,” Rhys tells him. “Olivia, this is Curtis.”

We exchange brief, generic pleasantries, as if this is all completely normal. Until Curtis looks into the truck, notices Max in the back seat. His eyes narrow, just enough to notice but not enough to fear. “Who’s this?” he asks, looking from a sleeping Max to me.

I swallow, nervous. “He’s my brother.”

Rhys turns to me, his eyebrows raised. “Another one?” He looks from Max to me, again and again, as if he’ll suddenly find a similarity between us. He won’t. “How?”

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