Page 164 of While You Were Trending

“She’ll make me look bad, but I can take it,” he replies with a smile. “Ginny, meet Verona. Verona, this is Ginny. And this is Flow, who promises she’ll stay out of the clay.”

Flow smiles and wags her back end while Verona greets me with a hug.

Friends.

I like friends.

“It’s good to meet you, Ginny,” Verona says. “Come. I’m ready for both of you.”

She leads us behind the house to a pink stucco shed hung with a sign announcing we’re entering Verona’s playhouse.Shelves line the walls, some piled with bowls and cups and plates in all stages of completion, some holding bags of unshaped clay and buckets of glaze. There’s a large workbench splattered with a rainbow of colors and topped with pottery tools in homemade mugs, and six pottery wheels set in a circle.

It's organized chaos in a colorful setting, and I love it.

“You give classes?” I ask her.

“That’s the goal.” She inclines her head toward Declan. “Mutually beneficial arrangement. He gets footage, I get my first student. Do you remember your way around clay?”

I smile so broadly my eyes water. “I do.”

“Make yourself at home then.”

I hesitate only a moment before buzzing through the studio, prepping a wheel and cutting a chunk of clay off of one of the large blocks while Declan gets his phone and travel ring light set up to record.

Flow settles beside my chair as I get reacquainted with the feel of clay in my hands, playing more than I’m intentionally trying to make anything, while Declan and Verona get started with his lesson.

“Why do we do this?” he asks as Verona guides him through throwing the clay.

“We’re making sure there aren’t any air bubbles inside that would expand and make your creations explode in the kiln.”

I stay quiet, but I also occasionally chuck a ball of clay at him, which earns me a warm smile every time.

Verona declares his clay good enough for spinning, and he settles at the wheel across from me after moving his phone setup.

“What do you want to make?” Verona asks him.

He glances past his camera at me, where my hands are covered in wet clay as I work my own creation.

“A mug,” he tells Verona. “For my mom.”

My heart melts a little more.

“She wouldn’t want a bowl?” Verona asks.

He grins. “She already has those. My brother and I made them at art camp when we were kids.”

“A mug it is then.” She takes a seat next to him and demonstrates how much water to use and how to begin shaping the clay, and he presses the pedal to make his own wheel spin as he mimics her movements.

I pause my own wheel, watching as he cups the clay with his hands and pulls it upward, a mixture of concentration and a smirk on his face as he makes a tall, elongated shape rise out of the clay.

“Are dicks a prerequisite to mugs?” he asks Verona.

“They’re easier to slap around than pussies,” she replies.

I pinch my lips together and breathe to keep from making noise while Declan laughs.

“Fair enough,” he says.

“Good. Now, we want to flatten it and push it back down,” she says, demonstrating on her own wheel.