Page 69 of Made for Mayhem

Her laugh was small but real. “I’m thinking that’s just a regular Tuesday for you,” she said, tilting her head back toward me, eyes glinting.

“Maybe.”

“At this rate, you should start building an ark or something.”

“Junie would be thrilled,” I said, lips twitching. “Two of every kind.”

She grinned, quick and bright. “Right. You, me, a couple of chickens—boom, we could restart the population.”

I choked on my drink, orange liquid drenching my shirt.

“I did not—” she stammered, clapping a hand over her mouth. “That came out so wrong.”

As I lost it to a coughing fit, her face turned scarlet.

“I meant animals! Obviously, the animals, not⁠—”

“Procreation as an emergency survival plan?” I smirked, then grabbed a towel to wipe up the mess I’d made.

“Ty!”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “What? You’re the one planning on repopulating the world.”

She groaned, hiding her face behind both hands. “I hate you.”

“Pretty sure you started it.”

“I did not start anything!”

But when she dropped her hands, still pink and smiling, something unspoken lingered between us. An image neither of us had asked for, and now I was trying very hard not to think about.

I stared at the TV, but the game was just background noise now. Every cell in my body was aware of her—her warmth lingering in the air, the scent of her shampoo wafting through the dim room, the way her hoodie had slipped to the right just enough to expose the curve of her collarbone.

She sighed, the sound catching halfway between tired and honest, and I looked back at her.

“I went inside Violet’s house today.”

That pulled me straight out of my head. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “I didn’t stay long. I thought I could handle it—just clean something up, maybe sort through boxes—but the second I walked in, it all hit me.” She swallowed. “So I turned around and walked right back out.”

“That’s okay,” I said without hesitation.

“I know. I just…” She sighed, rubbing at her palm like she could scrub the feeling away. “I hate I couldn’t do it. Every time something gets hard, I bail. I make jokes, I make plans, I move on to the next thing instead of—” Her voice wobbled, then steadied. “It’s like my brain sees pain coming and goes, Nope. Next adventure. Distraction, aisle five.”

I shook my head. “That’s not weakness.”

“Maybe not. But it makes me feel like I’m always running.” Her shoulders sagged. “And I’m so tired of running.”

I leaned forward, forearms resting on my thighs, keeping my voice low and even. “You don’t run because you’re broken, Daisy. You run because you know how to survive.”

Her eyes lifted to mine.

“You’re good at finding light,” I continued. “Movement. Motion. Action. That’s not something you need to fix. It just means sometimes you forget you’re allowed to stop, too.”

She huffed a shaky laugh. “I don’t do still very well.”

“I know,” I said. “So don’t force it. You don’t have to face everything tonight. You don’t have to be brave or productive or strong.” My gaze held hers. “You’re allowed to come back later. Or tomorrow. Or not at all yet.”