Chapter 8 #3
“Ha, you think?” His sarcasm is harsh, cutting deeper than anything else he’s said to me over the last few hours.
Throughout the day it’s been easy to tell myself he’s actually a really nice guy inside.
That the snark and rudeness is only a mask he wears for some reason, and that I shouldn’t take it personally.
But right now, with the weight of everything at stake heavy on my brain and my heart, it’s not so easy to let it roll off me.
I get the message loud and clear. I’m going to let it go, stop trying to get him to drop the facade and let me in.
Maybe he’s right; maybe people aren’t as good as I want them to be.
Maybe he’s not as good as I want him to be.
I close my eyes tight against the pressure building behind them, but open them again as the mattress bounces in response to his shift in position. He’s facing me now. It’s dark, but I can see his frown. His default, I already know, so it tells me nothing.
“I should be in Miami right now, sweaty and inspired after round six with Yeva. Instead, I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere with a damaged car, twenty-five Jesuses staring at me—and yes, I counted while you were in the bathroom, there are twenty-five of them—and you .
” He spits the word “you” as if I’m the worst part of it all.
“So no. Things are not going as planned.”
“Hollis—”
“Go to sleep, Millicent. It’ll all be equally miserable in the morning. We can discuss it then.” He turns away again and pulls the covers over his shoulder.
He’s right. This is miserable. If Hollis likes me at all, it seems like he resents me more.
We’re losing valuable travel time that might mean the difference between delivering Mrs. Nash to Elsie and being too late.
And the deer! Oh no, the poor deer. What if Dr. Gupta was wrong and it’s dying, or it’s already dead?
Officer Jones said it wasn’t my fault, and that the deer hit the car, not the other way around.
But I feel terrible about it anyway, and extremely guilty, and oh god, all the blood, and it was on my face —I’m not sure whether to puke or cry.
Cry. That’ll involve less cleanup. So I’m going to turn away and cry.
Go ahead, eyeballs, release the floodgates. Stomach, please standby.
“Mill.” It’s a whisper, Hollis’s breath hot against my ear. “Are you okay?”
I sniffle and try to wipe away evidence of my tears with my forearm, but I’m still crying so it’s kind of like using windshield wipers during a monsoon. “Peachy,” I manage.
Hollis lets out a soft, emphatic dammit before his hand settles on my upper arm, heavy and warm through the cotton of the T-shirt.
“Mill, I’m sorry. I’ve been a complete bastard all day, and I’m so sorry.
You didn’t deserve any of that. Tell me what to do to make it better.
I’ll do it. Whatever it is. I hate it when you cry. It makes me feel... panicky.”
“When have you ever—” I manage before the congestion in my sinuses forces me to swallow, cutting me off.
“That night at the party, when you came out of the restaurant. You were crying pretty hard then.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I barely knew you—we’d only met in passing a few times—but I could tell that you were this bright, sunshine sort of person. Seeing you cry... it’s like watching the sun flickering out. Like I’m getting a preview of the apocalypse. A horrible glimpse into a world that’s colder and darker—”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it. You’re a writer,” I say through my tears.
A chuckle rolls through his chest and I can almost feel it against my back.
He’s so close, but only his hand connects us.
“Please don’t cry. I’ll do anything. Anything to make it up to you, to make it better.
I’ll even...” He pauses as if thinking something over.
“Ha. Sure, why the hell not.” Hollis makes a small, resigned groaning sound and I sense him leaning closer.
And then a quiet, familiar melody floats into my ear.
“Don’t let the sun... go down on me. ..”
Laughter rises up in my throat, but I push it back down, settling on a huge grin instead.
Hollis is singing Elton John to me, and I’m pretty sure he’s doing so in an unironic effort to cheer me up.
The last thing I want to do is spook him, which I will definitely do if I burst out laughing like I want to.
“I just realized... I don’t know any of the other words...” he continues, still loosely clinging to the tune.
I can no longer keep my amusement hidden behind just a grin, and permit what I can only describe as a childish giggle. To my relief, Hollis sighs and says, “A single ray peeking through the clouds, but I’ll take it.”
Finally, there’s a break in my tears. I reach for a tissue on the nightstand and blow my nose into it. “The live version with George Michael is my favorite.” I sniffle.
“Yes, I know. You mentioned that several times when it came on in the car.”
“Wait a second.” I roll onto my opposite side to face him. I’m full of regret when his hand slides off my arm and he shifts a few inches away to give me more space. “You did remember me from that night at Josh’s party. At the airport earlier, you acted like you didn’t.”
He raises his right shoulder in a shrug that presumably would be joined by the left if it wasn’t buried in the mattress. The corners of Hollis’s mouth shift ever so subtly into a smirk. “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.”
I give him a shove, but despite the force of it he doesn’t move.
Instead, I’m just pressing my hand against his chest until I realize the thumping against my palm is his heart.
Suddenly, the moment feels like it’s turning into a moment , like the one on the hood of the police car, so I pull my hand away and let it fall to the mattress between us.
“I am sorry, Millicent,” he says. “I meant what I said about us being friends. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. I’ll try to be less...”
“Of a dick?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.” I stare at my hand, counting the chips in my nail polish to keep from having to make eye contact. “Though, while I’d appreciate that immensely, that’s not why I was crying. I mean it was, but it wasn’t the whole reason.”
“Elsie?”
I manage a nod.
“Ah. Right.” He bites his thick bottom lip and looks to the side as if contemplating the problem. Hmm... I wonder if that lip would feel good between my teeth. No. This is not the time to get distracted by his lips. Not at all the time. Elsie is dying. Elsie is dying .
“What if she’s gone before I get to her because of all this?”
“Then... I guess you did the best you could.”
“That doesn’t feel like enough,” I whisper.
“It’ll have to be.”
I sigh. “And the deer. What if it doesn’t make it? What if I killed it? What if it haunts me?”
“Then we’ll call an exorcist. With the amount of deer that die of unnatural causes, I bet they’re extremely used to taking care of this kind of thing.”
“And by ‘this kind of thing,’ you mean deer hauntings?” My words come out deadpan, but I can’t help but grin. I can never keep a straight face when something’s funny—reason number ten thousand I wasn’t a very good actress.
“Yes. I bet we could even find a two-for-one coupon.” His face remains completely serious at first, then slowly cracks.
The full-blown smile that hits me is so powerful it’s amazing it doesn’t light up the room.
I’m so dazzled that it takes me an embarrassingly long time to notice I’m staring at him the same way he stared at the sopaipillas at José Napoleoni’s—like he didn’t want to wait another minute to find out what they tasted like.
The realization that dinner was less than twelve hours ago reminds me that I’m way too exhausted to be unproductively lusting over this strange, sweet jerk. “Well, we should get some sleep,” I say.
“Yeah. Good night.”
We both lay in the dark on our backs, our arms parallel to each other, separated by the smallest amount of space.
I feel the heat rolling off his skin, like standing in front of an open oven.
And even though the thin material of the T-shirt is already making me feel like I’m suffocating, when Hollis’s breathing slows and becomes interspersed with the soft snores that already feel so familiar, I press my arm against his and bask in the warmth of our connection as I drift off to sleep.