Hollis isn’t there when I return to the car, even though I took an embarrassingly long time trying to get the automatic toilet to stop flushing down the seat covers before I could even sit. Maybe he decided mid-pee that all this isn’t worth it and started walking home. Oh, but there he is, over by a copse of trees, staring at his phone again. Probably giving Miami Woman an update. Which reminds me, I never told Dani I’m with Hollis. As far as she knows, I’m still on my way to Charlotte with Mike. And while she’s extremely chill about almost everything, she will 100 percent call the cops—or worse, my parents—if she doesn’t hear from me. I pull out my phone and shoot off a quick text.
MILLIE:Change of plans. Now driving to Miami with Hollis Hollenbeck, who I sort of know through the dbag. 30ish,white, handsomely disheveled brown hair, 1 blue eye + 1 brown, about 6 ft, great forearms.
DANI:So you wanna bang him, huh?
My cousin truly has a gift for reading between the lines.
MILLIE:Even if I did, he’s on his way to a sex appointment.
DANI:Tell him your vagina has an earlier slot available.
Ha!
“What’s so funny?”
My head snaps up in response to Hollis’s voice. “Oh. Hey. Nothing.”
“Some advice for you: Never play poker unless you’re looking to lose all of your money,” he says. “You’re a terrible liar.”
I consider responding that I’m agreatliar, but what a weird thing to insist. And also I’m honestly not. Which is probably another reason I never succeeded as an actress afterPenelope to the Past, now that I think about it; pretending to be someone else started to feel like nothing but socially acceptable lying by the end of my showbiz career.
“Your tell is that you blush. Here.” His finger pokes into the side of my cheek, right where I have a dimple when I smile—what my aunt Talia used to call my “million-dollar divot” when I started doing commercials at six. “And here,” Hollis says. The finger moves to the very top of my breastbone, right under my throat. That wet mouth–dry throat thing happens again, but I can’t swallow without him noticing. Instead, I let out an awkward whiningsound like a balloon deflating. I probably should have just swallowed because whatever that was waswaaaayweirder.
The bizarre noise brings Hollis’s attention to the fact he’s still touching me. He shoves his right hand into his pocket, as if putting it in hand jail as a punishment for its transgression, and raises his free left one to show me his phone. “Josh commented on our post. Thought you might be interested.”
“Oh, what’d he say? Let me see.” Hollis apparently has more clout than I realized. There are a ton of likes and comments. I quickly scroll through, in awe of the vast number of them, losing Josh’s in the process. “You some kind of social media big shot?” I ask, trying to get back to it while not reading any of the others in case they’re creepy.
“Uh, on Twitter maybe. I got a bunch of new followers there when I published a piece inThe New Yorkera few weeks ago that got some traction. I only have like a hundred on Insta, though. I don’t know most of these people. They must’ve found the picture because of the hashtags.”
“Oh.” I scroll faster because that makes it even more likely some of the comments are stuff I’d rather not see. Even trying not to read anything, I spot several mentions of the notorious yellow bikini, and I’m beginning to regret adding the #MillicentWattsCohen and #PenelopetothePast hashtags when I find what I’m looking for. Josh’s stupid face stares back at me from the little picture next to his username. He’s wearing the cream-colored fisherman sweater he bought after seeingKnives Out.What are you doing?I asked when I came home from the National Archives and found him at the kitchen table with a pair of scissors, strategically cutting into the wool to make holes like Chris Evans’s sweater had in the film.Authenticity is very important to me, he said, not joking atall. And now I have zero regrets about anything, including hastily sewing the holes back together with fluorescent-orange thread the day I moved out.
Josh_Yaeger
Is this supposed to be some kind of prank?
Oh, he’s mad. And it’s amazing. Getting under Josh’s skin is like a drug, and I forgot how addicted I am. “Can we post another one?” I ask, bouncing on the balls of my feet.
“Does it get me more sopaipillas?”
“Probably not.”
“Then no.”
“You’re no fun,” I say.
“That’s right, kid. Best remember it.” Hollis takes the phone from my hand and goes around the car to the driver’s side.
“Stop calling me ‘kid,’ ” I grumble as I climb back into the passenger seat. “I’m almost thirty. And you’re what, thirty-two, thirty-three, tops?”
“Thirty-one. And forgive me if I sometimes forget that even though you’re short, naive, and have poor impulse control, you’re not actually eight years old.”
“Ha ha ha. Aren’t you a hoot.”
“Yep. A no-fun hoot. That’s what I am.” Hollis tucks his hands behind his head, giving me a fabulous view of his right tricep, and closes his eyes. And then he stays that way.
It’s tempting to stare at him for a while, just to torture myself I guess. But there’s really no time. “What are you doing?”
Without opening his eyes, he says, “Power nap. Didn’t sleep well last night and it’s catching up with me.”
