I awake to the sound of a slamming door and the rattling of twenty-five Jesuses in their frames.
“Motherfucker.” Hollis smacks his palms down on the low dresser.
My forearm swipes over my eyes, urging them to open wider. The lids feel swollen and achy from last night’s tears. My head is throbbing. “And good morning to you.”
“Ah, sorry.”
I sit up against the wooden headboard. The way Hollis’s gray T-shirt stretches over his back in this position highlights the definition of his shoulders. Not that I’m checking him out or anything. Just, you know, taking in my surroundings—getting my bearings.
“Bad news, I take it?”
“Rental car place is out of cars,” he says.
“How can— I mean, it made sense at the airport with everyone clamoring for one, but why wouldn’t they have any here?”
Hollis straightens and walks toward me, then turns and walks the other way. He’s pacing. I did not have him pegged as a pacer. “Because of the flight shitshow yesterday, they shipped all their cars to Charlotte Douglas to meet demand there. I checked this morning, and planes are finally in the air again. But like, hundreds of flights were canceled, so there are thousands of stranded passengers. Impossible to rebook them all immediately. People are still trying to find other ways to get where they’re going.”
“Maybe someone will return a car today?” I venture.
“Not according to any of the reservations in their system, no.”
“Next town over?”
His frown does the impossible and droops further. “This was the next town over, Millicent.”
“The next town over from the next town over then. Maybe they have a larger rental car place, one that’s more central, and—”
“Called them. Same deal.”
“Well,” I say. “Shit.”
“Shit indeed.” Hollis throws himself backward onto the end of the bed and lets out a sigh as he stares up at the ceiling fan.
“Okay. So what now?” I ask.
“I guess we’ll wait. Chip will have the car ready in a few more days. I don’t see what other choice we have right now.”
I shake my head. “No, no. There’s got to be some other way. What if we get a ride to a train station, or a bus station, or... I don’t know. But we have to do something. I have to get to Key West before—”
“Yes, I’m aware.” His voice is too loud and too harsh. But he must remember last night and his promise to be less of a jerk, because he sounds penitent when he speaks again. “I know this is important to you. But this isn’t exactly DC. You can’t just hail ataxi. I mean, I checked Lyft when I thought I’d need to go pick up the rental car and it basically laughed at me.”
It’s not that I doubt Hollis. I’m sure he’s done his best to find a solution to our problem. But maybe there are avenues he hasn’t explored, ones we haven’t thought of yet. “I’ll figure something out,” I declare.
“Oh, great,” he says. “I’m sure your solution is going to involve us hitchhiking or sneaking onto a cargo ship or something.”
“That’s absurd. We’re not even near a large enough body of water to find a cargo ship. And that scene where Pee-wee gets a ride from Large Marge really messed me up as a kid, so definitely no hitchhiking.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“InPee-wee’s Big Adventure, when— Oh right. You haven’t seen that movie. A lot of things about me would make more sense if you’d seen it.”
“I seriously doubt that,” he grumbles.
“Hey,” I say, and nudge his leg with my foot from under the covers. “Thanks for trying.”
“Yeah, well, lotta good it did. At least Connie and Bud said we can stay another few nights if we need.” Hollis gets up from the bed and pulls something that looks like a ball of napkins from his hoodie pocket. “Breakfast ended fifteen minutes ago,” he says, laying whatever it is on the dresser. “But I brought you this.” The napkins fall away to reveal a lemon poppyseed muffin, the glaze drizzled on top glistening in the sunlight pouring in through the thin lace curtains.
“Thanks,” I say, practically falling out of the bed when I try to get up. Maybe I should suggest to Connie she get one of those tinystaircases they make for elderly dogs to put beside this skyscraper of a mattress.
