“I understand what you’re saying,” my father concedes. “And Millie is a wonderful girl, don’t get me wrong. But she’s too kind-hearted, easily manipulated—”
“She’s an adult who can make her own decisions,” Hollis says. “She knows what she’s doing.”
“Ha.” Somehow all of Dad’s intense disagreement with Hollis’s claim manages to fit inside that tiny word. It feels like someone tugging down on my heart, testing to see how much it can stretch before it tears. “If she knew what she was doing,” he continues, “she wouldn’t have wasted three years on that schmuck Josh.”
Hollis’s fingers curl into a fist against his leg, and I have asneaking suspicion he’s about to say something really rude to my father. I know I need to end this conversation right now before it gets even more out of hand. So why am I instead on the metaphorical edge of my seat waiting to hear my new friend with benefits defend me?
But before Hollis can give Dad the dressing down he probably deserves, blue and red lights appear in my rearview mirror.
“Sorry, gotta go,” I say, throwing on the turn signal.
“Oh shit,” Hollis says, seeing the police cruiser behind us at the same time its sirens let out awoop woop. He gives my thigh a squeeze. “They’ve found us. Floor it, Millicent.”
I whack Hollis on the arm with the back of my hand. He smiles at the rising panic in my mother’s voice as she asks what’s going on, and I can barely contain the bark of laughter building in my chest.
Hollis holds the phone closer to his mouth to ensure my parents hear him. “Faster, honey, faster. I can’t go back to prison.”
“Millie!” my parents shriek in unison.
“Talk to you later, loveyoubye!” I say in a hurry as I pull over. And I’m pretty sure the last thing my parents hear as Hollis ends the call is me cackling like a cheap, animatronic witch decoration.
16
•••••
“Nice of your pal Ryan to give us a car with a burned-out taillight,” Hollis says.
“I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose.”
Whether Ryan knew or not, this little chat with Trooper Rodrigo on the shoulder of I-95 has cost us forty-five minutes of travel time so far. About ten of those minutes were spent unloading everything from the tightly packed glove box trying to find the registration and proof of insurance, which it turns out was attached to the passenger-side visor all along. Since I had no idea where the documents were, have an out-of-state license, and didn’t know Ryan’s last name until I read it off the registration, Trooper Rodrigo decided to give him a call to confirm we have permission to drive his car.
“My parents usually worry I’m about to be the victim of a crime, and the police think I might be committing one,” I muse as we wait for the trooper to return from his cruiser.
“Oh, I don’t know. Thanks to me your parents might now be convinced we’ve decided to Bonnie and Clyde it.”
I cover my face as I laugh. “I cannot believe you did that. They’re probably calling every southern state highway patrol as we speak to find out if I’ve been arrested.”
“Sorry if I overstepped, by the way,” Hollis says. “I hope it didn’t seem like I was trying to mansplain you to your own mom and dad.”
“No,I’msorry that my parents put you on the spot like that. I appreciate you sticking up for me. Even if you didn’t really mean what you said.”
“I did mean it. I know I tease you, but I’ve realized over the last couple days that you have some sort of system to calculate risk. Even if I don’t always understand it, I have to admit that it’s mostly worked for you for the last twenty-whatever years.”
“Almost thirty,” I say. “But aren’t you the same person who decided to let me come with him to Miami because he was convinced there was a one hundred percent chance that I’d get murdered and dismembered if left to my own devices?”
“Not one hundred. Maybe ninety-five percent. Also, I didn’t know about your system then,” he says. “You just seemed like a happy little boat floating along in the middle of a hurricane, completely unaware that you were dangerously close to being dashed upon the rocks.”
I smile at the analogy. “Please. If anything, I’m the hurricane.”
“As I have discovered. And I’m starting to suspect thatImight be the boat.” He lets out a hefty sigh.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll use my awesome power to guide you safely to shore.”
The corner of Hollis’s mouth lifts. “I’m not sure you know anything about how hurricanes work.”
Trooper Rodrigo is still sitting inside his cruiser, phone to his ear. I really hope he can get in touch with Ryan (whose last name I now know is Dubicki). Otherwise my second time in a police car could be less than forty-eight hours after my first.
“Have they always been so overprotective?” Hollis asks.
