“Sorry, if you could just give us a minute,” Hollis says to Mike while guiding me off to the side so we can continue our discussion in relative privacy. “If it’s either your luggage in my trunk or your dismembered body parts in someone else’s, I’d prefer the former.”
“Excuse you. Mike is lovely and very not-murdery.”
Hollis looks back at Mike, who is smiling down at his phone and humming “Soul Man.” “I’m not worried about Mike. Mike’s probably fine. But it’s a long trip from Charlotte to Miami, and you apparently have very few qualms about requesting rides from strangers. So excuse me if I’d rather know for sure that you arrive in Florida safe, sound, and with all of your limbs intact.”
“Ooh, stranger danger,” I say, wiggling my fingers in the air. “Did you forget that you’re a stranger too, Hollis?”
“I’m not a stranger. We’ve met before.”
“You don’t even remember it.”
His frown deepens. “Well,Iknow you’re safe with me. And since I’m doing this for my own peace of mind, that’s what matters here.”
“Oh, right. Right. Because you only do kind things out of selfishness.”
“Why are you saying it like that?” he asks.
“Like what? How am I saying it?” I smile up at him, watching the way his pulse jumps in his neck. Him finding me amusing is great and all, but I have to admit there’s an appeal to him finding me frustrating too.
“Ahem. Sorry to interrupt,” Mike says, appearing beside us. A blush sweeps over my face as I realize Hollis and I have been having a stare-off for the last minute and a half. “I need to get rockin’ and rollin’ if I’m going to get home tonight. Millie, are you still riding with me, or...?”
“Ah, sorry, Mike. As much as I was looking forward to being the Joliet Jake to your Elwood, it probably makes more sense for me to go with Hollis since he’s traveling farther south. I’m really sorry for keeping you from getting on the road. So uh, here.” I dig my wallet from my backpack and pull out two fifties. “Here’s a quarter of what I promised you, to make up for the inconvenience.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” But after I insist, Mike tucks the bills into a money clip and it disappears into his pants pocket. “Thanks, Millie. But for the record, I’d’ve been Jake. Belushi had the better voice.” He barks out a laugh, ending in a wide smile. “You take care now. Be safe.”
“You too,” I say. “Give my best to Carla and the puppies.”
“The puppies, huh?” Hollis says as we walk toward the exit.
“Mike and his wife are proud pug parents.”
Hollis sighs and rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything as he walks ahead. After a short and silent journey, we arrive at his car in the Parking 2 garage. Considering the circumstances—that I was weeping and suddenly single—I didn’t really notice his car the night he drove me home, but I assume this navy Volvo sedan is the same one he had a few months ago. He tosses my suitcase intothe trunk beside his duffel bag. I settle into the passenger seat, my backpack on the floorboard between my feet. When Hollis starts the engine, he lets out a little annoyed huff that might be directed toward me or maybe just toward the world at large.
“Thanks for changing your mind,” I say.
“I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“Don’t even. I would’ve been perfectly fine with Mike.”
He grips the steering wheel so tightly his fingers lose their color. There’s a beat of silence, and it lets a realization float into my brain.
“Hmm,” I say.
“What?”
I wait until he’s safely backed us out of the parking space. As he predicted, there’s a lot of extra traffic in the garage due to the mass cancelation. “Well, I was just thinking... there’s something I don’t understand.”
“Oh, it seems like there are a lot of things you don’t understand. Like basic self-preservation.”
“Why were you there, Hollis? By the car rental kiosks, I mean. That’s the Parking One garage, and your car was parked here, in Two.” I watch his profile, waiting for him to respond. When he doesn’t, I continue. “And you had a head start. About twenty minutes between when you left me and then when you showed up again. If you’d come straight to your car, you would’ve already been making your way down 95 by the time I met Mike. Yet there you were, skulking around the rental car kiosks—”
“I wasn’t skulking.”
“Then what were you doing?”
He doesn’t respond.
“What I think,” I say, “is that you were about halfway to thegarage when you realized there’d be a mad dash for rental cars. And your conscience refused to let you leave me potentially stranded, so you hung around to check on me.”
