Page 106 of The Kidnapped

“Hollis?” she asked, finding her standing in front of the closed door to Eden’s room. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Hollis replied, smiling. “You can take me back to the house tomorrow morning, right? I wasn’t planning on staying over, so I would need to change and get my car to get to work. Well, it’s not my car; it’s a rental. But if you can’t, it’s fine. I can call a–”

“I keep forgetting those things,” Raleigh said, handing Hollis her wine and then leaning against the wall opposite Eden’s room.

“What things?” Hollis leaned against the wall next to Eden’s door.

“That the bedroom at your house isn’t really yours, and the car you drive is a rental.”

“Oh. Well, yeah,” Hollis replied, taking a sip of the wine.

“What does your bedroom look like in Vancouver?” Raleigh asked, taking Hollis’s hand and pulling her down the hallway toward the bedroom.

“Pretty standard bedroom.”

Raleigh chuckled and said, “Hollis, come on.”

“What? I have a bed, there’s a table next to it and a dresser. The table and the dresser match, but the bed is just a frame. The blanket is gray. The sheets are, too. I don’t even have curtains.”

“Why not?”

“Pain in the ass to hang,” Hollis explained when they arrived at Raleigh’s bedroom. “You have a nice bedroom, though. Can I see more of it?”

Raleigh smirked at her and said, “You’ve seen all of it already.”

“I don’t know that I’ve seen enough of you lying naked on your burgundy sheets yet.”

“We can arrange that,” Raleigh smirked and placed her wineglass on the dresser next to her before taking Hollis’s and doing the same with it. “What about your car?”

“It’s ten years old and runs,” Hollis said.

“That’s all I get?”

“It’s a car, Raleigh. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just haven’t seen anything of your life, really. It’s strange.”

“Strange?”

“Your life was in another country until recently.”

“And now, I’m here.”

“But you’re driving a rental car. I mean, I know why you’re living with your mom, but you’re not going to buy a car here or drive yours down?”

“My car in Vancouver would barely make the trip. And I don’t know about buying one here. The rate on this car is good, and I have the long-term rate, which is even better, so as long as I don’t get into an accident and they try to tell me that I didn’t get the right insurance or something, I should be fine for a while.”

Raleigh reached for Hollis’s hips and pulled her closer.

“You don’t want a car of your own down here?”

“Raleigh, it’s a car. I would just as easily take a train or a bus to work, but I got the car in case I needed to get my mom somewhere. Besides, no train gets me to work easily here, and the buses are unreliable. What’s really going on?”

“Nothing. I was just asking questions,” she lied. “Are you still liking work with Kenna?”

“With Kenna, yes. What I do, no. I hate it,” Hollis told her.

“What?” she asked. “I thought you said it was fine.”

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