Page 68 of The Kidnapped

“I’m just going to postpone,” she said, reaching for her phone in her pocket.

“No, you’re not. You’re going to go out with Raleigh and enjoy the night. Like you said, you barely got her to go out with you to begin with. Don’t give her a reason to rethink this, Hollis.”

Hollis nodded reluctantly. Then, she kissed her mom on the forehead to check her temperature more than to say goodbye with it. Feeling as satisfied as she could that her mom would be okay for the night, Hollis grabbed her purse and keys and headed to the car.

She’d chosen to dress casually for the date. It was a bit of a risk, though. They hadn’t talked about what they were doing. Hollis had made a reservation at a restaurant in town, which wasn’t fancy but wasn’t fast food, either. She just thought if she dressed to the nines and booked a five-star place, they’d both feel stuffy and uncomfortable. It wasn’t their style. They were the diner-coffee kind of women, not the entrées-they-couldn’t-even-pronounce kind of women.

When she got to Raleigh’s place, she thought about the flower her mom had told her to pick from the back garden. She hadn’t tended to it at all that season and hadn’t realized that, with the lack of attention and the weather, it wasn’t in good shape. There were no flowers. Hollis had meant to stop somewhere and pick up flowers for Raleigh, but in her quest to make sure Olivia was taken care of and to be on time, she’d forgotten to do so. Now, she’d arrived to her first date with someone she really liked, and she was empty-handed.

Having gotten out of the car, Hollis walked slowly toward the door, tossing her keys back and forth in her hands nervously. She’d left her purse in the car, but maybe she shouldn’t have done that. Raleigh might invite her inside for a few minutes before they’d leave for dinner. When she looked back, though, thinking about grabbing it, she heard the door open. Hollis turned to see Raleigh standing in the open doorway, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a nice off-the-shoulder gray sweater. She looked like the perfect definition of date casual. Hollis smiled because she hadn’t been wrong to go with jeans herself.

“Just give me one second,” Raleigh spoke. “I need to grab a coat.”

“Okay,” Hollis replied, walking toward the house now. “I would’ve rung the bell, you know?”

“I know,” Raleigh said from behind the open door, where Hollis knew the hall closet and Raleigh’s coat were. “I was just on my way to grab my jacket when I saw you through the window,” she added, closing the closet door and then reemerging in the open doorway, slipping into her coat. “How do you not wear a coat?”

Hollis smiled and said, “It’s not cold.”

“Yes, it is,” Raleigh replied, laughing.

“Not to me,” Hollis argued. “Are you ready, or–”

“I’m ready,” Raleigh told her, closing the front door and locking it before she turned around and stopped. “So, hello.”

“Hello,” Hollis said, giving Raleigh a shy smile. “You look great.”

“You too,” Raleigh replied.

“It’s nice to be able to say that.”

“That you look great?”

“That you do,” Hollis said. “I’ve thought it a lot, but I’ve never been able to say it. At least, not in this context.”

“What’s the context?” Raleigh asked, but Hollis could see the mischief in her eyes.

“A date, not two friends going for coffee.”

Raleigh nodded and said, “It is nice, yes.”

They walked to Hollis’s car, and Hollis wanted to open the door for her date but thought that might be too much. She’d been right. Raleigh had rushed to the car, opened the door herself, and climbed in. When Hollis joined her, she figured out why.

“I’ll crank the heat up,” she said, shaking her head as Raleigh cupped her hands around her mouth and blew, trying to warm them.

They arrived at the restaurant fifteen minutes later, but it was on the main drag in town, so finding a parking spot hadn’t been easy. When Hollis finally managed to find one a block away, that meant they’d have to walk that far, with Raleigh likely freezing, so Hollis decided to go back around the block and in front of the restaurant and double-parked.

“Why don’t you go inside and tell them we have a reservation? I’ll park and join you.”

“I can walk with you,” Raleigh replied.

“I don’t want you to freeze before we get inside. I’ll find a spot and be right there.”

Raleigh smiled at her and got out of the car, and Hollis drove a little too fast to see if that spot was still available. Sadly, it wasn’t, but she found another one about half a block away and parallel parked; one of her least favorite things to do, but something she’d gotten very good at over the years when she’d been in and out of the city. She then walked quickly and made it to the restaurant, where she found Raleigh waiting for her in the lobby.

“They just needed a minute to get the table ready,” Raleigh told her. “Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

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