CHAPTER 33

“S o, how are you?” Raleigh asked.

“That’s about the tenth time you’ve asked me that since we left the house.”

“No, I think it’s ten times in total. I asked you at least three times last night over ice cream and once before bed. Then, I asked in the middle of the night when I rolled over and noticed you were still awake. I think I asked once or twice before you went to work, and then a few times since you got home, but it hasn’t been ten times since we left the house.”

Hollis laughed, took Raleigh’s hand, and moved it to her lap, entwining their fingers.

“I’m sorry. I just haven’t figured out how I am yet, so I don’t know that I have much to update you on.” She glanced out the side window. “How are you , though?”

“Can I just tell you that I cannot wait until we’re just driving down a street because we’re, I don’t know, going to the grocery store or out to eat or something, so that when we ask these kinds of questions, we’re just asking about how our days were at work and not how we’re both dealing with all of this other stuff?”

“Yes, you can tell me that,” Hollis teased and brought Raleigh’s hand to her lips to kiss.

“And I want to have sex, Hollis,” Raleigh stated as she turned the car into the parking lot and parked.

“What?” Hollis laughed, surprised. “We have sex, Raleigh,” she added once Raleigh turned off the car.

“I know. But we’re not in that having-sex-constantly phase that new couples usually get to have.”

“Oh,” Hollis let out.

Raleigh turned to her and said, “I’m not–”

“No, it’s okay. I get it.”

“Hollis,” Raleigh began to explain. “I just mean that I really, really love our sex. You can tell how much: it’s an embarrassing amount of love for the sex we have. We had to clean the sheets because of it.”

Hollis laughed again.

“But babe, we’re–”

“Having sex in the guest room at my mom’s house?”

“Yes. And don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. I love your mom. She’s amazing, and she needs you. And I will have sex with you anywhere.”

“But we’re not able to do it as often or as loudly, if we’re being honest,” Hollis added, winking at Raleigh.

“Can you stay over at my place tonight?” Raleigh asked.

“So that we can have loud, marathon sex?”

“Yes. And it would also be nice for me to be home for the night, but I understand if you can’t. I just need to get some stuff from my office, and I can–”

“No, it’s fine,” Hollis replied. “I’ll text the night nurse to let her know, and I’ll call Mom. She’ll understand.”

“Really?” Raleigh checked.

“I just need to make sure the nurse tells me she thinks Mom will be okay because I can’t trust my mother to admit it if she wants me there. She’ll lie because she wants me to live my life.”

“We can stay at your place. I don’t want to take you away from her.”

“No, it’s okay. And you’re right: we need this, Raleigh. The past few nights have been about my mom, and then my dad calls, and… There’s not been any new news on Eden, and I thought maybe there would be by now… So, let’s just take the night to be a normal couple.”

“A normal couple going to a support group right now?”

“Let’s go to the meeting, and after that, maybe we can go to the diner and have shitty coffee and that pie you like before we go back to your place and make use of the kitchen island, that chair in your living room, your shower, the–”

“Hollis!”

“What?” Hollis asked, laughing .

“I can’t think about all of that right now,” Raleigh said.

“You brought it up,” Hollis argued, still laughing as they got out of the car.

◆◆◆

“Hollis, anything to share tonight?” Molly asked.

“Oh, no. I don’t think so,” Hollis said.

Raleigh leaned over and whispered, “It’s okay if you want to say something.”

“I haven’t even shared with you yet. And we have plans later. I don’t want to take you out of the mood,” Hollis whispered back.

Raleigh took her hand and softly said, “I’ll still want you. I want all of you, Hollis. This part included.”

Hollis nodded and said to the room, “Actually, can I say something about my dad?”

“Of course,” Molly replied.

Raleigh and the other members of the group listened as Hollis talked about the phone call from her father and the plea deal.

“There’s a part of me that’s glad he’s taking the deal, but there’s this other part of me that’s pissed he could get out in less than four years. He said he wanted to be in my life then. Meanwhile, my mom is dying and won’t even get to be in my life for that long, but he thinks it’s his decision somehow.”

Raleigh held on to her hand as Hollis spoke, wishing she could punch her father in the face and then knee him in the nuts because he’d done this to her.

“Raleigh, anything from you tonight?” Molly asked her after Hollis finished sharing and was offered encouraging words by the group.

“No, I’m okay,” she replied.

And it was true; Raleigh didn’t need to share tonight. They’d come for Hollis tonight, and Hollis seemed to feel a little better now, so the meeting had served its purpose.

“Are you sure?” Hollis asked .

“Yeah, I’m good, babe,” Raleigh said, smiling at her.

◆◆◆

They’d gone to the diner after the meeting and shared a piece of apple pie. Hollis had ordered the terrible coffee as well, more out of tradition than anything else, and Raleigh had laughed when she’d taken a sip. They’d held hands as they walked back to Raleigh’s car, and when they climbed inside, she’d taken Hollis’s hand back in her own, and they’d driven to Raleigh’s house. Hollis had texted the nurse, and when she called her mother right after, Raleigh had been able to hear Olivia through the phone as she told Hollis to have a good night. There had definitely been something in her tone that had led Raleigh to believe that Olivia knew what they’d be doing tonight.

Inside the house, Raleigh poured them both a glass of red wine and went in search of Hollis because she wasn’t in the living room, where she’d left her.

“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.”

“It is fine. It’s a paycheck. And I’m okay at it, apparently, but I don’t like researching crimes and the criminals who commit them. I’ve had enough of this stuff in my life recently, so I’d love to go back to work at a library.”

“They let you go,” Raleigh noted, reaching for Hollis’s belt and undoing the buckle.

“ A library, not the library,” Hollis replied.

“A library here?”

“No libraries are hiring here. Are you trying to take my pants off while you grill me about this stuff?” Hollis looked down just as Raleigh unzipped her jeans.

“Yes.”

“Raleigh, I don’t know if I feel like having marathon sex right now.”

“You still need your pants off to sleep, babe,” she said, thinking that she no longer felt like having marathon sex, either.

Hollis took Raleigh’s hands away from her pants and put them against her own cheeks, kissing the inside of one of Raleigh’s palms.

“You’re worried I’m leaving?”

“I’m not worried. It’s just not something I’d thought about until now. That’s all.”

“Until now?”

“I don’t know why,” she said.

“But now you’re worried?”

“There’s a lot going on, Hollis. Finding out that my girlfriend doesn’t want to buy a car here, doesn’t even like the job she has, and can’t find the one she wants just makes me think that things are temporary. I don’t want things to be temporary.”

“I don’t, either,” Hollis replied.

“But you don’t know if you’re staying yet?”

“I want to,” Hollis told her. “I just know that I need to find a job that’s not researching homicides, kidnappings, rapes, and just about every other horrible thing people do to one another. I’ve been looking, but nothing has popped up. I can save up and get a car, but I don’t feel like I need to rush to do that. I’m here at least while my mom’s–”

“I know,” Raleigh interrupted her softly, lowering her hands from Hollis’s face and moving them around Hollis’s neck instead. “You don’t have to say that part.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to feel when she’s gone, Raleigh. It might be–”

“Too much,” Raleigh finished for her. “I get it. This house is too much for me, too, sometimes. I can still hear Eden’s baby giggle echo in this place.”

“But you stay because this is her home, and you want to be here in case she comes back.”

“And your mom won’t come back,” Raleigh said.

Hollis shook her head, and Raleigh placed a gentle kiss on her lips.

“It’s okay. Let’s just get some sleep tonight.”

“Raleigh, I want what you want. I want a normal adult relationship with passionate honeymoon-phase sex and–”

“I know. And that’s enough for tonight, isn’t it? That we both want those things? The timing is just off.”

“I don’t want the timing to be off,” Hollis replied.

“Neither do I. But we can’t change that. We just have to keep talking to each other like this and get through the tough stuff so that the good stuff that comes after feels even better.”

“The marathon sex?” Hollis asked seriously.

Raleigh burst out laughing because the expression on Hollis’s face was so damn cute.

“Yes, babe; the marathon sex.”