She pulls her knees to her chest, turnin' sideways in the passenger seat, facin' me instead of the windshield. My henley's way too big on her—sleeves coverin' her hands completely, collar slippin' off one shoulder. She looks impossibly small curled up like that.
And she's studyin' me.
I let her look for a minute, keepin' my attention on the road.
Then I catch her gaze in my peripheral vision and hold it for a beat—takin' in the dark circles and the exhaustion written across her features.
I return my attention to the road before the moment stretches too long.
"Do I pass inspection?" I ask, keepin' it light. Half-jokin', half-serious. Testin' where we actually stand now.
She doesn't answer immediately. When she does, her voice is quiet but steady. "Yes."
I wait.
"You're attractive," she says simply. Honest. No performative flirtation, no game—just observation stated as fact.
I laugh—genuinely surprised by her directness. "Christ."
"What?"
"Nothin'. Just—wasn't expectin' honesty."
"Would you prefer I lie?"
"No. No, honesty's... refreshing."
I try to focus on drivin' even though there's barely anyone else on the highway—just darkness stretchin' ahead and the occasional pair of headlights passin' in the opposite direction, gone before I can properly register them.
The silence settles again, but different this time. Less awkward, more... curious.
She shifts in her seat, pullin' the henley sleeves down over her hands.
"Can I ask you things?" she says.
"Like what?"
"About you. Your life. Where you're from. The normal things people ask when they're trapped in a car together for a whole night of kidnapping fun."
I side eye her. "Are ya still kidnapped, then?"
She lets out a long breath. A sigh that says everythin' and nothin' at all. Then… she gives it a try. "Well, technically speaking, I think there's a statute of limitations on kidnapping—not legally, obviously, because kidnapping is kidnapping in perpetuity from a criminal justice standpoint, but more like... socially? Like if someone kidnaps you but then you have a really nice conversation about their cassette tape collection and they're driving a vintage Aston Martin that smells like Gen X, which is weirdly comforting, and they haven't tied you up or threatenedyou in like thirty minutes, at what point does it transition from kidnapping to just... unexpected carpooling with a hot Irish guy who may or may not have saved your life? Because I feel like there should be a term for that. Kidnapping-adjacent? Surprise relocation? Aggressive ride-sharing?"
She pauses for breath.
"Also, you have really nice hands."
I nearly drive off the fuckin' road, that's how fuckin' cute this woman is.
I grip the steering wheel tighter, tryna keep my eyes on the road and not the woman currently deconstructin' the legal and social ramifications of her own abduction.
"Keep goin'," I say, unable to stop the grin spreadin' across my face. "You're on a roll."
She shifts in her seat, warmin' to the topic now that she's got an audience.
"Right, so—I think there's definitely a spectrum here. Like, hard kidnapping is when someone chloroforms you and throws you in a van, which is objectively terrifying and there's no gray area. But then there's soft kidnapping, which is more like... someone carries you out of a mansion while you're having a trauma response and puts you in their trunk, but they also give you their aggressively expensive shirt first, which suggests some level of—I don't know—kidnapping etiquette? Like they're committing a felony but they're being thoughtful about it?"
"We like soft kidnappings, do we?"
