Awakening
Exhaustion had caught up with Lee at some point during the drive to...wherever the hell they'd ended up. The sudden absence of background road noise had jolted him back from a doozy disaster of a dream. He and Oliver had met Francine at the laundromat as planned, but Amanda was there too, and he'd tackled her, thinking she was aiming a gun at him but-
But...what?...How? Amanda? She's here?
She WAS there. She was right there, sitting next to him in the back seat, opening the door to get out of the car. She seemed to be deliberating whether to remove the comforter between them, or leave it -and him?- in the Subaru. He slowly sat up and looked around, trying to get his bearings. Where the hell had Francine taken them? This was not part of his plan.
He recognized the moment Amanda came to a decision about the comforter, glad he could still pick up on her little nuances. The comforter could stay. He, however, should probably get out and join the others.
God, he'd missed the way she sometimes unconsciously squared her shoulders when she committed to a course of action. It was a holdover from her high school cheerleading days, but it was a simple, useful way to read her in the field.
The bright afternoon sunlight disappeared as Amanda took the keys from Francine and pressed the button to close the garage door. She led the small group around a Mercedes E550 and past a BMW 335xi to a side door that opened into a wide hallway. Entry door to the left, alarm keypad to the right of it, kitchen down the hall to the right, half bath straight ahead.
Oliver's eyes fixed immediately on the small bathroom. "You don't mind if I...?" Typically, he didn't wait for permission.
It wasn't lost on Lee that this entire nightmare began for him with Oliver in a bathroom. He hoped this was a sign that it had finally come to an end. He didn't really believe in any of that cosmic significance stuff, though.
He followed the women, his two closest friends in the world, down the hall to the kitchen. He'd missed them both fiercely, but this didn't feel like the right time to get all sentimental about it. Not until they were all at least on the same page. He still wasn't sure what was going on here, but he knew he and Oliver needed to be in Washington D.C. in just a few days.