Page 2 of Any Second Now (Fort Collins Blizzard Hockey #2)

Would Swearing Help?

RALEIGH

I question a lot of my life decisions on a regular basis—like why I agreed to get married not once, but twice before the age of thirty—but I don’t question my urge to punch my ex-husband.

“Here’s the thing, Raleigh.” Jacob stands on the front step of the house we once shared and mostly blocks the path to my escape vehicle as he runs his hands through his wavy blond hair. The look on his face is so serious, so earnest. “My therapist finally made me understand something about myself.”

“I gotta get to work.” I clench my teeth and try not to roll my eyes. I also would like to punch his therapist, for no reason other than he probably encouraged Jacob to come talk to me about whatever revelation he’s about to share.

I really should’ve gone no-contact after the divorce.

Jacob’s always texting me. Emailing me. Showing up at the house—the one I haven’t gotten around to putting on the market, the one he still has a key to—to explain his latest breakthroughs or thoughts on our failed marriage .

Jacob steps aside and I trot down the two cement steps, hoping he doesn’t follow me to my car.

“I’m a compulsive liar.” He follows me. “Always have been.”

I screech to a stop halfway down the sidewalk and spin back to him. He startles and stops right before running into me.

“Well, yeah, obviously.” I throw my hands in the air. “Did you not know that? You lied about your investments, your previous gambling problem, and your entire past.” I tick each one off on my fingers. “So what else have you lied about?”

Jacob stares at me, wide-eyed, so I turn back and take the last few steps to my car. He’s handsome and charming, but such an idiot.

He gave me all of our joint assets in the divorce, even though he was unemployed at the time.

The house and everything in it.

Joint savings account.

Joint checking account.

What was left of them, anyway.

I took it and reminded him divorce is forever. That’s the whole point. But he was—is—so convinced we’re going to get back together. We’re not. I’m sure of it. But he’s convinced he can wear me down.

A few weeks after the divorce was final, Jacob came to me asking for money. I knew he’d be broke. He’s never been a career-driven person and can’t seem to manage to hold down a job for more than a year.

And I couldn’t help feel guilty for taking everything from him. I feel responsible. He was my husband, and sometimes I feel like I abandoned him instead of sticking with him through his problems.

So now I send Jacob money once a month to help with his bills. My mother is horrified. And my friends. Maybe I am, too.

“That’s it! I swear! It was worse when I was younger, but marrying you was the best thing I ever did?— ”

“Divorcing you was the best thing I ever did,” I mutter under my breath.

“What?”

I freeze with a hand on my car door and turn to him. This can’t go on. I’m exhausted and overwhelmed and I don’t want to care about what anyone else wants anymore.

“You can’t keep showing up here.” There’s a pain in my chest.

“But it’s our house.” He reaches for me, palms up, but I step away. “And you won’t meet up.”

“We’ve been divorced for six months.” I open the car door and slide in. “I need space from you. But you keep coming here, to my work, my mom’s house. You email and text and call all the time. Please, stop.”

When he pops up on my phone screen, it’s labeled ex-husband—don’t answer.

“And it’s my house.”

His face falls and I feel like I kicked a puppy. My ex-husband isn’t a bad person. I still love him, in my own way, but I’ve been working on getting over him since last summer when I found out he’d been gambling and making terrible investments over most of our five-year marriage.

Clearly, he’s not in the same place as I am.

I need a serious break from this life of mine.

“Hey, hey!” My manager comes around the corner of the pharmacy counter, shoving her purse in one of the cubbies and smiling widely at me. “I have good news.”

“Hey, Stacey.” I desperately need some good news right now.

“That sounds promising.” My stomach feels all twisted and unhappy after the latest Jacob interaction.

I guess I thought once the divorce was final, since we didn’t have kids or anything permanent together—not even a dog—that it would be a clean break .

I was wrong.

And it seems to be getting worse.

“Corporate approved your sabbatical request.” She gives a little squeal.

“What?” I spin my head to her and breathe in sharply. A shocked chuckle escapes my mouth. “No way.”

“Yes way. Eight weeks. Congratulations! I really didn’t think they’d approve it. They never give the pharmacists sabbaticals.” Stacey plants her hands on her hips.

“I didn’t think it’d go through.” Like I really, really didn’t. So much so that I don’t have set plans to fill eight weeks with, which is not like me.

My mom and I have had a working spreadsheet outlining my life options starting back when I was fourteen years old. It was helpful then, but now? It’s too much. At thirty-four years old, I feel like I should be in charge of my own spreadsheet, not a shared document with my mother.

There is one thing I’ve been working on secretly.

A big purchase in the works.

A spite buy.

“Just one unexpected detail.” Stacey scrunches her face.

“What?” I narrow my eyes. “And what’s that face for?”

“Your sabbatical starts on Monday. Yay!” She pumps a fist in the air and watches my reaction with wide eyes.

I gape at her, wondering if she’s joking. But she doesn’t back down.

“But… it’s Friday.” I swallow. “And I don’t work again till Monday.”

“So I guess this is goodbye.” My manager winks at me. “Are you still going to Colorado?”

Colorado? Maybe. I mean, I have my own timeline sketched out, and maybe I could get my spite buy by… Monday?

Stacey and I had talked about how there was a very, very low chance of my request getting approved. I had two things in mind when I filled out the sabbatical request form.

The first is to go back out to see one of my best friends in Colorado.

I visited Lucy with our other best friend-slash-college roommate, January, over last New Year’s, and I’ve been itching to get back out there. I want to see Fort Collins in the summer. There was something magical about the snow-capped mountains surrounding the small college and hockey town.

Does it also have something to do with her incredibly hot younger brother who I might have kissed on New Year’s Eve in a move that was so out of character for me it must’ve been a champagne-fueled hallucination?

Maybe.

Maybe I can’t get that damn kiss out of my head.

Maybe that was the moment I realized I was 100% not in love with my ex-husband.

Just one kiss to get it out of his system. That’s what I’d said to him. Who was that woman on New Year’s Eve? Not me. Not the twice-divorced cross-stitching old cat lady, minus the cat—which is probably the best part—and only thirty-four years old.

My second plan is to cross-stitch my brains out.

When my mother offered to teach me to do cross-stitch a year ago as a distraction after I filed for divorce, I reluctantly agreed.

But with true millennial hobby energy, I took to it so fast and it became my new obsession.

I think she regrets ever teaching me as she claims it’s distracting me from my real life.

But I find it calming and extremely satisfying.

I love the quantitative and precise nature of the simple stitches that turn into a beautiful design.

And I can’t seem to stop.

I even started an online shop three months ago, and have been posting on my cross-stitch social media accounts daily and tracking everything carefully.

But I had zero orders until two weeks ago when I posted one of my finished hoops online and it finally got beyond a few hundred views.

The image that went viral was of my favorite cross-stitch creation which was pretty flowers in various shades of pink around the phrase: Ask yourself: would swearing help?

I got five orders that day and another few over the following week.

Luckily, I have hoops already completed and another stack with flowers stitched on them just waiting for the right phrase to be added.

I go through the rest of my shift—my last one for eight weeks, apparently—like a daydreaming zombie, then book it out to my car and head home.

Holy shit, it’s happening.

I auto drive the familiar route and mentally go through my to-do list. Most importantly, I need to contact the couple I’m buying the pink RV from and see if I can pick it up this weekend.

Yup. I’m buying a pink RV.

I owe the second half of the price soon anyway, and the couple agreed to store it for me until my plans were solidified.

The problem is, Lucy leaves this weekend for a six-week trip to Europe with her hockey player boyfriend.

My original idea was to head to Colorado once they got back and spend time in Fort Collins.

But I can’t sit around in Connecticut for that long waiting for her to return.

My sabbatical will be three quarters over by then.

I groan and think about spending my eight weeks here, and how much Jacob would harass me if I weren’t even at work.

He’s going to be so mad about me buying an RV. That was his dream, not mine.

Maybe I’ll just get in it and drive. I chuckle to myself. That is so not me.

I turn onto my street and realize there are two cars parked in my driveway, where there should be zero.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Jacob and Mom.

I turn off the engine and pray for strength.

They’re not even outside waiting for me like normal people. They are inside my house, because both of them have keys.

“I’m going to kick their asses,” I mumble to myself as I stride up the walkway to my front door. I glance over and a neighbor is watching me with narrowed eyes, crouched down in front of his sprinkler. “Hi, Jack!” I wave to the older man who scrunches his face and turns back to his lawn.

Suburbia is killing me.