Page 28 of Any Second Now (Fort Collins Blizzard Hockey #2)

Apparently, It’s a Lot

ATTICUS

“ T wo hundred thousand views? Is that a lot?”

“Seriously?” Raleigh asks, her jaw dropping open.

I chuckle, happily swaying in the hammock next to the Pink Palace, arms stretched above my head. Raleigh is sitting in a captain’s chair next to me. I guess I know two hundred thousand views is a solid amount.

“Come on, get in here with me.” I hold out my hand, palm up.

“Atticus, I’ve gotten twenty-one orders in the past three days. That’s almost as much as I’ve had in total before the video.” She glances down at my extended hand and appears to consider.

“Well, congratulations.”

“How am I going to fulfill so many orders?” Raleigh pulls at her hair and it sticks out on one side.

She points at me. “It’s all because of that video and you sharing it so casually on your social media.

You have a few hundred thousand followers.

Or more?” Raleigh stands, tosses her phone on the chair, and takes a tentative step toward me, hands on her hips .

“I have no idea how many followers I have. I’m so sorry. Let me make it up to you.” I crook my finger at her.

She rolls her eyes but places her hand in mine anyway. Warmth cascades through her fingers onto my skin.

I guess I didn’t really think it through when I shared the painfully adorable video of Raleigh teaching me how to do cross-stitch.

The video immediately got hundreds of likes and many comments.

I’m not in the habit of reading my comments, or even posting very much.

I only do it when the team PR person—my sister—harasses the team to put ourselves out there in a positive light.

But I am loving the wondrous look on Raleigh’s face as orders pile up. Like the look she has right now as she stands next to the hammock, hand in mine.

The past few days with Raleigh have been everything. I’ve adored every moment with her.

Even hockey is going better. I’ve been meeting with Lachlan and Barrett to skate and scrimmage and I don’t hate Barrett as much as I did before. It’s like exposure therapy. He’s still cocky and insufferable. Loud and obnoxious. A partier. A player.

And he sort of reminds me of myself from five years ago.

Probably why I—strongly dislike?—him.

Nah, it’s probably still hate.

“I’m going to have to temporarily close my shop while I catch up.”

“No way. Don’t do that.” I tug her closer and she steps so she’s hovering right over me.

“Or I guess I could put a note in my confirmation email saying the time to shipping is longer than usual.” Raleigh purses her lips to one side. “Like weeks more.”

Contemplative Raleigh is so hot. My eyes drift down to her gray tank top, tight against her breasts, and her pink short shorts with the white stripe down the side.

“Lean down on my chest and then very slowly lift your legs up.” I adjust my body so I’m diagonal on the hammock. I haven’t been able to keep my hands off of this woman, and today is no exception.

Raleigh leans over and places her hands on either side of my neck onto the fabric of the hammock. I breathe out at her closeness. I slip my hands around her waist and tug her up, but the hammock swings precariously and she gasps and freezes.

“We’re good, I won’t let you fall.” I chuckle and pull her up until she’s laying flush on top of me, her legs securely on the hammock.

“This is the worst possible idea. And position,” she says, her hair hanging on either side of her face.

“Don’t worry.” I cup her ass—so accessible through the soft fabric of her shorts—and press her down gently. “The best position. I bet we could slip these shorts off you and christen this hammock right here, right now.”

“Oh my god.” She shakes her head, violently at first, then stops when the hammock swings. “My neighbors are right there. They’re probably watching us from their window.” But she relaxes onto me, her body molding to mine.

“Let’s give them a show, then.” I slip my hands into her shorts and start to shift one hand to her front. She gasps.

“Atticus! Get your hands out of there and help me get down.” Raleigh’s cheeks pinken and I think I could convince her to carry on, but I’m not going to push her with this kind of thing, because I’m not an asshole.

I mean, I am an asshole, but not with this.

“Alright.” I withdraw my hands. “But I told you, we’ll be fi?—”

Then her neighbor’s RV door slams shut. Raleigh startles, the movement causing the hammock to abruptly swing, shifting Raleigh’s weight from on top of me to next to me and then?—

“Fuck!” I manage to hold her against my chest as we twist around and off of the hammock, flying into the air and falling the (luckily) very short distance to the ground .

We land with a hard thump on my back, her hands on either side of my head. I’m lucky there’s no rocks or hard tree roots around the hammock. But between the impact and the gorgeous woman on top of me, the air whooshes out of my body and I can’t breathe.

It wouldn’t be a bad way to die, I suppose.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” She shoots up until she’s sitting up straddling me, head touching the bottom of the hammock. She pats my chest and then my neck as if to check for cracks. “Did I just break you??? I’m going to get in so much trouble!”

I wiggle my shoulders, then my legs, then push my groin gently up into her. She huffs and puts her hands on her hips.

“I think I’m just fine. I was sacrificing myself for you, did you see that?”

“I did,” Raleigh chuckles, then starts to laugh, and I catch it next.

Both of us are cracking up and she tries to hop off me, but the hammock gets in the way and I hold her in place by her hips.

“Atticus.” Raleigh’s posed on top of me, her wispy hair like a halo around her head. Sun beams in between the leafy green trees, illuminating the air around her.

“But I like this view.” I take my hands off her hips anyway.

She sighs and leans down to kiss me, a smile still on her lips.

“You’re going to have to help me cross-stitch, you know. I have no hope of catching up on these orders.”

“Or, and hear me out—” I kiss her. “—we make another video and get a shit ton more orders.”

“No way!” Raleigh rolls off and sits up, and I do the same next to her. She turns to me and sighs. “You have grass and dirt all over you.” Raleigh wipes my back and picks a large leaf out of my curls.

I am fully smitten with Raleigh Hayes.

And that might be a problem.

Monday she announced she’s halfway through her eight-week sabbatical.

And while that aligns pretty well with when I’ll have to be back in hockey mode starting with the Skate for Kids charity tournament next month in New York City, it feels like the summer will be gone in the blink of one of Megghen’s creepy chicken eyes.

And then I’ll immerse myself in hockey, like I always do.

And she goes back to Connecticut and her old life, as has been her plan all along.

Hopefully not all of her old life.

Earlier this week she told me how her ex-husband continues to text and email her. She told him she needs space, and that they’re not getting back together.

Still, I can’t fully read her on that.

Yeah, she’s sleeping with me. Spending all her time with me. But we’re temporary.

He was her permanent.

I hope it stays in the past tense.

I hop up and reach my hand down to Raleigh to help her up.

“You all right over there?” Her RV neighbor calls from in front of her RV.

“Hey Elizabeth.” Raleigh—cheeks pinker by the second—takes a few steps toward her.

I jump to my feet and wince at the twinge in my groin, taking a second to confirm that it is all in my head. I feel one hundred percent on the ice, but once in a while I’ll get a phantom pain that seems to be my body freaking out that I’ll hurt myself again.

I need to be careful I don’t mess myself up before hockey season, especially not doing something stupid like flipping off a hammock.

I pull out my phone to check the time—almost noon—so I need to run home and get my stuff together to meet the skating coach, Lachlan, and Barrett.

Raleigh disappears into the Pink Palace and re-emerges with a pair of eggs in her hand.

“Oh, lovely.” The neighbor accepts the eggs while I respond to a text message chain with Lucy.

Lucy

I can’t believe Raleigh is in Fort Collins and I’m not there

Me

I’m taking care of her

Lucy

You better be. Not being sleazy, are you?

Me

I’m offended you’re even asking

And I am. I get why my sister is protective of Raleigh, and I’ve actually been surprised at how positive she reacted when Raleigh told her we’re doing more than hanging out as friends.

Personally, I would’ve kept that detail from Lucy, for the same reason I’m glad most people are out of town while I figure things out with Raleigh. I can’t imagine trying to be with her in front of so many witnesses, like how Lucy and Kellen got together last season.

Then again, two hundred thousand views on our cross-stitch video might contradict that idea.

I’m watching Lucy respond when a colorful delivery van pulls up in front of the Pink Palace. A guy jumps out of the driver’s side and slides open the back of his van, emerging with a large bouquet of red roses.

Raleigh turns at the sound and her eyes widen at the flowers. She turns to me with a sweet smile on her face.

Only one problem.

They’re not from me.

“One of you Raleigh Ford?” the man asks, looking between Raleigh and her neighbor.

“It’s Hayes, not Ford.” Raleigh’s brow furrows as the man hands her a tablet to sign before handing over the bouquet .

“Enjoy!” He jumps back in his van and pulls away, his tires spinning gravel as he departs.

Raleigh glances at me, eyebrows raised. I stand here like an asshole, phone in hand, and shrug.

Who the fuck sent Raleigh flowers?

Raleigh plucks the card from the bouquet and opens the little envelope.

Her eyes widen and she mouths fuck .

Oh, but I do know.

I slip my phone in my pocket and stroll over, doing my best to project casual nonchalance, not the chaos of my insides as my mind fixates on Raleigh’s ex-husband. Nothing like another man sending flowers to the woman I just spent the night with.

“You okay, dear?” Elizabeth asks, resting a hand on Raleigh’s forearm.

“No.” Raleigh shakes her head, still staring at the card.

“Not okay,” the neighbor says, glancing at me. “But the roses are gorgeous.”

I stop a few feet from Raleigh and she raises her brown eyes to mine.

“Jacob,” she answers the question I didn’t ask.

And with that one word, I feel like everything shifts.

“I’ll catch you later, Raleigh, okay?” Elizabeth says, her eyes darting between the two of us. “Let me know if you need anything.” She disappears back into her RV.

I don’t know what to say to Raleigh.

“I thought he didn’t know where you were?” My heart thumps loudly in my chest, like a cadence to my own funeral. Or at least back to my singledom.

Raleigh hands me the card. I accept it and skim over the words.

Raleigh, I hope you’re not giving up on us. I’d love for you to teach me cross-stitch. Love, Jaco b

For fuck’s sake. Fury rushes through my veins and my stomach clenches.

“I guess he saw the video.” I want to crumple up the card and shove it in my pocket so I can burn it or trash it later, but instead I hand it back.

“I’m gonna go put these in water.” Raleigh disappears with the flowers and the card and I stand there like a complete outsider.

Water? I would’ve preferred she throw the roses to the ground and stomp on them. To have laughed and said I’m her only cross-stitch student. Maybe I should’ve made a joke about how he probably couldn’t have helped her go viral like I did.

But instead, she suddenly seems far away from me.

Why didn’t she throw them out?

I’m terrified Raleigh’s just using the summer as a brief intermission to her normal life, the one she’s chosen every day since college. Married life as a pharmacist living in suburban Connecticut.

A future with me is so not Raleigh Hayes.

And I don’t want to hurt her.

Shit. I can’t just stand here.

I gently knock on the door to the Pink Palace and Raleigh calls for me to come in. The flowers are in a tall plastic container, one that takeout soup might have come in, and it looks like it’s going to fall over. Guess she doesn’t have a fancy vase for flowers in the RV.

I might love giving Raleigh gifts, but I’m not going to buy one for her so she can put roses from her ex-husband in it.

“It’s not like I’m hiding from him,” she says, and my heart clenches. “I was just sick of him showing up at our house, or my job, or waiting for me in my parking lot.”

“Sounds like a stalker.” But I don’t miss her slip calling it our house .

“Nah.” Raleigh shakes her head. “He’s harmless.”

Harmless? Hardly. He’s not giving her the space to move on with her life. He’s pressuring her to stay in constant touch .

He’s trying to take my place in her cross-stitch videos.

“I have skating practice, but I can stick around if you want me to?—”

“No, it’s okay.” Raleigh stares sightlessly into the giant bunch of flowers. “I have a few things to do.”

She won’t even look at me.

I want to pull her into my arms and kiss her goodbye. But I don’t think that would be welcome at this moment.

So I slip out of the RV and jump into my Wrangler, flooring it to get out of the campsite. My phone buzzes in the cupholder, so I slow to a stop before turning onto the main road. Maybe it’s Raleigh asking me to come back.

Nope. It’s a text from an artist who I contacted recently, the one whose card I got at Horsetooth Brewery the other week.

Matt - Artist from Brewery

I have availability a week from Sunday

Me

great

Matt - Artist from Brewery

I’ll send you a sketch of what I have in mind soon

I open my text chain with Raleigh, filled with flirty texts and images of cross-stitches and screen shots of comments from our viral video, and tap out a message.

Me

I would like to take care of the paint job repair for the Pink Palace. But I’ll need your permission to be, ah, a little creative

Raleigh

That is totally not necessary

Me

you won’t regret it. well, you might, but time will tell

Raleigh

lol. Okay, you’ve got me interested

This has gotta be better than a boring bouquet of roses.

Shit, am I really competing with Raleigh’s loser ex-husband? I’ve never been one to fight for a woman. If one of my teammates hits on someone, I’m out. I just haven’t ever cared that much.

But Raleigh?

I think she’s worth fighting for.