Page 5 of Any Second Now (Fort Collins Blizzard Hockey #2)
Abso-fucking-lutely Not
RALEIGH
I struggle to back my RV into the sewage hookup area. Dragging this contraption and having to reverse it into the right spot is fucking impossible.
It’s pink.
My RV is pink.
It’s a light pink with two darker pink stripes.
The paint is peeling.
The windows are definitely not sealed properly anymore.
The mattress is about two inches thick and feels like sleeping on a hay bale.
It’s twenty years old.
The Pink Palace seems like an appropriately sarcastic name for it. I even cross-stitched an eight-inch hoop with the name to hang above my kitchen sink.
This is my super-organized mom’s nightmare for me. A poorly planned sabbatical and an impulsive RV purchase, although that last part’s not really true. She just thinks it is because I never shared my planning spreadsheet with her.
But as for what to do with these eight weeks? Yeah, I don’t have a spreadsheet for that. I wanted to make one after my sabbatical got approved, but I tried to hold myself back. I’m trying to convince myself I don’t need a spreadsheet for every single freaking thing in my life.
The shock on my poor mother’s face when she saw the Pink Palace parked in my driveway the day before I left and she came to say goodbye? Priceless, yet also left me feeling guilty. I don’t want to stress her out, but I need to get away from everything for a while.
Alas, this was Jacob’s dream, not mine, and I’ve driven past every state park on the map instead of checking out national landmarks and beautiful scenery. What, I’m going to go for a hike by myself and fight off bears and mountain murderers?
I left Connecticut two weeks ago and I’m already done with the RV life.
I’m sleeping in a giant tin can at night and during the day, driving way slower than the speed limit, mostly because I’m terrified of high winds and changing lanes and anything else involving me and my SUV pulling the Pink Palace—a medium sized RV trailer—on highways.
Small towns are even worse. I can’t park anywhere .
At least I belong here in the RV campsite.
And now, I’m sitting in the front seat of my car, re-reading the directions on how to dump the sewage tank. I’ve done it many times before. Learning how to back up this damn contraption so that the RV’s sewage tank is as close to the dump hookup as possible has been hard enough.
But actually emptying the tank? Nightmare.
“Damn.” I guess it’s now or never. I hop out of my car and something from the edge of the treelike scatters off into the woods. A bird? A dog? A bear?
“Hello?” I peak over toward the rustle of leaves, but it falls silent.
Then the smell hits me, and all thoughts of whatever was in the woods disappear.
It’s a nauseating aroma, which makes sense—this is where all of us suckers dump the literal shit from our vehicles.
I almost gag, then pull it together when a couple with a dog walks by and stares at me.
Judging me for my surely obvious incompetence, probably.
“Need any help?” the woman calls out with a friendly wave.
“Nope. All good here!” I infuse insane cheer into my voice, as if I’d not do anything to be staying at a hotel where I can just flush the contents of the toilet, not have to pump it out.
They move on as I connect the nasty sewer hose to my RV’s drain valve. This time I do gag and concentrate on breathing through my mouth and keeping the cereal I ate this morning inside of my stomach.
I open the black water tank valve and let it start to flow. There are two tanks. The gray tank holds water from the sink, shower, etc. The black tank holds the nasty stuff. I watch the flow of the waste to clock when it goes clear.
New cross stitch idea: Divorce is like emptying the sewage tank from an RV.
Nah. Too long. Stitching all those words would take for-freaking-ever.
Marriage is like an RV sewage tank: unpleasant and smelly?
Still too long, and not catchy at all. I’ll have to noodle on it.
Driving an RV might be better if I had company. Like a friend. Or a cat. Not a boyfriend, or, god forbid, a husband.
I’m never getting married again.
Never dating again.
The water is running clear, so I close the gross black tank valve and open the gray water tank, which flows through and rinses the pipe.
I let out a deep breath and close my eyes, careful not to breathe in through my nose. I need a shower. There’s a real one in this RV park, and I can’t wait to use it, as well as the real bathroom.
“Raleigh?” A male voice calls .
I scream and my eyes fly open. The sewer hose almost slips through my hands, and when I look up and see the human standing in front of me—an unshowered, twice-divorced single thirty-four year old holding a hose of shit—I wish I could disappear into the forest forever with whatever was making that noise before.
It’s Atticus Knox.
Professional hockey player.
My best friend’s little brother.
Old college crush.
Fucking gorgeous hunk of man.
And last time I saw him on New Year’s Eve, I was letting him stick his tongue down my throat. Encouraging it, even.
Atticus is wearing a Fort Collins Blizzard t-shirt, tight against his shoulders and biceps, and a backwards gray baseball cap that can’t contain the red curls that match my best friend’s, who also happens to be his sister.
“Hey… what are you doing? Are you okay?” He takes a step toward me, that crooked smile on his face that got me to drag him into a dark corner on New Year’s Eve.
“Hello, Atticus. I’m emptying the sewage from my RV.
” I try to say it casually, like I’m not probably covered in poop germs. I calmly close the drain valve on the gray tank.
I need to disconnect the sewer hose next, but I’m never super confident in doing that final step, and it always smells disgusting no matter how much I let the water rinse the pipe.
A vision pops in my head of me unhooking the pipe and it flying around my head like some kind of uncontrollable garden hose flinging sewage juice all over me and Atticus.
“That sounds absolutely disgusting. Do you need help?” Atticus presses his lips together and I just know he’s holding back a laugh.
“You offering?” I narrow my eyes at him, daring him to say yes.
“Um, you look like you have it covered, actually.” There’s an adorable twinkle in his eye and I’m tempted to give him an actual lesson on emptying an RV sewage tank.
“What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?” I have to stop myself from turning my head and sniffing to see just how bad I smell.
“Lucy told me. Asked me to check on you.” Atticus shifts on his feet and slips his hands into the pockets of his athletic shorts.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lucy.” I’m gonna have words with my friend about over sharing my life with her brother.
Atticus chuckles and keeps his eyes trained on me, with a quick glance down at the pipe still in my hands.
There’s no avoiding it now, so I reach over and unhook the sewage pipe, then carefully coil it into the bucket at my feet. I breathe out in relief.
Then the smell hits me, and a second later, Atticus.
“Nasty.” He scrunches his nose and steps back.
“Can I help you, Atticus?” I cross my arms and try so very hard to look intimidating, but the fact that he’s a solid foot taller than me makes that really hard, plus the poop pipe coiled at my feet.
“I wanted to say hi and check if you needed anything.” Atticus shifts and drags a foot along the gravel-covered road, making a crunching sound.
“Well. Hi. I don’t need anything, and I’ve gotta move the Pink Palace back to my spot.” I nod my chin vaguely away from where we’re standing.
“Sorry, the what?”
Shit. I’m so used to calling her by name, and RV people always do that, so sometimes I forget that it’s kinda weird.
“The Pink Palace. My RV.” I stand up straighter and tilt my head, but feel my entire face and neck warming.
“Ah. Okay. That’s a… strong name.” He raises his eyebrows. “Where are you set up?”
I point across the campsite to a shady spot next to the lake.
“Nice.” He nods .
It is a nice spot, actually, I’m looking forward to that view in the morning.
“Well, goodb?—”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Wait, why?”
But Atticus disappears around the other side of the Pink Palace and I wonder if he was an apparition that my mind created so I could disassociate from emptying the sewage tank.
But after I carefully store the nasty sewage pipe bucket, wash my hands, and pull my car and trailer out of the dump station, there he is, casually leaning against the picnic table next to my campsite.
I turn around and back in, my hands sweaty as I maneuver the RV from the driver’s seat of my SUV, and am thankful that I get it on the first try and don’t run into the trees or the picnic table. Or the lake.
I flip down the visor and check myself out. Hair in a skinny ponytail, a swipe of mascara, and chapstick only.
Oh well. I’m not trying to impress this man.
“Hungry?” Atticus waves me over to the table after I hop out of my car. A pizza box now sits on the picnic table along with a bottle of wine.
“One second.” I hold up my hand and duck into the Pink Palace to wash my hands again. “Where’d this come from?” I say when I come back outside. He’s settled in at the picnic table, so I guess he’s not jumping in his car and driving away quite yet.
“Cheese sticks from a pizza place in town.” Atticus shrugs. “And wine.”
“Are we back at college?” A smile crosses my face at the memory of all the late nights eating cheese sticks together.
One night when we were pre-partying in our apartment, he’d seen my weekly study schedule, printed out and tacked to our bulletin board.
When he made fun of me for it, I pulled up his hockey stats for the last game—which were crappy so a real low blow on my part—and I offered to create a workout and practice schedule for him.
He chuckled and bought cheese sticks for the group that night, and did it basically every time we all went out together.