Page 88 of Any Second Now
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, Jacob
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 itour 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?—”
