Page 5

I hang up and rub my face again, eyeing my prosthetic sitting next to my nightstand with my mechanic coveralls. I guess I’m putting all of that back on. I shouldn’t complain because I do have a nice prosthetic, but I was ready to just relax and not have to put it back on tonight. As liberating as it can be to have regained that mobility, it can feel equally limiting and restrictive. All it takes is a sweaty day, some stray sand—which there’s plenty of in the desert—or a loose thread on my liner to rub my skin, and I’m having a shitty day. That’s one of the reasons I love swimming at my sister’s motel or at my parents’ house. I can take it off and feel completely normal. As much as I’ve made a complete recovery and more or less function as well as I did before, I still like to feel free.

After getting ready to meet this motorist in need, I check my phone one more time. The whole reason I even stay up after watching Honeycomb Ranch on Fridays is because Friday and Saturdays are when my favorite content creator posts her new videos.

Screw it. I need to be real with myself; there’s only one content creator I look at and subscribe to.

That’s why I feel a pang of disappointment when I don’t see any new notifications from the OnlyVans app I’ve been checking anxiously for the last half hour. I scroll through her feed, and when I don’t see any activity, I click on the messaging icon.

We’ve chatted occasionally over the last few years because, honestly, I don’t like dating or anything serious. I’ve had the occasional fling with climbers or skiers passing through town, but only because I knew they wouldn’t stay and it wouldn’t last. After my accident, it was the perfect scenario. I was so self-conscious, wondering if I was wanted and enough for someone else, yet feared rejection. It was easier to just keep things casual.

That’s also how I learned my lesson about not dating locally in a small town. Just another reason I don’t like to go to The Hatch. I’d told Meredith, one of the bartenders, that I wasn’t looking for anything serious, and what did she go and do after we went on two dates? Obsessively started checking in on me all the time. She’s been nicer, more than she was in high school, but I was clear from day one that I wasn’t interested. Attachments have never served me well. I had to let go of the one person who truly got me, and I swore I would never feel that pain again.

I laugh to myself because there’s something amusingly ironic about getting out of bed for a broken-down van, because that’s how I stumbled onto that OnlyVans page in the first place. We get so many of these adventure van customers because they flock to remote areas to camp and explore. We’re one of the few shops for miles that can work on those diesel engines. Being the diligent mechanic that I am, I wanted to learn everything I could. I went down an internet and social media rabbit hole because they were quickly becoming a specialty for us. When that business started to pick up just over five years ago, it was a lifeline for us in an otherwise dying small town economy.

I wanted to see how people use them, what kind of accessories they install, what breaks the most, what kind of spare parts we should stock, all of it. I generally hate social media, but I quickly realized that was the best way to learn because people love showing off their custom vans on their accounts. I only have an account to follow van life influencers, a couple vintage car guys, and to keep tabs on my brothers’ restaurants. I have practically zero followers besides a couple pity refollows, my siblings, and Meredith from The Hatch, who simply won’t take the hint that I’m not interested.

One account kept jumping out at me though… her’s.

Every time I would scroll through accounts with #vanlife, I inevitably kept coming across the smoking hot girl posting pictures with her van in the background. Her playful, candid photos from her van or campgrounds with the sassy captions did something to me from the first time I saw her. Her carefree passion and fire for life jumped off my phone screen. It took longer than I’d like to admit for me to realize that she never posted photos with her face. I was a goner and immediately made an account to follow her OnlyVans page. When I realized there was a spicy part of the page behind a paywall, I subscribed the second I realized that was even a thing.

Everything from her collection of tattoos to those nipples pierced with the little gold hoops are things I never knew I was into, but suddenly craved—literally. I’ve thought about what those hoops would taste like if I flicked my tongue over them far too many times. Most of all though, it’s how genuine her content feels that kept me coming back. There was just something real, something palpable in those videos that felt like she was having as much fun making her content as I was consuming it.

Maybe that makes me a pathetic simp, but I don’t give a shit.

I came across her account right before my accident, and it seemed like a perfect storm. My fear of rejection, combined with lots of spare time to myself during rehab, only pushed me further away from socializing and I began to consume more of her content.

We’ve chatted occasionally on the app over the years and seeing a notification that she’s messaged me or posted new content can easily be the highlight of my day. I could feel some kind of connection to another person without that lingering fear of seeing the look of pity in their eyes that was so common after my accident.

I click ‘Send’ on the message I typed out and start to tuck my phone away.

ME: No new content?

Three dots appear and my lips curl into an embarrassing smile that I’m glad no one can see. Those three dots are quickly followed by a new message:

Black Sheep Bunni: Got interrupted. Sorry, XOXO

ME: Bummer. I was looking forward to this one.

Black Sheep Bunni: Don’t worry, Big Guy, I’ll make something special for you.

That brings another smile to my face. I tuck my phone away and head downstairs to the garage, knowing that I have something to look forward to soon enough.

I press the button to open one of the large, overhead garage doors to the front lot on Silver Street, feeling it click under my thumb. That’s followed by the familiar mechanical clanking and whirring sound as the door makes its journey up into the ceiling. I take that time to grab my notepad from the desk next to the door so I can get the driver’s information. Leaning against the desk and waiting for the door to finish rising, I prepare myself to talk to whatever unlucky tourist who has a broken-down van tonight.

When I turn around, my eyes lock onto the redhead standing in my lot. She’s turned away from me, watching as the driver unloads her camper van from his truck.

She’s short and petite, wearing a pair of dark spandex bike shorts that put her toned ass on display and reveal a sliver of her thigh tattoos. Maybe she hikes or bikes or something? Either way, I try not to stare because in this light, there’s no way I could make out what those tattoos are. Instead, my eyes drift up past her oversized hoodie and land on her hair. Her red pixie cut stirs something in me. I’ve always been obsessed with redheads—probably unhealthy baggage from the one girl that’s ever truly owned a piece of my heart. But that doesn’t matter right now, because this girl is stunning.

I try to clear that thought and take a step toward her.

“So, you’re having some van trouble?” I ask, trying not to sound like I was just gawking at her from behind.

She almost jumps and I immediately wish I would’ve cleared my throat or something to announce my presence. When she turns to face me though, I freeze.

She isn’t just stunning; she’s out of this world.

I start with her plump lips that are still parted from being startled. I find myself wanting to know what they taste like when I notice her gold septum ring. My eyes don’t linger on it for too long before I notice her freckled cheeks. It’s those cheeks that draw my eyes up and that’s when my heart stops.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.