#the pause

The wind picks up not long before they reach the campground. Connor has to fight the steering wheel to keep them between the lines as the sky shifts from a vast bowl of blue to threatening grey. Huge, bulbous clouds boil up, promising the storm it feels like they’ve been chasing on the horizon all day. Connor made them run through the RV set-up back in Edmonton, and he’s glad for it now as Leon wrestles with the hook-ups for power and water while Connor deploys the levelling jacks and gets the slides punched out. Thick, intermittent drops of rain spit at them as they take Lenny and Bowie on a quick walk, the branches of the thin trees planted between campsites bending and snapping in the force of the gusts.

Lightning flashes in the distance as they get back to their site, and Connor stops on the steps to count. Seven… eight… nine… The cracking boom of thunder is deafening. Lenny makes a distressed whine where he’s panting in the door of the RV.

“You planning on an outdoor shower?” Leon calls over the howling wind.

Connor pulls himself up the last step, pushes Lenny back, and shuts the door behind him, muffling the rushing sounds of the approaching storm. “Three kilometres out.”

“Okay, Rain Man,” Leon says, amused.

Connor scrunches his nose and toes off his sneakers. The storm’s making him a little jittery. They’re so exposed in a tin box out on the flat of the prairie, even if it’s a pretty nice box. “It’s cause—every three second gap means the lightning is about a kilometre away.”

Leon looks dubious as he collapses into the couch. “You know I’m one of those guys who kind of checked the boxes in high school, right?”

“It’s because of the speed of sound!” Connor calls over his shoulder as he takes the few steps through the kitchen, past the tiny bathroom, and into the bedroom at the back of the RV.