by Molly E. Lee
“Wondered what took you so long,” John said, eyeing Dash. “Where’d you have to pick this one up?” He had a perfectly mussed natural red faux-hawk and kind blue eyes.
“I followed him here,” I answered and took a seat.
“Worried about me, John?” Dash asked and sat next to me.
I glanced at Dash. “I’m guessing your close friends call you Ringo?”
The two boys laughed while Dash pressed his lips together to stop his smile.
“Nice! We should start calling you that,” John said before taking a swig of his beer.
“No way, man. I’d be Ringo if anyone in this group was Ringo.” Paul shook his head.
I turned to Dash. “Confession time. I’ve known who you were since the first day of class. I love your site.”
“Whoa, stalker alert.” Paul arched an eyebrow.
“I knew we should’ve put our pictures on the site, too! You get too much attention, man.” John punched Dash on the shoulder.
He rolled his eyes. “Glad you like the site. It’s always a work in progress.”
“Well, I think it’s great. I have to ask, though, how’d you get such an interesting name?” I shifted in my seat and fiddled with a cardboard coaster.
“Don’t let it lead you to believe he’s cool or anything. It’s not his real name,” Paul said.
I glanced at Dash. “What’s your real name?”
“Ha! You’ll never know, sweetheart. He never tells anyone. Not even us.” John clanked his beer against Dash’s before taking another gulp.
“Why does everyone call you Dash then?”
“He’s always making a mad dash for shelter because he stays in the field way too long!” Paul answered before Dash could.
“I can speak for myself, you know.” Dash shook his head.
“In the field?”
“Well, technically it isn’t always a field, though I have had to sprint through several after a tornado changed its course unexpectedly.”
I couldn’t help but picture Dash running through a wide open field as a movie-worthy tornado chased him, hungry for his life. The image actually sparked a flare of terror in my chest. “How long have you been chasing storms?” I asked.
“All my life really. When I was eight I stole my dad’s video camera and stood on the back deck in the middle of a severe thunderstorm. A piece of hail ended up cracking the lens. I was grounded for a month.” His eyes shot downward for a moment. “That same year our neighborhood got hit by an F-3.”
I gasped.
“We were out grocery shopping when it hit,” he continued. “My parents had no idea what to do. Dad frantically drove toward home, like if he got us there we’d be safe. I remember looking out the back window and seeing nothing but a gray-white beast rotating and flinging debris all over the place. We made it to our street, but our home was destroyed. It took a dozen other’s homes, too.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, resisting the urge to reach across the table and squeeze his hand. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Seven people were killed. Two of them were our neighbors.” Dash didn’t blink for a few moments, as if he wasn’t at the table anymore but in front of his destroyed home. “I knew from that moment on I’d never let another tornado chase me . . . that it’d be the other way around the next time. And I knew I’d do everything in my power to learn as much as possible, so I could help people be more aware.” He swallowed hard and shrugged, like he could force the memories away. “Anyway, I’ve been chasing professionally since freshman year.”
“Wow, I bet that’s incredible,” I said, amazed at how he could take such a devastating experience and turn it into a passion.
“It is. You should come on a chase with us sometime. It really puts all those reports you’ll be doing into perspective,” he said.
“I’d love to, but I don’t know the first thing about chasing storms.”
“You know storms, Blake. We’ve all heard you in class. It’s like you were born predicting. You see things in the sky others don’t.”
I parted my lips to respond, but my breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know he’d paid me that much attention. “Still, I’ve never been in the thick of it. Not like you guys.”
“Well, we’ll change that,” he said.
“Yeah, it’d be nice having someone else to listen to other than these two!” John said. “They think they know absolutely everything, and they never stop at the good gas stations. Pretty girl like you, I bet they’d stop where the clean bathrooms are just to be polite.”
I couldn’t help but laugh because I never would’ve guessed a guy with a faux-hawk would care about bathroom cleanliness. “So, what are all of you majoring in then? I thought all storm chasers were meteorologists.”
“Common misconception,” Dash answered. “Atmospheric sciences is our field. Though I’m minoring in videography and photography as well.” He motioned his head toward John. “So is he.”
John shrugged. “They really like me for my skills driving the Tracker Jacker.”
“Fan of The Hunger Games?” I asked.
“Don’t get me started!” John set his beer down. “These two give me so much crap for reading the books.”
“I love the series, too,” I said.
“Nice.” John stuck his fist toward me.
I gave it a bump and asked, “What is your Tracker Jacker like?”
Dash patted John on the back. “A beat-up pickup with instruments hooked to the top that follows my beast of a truck.”
John cut his eyes at him. “Yeah, act like you’d get anywhere without me.” He turned his attention back to me. “I navigate the paths and am constantly connected to Doppler to help us get ahead of the storms. Can’t always rely on Dash’s ‘instincts.’” John framed the last word with his fingers in the universal quotation mark sign.
Dash motioned to Paul. “He’s a double-major, alongside engineering.”
“Wow, that’s a ton of work.”
Paul shrugged. “These two have to have someone who can build useful and working equipment if they want to be the top chasers in Oklahoma.”
“It’s nice that you all have an important role.”
“Still missing a tried-and-true meteorologist though.” John eyed Dash.
He smiled at me. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on forcing you to join the team . . . yet.”
I grinned, enjoying the thought of being part of anything outside my boring routine. “Does the University pay you guys to chase?”
Paul grunted. “Nope, all the funds come from Dash’s website. We did just get a grant to build some probes—mobile devices with instruments measuring wind velocity, atmospheric pressures, and temperature—”
“She knows what probes are,” Dash interrupted him.
“Oh, yeah, of course she does.” Paul tapped the side of his near empty beer glass. “Well, ours won’t be fully operational until next season.”
John set his mug down. “We just have the tools hooked up to the Tracker Jacker for now. That and Dash’s abilities to get the best footage out there,” he said. “It’s going to be a killer season.”
“It better be!” Paul interjected. “We’ve spent the whole winter planning for it. I swear if I look at another map for more than five minutes at a time I’m going to set it on fire.”
“Dash!” a high-pitched voice squealed above the bustle of the crowded bar and cut through our conversation.
Dash jumped up and grabbed an empty barstool from the table next to us, dragging it to the other side of him. A few seconds later a blonde who barely came up to my shoulder wrapped her arms around his waist. She wore a blue-jean miniskirt with a white tank top and her lacy red bra peeked through the fabric. Dash kissed her quickly and offered her the barstool.
Something sharp stung my chest. I chalked it up to jealousy of the tiny girl who had a boyfriend who liked to hang out at fun bars and pulled her chair out for her. Justin would never do that.
“Th
is place is always so crowded, Dashy. It took me forever to find a parking spot.”
“That’s because it’s so good.” Dash sat back down.
“It’s crazy I never noticed this place before. My apartment is only a block away,” I said, glancing around.
“Oh, is that an invitation?” Paul asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“Negative,” I answered.
“Denied!” John shouted.
The girl eyed me from across the small bar table with an intense territorial look.
“Lindsay, this is Blake,” Dash introduced.
“Nice to meet you. How did you and Dash meet?” I asked, knowing acknowledging their relationship and her claim on him was a smart play in getting her to stop looking at me like I crashed her private party.
Her tiny pink lips curved into a smile. “I met Dashy about a year ago at an Alpha Chi Omega party. He’d asked the DJ to play some awful rock band—”
“They are not awful,” Dash interrupted.
“Anyway, I put a stop to that and the rest is history.”
I wondered if Blue October was the band she claimed was awful. “So you’re a member of that house?”
Lindsay touched her perfectly wavy blonde locks. “No, but some of my best friends are Sisters. Luckily one of them invited Dash to the party.” She hugged his arm. “How did you and John meet?” she asked, her eyes jumping from me to John.
“Just officially met him tonight.”
“Oh, well, then how did you and Paul meet?”
I shook my head. “Met him tonight, too.”
Lindsay cut her eyes to Dash.
“Uh oh! Busted!” Paul said, drowning his laughter with the rest of his beer.
“Blake is in our atmosphere class,” Dash said.
“I see.” Her voice was a pitch higher than a moment ago.
A young waitress with long black hair picked the perfect moment to sashay up to our table.
“Finally, I’m starved,” Dash said, eyeing the girl. “Seriously, Diana, could you have taken any longer?”
“Don’t start with me, Dash. I’m the only server tonight. Stacey called in sick.” The waitress took a grease-stained pad from her apron and pulled a pen from behind her ear. “Ladies first,” she said, her eyes landing on Lindsay.
“Salad, with Italian dressing on the side.”
Diana glanced at me. I quickly grabbed the tiny menu smashed between the napkin holder and the ketchup in the center of our table and scanned it. “I’ll do the BBQ burger with everything and fries.” I slid the menu back in its place.
Dash stared at me with his mouth hanging open.
“What? I worked all night; I’m starved.”
He grinned. “You just made the perfect order—my favorite actually—but you made one big mistake.”
“And that was?”
“You didn’t order a beer with it.” He turned to the waitress. “I’ll have exactly what she’s having, plus a Native Amber. Bottle, not tap. Bring her one, too, will you, Diana?”
“Whatever you say.” She trotted off, quickly disappearing among the crowded tables.
I eyed him. “First-name basis with the staff?”
“I come here a lot.”
“I figured.”
Our food and beers came not long after, and I devoured every bit of it. The beer complimented my burger perfectly. Dash wasn’t joking when he said this dive had great food. No wonder it was packed.
We talked supercells and Blue October between bites while Lindsay pecked at her bowl of lettuce and pouted. She wasn’t obsessed with storms like the rest of us, but she was clearly obsessed with Dash. She hung on every word he said and desperately sought his attention—grabbing at his hand even if he was using it to eat or rubbing his back while he told a chase story. I only noticed because I knew the gestures all too well. I used to paw at Justin that way, desperate for any kind of confirmation that he loved me as much as I loved him. That desire faded after time, natural after being together as long as Justin and I had been.
The thought of him returned the simmer in my gut. My earlier anger had been blissfully forgotten, lost among my new friends and their endless stories about storms I’d kill to see. I reached in my purse and checked my phone. No missed calls. He was really being an ass. I huffed and finished the last of my second beer.
“You all right?” Dash asked, leaning closer to me.
He smelled like Irish Spring soap and pure man. Heat from his body so close to mine landed on my skin. I backed away slightly before noticing Lindsay’s absence. She must have snuck off to the bathroom while I revived my anger.
“I’m fine,” I said, glancing around for Diana. Once she locked eyes with me, I held up my bottle. She gave me a nod from across the room.
Dash raised his eyebrows.
“It’s nothing.”
Diana set my third beer down in front of me, and I quickly took a long swig. My head was already fuzzy and my tongue was thick. I really needed to build up a tolerance to this stuff, but it wasn’t like I got a ton of opportunities to drink. The disconnected sensation was extremely welcome.
“Want to talk about it?” Dash asked, his green eyes never straying from mine. He put his hand on my back and tension I didn’t know I held uncoiled under his touch. He seemed like someone I could trust.
Maybe it was the beer.
I took another gulp. “It’s my boyfriend, Justin.”
He nodded, allowing me to continue at my own pace.
“He’s just so . . .” Where to begin? “Well, he’s super pissed I came out tonight.”
“He wanted you to be with him instead?”
“He said he did, but I know better. I’d be nothing but an extra body in the place.” I took another drink. It was probably a bad idea to talk to Dash about Justin, but I needed to talk to someone, anyone. And he was here, willing to listen. “He’s having an all-boys COD party.”
“Call of Duty, nice.” Dash smiled, but the grin dropped when I gave him a stern look. “Anyway,” he continued, “I’m confused; why is he pissed?”
“Because he’d rather me be at home alone than out with friends.” I went ahead and used the word, hoping that after tonight I really would be able to consider them all friends.
“That seems unfair.”
I shrugged. “He’ll find some way to apologize for everything tomorrow.”
“And you’ll let him off the hook?”
“It’s what I do. After eight years, there isn’t anything else to do.” Every time I even mentioned taking a break he threatened to kill himself—the last time he’d grabbed a bottle of pain pills he’d recently been prescribed after a small hand injury on the job, and said he’d swallow them all. My chest tightened at the thought, the rope he held me with constricting around my heart.
“Holy shit, eight years. You’re practically married.”
“Oh no I’m not,” I said, my words dragging slightly. Justin had brought up the idea of marriage more times than I could count, but I’d constantly squashed the idea. I always blamed my parents’ divorce, but really I couldn’t see myself walking down the aisle with him. I already felt bound enough. “It has been a long time,” I said and looked around the room for Diana. She handed Paul and John two more frosty mugs where they played shuffleboard. She saw me and nodded. “All my life really,” I continued, twirling my third empty in front of me. “It’s hard to remember anything before him.”
“That must get difficult. Not experiencing anything outside of him,” Dash said, his words terribly close to the ones my mother had lectured me with last week.
“Yep.” I nearly launched into the University of Tulsa fiasco. Maybe I’d had too much to drink, or maybe it was just Dash, but talking to him made me want to confess all my life’s wrong turns and have him tell me they were just detours. I tried to sharpen my fuzzy focus and grinned at Diana’s perfect timing as I took my fourth beer from her. “Thanks, this is helping loads.”
She eyed Dash. “She isn�
��t driving is she?”
“No. I’ll get her home.”
My eyelids were heavy, and it took me forever to lock on to him. “Where’d your tiny friend go?” I asked, happy to change the subject from my relationship to his.
He chuckled, the throaty rumble quickly becoming a sound that soothed my insides. “She already left. Never stays here long. Isn’t really her scene.”
“I get that,” I said. “You’re so nice. To her . . . you’re so nice to her.”
“How do you figure?”
“Just a thing a girl can tell.”
“A thing a girl can tell when she isn’t used to it,” he said, his voice growing softer.
“You could say that.”
Two more beers later and the crowded bar was on a permanent tilt. The floor swayed underneath my feet as I walked toward the exit, but luckily I had the strength of Dash to lean on. In the back of my mind I knew I’d regret this all tomorrow and be terribly embarrassed, but those things were hard to focus on—especially with the edges of my vision blurring.
I heard Dash say, “Whoa,” before I blacked out completely.
GRAVEL FILLED MY head—tiny pebbles that rolled around and caused sharp pains to burst throughout my brain. The smell of hot coffee hit me, and in the back of my mind I figured Justin had come over with it as a peace offering for acting like such a jerk last night. He had a spare key and could easily have let himself in.
The thought triggered my curiosity. I let go of the heavy blanket of sleep, and peeled apart my eyelids.
I saw blond hair instead of black.
The guy leaned over my nightstand only inches away. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Sleep totally forgotten, I leaped up and hurled a right hook at his face.
He caught my fist a second before it hit him square in the nose.
“Whoa! Easy, woman!” he yelled and let go of my fist, backing up a few feet.
His voice and a clear picture of his face had me instantly sighing in relief.
“Dash?”
He held his hands up in the air as if I pointed a loaded gun at him. I glanced down. I still had my work clothes on from last night. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten home.
Looking at Dash I made an easy guess.