by Molly E. Lee
Returning my gaze to my sister, my gut twisted. “I’ve been struggling with the network a little bit.”
“Shocker there,” she said, turning on the barstool to give me her full attention. “Big money always comes with some sort of hassle.”
I nodded. She knew enough about that from watching what the band she catered for went through. “There were stipulations in our contract I didn’t realize, and I haven’t told Blake or the guys about it.”
“What are they and why not?”
“Non-compete, for one. No one on my team can even think about going out on their own or approaching another network while under this one-year contract.”
“Okay,” she said. “That kind of makes sense. They don’t want all the prime footage you’re getting with their equipment earning anyone else money.”
“Right. But I would have liked to have had the chance to discuss that with my team up front. Not after I’d already signed us all on for an entire year.”
“You’re worried about Blake,” she said, not needing to pose the notion as a question. “You think she’ll want to go to another network soon, do the weathergirl thing.”
I cut my eyes to her at the term weather girl, but it didn’t make her less wrong. “I honestly didn’t think there was a chance of her leaving. That’s why I didn’t tell her. I figured it wouldn’t matter because we’d chase all season and then renegotiate terms next year. Terms we could all agree on and go into with clear heads. But now?” I took another long gulp. Now she wasn’t chasing. Now she’d been hurt—after she’d listened to our producer who liked to push us just a little past the danger zone with each new chase.
“So tell her.” Annabelle smacked my shoulder like I was being an idiot.
“I can’t risk driving her away. I want her next to me. She’s a chaser. Vital to my team.”
“I get that. I do,” she said. “But she will be ten times as pissed if she finds out the hard way.”
I rubbed my palms over my face. “I know. I just don’t want to snap that string if I don’t have to. What if she doesn’t think about leaving? What if I tell her and cause a rift for nothing?”
She leaned forward, forcing me to look her in the eyes that were so like my own. “What if you don’t and she finds out that you’ve been lying to her this whole time?”
A sharp twinge pierced the center of my chest. Justin had lied to her all the time—I would not be like him. “I haven’t lied to her,” I tried to explain. “She just doesn’t know.”
Annabelle scoffed. “You’re such a guy.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“I know you’re way too old for my advice—”
“Stop,” I cut her off. “You know that isn’t true.”
“Well, I know you don’t want it.”
“That is true.” I chuckled.
“But you should tell her. Blake is different. We all know you want to marry that girl.”
I jerked my head around as if her stating that out loud would somehow inform Blake of my intentions even though she was a whole state away.
“If you aren’t up front with her now, it will come back to bite you.”
I nodded. “I know.” And that isn’t even all I was keeping from her. If she knew about Justin—about the shit he either was really in or thought he was in—and the fact that I’d teamed up with the asshole to keep her in the dark about it . . . God, she would never trust me again.
Annabelle yanked me into a side hug. “You’re a good man, Dash. You’re just being stupid right now.”
“Thanks, sis.” I took my refilled glass from the bartender and chugged.
“Dude!” Paul clapped me on the back so hard I nearly choked. “How you holding up?” He sank onto the open stool next to me.
“Oh, he’s deep into the drink all problems away mode.” Annabelle tapped her glass against Paul’s by stretching over me.
Misery doesn’t always love the company.
“I’m fine,” I said. Or I would be. Once the pain in my gut settled.
“Blake is in good hands. John’s a good guy.” Paul burped. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“I know.” It wasn’t only the fact she’d gotten hurt that was bothering me, but Paul didn’t need to hear about that. Annabelle may have listened to me moan about how Blake could possibly think I would cheat on her, but Paul would just crack a joke and tell me to propose to her already.
Which, come to think of it, I really should’ve stopped waiting for the perfect moment and done it. If her accident showed me anything it was that our time on this earth was never guaranteed. As a man who chased tornadoes for a living, I already knew that, but seeing the love of my life bleeding and broken brought the risks we took regularly to an entirely new level. One that had my heart clenched in an icy-cold fist.
“I lost a bet,” Paul said, smacking the bar.
“Yeah? Lose at pool again?”
“Nope.” He glanced at Annabelle and then me. “I bet John twenty bucks you were going to propose and have me marry the two of you on the spot in that hospital room.” He chuckled, but I shook my head.
“Yeah, that would’ve been romantic. All the nurses coming in and out, checking Blake’s vitals as I told her all the reasons why I loved her.”
Annabelle laughed. “Blake doesn’t sound like a girl who needs too much. She might have liked that.”
Maybe, but that isn’t what I wanted to remember when we looked back on the moment in fifty years.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “She’s going to be totally down for getting married on the fly. I just know it. And she’s going to love me for making it so easy on you two.”
“All right.” I downed the contents in my glass. “Maybe you two should let me decide what I think Blake will want, since I know her better than either one of you.”
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “We’re pretty close. She may even tell me secrets she doesn’t tell you.”
I burst out laughing. “Keep dreaming, bro.”
“It could happen.”
The laugh went out of my chest. Maybe it could happen. I wasn’t certain of anything anymore—not after she actually believed I was cheating on her and ran head first into an EF-4 tornado. Well, she didn’t do it that dramatically, but still. She left without talking to me, without letting me explain. And even when I tried to put myself in her shoes, I was so confident in my place with her that I would’ve immediately called her out. Confronted her. I wouldn’t have left, thinking the worst of her.
I swallowed the acid that bubbled up my throat. How could she believe I would be so cruel? That I’d throw away what we had for a quick romp with another girl?
I ordered another beer and sat silent as Annabelle was subjected to classic Paul humor. There were some things even beer couldn’t cure, though,
like a horrible, gnawing sensation around my heart as I tried to understand how she could think that of me—even for a second—when all I’d thought about lately was how to make her mine forever.
Blake
“HE KEEPS A clean house.” Mom had done three self-tours of Dash’s place since John had dropped me off earlier today—after he’d taken a dozen of the four dozen cookies Mom had brought over, of course.
I smiled from my reclined position on Dash’s couch, my feet propped up on the ottoman, and Hail snoring loudly from her place next to my hip. “I’m glad his place passes inspection.”
“I’m honestly surprised you haven’t moved in already.” She sat in the la-z-boy next to the couch, her hands on her knees like she was itching for something to do.
I had thought about bringing up the move-in topic with Dash before, but I liked our pace. Things with Justin had always felt so stifling, and my apartment had been my sanctuary, the one place I knew I could go to escape the confines of his. But things with Dash were completely different, and I had slept over here more than my fair share of times.
“You would approve of that?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. She wasn’t har
sh with rules or expectations, but I didn’t think she’d ever support me moving in with a man before we got married—even though she knew for a fact I was sleeping with him.
“I approve of just about anything that involves that young man.” Her eyes may have twinkled, or I might have taken one too many painkillers on the drive here. “After Justin, well, honey I’ve never seen you so happy in my entire life. This past year . . . you’ve blossomed into the woman I always knew you would become if you got away from the darkness. Not that Dash gets all the credit, of course. You did your part, first with leaving Justin and then taking the leap with Dash. I just . . . I love that boy.”
“Me, too.” It was all I could say. Despite my questions surrounding the show and the girls and my role in it all, the fact that I loved Dash more than I could even explain in real words would never change. Even when I’d thought he was cheating on me, for that small torturous amount of time, I’d still loved him, just with a shredded heart.
Mom’s mention of Justin triggered the image of him on Dash’s front porch, and I sucked in a sharp breath that stung my right side. I touched my tender ribs, clenching my eyes shut to breathe through the pain.
“Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine,” I said, exhaling slowly. “The doctor said it’s important to breathe deeply and all the way down. It helps with the healing.”
Mom stood up. “I’ll get your ice pack. They said you should use that often, too.”
I was going to stop her but didn’t have the energy to fight. The normal four-and-a-half-hour drive had taken six because John went ten miles an hour below the speed limit, worried that one wrong bump would crack my rib further. I told him I could easily do that with a rough cough or ill-timed laugh, but he hadn’t listened.
I took the cold pack from her as she sat back down, placing it on my sore side, and sighing as the ice hit the area. Once breathing became a bit easier, I looked at Mom with weary eyes.
“What is it, honey?” she asked before I could even open my mouth. “Are the pain killers making you sick?”
“No,” I said, determined to get this over with. “You mentioned Justin—”
“Ugh. Tell me he hasn’t started harassing you again, because I will call the cops like that.” She snapped her fingers, a fierce mama bear look crossing her face that made me chuckle.
Which instantly sent a searing-sharp pain shooting up my right side so I cut that shit out.
“Actually,” I said, after taking a moment to blink painful stars out of my eyes. “I got a call at the beginning of the season. He’d been in an . . . accident.” Mom gasped, her hand flying over her mouth, so I hurried on. “He’s fine. He was in the hospital and they found my name from his old job. Anyway, I obviously wasn’t going to his rescue, but he went to prison after that. And then rehab . . . he’s there now.”
“My word,” she said, sucking her teeth. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I didn’t, either. Especially when his sponsor called and convinced me to hear him apologize in person for the wrong he’d done in my life.”
Another gasp. “You didn’t.”
I nodded. “I did.” I pointed toward the front porch. “Right there. He was . . . different, Mom. More like the boy I’d known when we were young.”
“I don’t care what he said to you, evil like that never changes.”
“You know, I thought I would feel that way, too. I thought seeing him would be a way for him to hurt me again, or for me to hurt him. But it wasn’t. He meant what he said to me. Every word. And I . . . forgave him.”
Her mouth popped open, and I tried to shrug.
“Trust me; I haven’t forgotten all that he did. I would literally pay every dollar I possess to rid myself of the memories . . . but when I think about him now and compare it to who he was then . . . well, it’s like two different people. He may revert back to that old version of himself, but I’ll know that I forgave him once and gave him the chance to move on with his life and make better choices. That’s all I can do.”
“You always did have the biggest heart, Blake.” She waved her hand like she was shooing away a fly. “But you aren’t planning on seeing him again, right? This isn’t a friendship thing, is it?”
I could see the fear in her eyes, just as I’d seen the anger in Dash’s when he’d asked me something similar. “No.” I patted Hail’s bottom, soothing her snores just a tiny fraction. “That’s not a possibility. He knew that, too. It was just part of his program.”
“Well, I hope it works out for him. I really do. But I’ll be just as happy if we never hear from him ever again.”
I nodded and couldn’t help but agree. There was no life where Justin and I would fit properly with each other ever again. “We’re on the same page there. I just thought you’d want to know.”
“Of course, honey. You know I always want to know what is going on in your life. When Dash texted me that you’d been hurt . . .” She sniffled as tears coated her eyes.
“Oh, Mom. I’m fine.” I grumbled a little, silently wishing Dash, and my mom weren’t so close that they could talk so easily. It might have been better to wait until I got back to tell her I’d been injured. “It’s part of the risk we take on every chase. I just happened to get the short straw on the right day.”
“I know,” she said, reeling in her almost tears. “I just . . . when you went in for a meteorology degree, I visualized you on television. Relaying weather reports from the safety of some studio.”
“Sometimes I think I might want to do that,” I said, stroking Hail’s fur.
“You do?”
“Sure. That doesn’t mean I give up chasing, though. There are plenty of meteorologists that do both.”
“Not many that are already on a storm-chasing show, though, right?”
I tilted my head, never really giving it thought. “I suppose not.”
“So, at least for the foreseeable future, I’ll have to worry about you constantly during storm season.”
“Yes. Or you could trust my instincts. And Dash’s.”
“I did. I do. But,” she said, motioning to my position on the couch, “this counters all those rational thoughts.”
I grinned at her. “I bet even if I was on the TV giving local weather reports you’d find something to worry about when it came to me.”
She smiled and raised her hands in defense. “Mother’s love comes hand in hand with worry. It won’t ever stop.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” I closed my eyes, truly grateful for her company, and her cooking. There was nothing like being an adult and yet still being able to count on my mother when I needed her to take care of me. And as it was, laid up with a cracked rib, I couldn’t ask for more.
Dash. I could ask for Dash. There was that. Of course, I’d prefer it was Dash playing nurse at my bedside, but storm season was at its peak and he was under contract. I would never ask him to give that up to watch me sit on my ass all day while this rib healed. Even though he’d been more than ready to do just that. After the bar incident, though, I’d needed space, regardless if it had been a huge misunderstanding.
“Something else bothering you?”
I opened my eyes, wondering if I’d been making some kind of face or if she really could read my mind like I’d feared my whole life.
“Don’t bother saying no. Asking was a courtesy.”
I resisted the urge to laugh again. “Things on the alley were getting pretty . . . dramatic.”
“Oh?” She crossed one leg over the other. “Do tell.”
I smirked. “Not the good kind of dramatic. Not for me, at least.”
“Spill.”
“Every single stop we made, we ran into one of Dash’s . . .”
“Exes?”
“I don’t know if you could call them that.” I scrunched my eyebrows, not sure if talking to Mom about Dash’s past regulars on the alley was a good idea . . . but I had to talk to someone and it sure as hell wa
sn’t going to be one of the guys.
“Oh.” Her shoulders sank. “Well, we all have pasts.”
“Obviously. And I know he loves me. It’s just . . . with my history—”
“It’s starkly different from his.” She cut me off.
“Yes, exactly. And that made me . . .”
“Question yourself.” She filled in again, and I tried not to be annoyed. What did I expect? She was my mother and therefore knew me better than anyone.
“Yes.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
“Kind of?”
“What does that mean?”
“He didn’t exactly understand my lack of faith. He’s as sure as anything when it comes to me, and why wouldn’t he be? I wouldn’t leave him for anyone. He’s perfect.”
“He thinks the same thing about you.”
“How?” I shook my head. “I mean, he keeps telling me that, but I don’t see it. He’s been with so many gorgeous women. I can’t possibly compete with that.”
“Who says you’re competing?”
“Every Barbie look-a-like we ran into?” I snapped, and Mom gave me a look that shut down my smartass remarks. “Fine, I know it was all me. I have leftover issues, doubts, from my one and only relationship.”
Mom sighed, that heavy exhale only she was capable of. “I know, honey. And I honestly can’t tell you that will ever go away. I don’t hate your father anymore, but after he cheated on me, well, that kind of hurt never goes away. And you had years of emotional abuse I can’t even stand to think about. You simply can’t let it taint every good thing that comes your way. You can’t always expect that blue sky to darken and chaos to erupt in the form of a tornado.”
Tears stung my eyes and I blinked them away. “What if I am that darkness, Mom?”