Stormz Rising

Ozrik

If I kept my phone face down on the table, I could pretend the barrage of messages didn’t exist. Each was a mini battalion, sent forth to break my resolve, until I eventually crumbled under the assault and waved the white flag of defeat.

God help me, I loved her, but some days, I had terrible, terrible thoughts unbefitting a son.

She knew that between the beginning of March and June/July-ish, I never silenced the device.

Not even at night. Hence, the persistent disturbance.

She was nothing if not tenacious. The window of time was excessive, but I refused to miss an alert, which meant that for several months every year, my mother and I were at war. I couldn’t avoid her, and she knew it.

Stella Devereaux did everything in her power to keep me locked in a sterile, padded room, and I did everything in my power to outrun her suffocating idea of love.

Burly Bobby Bakerman, owner, manager, and full-time bartender of the Salty Orange, delivered my third sweating glass of Coke, decorated with its mandatory lime wedge.

He removed the empty I’d consumed earlier and set the fresh drink on the soggy cardboard coaster before wiping a few drips of condensation from the waxy wood table surface with a dirty rag.

“Do you know how much bacteria you’re spreading with that cloth?” My gaze never left the YouTube video playing on my iPad.

“What do you care? That shit you’re drinking is battery acid. Do you know what it’s doing to your organs?”

And this from the man whose throat was destroyed from decades of smoking.

Defiantly, I drew the fresh glass of Coke forward and drank deeply from the straw before smacking my lips. “The levels of phosphoric acid in Coke are in no way comparable to battery acid, my friend.”

“I ain’t your friend, Devereaux.”

“In fact, my overconsumption of Coke is more apt to lead to weight gain, heart disease, type two diabetes, tooth decay, fatty liver disease, and kidney stones. Don’t believe me?

Look it up. Better yet. Ask my mother. She needs someone to talk to.

You remember Stella. Didn’t you two date in high school? Maybe you’re my dad.”

I slid my incessantly buzzing cell to the edge of the table as another text landed. “While you’re at it, tell her I can’t come to the phone right now because I’m licking the bacteria off the tables at the bar.”

Bobby huffed, muttered obscenities, flung the ratty towel over his shoulder, and sauntered to another table and better-paying customers.

His real issue had nothing to do with my health.

The guy made a living serving alcohol to a bunch of country bumpkins and hated that I spent my days camped out in a booth, “taking up space,” especially when I never ordered more than watery fountain pop for a buck twenty-five a glass—a buck thirty if I demanded a lime wedge, and I did.

It was Bobby’s opinion, and he’d stated it many times, that if I wanted to warm a seat at his fucking bar, I should drink beer like the rest of the drunks—at five fifty a glass. If I consented to a splash of rum in my Coke—six bucks—he’d toss in the lime wedge for free. How generous.

I didn’t object to the price of the beverages, and Bobby knew that.

What I needed was to keep my wits about me.

Since I was a paying customer, he had no reason to throw me out.

Besides, it was all an act. The guy didn’t hate me like he pretended.

In fact, he went out of his way to help me out, offering me hours as a bartender on busier weekends so I could earn a few bucks.

So I sat.

For hours at a time.

And drank Coke.

Another buzz sounded from my phone. It jittered against the table, firing arrows at my weakening heart. My resolve to ignore my mother’s patronizing concern thinned with each new text. I didn’t need to read them. I could predict the content of the messages with ninety percent accuracy.

Since I’d slipped out of the house before she was back from church, she would want to know what time I got up, how many hours I slept, had I taken my temperature, my pills, my vitamins, and eaten something nutritious?

What was I wearing? Did I apply sunscreen?

Where was I going? When would I be home?

Who was I with? And please call when you get there.

Then, as panic set in, Sweetie, why aren’t you answering my texts?

For the record, I was twenty-four, not fifteen.

Regardless, if I ignored her for too long, she would call the sheriff’s station and the hospitals, convinced I was lying dead in a ditch—a turn of phrase she used often.

Then, to top off the humiliation, Sheriff Barclay, driving at high speed, would pull his cruiser into the Salty Orange, march his arrogant ass inside, and tell me to call my fucking mother already.

In case I was unaware, playing messenger wasn’t in his job description.

After delivering a reprimand, he would tear out of the parking lot so fast that his tires would spin and spit gravel against the front windows of the bar and leave deep ruts in the parking lot that Bobby would spend the rest of the afternoon bitching about.

This was my life. I needed to get the fuck out of Dodge. That or convince my mother to see a shrink.

Checking the time on the battered wall clock hanging behind the bar, I determined there would be three to four more texts before the inevitable happened.

So, instead of responding, I stopped the video I’d been watching and scanned Olivia’s YouTube channel for something I hadn’t seen a hundred times.

To say I was obsessed was an understatement.

If comparison was the thief of joy, then Olivia Windrow and her Wind Riders—such a stupid name—were my joy thieves.

Her rival team of storm chasers was stealing my literal thunder, despite having been in the industry for less than three years.

Their YouTube channel had exploded, and they weren’t even that good.

I hated them. They were an industry joke, but I was the only one laughing.

Everybody and their fucking dog loved them.

“It’s not a competition,” Noah said when I broached the subject. Except it was.

When the Wind Riders dropped their YouTube channel last year and gained thousands of followers practically overnight, I couldn’t figure it out. Twisted Fates had been at it for far longer, and our following was decent, but it had taken time to build.

They were an instant success.

I watched their videos on repeat, virtually riding along and experiencing every chase they’d gone on the previous year, looking for a reason. They chased the same storms my team chased, and we got better results.

What the Wind Riders had going for them wasn’t skill—they never got within a mile of a tornado, something my team did often. No, what the Wind Riders had was charisma and a leader with a pretty face.

Olivia Windrow was only girl-next-door pretty.

She was by no means a knockout, but something about her was fucking mesmerizing.

Gun to my head, I couldn’t have told anyone what exactly captured my attention, but it was in every video.

Her energy. Her confidence. Her assertiveness.

I didn’t often crush on girls—I was about a seventy-thirty in favor of guys in the bi department—but this one had hijacked my hypothalamus for the better part of eleven fucking months, and I hated her.

“Jesus Christ, do you ever answer your phone?”

The crash of the door against the inner wall and the booming voice made me jump. I scrambled to darken the iPad screen as my best friend Vern marched to the booth and dropped into the seat across from me.

“Hey. I was just—”

“Drooling over Liv again? Yeah, I saw. You ever gonna do something about that?” He wiggled his brows.

“Not interested.”

“Sure. Whatever. I don’t have the energy to fight with you.”

A sleek ball of black fur landed on the table and meowed in my face. “Slick!”

“Shit,” Vern hissed, dashing a glance at the bar. “You stupid cat. You can’t sneak in like that. You’ll get me in trouble.”

As Vern spoke, Bobby hollered, “Hey, she can’t be in here. You want me shut down? Get that fucking animal out of my bar.”

“Come here, pretty girl.” I cradled the cat in my arms and kissed her furry face.

Oil Slick was a stray who followed me everywhere. She earned her name not only because of her glossy black coat but also for her ability to sneak into places she wasn’t supposed to be.

Nuzzling her, I returned her outside, knowing she wouldn’t venture far. She was my shadow. Whenever I decided to leave, she would be there waiting. Wherever I went, she would follow. I would adopt and take her home if I wasn’t convinced my mother would have a coronary.

As I dropped back into my seat, Vern rapped the table and raised his voice, “Hey, Bobby. Pint of your finest IPA, and put it on Oz’s tab.”

“I’m not buying your beer.”

“You are, you cheap motherfucker, because we’ve got shit to discuss that’s going to put you in a fabulous mood.”

“Doubtful.”

“Why are you ignoring my texts?”

“I’m ignoring all texts. I’ll give you two guesses why, and the second one doesn’t count.”

With an all-knowing smirk, Vern picked up my abandoned phone. “Stella, I presume?”

Since I was the only person on the planet without password protection, he got his answer the instant he hit the power button and the screen lit up.

Vern let out a low whistle as he shook his head, eyes glimmering with humor. “Duuude. Call Guinness. I think this is a record.” He glanced out the Salty Orange’s deeply tinted front window, scanning the parking lot. “I’m surprised the sheriff hasn’t hunted you down yet.”

Bobby delivered Vern’s drink as I wearily scrubbed my face. “Is it that bad?”

“Twenty-seven, my friend.”

“Fuck my life. I’ve only been here an hour.”

“Try three and forty-five,” Bobby corrected. “If the sheriff chips my front window again, you’re paying for damages.” To Vern, he said, “You want food? Chucky’s cooking.”

“Not today, brother.”

“Suit yourself.” Bobby left us alone.