Ozrik
Twisted Fates, the group of storm chasers Vern and I assembled after leaving high school six years ago, consisted of five guys, each as dedicated as Vern and me. Apart from the two of us, there were Lex, Noah, and Elliott.
Lex moved to Elk City in our final year of high school, ditched the idea of a secondary education, and took a position at a local garage alongside his uncle.
His growing skills working on cars had benefited Twisted Fates.
Scoring a wrecker a few years back, Lex spent months building us a proper chase vehicle, one that could withstand the worst Mother Nature threw at us.
The unveiling came a year ago. It was a beast, but Lex was never happy, constantly making modifications.
Noah came along the year after we graduated.
We ran into him on the road one day while tracking two rotating supercells.
As a film student at a local college, Noah had been making a video for a project, so we invited him to ride with us.
We got him closer to a tornado than he’d been in his life, and that was all it took.
Hook, line, and sinker. The guy joined the team and was our official videographer.
With Noah, our YouTube channel was born, and our following grew.
Elliott was five years older than Vern and me. As an avid follower who subscribed to our new YouTube channel and watched every time we streamed chases on other social media platforms, he took a chance and messaged me, asking what it took to join the team.
It takes balls, I’d told him.
When Elliott offered to send me a pic so I could judge for myself if his balls were big enough, I instantly liked him. He joined our next chase and never looked back. I never did get a picture of his balls.
Elliott also worked a proper grown-up job that required a suit and tie.
He was married with a toddler and another baby on the way.
We made fun of him, but underneath, we were all a bit envious that Elliott had his life mostly together, and we didn’t.
His job, however, interfered with his hobby, which I suspected made him equally envious of us.
Elliott couldn’t get time off on such short notice to go to CineVision Entertainment and meet its founder, so a man down, we piled into Vern’s SUV for the two-hour trip to Oklahoma City on Monday morning.
Since Noah lived closer to Vern and was picked up first, he got to ride shotgun.
I ended up crammed in the back with Lex.
Racing out of the house at seven a.m., I managed to dodge my mother’s ceaseless questions.
As a peace offering, I’d obligingly left bodily fluids for her in surplus and filled in all the stupid charts hanging in the bathroom before escaping the house.
Hopefully, it would satisfy her enough to leave me alone for the day.
I did not tell her I was headed to the city because that declaration alone would trigger a whole list of different concerns.
While Vern drove and the others chatted, I pulled up weather maps on my iPad and performed ritualistic checks of the weekly forecast. The weather in mid-March wasn’t usually favorable for tornadoes, but it also wasn’t an impossibility.
Climate change meant the rules weren’t the same as they had been ten years ago.
The forecast called for rain that afternoon over Beckham County. Scattered showers. Nothing exciting. I flipped through other maps, analyzing data from various states, looking for signs of brewing storms across the Midwest, searching as far south as Texas and as far north as Nebraska.
Our audience funding had grown in the past two years, which made some travel possible. We drove far, and we drove often.
My life was measured by the storms I chased. At the mercy of nature, amid the worst weather imaginable, with the whipping wind in my hair and grit in my teeth and eyes, with my heart racing and blood on fire, I was free.
Vern said I took too many risks and had a death wish, but he was wrong. During a chase, at the apex of a storm, was the only time in my life I felt truly unchained. Alive.
My biggest concern, after deciding to meet the guys at the network, was that they might want to put a thumb on us and control where we went or how we did things.
As much as I longed for some life-changing cash, I would not be pinned down or told what to do.
If CineVision wanted to create a show featuring Twisted Fates, then they would play by our rules.
We knew what we were doing, so I hoped they were open to a conversation.
Negotiation. I needed this opportunity, but I also couldn’t afford to lose the one thing—the only thing—that made my life worth living.
I checked the time as I bounced a knee. My bladder screamed. With the extra fluids my mother had pumped into me the previous night and that morning, I was never going to make it to Oklahoma City.
“I gotta piss,” I announced ten minutes later when I couldn’t stop squirming.
“What are you? Five?” Vern met my gaze in the rearview mirror. “Can’t you hold it?”
“No. I’ve been holding it for half an hour already.”
“Dude, we’re fifteen minutes out. Don’t make me pull over.”
Before I could argue, Lex laughed. “Does Stella have you on a liquid diet again?” He thumped Vern’s seat. “Come on, man. Give the guy a break. If you make him hold it and he gets a bladder infection, his mommy will—”
“Shut up, Lex.” I pressed my temple to the window and squeezed my thighs, staring at passing traffic.
Every argument about a bathroom break died on my lips.
I could joke with Vern about my shitty home life and neurotic mother, but it got under my skin when other people poked fun.
The last thing I wanted was to validate Lex’s theory.
And for the record, yes, holding your pee could cause a bladder infection. Stagnant urine was a breeding ground for bacteria. When you didn’t go, bacteria multiplied, increasing the risk of urinary tract infection. Peeing flushed bacteria from your system.
Did I want to know these facts? No, but I’d heard them a thousand times and been tested and treated for nonexistent bladder infections repeatedly as a child and teenager.
Even the doctor was no match for a determined Stella Devereaux demanding antibiotics.
Due to my upbringing, I was a walking medical encyclopedia.
If I’d had better grades—and the desire—I could have gone to med school.
Traffic thickened as we entered the city. The network hub was in central downtown, so it took more than twenty minutes to reach and another ten to find parking. By the time we tumbled from the vehicle, my bladder ached so badly I could barely stand upright.
We were also running out of time.
I gritted my teeth against the pressure as we hustled into the building with no idea where we were going.
The massive lobby gleamed under the high lighting, boasting black lacquered surfaces and trendy furniture.
While Vern approached the chest-high reception desk to speak with an employee, I scanned for a bathroom.
A dozen or more people milled about, some coming, some going, others seated in lounge areas, chatting or waiting for appointments—I didn’t know which.
I spotted a hallway and a bathroom sign to my left and darted toward it, calling to the others that I’d be back in a minute. I raced off to Lex’s laughter.
The relief at finally releasing my bladder almost made me groan, but since I wasn’t alone in the bathroom, I held it back. The angry stream went on for nearly an entire minute, and I closed my eyes, taking ridiculous pleasure in the release of pressure.
Finished, I shook, tucked, and zipped before heading to the elegant line of sinks under gilt-framed mirrors that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Hollywood mansion or Victorian castle. The space was bright and pretentious.
If I needed a sign that CineVision Entertainment was going places, the state-of-the-art building and its swanky décor were enough of an announcement. Even the soap in the dispenser smelled nice, and soap in public bathrooms always smelled like wet Band-Aids.
As I washed my hands, no longer solely focused on a full bladder, I properly registered the guy at the sink beside me, realizing he’d been standing there since I entered.
The water at his station ran, but he wasn’t washing his hands.
Instead, he clung to the basin like it was the only thing keeping him upright, head dangling between his shoulders, and water dripping off his face like he’d recently splashed it.
When his quaking arms and the chopping rhythm of his inhales and exhales caught my attention, I paused. “Hey, are you okay?”
I knew the signs of a panic attack intimately.
He lifted his head and met my gaze in the bathroom mirror. My breath caught, and it wasn’t because of the tortured look in his eyes.
The man’s pale blond hair was like a hazy morning sun, parted on one side and fine as a feather.
He had a straight nose, a few barely visible freckles, and bowed lips with a pronounced divot in the middle of the upper one.
But it was his eyes that held me captive.
Eyes the color of a rainy afternoon in the fall. Not quite blue but not quite gray.
He said nothing.
Breaking the spell, the stranger looked down into the basin again.
He thrust a hand beneath the water and splashed it over ivory cheeks.
He wasn’t short, but he wasn’t tall. A scant inch shorter than me, and I didn’t cusp six feet.
He wasn’t scrawny but had a fine-boned physique.
Trim and with a clothing style that leaned toward preppy.
Maybe he was an actor, and I was in the presence of the next Oscar nominee.
It was a network studio after all. Who knew?
I doubted it. The guy was either warding off a panic attack or he was sick. Great, my mother would have a fit if I caught a random flu from a stranger in a public bathroom.