26. Gale #2
Mumbled agreements.
A moment later, the door to Ozrik’s room audibly closed. All was silent.
With my elbows on my knees and the heels of my palms pressed to my eyes, I waited for them to grace the command center and cross the street.
I was pathetic. Hiding in a bathroom, scared of my own shadow.
Why couldn’t I be like Ozrik? Comfortable in my own skin.
Indifferent to what other people thought. Why was this so hard?
I couldn’t even tell my father or twin sister the truth.
According to Ozrik, I wasn’t fooling anyone.
All I had to do was own it, but I couldn’t.
I was tired of living like this. It had taken years to reclaim my faith after leaving the seminary.
God and I had a complicated relationship.
At times like this, I questioned His reason for making me the way I was.
I prayed for answers but wasn’t sure He heard me.
After fifteen minutes of silence, I escaped to my own rented room, showered, changed, and took off.
I walked several blocks before circling back to the motel.
In the command center, I located the note and headed to the diner, hoping my face wouldn’t betray the previous night and all the lies I planned to tell.
Elliott arrived around noon, and Ozrik’s team perked up. Despite what happened that morning, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed, knowing there would be no sneaking out for a repeat of the previous night.
I’d been monitoring the encroaching storm system with Olivia for the past hour while someone from Charles’s camera crew performed individual interviews.
Roe warned they were purposefully stirring the pot and pitting people against one another.
I wasn’t looking forward to my turn, especially since I’d been the cause of many raised tempers that morning with my absence.
Apart from sharing a few glances and one shaky smile, Ozrik and I hadn’t spoken.
It was my doing. He surely wouldn’t give a crap if people knew the truth.
Avoiding him was necessary for my sanity.
If we talked, if we so much as stood beside one another, I feared our entire night would be written on my face for anyone to see.
As it stood, I could barely focus on reading the radar. My mind continuously drifted. Every kiss and touch we’d shared was emblazoned in my brain. The sensation of Ozrik’s naked body against mine was something I wanted to relive.
Questions arose that I’d never considered. Like, at what point was a person not a virgin anymore? Did what happened constitute sex? Was it only penetration that counted? What about oral? Were shared orgasms sex?
A flush climbed my neck and burned my cheeks when I imagined exploring more. How would it feel to have Ozrik’s mouth on me? Would anal hurt? Was I a top or a bottom? How were those things figured out?
I was embarrassingly uneducated. Fear and shame and a metric ton of self-denial growing up had kept me from researching online or driving to a big city for clandestine experimentation.
I was probably the only twenty-six-year-old on the planet who had never viewed porn.
I wasn’t stupid. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the mechanics of gay sex.
Still, I felt wholly unprepared to participate and feared Ozrik would find my clumsy advances and naivety annoying.
“What is wrong with you?” My sister nudged my arm, breaking me from a daze.
“Nothing.” I sat straighter and squinted at the computer screen.
“Are you fevered?” She touched my forehead.
I batted her hand away. “Don’t. I’m fine.”
“You’re flushed and sweating.”
“I’m fine, Olivia. Lay off. It’s… hot in here.”
“The air-conditioning is on.”
I ignored her, focusing intently on the local weather map.
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
“I have nothing to say. I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well.” I clicked to another tab, checking reports and scanning numbers that wouldn’t compute. It was too soon for alerts anyhow. The storm wasn’t scheduled to move into the area until late afternoon or early evening.
“Gale.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
Olivia continued to study me like I was a science project, and I did my best to pretend I didn’t notice. Our connection as siblings and twins made it hard to hide. Olivia read every muscle twitch and expression. She was attuned to my anxiety.
Checking over her shoulder first, she lowered her voice and leaned in. “I saw your shoes.”
My shoes?
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“This morning. In your room. They were beside the bed with your backpack and camera. Your book was on the nightstand. I’ve never known you to go anywhere barefoot and without your gear.”
My scalp prickled. “So?”
“You didn’t go for a walk.”
My muscles petrified. The air in my lungs turned to cement. “What are you talking about? I went for a walk. I said I did. It’s what I did. Why are you—”
“Gale—”
“I woke early. It was too dark for a camera or reading. I went for a walk so I wouldn’t wake Noah.”
“Without your shoes?”
I couldn’t speak.
“You didn’t go for a walk.”
A nuclear bomb detonated inside me, and I wanted to run out the door.
“You were with him, weren’t you?”
My tongue felt thick. Every drop of saliva vanished, making a protest impossible. My vision blurred, and I didn’t know if it was the lack of oxygen reaching my brain or tears welling in my eyes. I was going to pass out or cry, and I didn’t know which was worse.
Before Olivia could say more or force me to look at her and admit to something I wasn’t ready to admit to, the door to the command center opened, and Vern and Maggie came in.
“You’re up, Gale,” Maggie said. “Hugh is doing the interviews by that stray picnic table where you and Oz ate yesterday. He said to send you along.”
“Great.” I shoved from the computer station so quickly that the chair clattered to the ground. I bolted but felt Olivia’s gaze on my back as I escaped.
“This isn’t over,” she shouted after me. “We will talk.”
I didn’t respond. It was never over, but until I was ready to share, I would dodge the impending conversation for as long as humanly possible.
The dreary, overcast day matched my mood. Heavy clouds hung low over Tulsa, an omen for what was to come that evening. The sky told a story, and I studied its nuances as Hugh organized his notes for the interview.
“Ready?” Hugh asked after a few minutes.
“Sure.” I dashed a glance at the command center, where Olivia stood in the doorway watching me. She was too far away to eavesdrop, but her presence and all she had yet to say made my skin crawl.
“How’s it going, Gale?”
I glanced at the camera—it sat on a tripod—then at Hugh, who had his arms crossed and wore a facetious smile.
The buddy-buddy vibe didn’t work on me. In my world, I had enemies and few friends.
Trust was earned, not automatically given, especially to people who worked on reality television shows and whose goal was to stir shit up among the players.
“It’s going.”
Olivia’s earlier remarks echoed inside my head, distracting me. She knew. She knew, she knew, she knew, and the next time she got me alone, she would drag the truth from me.
“Want to elaborate?” Hugh asked.
“No.”
“Want to chat about your disappearing act this morning?”
“No.”
He chuckled. “I was warned you’d be a tough one to interview. Gale, the introvert, they said.”
“Who’s they?”
“Becca and Arty. Look, we’re doing a simple recap, bud. A check-in. These will be happening often now. The goal is to see how everyone’s doing. Meshing the teams has caused some hurt feelings, wouldn’t you say? We’d love to know how you feel about it.”
I shrugged, gaze pinned on the command center where my sister now chatted with Maggie. “I’m hardly surprised at Charles’s underhandedness. Not sure why anyone else would be.”
“You’re not a trusting person, huh?”
I didn’t respond, gaze still glued on my sister.
“Tell me about yesterday. It was the first chase that required cooperation. A blending of efforts. Instead of going with the flow, you put your foot down and refused to play the game. Interesting choice for a guy who doesn’t seem to like to ruffle feathers.”
“Who said I don’t like ruffling feathers?”
“Call it a vibe. You insisted on taking your vehicle.”
“So?”
“Why not go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing?”
“The cars are too crowded. I don’t like being crowded.”
“But that’s not true. The blending of team players didn’t affect numbers. It would have been the same distribution as always. Besides, crowding is normal for a chase, isn’t it?”
“I’m not a storm chaser. I don’t want to be here, and I hate crowding. If I have to go on runs, then I’m doing it in a way that isn’t compromising my mental health. Hence, taking my own vehicle so I don’t have to be crammed in a tin can like a sardine.”
Hugh raised an inquiring brow. “What do you mean you don’t want to be here?”
“I signed the contract for my sister. Dennis and Charles wanted five people on a team. Why that continued to matter when the rules changed, I have no idea. Olivia needed me, and I don’t like to upset her, so here I am. The end.”
“Against your will?”
“Against my preference.”
Hugh rubbed his stubbled chin, his smile more devious than before. “But instead of going on your own, you agreed to ride with Ozrik, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.” The word cracked, and I coughed to cover it up. I glanced toward his room, where he, Elliott, and Vern stood outside chatting.
“But doesn’t that defeat the lone rider demand?”
“I never said I wanted to be a lone rider. I said I didn’t want to be crowded. The Jeep isn’t a safe chase vehicle. Ozrik provided a reasonable alternative.”
“So you willingly joined forces with an opponent.”