Guthrie couldn’t imagine the hurt that left behind in Luke. “I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry you went through that. You deserved better.”
Luke turned to Guthrie and smiled. “I did. Thank you.”
Guthrie’s phone pinged in his hand, and he had to shake himself out of a daze. The Doppler radar updated on his weather app.
Luke leaned closer to see and tapped the screen. “Hook echo. Where is that in relation to us?”
Dear God, but did Luke smell good. Guthrie tried not to sniff him and zoomed in on the map to show their location.
They both turned to the west at the same moment. “That’s heading right toward us,” Luke said. “ETA, what? Twenty minutes? Thirty?”
“Thirty probably. Nothing on the ground yet, though,” Guthrie said. “Nothing to worry about.” Maybe if he said that enough, he’d wish it into reality. This was his childhood home. He’d grown up in a small farmhouse not even eight hundred acres from their current location. There would not be a tornado here.
Guthrie started to write out a text telling Mom that she needed to get ready to go to the storm shelter. His phone beeped with incoming messages from the Chaser Chat.
“Check the Facebook chat, Luke. Please.”
Guthrie normally handled all communications, but Luke jumped in like a champ. “Johanna said no ground circulation yet, but a wall cloud. She’s north of it, and we’ll be south of it. She said we should figure out our route to follow it from the south once it’s close, but to try to get footage of it heading our way if it touches down. Should we move or stick around and see if we can get a shot from here?”
As Guthrie studied his navigation apps, a small caravan of vehicles thundered up. They stopped along the side of the road. It was a storm-chasing vacation tour. They’d clog up the road if everyone needed to move.
The supercell was moving east-northeast. In order to stay parallel with it from the south, they’d need to also go east. There wasn’t an easy route from their location without having to drive several miles out of the way. Not via road, at least. If they followed this road, they’d have to veer south for about two miles before they could jot east, then backtrack north to the storm. Not a horrible option.
He glanced to the east end of the pasture. Also not a horrible option.
He explained the choices to Luke, whose grin was diabolical.
A tornado warning blared through on both of their phones. Guthrie studied the sky. “Let’s move the truck onto the road. Then we’ll try to film from here, but be ready to jump in the truck if we need to.”
“Good. Let’s gear up.”
Guthrie connected his headset to the station so he could hear the newscast. They weren’t on wall-to-wall coverage yet since there wasn’t a tornado on the ground, but that could change at any moment. He needed to be ready in case Seth pitched to him.
Another rumble, one almost as loud as thunder, reverberated in the distance. It was a large vehicle coming down the gravel road.
Guthrie’s stomach clenched. The vehicle was a bastardized SUV, armored to the teeth in bright orange panels. On the side was a large decal of Slim Bridges’s fucking face.
“He has a picture of himself on his own truck?” Luke said with a laugh. “I didn’t notice that in the show.”
“His ego. Big as a football stadium.”
“An NFL stadium.”
Guthrie smiled and glanced at Luke. “Let’s do this.”
“I gotcha.”
“I know you do. Thank you.”
As Luke lifted the ENG camera onto his shoulder, Slim jumped out of his SUV, a huge crew in tow. Guthrie hadn’t seen Slim in person in a long time. He looked old.
Slim waved and grinned, like seeing Guthrie had totally made his day.
Guthrie didn’t care that it was unprofessional. He didn’t care that he was wearing a KTTY T-shirt, as was Luke. Didn’t care that a group of Scandinavian tourists could see him.
He raised both fists in the air and flipped Slim Bridges the double bird.
Now that was what Guthrie called a big ol’ Okie welcome.
Chapter Nine
The sky was no longer muddy green, but a deep gray. Inflow bands—cumulus clouds that gathered low-level air—had formed. The wind picked up, whipping red dirt against Guthrie’s face and arms, like tiny prickles of glass.
No rain, though. Guthrie was leery of storms with no rain. It didn’t quite feel natural, even if there was nothing more normal than Mother Nature pitching a bigass fit in a field in Oklahoma.
Guthrie didn’t need his weather maps or his radar. He could read the clouds, read the updraft in the wind—the storm drawing the air toward it. They were at ground zero for this storm. It was intensifying right in front of their eyes.
He pointed for Luke, who lifted the camera in the direction indicated, west of the north-south road they were encamped on with at least six other storm-chasing vehicles.
“Rotation.”
Luke nodded.
The station hadn’t gone to wall-to-wall coverage yet, but he was already linked in to Sarah, Nadine, and Seth. Sarah must have heard him because she asked if he had a shot.
“Yeah, nothing on the ground yet. Just a wall cloud with visible rotation. No funnel.”
“Your shot is better than Johanna’s, so we’ll come to you in less than a minute. Be ready.”
“Okay.”
Unfortunately, the dickmobile with Slim’s face on it was in their way. To Luke, he said, “Let’s cross the road, and we can shoot from the fence line without that in the shot.” The Into the Storm crew had run up the road to get people-and-vehicle-free shots as well, but damn were they loud—shouting at each other, yelling directions, sprinting around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Guthrie was trying to pretend he had ice water in his veins. He didn’t want to get too far away from Luke’s truck. Safety was key. Without the truck, they were two idiots in a field with a camera. The truck was their escape. Their safety net. His heart was slamming in his ears.
Luke crossed the street with Guthrie on his heels. Suddenly, Seth Nguyen was back in his ear, broadcasting live to the viewers at home. “Sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming. We’re going to cut in quickly to update you on a developing storm down in Grady County. One of our reporters—Guthrie Gale—is on the scene. Can you tell us what you’re seeing, Guthrie?”
Guthrie liked that Seth had called him a reporter, not a storm chaser. Weirdly, it soothed the crazy patter of his heartbeat, the anxiety forming a ball under his sternum. He was reporting on a breaking news situation. It was his job. He was able to briefly separate it from the panic that storm chasing triggered in him.
“Thank you, Seth. We’re currently about three miles to the west of Minco, between Minco and Cogar, off County Road 3117. There is a low wall cloud to our northwest with visible circulation. Luckily, there is no ground circulation yet, but the conditions are ripe for it. I’d recommend anyone in the area between Minco and Union City to head to your storm shelters or closets immediately, as this could potentially drop a tornado at any time.”
“To repeat,” Seth said, “there is a wall cloud with rotation west of Minco, heading northeast. This is a tornado warning. If you are in that vicinity, please take your tornado precautions now. Thank you, Guthrie.”
“Welcome.”
Seth continued to talk, highlighting the hook echo on the Doppler radar, but they were no longer broadcasting Guthrie’s mic or Luke’s camera feed.
Guthrie leaned against the fence post, Luke by his side. This wasn’t so horrible. He was nervous, yes. There was a wall cloud in close vicinity to his childhood home; of course he was nervous. But it wasn’t overwhelming. He’d been able to keep his head. Maybe the calm came from Luke, from his steadiness.
Luke bumped their shoulders together, and Guthrie smiled. He suspected Luke was a visceral, physical person. He probably hugged his friends when he saw them and passed out cheek kisses and
shoulder claps like candy. Guthrie was different. He was spiky and sometimes standoffish. He enjoyed the touching from Luke, though. Too much.
“You okay?” Luke asked quietly.
Guthrie nodded and turned to him.
The world melted away. Luke was watching him, his eyes wide, his eyebrows hitched up in the middle. Guthrie wanted to freeze time and live in this moment a bit longer.
“I thought you were a fake cowboy, but you’re not, are you?” Luke said.
They tried not to clutter up the audio feed with chatter unrelated to weather, so Guthrie was surprised by the turn in conversation.
He mouthed, “What?”
“You wear the cowboy boots and the hat and you have a twang, and I thought it was a persona. A front. But you grew up on an actual dude ranch. There’s a tornado coming toward us, and all I can think about is how good you must look riding a horse. If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d have bet my whole savings, all hundred dollars of it, that you’d never ridden a horse. Now I’m sure you do it deftly. Can’t stop thinking about it.”
Guthrie reached out and grabbed Luke’s wrist where it rested on the fence post. He cupped his other hand over the mouthpiece on his headset, hoping it’d muffle his words from Sarah, the audio guy, and the meteorologists at the station. “They might not be able to hear you, Luke, but they can hear me. Tread carefully.”
The light in Luke’s eyes flared. “I forgot.”
“I know. And yeah, I can ride a horse. I wouldn’t call myself a cowboy, though. Also, you said dude, so we’re 3-0.”
“I did not.”
“Did too.”
“I didn’t. I’ve been so careful.”
Solitary applause sounded from behind them. Guthrie yanked his hand away from Luke’s wrist and spun around. He needed to get a handle on himself, and he wasn’t the only one. Maybe the adrenaline was warping their hormones.
At the bottom of the slight incline, down in the middle of the gravel road, stood Slim Bridges and a cameraman.
“I do not give you permission to film me. You need to turn that thing off or you’ll have to blur my face.”
Luke glanced over his shoulder but kept the camera trained on the storm. “Same,” he said, loud enough to carry over the wind.
Slim waved to his cameraman and rolled his eyes. He had this insouciant affectation that set Guthrie’s teeth on edge. The cameraman lumbered off with a shrug. Guthrie tried to discreetly search the street for the rest of Slim’s crew. The last thing he wanted, besides a confrontation with Slim, was a confrontation with his ex.
“Well, this is an interesting development. All those tabloid rags say y’all are fucking. Is that true?” Slim drawled.
Guthrie was at work, and lots of people could hear him. He wasn’t going to have that conversation with Slim, especially not with witnesses. Plus they hadn’t been in any tabloid rags. Clickbait, yes. Tabloids, no.
“Hey. The least you could do is say hello. Answer my calls. You owe me for your career. Without me, you wouldn’t be here right now,” Slim said.
That was certainly true, and Guthrie was quite bitter about it considering the last thing he wanted was to be a storm chaser.
“Slim, I’m working. I’m not having this conversation with you now, or ever. But especially not now.”
Sarah must have caught his words because the line crackled and she said, “Guthrie, you got a problem?”
“A small one.”
“Change locations if you need to, even if you lose your shot,” she said. Guthrie could imagine that pissed off everyone at KTTY. No one wanted them to lose their shot, including Guthrie.
“Did you just tattle on me to your boss?” Slim asked, his words a taunt. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re getting too big for them britches, boy.”
“Guthrie!” Luke yelled, snapping Guthrie out of this weird little standoff. The tenor in Luke’s voice frightened him.
With shaking hands, Guthrie turned back to the wall cloud. “We have a condensation funnel forming.”
A burst of activity sounded through his earpiece. They were preparing to swing to wall-to-wall coverage if the funnel turned into a tornado on the ground.
Johanna and her chase partner, Dee, had finally been able to find a good viewpoint of the developing rotation from the north, and they were alone on that road, unlike Luke and Guthrie. As the funnel developed before their eyes, two more vehicles pulled up on the side of the road, one of which blocked them in.
“Chaser convergence here,” Guthrie informed the team. Then he covered his mic and called to the SUV that had parked beside their truck. “Hey, can you pull forward? We’re with News Channel 7 and don’t want to get boxed in.”
The driver waved and pulled up behind the tour company. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen. Maybe it was a sign that Guthrie was turning into a fuddy-duddy, but he thought that was way too young to be out here.
“Brings you back, doesn’t it?” Slim said, causing Guthrie to jump. He’d forgotten that Slim was there. “Seeing a young kid like that. Reminds me of you. You had some of the best instincts in the game. Don’t you miss it? Miss spending time with me? We could milk that newfound internet fame of yours for all it’s worth.”
With half an ear, Guthrie listened while Seth pitched to Johanna on the north edge of the storm. Then he turned to Slim. “No! That’s my answer. Don’t ask me again. Don’t contact KTTY. Stop calling my bosses. You want to spend time with me when it doesn’t involve severe weather, then fine. But otherwise, no. Go away, Slim.”
Guthrie sidled in next to Luke. His face was burning. His coworkers had definitely heard his end of the conversation. Typical of Slim to put him on the spot. Slim had probably not expected Guthrie to reject him with so little diplomacy, but Guthrie was all out of fucks.
He was done caring about his shitty job, especially as they were forcing him to do a task he hated. He didn’t care if Debbie was pissed that he’d publicly argued with his father while representing the station. He didn’t care if it embarrassed Slim to be publicly rejected. He didn’t give a flying flip about anything except getting through this day without having a panic attack.
In the seconds he’d been distracted, Luke’s hair had come loose from its rubber band and was whipping into his eyes. Luke grabbed the wayward locks in a fist at his forehead, but as Guthrie got close, he let his hair go to place his hand on the back of Guthrie’s neck. Luke’s unruly curls tumbled back into his face.
The hand on Guthrie’s neck was an are-you-okay gesture. The show of physical comfort was so sweet it burned.
Guthrie quickly removed his headset before slipping off his ball cap and smoothing the hair from Luke’s forehead. Then Guthrie situated his hat on Luke’s head with the bill facing backward.
“It’ll keep the hair out of your face,” Guthrie said as Luke startled.
Luke nodded, his eyes bright. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” Guthrie didn’t want to think about how awful his hat head was. He’d sure plummeted from the perfectly coifed reporter who gave updates on quirky festivals and polka halls during the morning and noon broadcasts. His whole schtick was that he was charming and pretty and a little redneck.
Look at me now, Guthrie thought as he pulled his headset back on. He was sweaty, he had flat hair, he’d just publicly yelled at a family member—which admittedly was redneck as fuck—and all it would take was a particularly hard wind gust for him to completely lose his composure.
“Debris,” he said sharply, as dust was displaced at ground level. “Tornado on the ground.”
Sarah pitched to Johanna, which was a relief. Guthrie needed to get his feet under him. He hadn’t been this close to a tornado in years.
Nine years. Shit.
As Johanna described the tornado, he and Luke watched it slowly meander east through a pasture. The tornado was at that almost invisible stage where you could see the spout at the top, but it was imperceptible near the ground. The only true indication
that rotation had reached the earth was the dust and debris cloud.
The tornado was probably half a mile northwest of them, maybe a bit less. He was too out of practice. In the past, he would have been able to estimate the distance exactly, but now he had no idea.
The other storm chasers lined up along the fence too. Most people were cognizant of staying out of others’ shots. Seth pitched over to him next. Guthrie explained that the tornado was moving east and would cross County Road 3117 soon. He described the debris he could see at the base. The tornado was in an open field with no structures in its immediate path. Luke was steady through it all, shooting the tornado with an assurance that impressed Guthrie.
Once he was off-air, a new presence at his back prompted Guthrie to peek behind him. This day couldn’t get any fucking worse. They should have left this area when Sarah had given them the go-ahead. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
Hoyt was back there, trying to get photos or video on his phone. He was Slim’s driver now that Slim had a camera crew, but back in the day, Hoyt had been the cameraman. Eventually, Slim had scared off all of his old squad, except Hoyt.
Hoyt waved at Guthrie, a smirk on his face.
“Who’s that?” Luke asked.
Guthrie stared up into Luke’s eyes, and the panic in his chest settled slightly. “No one important.”
This was a nightmare, and if it was a nightmare for Luke, he couldn’t imagine how Guthrie felt. The broadcast could get punted back to them at any moment. The last thing Guthrie needed to be dealing with was Slim Bridges.
“It’s gonna jot behind that tree line and we won’t be able to see it,” Guthrie said.
“Except when it crosses the road.”
“But this whole circus would be in our shot.”
That was true. They were at the back of the herd of storm chasers.
“You want to leave?” Luke asked.
Guthrie lifted his shoulders in a shrug but didn’t drop them. His whole body was stiff, and his hair was adorably flat on one side. Luke was trying not to think about Guthrie giving over his hat. It made Luke’s brain fritz out. Sharing evidently did something to him.
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