Lila rolls her eyes. “Would you rather be comfortable and safe, or cheap and miserable?”
“I'd rather not bankrupt myself before we even see a tornado,” I mutter, but hand over my card anyway. The university expense account will cover this—I hope. I'll just have to categorize it as “essential field equipment” in my report.
Once we're outside the store, shopping bags in hand, Lila checks her watch. “Not bad. We still have time to grab some supplies before heading out.”
“More supplies?” I look down at the bags. “What else could we possibly need?”
“Road snacks,” Lila says with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Unless you want to discover what happens when your blood sugar crashes while we're tracking a supercell.”
I try to imagine what constitutes “road snacks” in Lila's world.
“I suppose that makes sense,” I concede. “A balanced selection of complex carbohydrates and proteins would be optimal for maintaining energy levels during prolonged observation periods.”
Lila stares at me for a beat before bursting into laughter. “God, you really do speak like a textbook, don't you? I was thinking more along the lines of Funyuns and Mountain Dew.”
“That's...” I struggle to find a diplomatic response. “Not nutritionally sound.”
“Neither is getting caught in an EF-3 tornado, but sometimes life's about taking risks,” she counters, heading toward her truck. “Besides, everyone knows the rule of tornado alley road trips. The more neon orange your fingers are, the better your chances of spotting a good funnel cloud.”
“I'm fairly certain there's no scientific correlation between processed snack foods and meteorological observation success,” I say, following her with my shopping bags.
“Says the man who's never had a Slim Jim revelation while watching a mesocyclone form.”
“A Slim Jim revelation?” I can't help but laugh. “Is that a technical term in storm chasing?”
“Absolutely. Right up there with a bean burrito breakthrough.'“ She grins, and something in my chest does a strange little flip. “Trust me, Professor, there's a whole vocabulary of junk food meteorology you haven't been exposed to in your ivory tower.”
I shake my head, still smiling. “I suppose my education has been lacking in certain practical areas.”
“Don't worry,” she says, patting my shoulder with mock solemnity. “I'll make sure you're fully versed in the sacred traditions of road trip snackology before this partnership is over.”
“I look forward to my education,” I reply, surprised to find I actually mean it.
LILA
Three hours into our drive,and Jonah hasn’t looked up from his laptop more than twice. The first hour was blissful. The calming quiet that I so desperately needed after Lucas and his big mouth left us earlier. How he and Jonah are friends are completely lost on me. I’d have shoved him off the nearest cliff after two sentences.
But now, two hours later, the silence is shifting into annoyance. I consider putting on some music, but considering my taste in music is of the death metal variety and the alternative was true crime podcasts, I opted for continuing insilence. Though,. I was right in the middle of Morbid’s multi-part saga about Jack the Ripper. Jonah could get some pointers if and when he decided to ditch Lucas’s friendship in a more permanent way.
I force my attention back to the endless stretch of highway ahead, but it doesn't last. Thirty seconds later, I'm stealing another glance.
What is it about him that keeps pulling my attention back? I’ve shared road miles with plenty of attractive men. Storm chasing draws them in droves—all jawline and adrenaline and absolutely nothing underneath. Jonah isn’t like that. He carries his looks the way he carries everything else: without the faintest idea they’re there.
The memory of that woman in the outdoor store flashes back into my head before I can stop it.
Amber. Blonde, tanned, tiny shorts, too much lip gloss. The kind of woman who spotted storm chasing decals in the middle of rural Oklahoma and immediately decided it was her civic duty to flirt with the nearest man involved. And the second she noticed Jonah standing beside me, her entire attention locked onto him like she’d found the last decent man on the Great Plains.
Jonah had just stood there. Amber had practically gift-wrapped herself for him and he’d responded like someone had handed him a form he didn’t know how to fill out. Every time she laughed and touched his arm, he’d blinked at her with this expression I can only describe as politely baffled. It should have been funny. Most of it was funny.
Except that Amber had also clearly clocked everything I’d been carefully not thinking about. The shoulders. The way he focuses when someone talks to him, like nothing else exists. The fact that his awkwardness somehow compounds the problemrather than solving it. She’d seen all of it in about forty-five seconds and moved straight toward it.
And something in my chest had gone tight and mean watching her do it.
Which made no sense. We’d known each other for three days. He wasn’t mine to feel territorial over. The man could get flirted with by whoever he wanted.
I just really needed her to stop touching his arm.
It wasn’t about protecting him. By the time I slid my arm around his waist and said the word married, I was past pretending it was. I wanted her attention off him. Wanted her to stop smiling at him like she’d just found something worth keeping.
