Don't Get It Twisted, page 11
Hey Haley, she typed. I thought of a couple more questions about some things we discussed, was wondering if you had any time in the next couple days to hop on a call and clarify? Best, Claire.
The response was almost instantaneous.
I’m still up. Call me now if you want.
Chapter Sixteen
Claire’s face filled Haley’s phone screen as the call came in, and her stomach knotted in excited anticipation. She’d been trying to fall asleep for hours, but every time it seemed like she was about to doze off, another strange noise from somewhere in the night would startle her back awake. Against Noah’s advice, she’d read the Reddit comments and the vitriol, though expected, still churned in her mind. The email from Claire had been a surprising– but very welcome– lifeline against the worst of her anxious thoughts.
“You’re working late,” she said, answering the phone.
“I could say the same to you,” Claire’s voice was familiar and comforting. “I didn’t think you’d see my email until the morning.”
“It’s an hour earlier here,” Haley said, as if that was a reasonable explanation for why she would be taking a business call at eleven at night.
“Well, either way, thanks for taking my call so late.”
“No problem. I couldn’t sleep anyways.” Haley couldn’t tell her how desperately she’d been waiting to hear Claire’s voice, not when Claire sounded so stiff and formal and far away.
“Post-storm jitters?”
“Something like that,” Haley said, debating on whether or not she should tell Claire about the Reddit post. If she were in Claire’s position, she would want to know, but then again the comments were so vicious and not anything Claire needed to see. “There’s been a lot on my mind the past few days.”
“Same here,” Claire said, sounding like she wanted to say so much more.
Haley suddenly regretted kissing Claire, because it seemed like the simple act of impulsive curiosity had turned them back into strangers, newly shy in each other’s distant company. And though it had felt so right in the moment, she realized it was probably the wrong thing to do. No, definitely the wrong thing to do.
“Claire, I’m sor—”
“So I just—”
“Oh, go ah—”
“You first.” They spoke at the same time, stumbling into each other’s sentences as they fumbled for words, then lapsing into awkward silence.
“How did the streams go yesterday and today? I missed them both; I was working,” Claire sounded genuinely interested and not angry, which was a good sign. Or maybe she already knew about the post and she was just testing Haley to see if Haley would say something first. As Haley’s Nana always said, a lie by omission was still a lie, and deceiving Claire didn’t sit well with Haley.
“Today was kind of a bust, but we got a good lightning show.” Haley sighed. “Yesterday there was some—uh—excitement, though. Someone saw us out dancing and posted it on Reddit.”
“Us? Like, me and you?”
“Yeah.”
“In Tulsa?” Without seeing Claire’s face, it was hard to tell how she was reacting to the news.
“Don’t worry. Your face isn’t really visible at all and I told everyone it wasn’t me and chat seemed to have forgotten about it for the most part today, so it shouldn’t be a thing. But I just thought you should know.” Haley heard the faint click of typing in the background. “If you’re looking for it, just know some of the comments are kind of rough. And I’m sorry. I know you didn’t sign up for this.”
“It’s fine,” Claire said. “Don’t worry about it. I doubt my boss is browsing Reddit, so it doesn’t matter. But are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I get hate comments all the time, I’ll just add fa—” Haley’s voice cracked. She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. “I’ll just add the new slurs to the list.”
“You know you don’t have to act tough about it? You’re allowed to be mad. I’m mad. They’re disgusting people, not to mention the violation of your privacy.”
“Haley Hunter exists for public consumption—I don’t get privacy when I’m in public. And I knew that going in. I’d spent enough time around Noah to see how it works firsthand.”
“Yeah, but you get to have emotions.”
“I’m mostly just mad that you got dragged into it. I got careless because I wanted to show you how we have fun in Tulsa and I’m sorry for that.” And, as upsetting as some of the comments were, there was a small part of her that was glad the photo existed, a tangible memory of a night she wanted to hold on to forever.
“For what it’s worth, I did have fun, so there’s nothing to apologize for. I should be the one apologizing for stepping on your feet all night.”
“You weren’t! You did great for your first time.” Haley smiled at the memory of how right it felt weaving around the dance floor with Claire’s arms around her. The sparks of attraction were something she hadn’t felt since Ash, and it felt strange, but exciting.
“So are you driving back to Tulsa tomorrow?” Claire asked.
“Probably. I have one eye on a system south of here, but I don’t think it’ll fire.”
“I should let you go, then. It’s a long drive.”
No. Haley wasn’t ready to disconnect and face the night alone again. “I thought you had more interview questions.”
“Call me tomorrow when you get wherever you decide to go, we can run through them then.” Claire yawned.
“Tomorrow,” Haley echoed. She couldn’t ask Claire to lose more sleep to keep her company because she was scared of the dark.
“Good night, Haley,” Claire said softly, sending a shiver down Haley’s spine and into her core.
“Night, Claire.” Haley set down her phone, her heart yearning to say so much more.
Chapter Seventeen
Haley hadn’t called yet when Claire finally left the office, but she wasn’t streaming either, leaving Claire with no other options except to wonder where she had decided to go and what she was doing. Claire hated herself for checking, but Noah was offline, too, leaving Claire’s mind to wander again as she rode the T home and started cooking dinner.
Or maybe Haley just had her own life, and Claire wasn’t a priority in it, because why would she be? The article about Haley felt like it had consumed Claire’s whole life, but she could recognize she was just a tiny fraction of Haley’s, and Haley hadn’t even wanted to do the interview to begin with. The experiences they went through together with the family and the storms, the long drives of talking about everything, those were exceptional for Claire but everyday for Haley. She’d had no reason to believe Haley saw anything remarkable in her.
But then the kiss happened. Unexpected and out of nowhere. There had been no signs that anything like that was on Haley’s mind, and Claire thought she was usually pretty astute. But the kiss had caught her by surprise and swept her legs out from beneath her, leaving her off balance and confused and aching for more.
She’d had plenty of bad kisses and even more good ones, but kissing Haley was like kissing lightning itself, hot and electric and magnetic, so good that it terrified her. So good that time passing couldn’t heal it, only make the desire ache more.
Her phone rang just as the water for her rotini started to boil. Finally.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Claire.” Haley sounded cheerful. “How are you?”
“Good,” Claire said casually. Better now that I can hear your voice. “What about you? Where are you?”
“Tulsa. I just left the gym.”
So she had been with Noah. Was that why she sounded so happy? The thought annoyed Claire more than she wanted to admit. “How did you get into boxing?”
“We spend so much time driving around and sitting and editing, so we like to stay active when we can.”
“But why boxing?”
“After, you know… everything… Noah thought I should be able to kick someone’s ass if I needed to. Said it’s the next best thing since I refuse to carry. Was that one of the questions you wanted to follow up on? I don’t want to get into gun stuff in the article, too controversial.”
“No, just curious.” Truth be told, Claire had been so wrapped up in thinking about Haley, she had forgotten to actually think of any follow up questions. She’d just needed an excuse to call her, to hear her voice again, and now she was stalling as she tried to figure out what to say. “From what I saw, you’re pretty good at it. Boxing, that is.”
“I have a good coach,” Haley said.
Damn it, was there anything Haley didn’t give Noah credit for? And could they just stop talking about him?
Claire sighed. She was tired of thinking about work, but she needed to keep up the pretense if she wanted to keep Haley on the line. “Anyway, I just wanted to double check, you said you moved in with your grandparents when you were six?”
“That’s right.”
“And you grew up on a farm?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you always want to be famous?”
“Not necessarily famous, but I guess I always wanted to leave my mark on the world in some way, and be seen for it. But doesn’t everybody?”
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “I always appreciate when people comment that something I’ve written touched them in some way. But I don’t think I could handle being famous like you are, where people recognize you on the street or post random pictures of you online.”
“I guess I’m used to it now. It’s worth it if it helps people take the weather more seriously.”
“You seem like such a private person, though. I’m surprised you chose this path at all.”
“It didn’t always feel like a choice. And besides, I can admit the attention is addictive. I was twenty-two and the most hated person on campus, and then all of a sudden I had thousands of people telling me how brilliant I was, how sexy I was, how they wished they were me. And I know that’s only because they didn’t know the real me. So I give them the Haley they want to see, and they give me love and attention. Don’t write that, though.”
“I won’t.” Claire’s notepad was on the other side of the room. “And you are everything they say you are,” she added, because it seemed like Haley couldn’t believe it herself. She really was incapable of accepting praise, and that just made Claire more eager to show her how worthy of it she was. Maybe the article would help her see herself in a new, more deserving light.
“What are you doing?” Haley asked abruptly.
“Cooking dinner with my cat, probably going to catch up on some TV later. Nothing exciting.” Great, Claire. Now the most interesting person in the world is going to think you’re boring.
“That sounds so nice, though. I wish my life was stable enough to have pets. Or a kitchen with more than two dented frying pans.”
“Do you even cook?” Claire teased. “Or just eat hot dogs?”
“Sometimes I have tacos instead,” Haley said slyly, and Claire wondered for a split second if the double entendre was intended. It was always so hard to tell whether Haley was flirting or if that was just her personality. Better to assume she wasn’t.
They chatted about food and compared favorite television shows while Claire’s pasta cooked, and then kept talking about the weather—a topic that would have been boring if it was anyone but Haley gushing passionately about cold fronts and unusual storm systems and types of clouds Claire couldn’t begin to guess how to spell—and Claire’s upcoming volleyball match and Tobey’s weird midnight antics. By the time they hung up the phone, two hours had passed and Claire’s pasta was still sitting cold in a bowl on the counter.
She ate it anyways, then curled up to watch reality TV reruns as she basked in the glow of whatever her relationship with Haley was. Complicated, she decided. And getting more complicated by the day.
***
Whitney rejected her second draft, and then her third.
Each draft sounds more and more like a love letter, the most recent terse email declared. Maybe you need to restart from square one.
But what even was square one, and how could Claire go back there?
***
“You know you can just call me to talk,” Haley said when they were on their fifth straight day of late night phone calls. “We don’t have to keep up the interview pretense. We can just be friends, too.”
She probably didn’t even realize how the words cut into Claire. Was just friends all they were? How was that possible when Claire spent every waking moment thinking about her, wondering what she was doing and if she was thinking of Claire, too?
***
I can’t make it tonight, Claire typed to her recreational volleyball team’s group chat. Work. She added the eye-rolling emoji.
It was technically almost the truth. She was engrossed in Haley’s stream, watching as storm after storm dropped tornadoes on the Iowa plains. Haley was a superstar, expertly identifying which storm cells were going to spawn rotations and descending on them to give her audience, including Claire, the best show.
That counted as research, right? She was just trying to get back to square one like Whitney told her to, to see Haley as an interesting storm chaser and nothing more.
An interesting storm chaser who just happened to have an amazing body and a voice like honey.
An interesting storm chaser who told Claire she missed her before they hung up the phone and made Claire’s heart skip at least three beats.
Fuck.
Claire wanted Haley so badly it hurt.
***
The paper in Sacramento was getting impatient to pin down a final interview date, and even though changing jobs was the last thing on Claire’s mind at that point, she knew she would regret not going at least. And they were paying for the flight.
She felt like a criminal requesting two extra days off so she could fly across the country—like she was being disloyal to the biggest opportunity of her life—but the time off was approved without question. Committing to a direct flight there was easy, but she scrolled the return flight options reluctantly as the results became more and more absurd, wondering if she was just wasting time booking the trip at all.
The letters TUL jumped off the screen and she froze.
It was a ridiculous idea.
Haley probably wouldn’t even be in town.
The day of travel would be hellish, with a connection in Denver she would probably have to sprint to make and a few short hours in Tulsa before a flight to Boston that would have her walking in her apartment around two in the morning. And if anyone at the paper found out, it would jeopardize everything.
Ridiculous. Absolutely, completely, utterly ridiculous.
***
“Claire!” Haley sounded slightly out of breath and energetic. Claire couldn’t help but grin that she had answered on the first ring. “I was actually just about to call you.”
“Leaving the gym?” Claire asked. She was getting pretty familiar with Haley’s schedule when she wasn’t on the road.
“Nope, just finished a run by the river,” Haley said.
“With Noah?” Claire hated herself for asking. Of course it was with Noah, he was always around and it was killing Claire that she couldn’t be. How was she supposed to compete with that? And was it even a competition? It sure felt like it.
“Not today, he had to go deal with a family thing for a couple days.”
“I hope everything’s okay.” So that explained why they weren’t boxing like they normally did on Thursdays. “So anyway, I’m randomly flying through Tulsa next Sunday and have a few hours, do you want to hang out?”
“I don’t know if I’ll be around, but if I am, of course I’d love to see you,” Haley said. “I’ve been hoping I would get to see you again.”
“Have you?” As usual, Claire couldn’t tell if Haley was flirting or just being friendly. “Why’s that?”
“Because I think we have some unfinished business,” Haley said mysteriously. “There are still a few parts of Tulsa I didn’t get to show you.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What do you mean you’re driving back to Tulsa tonight?” Noah leaned around the gas pump to look at Haley as though she was the stupidest person on the planet. “Tomorrow’s a 15% hatched risk and you’re skipping it?”
“I have something to do,” Haley said. Or someone, if she was reading Claire right. But maybe she was getting ahead of herself. It felt like she had known Claire for years, not the few weeks it had actually been.
“But what about your viewers? You gonna break your promise to them?”
“Shit happens.” Haley shrugged, trying to ignore the prickles of guilt from ignoring her obligations. She had changed her mind about going three times already, but she knew she would regret it forever if she didn’t at least go to Tulsa to see if the connection was real. Even if it meant letting her audience down. “Extenuating circumstances. I’ll make a post and tell them to watch you instead.”
“So we’re keeping secrets now?” He crossed his arms and glared at her.
Ugh. He knew her too well, and Haley couldn’t lie to his face. “Claire is back in town for a little while, we’re doing a follow-up thing. It’s sort of last minute.”
“What could there be to follow up on? I swear, every second you’re not working, you’re talking to her.”
“Maybe the follow-up is personal, not work related,” Haley said cryptically, though she could feel her face heating up and her cheeks turning red. “You’re just mad you’re actually going to have to actually work for the storms tomorrow.”
“So what you’re saying is you’re going to get laid.” Noah smirked.
“I don’t know. I think so? It’s hard to tell with Claire. And no, she’s only going to be in town tomorrow.”
“But you like her.”
“I think she’s really interesting, and she’s easy to talk to. I just wish she didn’t live so far away.”
“It’s her job to be easy to talk to.” Noah’s words were a cold truth that Haley was constantly trying to forget. “You should be careful with that.”
