Don't Get It Twisted, page 8
It was almost a relief to hear Haley confirm what Claire already suspected. There was nothing about the version of Haley Claire had gotten to know over the past few days that would make her think she was making it up, and Claire’s heart broke for her. She hadn’t wanted to believe that the infallible Haley Hunter was actually Haley McCall in the old article, but everything made sense. Why she was so guarded, why she didn’t trust the media, why she had turned away from her degree to pursue storm chasing just months before she was due to graduate.
“I believe you,” Claire said softly. She only wished someone had said it years ago.
“The police didn’t. The school didn’t. He had teammates to say I went with him willingly, that I was flirting and hanging off him all night. I don’t even remember where I was until I woke up in his dorm, but I couldn’t prove he drugged me because I waited too long.” Haley’s voice was distant and emotionless.
“They failed you,” Claire said. It was too common on campuses across the county, and shattering to know Haley’s side. “The school, the media, all of them.”
“I’m sure it was nothing more than an actuarial calculation to them. He was more likely to make big donations and draw prestige than the weather nerd destined for mediocrity on a small town local news station.”
Anyone who looked at Haley and saw mediocrity needed to have their eyes checked. Claire closed hers to try to gain control over her simmering rage at how callously Haley had been treated as all the pieces fell into place. “And that’s why you left school?”
“I wasn’t going to. After everything he took from me, I still didn’t want him to win. But he was in one of the classes I needed to graduate, and the school told me they couldn’t remove him. My only choice was take the class, or wait a year until it was offered again. So I chose to leave. Don’t put that in, though,” Haley added quickly. “I don’t want my audience to think I’m weak.”
“No one would think that.” Claire couldn’t fathom how anyone could hear Haley’s story and think she was anything but incredibly strong.
Haley shrugged with an aloofness that, for once, seemed forced. “Can we just move on? I have. It happened, it’s over, c’est la vie.”
“And that’s how you got into storm chasing? Three months after the article was published, Haley Hunter appeared online for the first time.”
“It seemed like my last chance to do what I love. Noah offered me a lifeline, and I took it.”
“And you’re good at it,” Claire said. “Even in two days, I can tell. What you do is amazing. Not just warning people about the weather, but keeping thousands of people entertained for hours while you do it live, and then stepping in to help people after the fact? I feel like you don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“It’s all thanks to Noah, he taught me everything I know. Well, not about meteorology, but about chasing and streaming and how to do it right. He’s the one who insisted I get first aid certified and take search and rescue classes before I ever got in a vehicle to chase. Fuck, he even helped me pick my new name, and he’s the one who started the Tornado Whisperer thing.”
Haley relaxed again when she was talking about Noah, something Claire found herself both relieved and annoyed to observe.
“How did you meet him?”
“We had mutual acquaintances. The weather world is small.” Haley grimaced slightly. “Off the record, he’s my ex’s brother. But that whole situation is… complicated. It was supposed to be a temporary thing, I was just going to help out behind the scenes with weathercasting and editing footage until I could go back and finish my last class. But then he took me chasing and I fell in love with it, and his audience started asking for more of me, and everything just kind of snowballed from there. Eventually we decided it was better to broaden our reach by branching out into two channels.”
Her ex’s brother? Complicated sounded like an understatement. “Do you think he’d sit down for an interview with me? It might be interesting to get his perspective as your… mentor?” Claire was still uncertain what label to ascribe to their relationship, but she wanted to hear his side, if only to satisfy her own personal curiosity.
“You’d have to ask him. But probably, if he’s back in Tulsa before you go. He’s way better with these things than I am.”
“And would you be okay with that?”
“I don’t control him, he can speak to anyone he wants to. I’ll find out his plans tomorrow the next time we pull over. Speaking of which, are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” Claire said, even though her stomach turned at the thought of more gas station food.
Fortunately the truck stop Haley pulled into had a wider selection than just roller food, though Haley made a beeline for the hotdogs anyway, scooping up a family size bag of Doritos from an endcap on the way. Claire settled for a yogurt with blueberries and granola and a can of iced coffee, which she inhaled in the passenger seat of the station wagon while Haley topped off the gas. She was just contemplating going back in for something more substantial when Haley slid into the driver’s seat, setting her uneaten hotdog on the dash with a sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Claire asked, immediately concerned when she noticed the troubled frown wrinkling Haley’s forehead.
“Do you think I’m a terrible person?” Haley stared out at the pump to her left, not meeting Claire’s eyes.
“Of course not!”
“Sometimes I do.” She swiped at her eyes, and Claire noticed the wet tears spilling freely down her cheeks. “You know what the really fucked up thing is? Everyone I’ve told treats me like I should be traumatized, and maybe I am, but deep down, I’m relieved he got away with it. Because if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have any of this. I hate myself for feeling like it was worth it. I hate that I didn’t earn it.” Haley laughed, but there was no humor in the air, only desperation. “I’m sorry, you must think I’m insane right now.”
“I don’t think you’re insane or a terrible person for feeling any of that. Life’s usually a lot more complicated than a single right or wrong way to feel about something.” Claire rummaged in her bag for a travel pack of tissues and offered them to Haley while she considered the right words to say. “But I don’t think you should hate yourself for finding success after adversity, because even if you don’t feel like you earned it, you definitely deserve it. And I’m so, so thankful you’re trusting me to show the world what an incredible woman Haley Hunter really is.”
“I finally realized inside the store, I’m tired of tiptoeing around everything to try to be a camera-perfect person. I’d rather just try to be me, with all the messy parts included.” Haley dabbed her eyes with a tissue, then reached for her hotdog on the dash and ate half of it in one bite. “I don’t even know what’s happening right now. I don’t cry,” she mumbled as she chewed.
Claire could relate. Crying was a rarity for her, too. She’d thought she’d become hardened to the worst of the world, and her tears the other night in the wake of the storm had surprised her. Something about Haley made her feel safe enough to give in to the cathartic release she often longed for but rarely achieved. “I guess we’re even now,” she said.
“What?”
“We’ve both seen each other cry. So I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.” Claire reached up and wiped Haley’s last tear away before her brain could think about the intimacy of what her hands were doing.
Haley caught her hand before she could pull it away and guided it to her lips, soft and full beneath Claire’s fingertips. Claire wondered if Haley could feel pulse pounding through them as Haley kissed them gently, then folded Claire’s hand into a fist.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Haley said, her voice raspy from days of streaming and talking and crying and probably not the mesmeric attraction that Claire felt whenever they brushed against each other, though Haley’s hand was still blanketing her softly clenched fist and she was leaning closer and closer.
Claire was so engrossed in every aspect of Haley that she almost leapt out of her seat when sharp rapping sounded at the car window. Haley barely flinched, rolling the window down smoothly with a friendly smile for the teenage boy standing there.
“Excuse me, are you Haley Hunter? I watch your streams all the time,” he said shyly, before stepping back swiftly as he noticed Haley’s red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry if now’s a bad time.”
“This Kansas pollen sure is something,” Haley said so smoothly that even Claire almost forgot she had been crying just seconds earlier. “Do you want to take a selfie?”
After the photograph, she spent a few minutes showing the teen how she looked for storms on the various radar scans, excitedly pointing out an interesting supercell forming in the Oklahoma panhandle. Claire wasn’t sure how much of the lesson the boy absorbed, since, like her, his starstruck eyes were glued to Haley the entire time.
“Thanks so much for watching,” Haley wrapped up the interaction in the same warm tone she always used to end her streams. “Keep studying and maybe I’ll see you out there one day, too.”
The boy practically skipped back to his family waiting in a van parked nearby, clutching his phone to his chest like it held the numbers to a life-changing lottery sum.
“That was sweet of you,” Claire said, touched by the privilege of seeing yet another of the many facets of Haley Hunter.
“I wouldn’t be anyone without the people who watch me. If I can spend five minutes to get a kid more interested in science, it’s worth it every time.”
Claire wasn’t sure science was the main thing the teenager was interested in based on how he’d been ogling Haley, but the sentiment was too sweet to voice her thoughts aloud, so she made a quick note of the exchange instead while Haley finished her hotdog.
“Hey, pull up Noah’s stream, I saw his tracker on the radar near that storm and I want to listen in if it pops off.”
Claire searched for the broadcast, wondering if Haley was really that into tornadoes all the time or if she was just signaling she was done talking for the day. Maybe a little of both, but that was fine with Claire. Haley plugged the phone into the car’s audio port and Claire half-listened as she sorted through her notes and tried to process everything objectively. It was a good thing she was flying back to Boston in two days, because she didn’t know how much longer she could resist the magnetic pull she felt towards Haley. She was dying to know if Haley felt the same.
***
Claire didn’t hear from Haley at all that evening after getting dropped off at her hotel, but the next morning she got a text saying Noah was back in town with a time and an address to meet him. At least this time it wasn’t coordinates to a random field, but a real boxing gym with a real address within walking distance of her hotel.
She took extra time getting ready, telling herself it was just because she felt like looking nice and had nothing to do with knowing Noah would be there. The sun radiating off the streets of Tulsa immediately made her regret not ordering a ride, and by the time she walked the ten blocks to the gym she felt more disheveled than before she’d gotten ready.
Noah’s shouting was audible well before Claire even rounded the corner to see the boxing gym located in a refurbished mechanic’s shop, its five bay doors open to let in the nearly negligible breeze. Large industrial fans blew on three boxing rings, but only one was occupied. Haley and Noah were easily recognizable under the layers of padding, taunting each other as they sparred fiercely in the ring. It didn’t look like either one was holding back, and though Noah would have seemed the obvious winner just due to his sheer advantage of size and reach, Haley was holding her own with an impressive quickness that made him look like a lumbering oaf.
Out of all the sports Claire had covered for the Boston Daily Times, she’d always thought boxing was one of the least interesting. But Haley made it look like a dance, ducking and jabbing and darting out of the way again, her taut muscles rippling beneath a sheen of sweat. Gym shorts hung low on her hips and Claire gave up trying to lie to herself about how much she wanted to feel those hips beneath her hands, to pull Haley towards her and kiss her until they both forgot where they were and who they were supposed to be.
Chapter Twelve
“Oof,” Haley grunted as Noah’s punch caught her squarely in the stomach. She doubled over, the wind knocked out of her. She’d been winning, too, until Claire walked in and distracted Haley with her easy-going smile and a casual wave.
“Are you okay?” Noah stopped instantly and rushed to her side. “I thought you were going to block that.”
“Fine,” Haley wheezed. “I’m fine.” Besides the fact that she was dying of embarrassment from Claire seeing her get rocked so hard in the ring. And she didn’t know how she was supposed to get her breath back when Claire was standing right there all rosy-cheeked and glistening in the Oklahoma heat.
“That looked like it hurt,” Claire said, concern clouding her eyes.
“It’s not that bad,” Haley forced out. Her diaphragm finally relaxed and she was able to gulp in a lungful of air. Her skin stung where Noah’s glove had connected, but he actually hadn’t hit her very hard, just caught her by surprise. She straightened up and walked to the edge of the ring, grabbing a towel hanging from the ropes before slipping through them and jumping down to the concrete floor. “You’re early,” she said, wiping sweat from her face and neck.
“I was worried I was going to get lost and be late. Don’t mind me, though, I can wait.”
“We’re done anyways,” Noah said, joining them and handing Haley a bottle of water before shaking Claire’s hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice,” Claire said. “Haley’s told me so much about you already, so I’m really looking forward to your perspective on this.” After how relaxed Haley and Claire had gotten with each other, it was weird to see Claire snap back into professional mode.
“So did you want me to stick around for this, or…?” Haley asked.
“I don’t care,” Noah said, assuming she was speaking to him.
“Stay,” Claire said at the same time. “That is, if you don’t have other plans already.”
“Let’s walk back to the office, then?” Noah suggested. “It’s only a couple blocks away and there’s AC there,” he explained to Claire.
He led the way through the Maple Ridge neighborhood’s tree-lined streets while Haley and Claire walked side by side behind him. Their hands brushed together as they squeezed past a bush overflowing onto the narrow sidewalk, and it took everything in Haley to resist the temptation to grab onto her and feel the soft skin of Claire’s palm once more. But Noah was right there, and they were all technically working, and everything was so fucking confusing.
“This is my house,” Noah said, opening the wrought iron gate in front of the two-story, ivy-covered Georgian mansion that Haley had helped completely gut and remodel after he bought it three years ago. “Our office is around back.”
A brick path led around the side of the house to the pre-existing in-law suite that had been converted into a workspace and weather headquarters. Noah claimed it was both of theirs to use, though Haley rarely availed herself of it except as a storage unit when she was between rentals. It felt too much like his space, and while he could just roll out of his bed and walk across the lawn to work, she found it more convenient to just stay in hers and upload footage for her editors from there.
Noah unlocked the door and ushered them both inside where the air conditioner was furiously pumping cool air into the seating area Haley had envisioned for a podcast that still hadn’t gotten off the ground. Haley flopped into the green velvet armchair directly in front of the unit, draping one leg over the arm of the chair and letting the air conditioning roll over her as she sighed in relief. She groped around behind her for a mini-fridge she knew was there and pulled out a Red Bull. It cracked open with a satisfying hiss and she gulped down half the can while Noah pulled up a third seat from his desk across the room.
“So tell me more about this partnership you have,” Claire jumped right in. “Noah, you’ve been storm chasing for a while, haven’t you?”
“Eight years, give or take.”
“How did you get into it?”
“I was forced into an early retirement from my first career choice,” he said dryly, though Haley heard the hint of bitterness that still crept into his voice.
“Noah used to ride in the professional rodeo circuit,” Haley explained for him.
“Until this happened,” Noah added, pulling up his gym shorts to reveal the missing chunk of his thigh, covered with a puckered scar and surrounded by smooth, taut skin. “Eventually the bull wins, but storm chasing’s the next best thing.”
“So you were pretty early on the streaming trend?”
“I guess so. I definitely wasn’t the first, but I got in at a good time to grow fast.”
“He doesn’t give himself enough credit,” Haley said. “He basically made storm streaming into what it is today.”
“When did you realize it was something that could be profitable?”
“Three years in I made more money from ad revenue with just over a hundred thousand subscribers than I did in my winningest year bull riding. But things really took off when Haley came on board two years after that. Almost doubled my subs her first season.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because she’s the Tornado Whisperer, she doesn’t miss. Once I had her looking at radar for me, I don’t think I had a single bust that season.”
Noah and Haley smiled in unison, each reliving their own memories of that first spring chasing together, riding all over the country hitting storm after storm. He had coaxed her last remaining shred of confidence back from whatever depths inside her where it had retreated, and together, they had felt unstoppable.
“As if your clickbait titles and stupid thumbnails didn’t do most of the heavy lifting,” Haley volleyed the credit back to him again. “Noah knows what the people want.”
