.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

━ CHAPTER THREE ━
❝ NOT MY FIRST TORNADEO ❞

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JESS AND HER CAMERA were squished into the back of Tyler's truck, beside Ben, who was looking less than thrilled to be there. Boone sat in the passenger's seat, adjusting his camera and filming practice videos of Tyler as he drove. She would have said she was surprised how well they got along, but "get along" was an understatement. They were practically the same person. They got excited about the same things, made the same jokes—even their laughs started to sound the same in Jess's ears. The only real difference was that Tyler exuded confidence in a way that was almost too natural. It often seemed Boone had to try harder to give off that same energy, though he made up for it with his humor. They played well off each other, but it was almost unsettling to think that there could be another version of Tyler out there.

It took little time for the crew to get ready. All of the equipment was loaded up and the extra bags, including her own suitcase, had been thrown into the back of Dexter's camper-van where it could fit. With the limited leg room, Jess had laid her backpack and cane across her lap to conserve space, but she ended up apologizing to Ben on more than one occasion when she'd prodded him the chest while trying to get buckled in. Once everyone was packed up and ready, the three vehicles tore out of the bar parking lot like the tailgates were on fire.

A little known fact about Tyler Owens was that, five years ago, he had been a terrible driver. He drove like he was the only person on the road, speeding well over the limit and changing lanes without second thought: she couldn't remember how teenage Jess had found fun, in any way. Five years later, nothing had changed. She held onto the grab handle above her seat like her life depended on it, expecting any second that they would go hurtling into the ditch or end up in an accident. What surprised her more was how similar his crew drove. Dani and Dexter had taken to the camper and Lily was piloting the blue minivan it not too far behind them. All three vehicles were weaving through the traffic, as if the whole group had adopted Tyler's reckless style as a sort of unspoken rule.

Tyler caught her gaze in the rearview mirror and gave her a shit-eating grin. "What's wrong, Ward? Car sick?"

Jess leaned forward so he could hear her over the sound of Tyler's playlist blaring from the speaker. "Do you know what they call people like you on the road? Assholes."

"Oohoo, mama and daddy are fightin'." Boone snickered and turned the camera around to the back so the light shone directly in her eyes. Colorful spots danced across her field of view as she squinted, struggling to focus through the blinding glare. She had the urge to slap it right out of his hands, but she was nice enough to keep her hands to herself and instead ducked her face behind the head rest.

"Don't pay any attention to her, Boone," Tyler said with a laugh. He pushed his sunglasses farther up his nose and as he did so, his green eyes flashed in the mirror, smug. He had a toothpick between his teeth and every so often, he spun it with a practiced flick. "She's just scared."

Jess scoffed, indignant. The absolute nerve. "Am not!"

"Yeah, you are. A big, ole chicken," he retorted. He antagonized her further by making what she assumed were chicken noises and she leaned forward to swat his elbow. It wasn't very hard or well placed considering the seat belt held her back, but it was more of an admonition than anything.

"Boy, you're so lucky I ain't in the front seat."

"Ow," Tyler feigned hurt by rubbing his arm. "I'm actually glad you're not. The only one in this truck who's a worse driver than me, is you."

"Yeah, right." Despite the sarcasm in her words, Jess smiled. A warmth spread in her chest, familiar, like the way her camera fit into her hands every time she took a picture. Little pieces of herself growing up through the cracks.

"Hey. Hey, Tyler, look," Boone exclaimed abruptly, slapping Tyler's upper arm as he pointed to something out the window.

Jess leaned back in her seat to get a peek of what they were looking at. At the moment, they were bordered by fields on either side, but about a quarter of a mile ahead, another road cut across horizontally and formed an intersection. However, that wasn't what Boone was pointing out. On that same road, heading away from them, was a convoy of white trucks, all sporting storm chasing equipment. On the back of two of the trucks, Jess could just barely make out the words 'Scarecrow' and "Tin-Man", while a third vehicle, a large utilities van at tail end of the group, was labeled "Wizard". She couldn't help but notice that the moniker "Lion" was missing.

"Who's that?" Ben asked from beside her. He had been so silent during the previous conversation that Jess had forgotten he was still in the truck. Now, his eyes were bright and wide, like he was finally taking interest.

"Storm Par," Boone answered. His tone was bitter, as if saying the name left a bad taste on his tongue. "They call themselves storm chasers, but they're really just a bunch of unethical shitbags."

"What Boone here is trying to say, is Storm Par has different...priorities than we do," Tyler butted in with a laugh, in an attempt to ease the tension. Jess couldn't help but notice there was a tautness under the tanned skin of his jaw that contradicted his tone, which remained effortlessly casual nevertheless. "They get their spending money from questionable people, for questionable reasons. Ain't our idea of storm chasing."

Jess got the idea he wasn't being completely honest about how he felt, but was saving himself from openly bashing the other team in front of a journalist. She didn't get the chance to ask before Boone picked his head up from the playback to gesture at a group of silos appearing on the left side of the road. Attached to the side was a small gas station, crowded with cars and lots of people. Ahead of them, all three Storm Par vehicles pulled into the lot and parked out on the far side.

"This is it right here," Boone said. Tyler nodded and stuck a hand out the window, signaling to the rest of the team which way they were turning.

"Why are we stopping?" Jess asked, scooting to the front of her seat.

Tyler pointed to the horizon on the other side of the silos, where the sky was growing dark. "We've got two different cells comin' in. We're gonna stop, refuel, and decide which one we're gonna go after."

As they turned in to the lot, Jess noticed several other cars parked on the road and near the buildings, full of people wearing plasticky rain ponchos and brandishing cameras. They moved back as Tyler pulled in, like he was Moses parting the Red Sea with his staff and cowboy hat. Once the truck was in park, they crowded around the rig, cheering and clapping, their excitement palpable in the humid, Oklahoma heat. Boone hopped out of the truck first, shouldering his way through the crowd to the other side of the truck. Tyler turned around in his seat as Jess and Ben exchanged a glance, sliding his sunglasses down far enough to peer at the pair over them.

"Told y'all I was a celebrity," he crooned. Then, he opened the door and slid out into the crowd.
He stood on the step bar and as people flocked around him, he flashed a broad grin and waved, soaking up the attention with ease. Everything about him read confident and natural, like this was the only thing he was ever meant to do. Boone pressed forward at the
front, his camera never a second away from the action.

"Hey, Tyler!" Boone called, holding his recorder up to Tyler's face. Jess could see his smug expression reflected on a fan's live-stream, looking like a cat that had just caught a mouse, reveling in its moment of triumph. "Tell the folks on the channel how you're feelin' today!"

Tyler tipped his hat back off his forehead, his posture relaxed and his gaze steady as he faced the camera. "Y'know what, Boone, I'm feelin' pretty good."

Jess clambered out of the back seat just as the crowd started up a chant, and with Ben's help, she pushed her way through the crowd until the amount of people had thinned out at the edges. She felt lucky enough to not have used her cane as a battering ram, even when one unusually large man stepped on her good foot. She found Dexter, Dani, and Lily off to the side unloading stuff from the back of the van. When Jess looked closer, she realized it was merch— t-shirts, mugs, and tumblers, all with the words Not My First Tornadeo scrawled around a caricature of Tyler wrangling a twister. She picked a t-shirt up and snorted.

"What do you need these for?" She asked Lily, who was standing the closest.

Lily looked up from the box she was going through and smiled. "It's how we make money," she replied. She pointed over to the crowd of people, who were pulling cash out of their wallets as Dexter and Dani passed out shirts into their waiting hands.

Jess was taken aback. As vain as he was, she hadn't expected Tyler to be the kind of person to unashamedly promote himself for money, especially after his jab at Storm Par for being immoral. She looked down at the shirt in her hands and visibly frowned in disdain. You're a goddamn hypocrite, Tyler Owens.

"Jess?"

Lily's voice cut through her mental pity party and Jess looked up to see that the other woman was staring at her with raised brows. It dawned on her quickly that Lily had been talking to her—for how long, she had no clue—and Jess hadn't heard a word of it.

"I'm so sorry. I think my head's still back in Arkansas," she said, chuckling awkwardly as she folded the t-shirt back up, making sure to crease it right over Tyler's dumb face. "What were you sayin'?"

Lily gave her a reassuring smile and continued unloading the merch. "I was just talkin' bout our business," she repeated. "With the outbreak, we've been usin' the money to help out the towns that have been hit the worst."

Jess paused, listening intently. "What?"

"It's nothin' huge. Just food, water, clothes if we can get 'em—anything helps, really," Lily continued. She gestured towards the truck with a tilt of her chin. "It was Tyler's idea—it's why he started the channel. But I'm sure you already knew that."

"Yeah..." Whatever anger Jess had felt, turned to guilt that laid heavy at the bottom of her stomach like a stone in a river. She had been so caught up in her own frustrations that she hadn't considered the broader picture. The van, the supplies, the merch—it was more than a cash-grab. And perhaps Tyler was more than just the public persona he was putting on.
Always so quick to jump to conclusions, she thought. She swallowed back a sigh and laid the t-shirt on top of the pile that Lily had made.

"Help you pass 'em out?" She offered, holding out the arm that wasn't relying on her cane. Lily smiled and nodded, and Jess followed her back into the crowd of people.

A couple of feet away, Tyler jumped down from the truck, no doubt off to shake some hands and kiss some babies like the Southern hero he was. They passed each other, eyes meeting, and he reached up to tip his hat, an action that would have made just about any woman swoon. Jess just rolled her eyes and turned to help an elderly woman and her husband, who had come up to inquire about shirts.

Tyler kept walking as Jess finished up the transaction, leaving the two satisfied costumers with their purchases. By then, the crowds had dispersed, though an air of anticipation still lingered as the fans waited to see which group would make the first move. Both Tyler's team and Storm Par had already set up, huddled together as they looked at their computer screens and surveyed the sky. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife, and as Jess glanced out at the horizon, she realized why. Two major thunderheads had gathered in the distance—one in the west and one in the east—dry lightning flickering through the cracks like the forked tongue of a snake. Jess counted the seconds under her breath after one strike and she had barely reached fifteen before a crack of thunder ripped across the sky. About three or so miles out and traveling quickly, if her math was correct. So was the one rolling in from the east. This was what Tyler had been so excited about; multiple cells moving in, high risk, big rewards...it was enough to leave some people feeling giddy and others like they were about to throw up. With the way her stomach was churning as she looked up at those storms, she was glad not to have eaten a big breakfast.

As her gaze fell away from the sky, she caught sight of Tyler standing at the edge of the field, talking to a pretty woman with blonde hair. She was well-dressed and clean, like her clothes had never touched dirt a day in their life. Compared to all of the redneck chasers and fanatics, she looked a little out of place. Yet, she could be wearing an "I Hate Tornadoes" t-shirt and Tyler would still be fixing her with that stupid, charming smirk of his. It was hard to watch. Jess knew firsthand how damaging his smile could be. It was like looking into the sun: beautiful, breathtaking even, but something you would live to regret.

Jess turned away before the scowl on her face could stick. She couldn't explain the sudden bad mood she was in any more than she could explain why the sky was blue; technically, she could explain, but it might require an unnecessarily long winded clarification that would only make her frustration more apparent. Instead, she walked back to where the team had set up, glancing over at the Storm Par group as she passed.

"Hey, Dani," she greeted, finding the short-haired woman packing up the extra shirts into the van. Jess passed off her own, along with the money she'd earned, before leaning against the side of the van. She pressed her lips together, her gaze shifting involuntarily across the field to Tyler once more. "Hey...do you know everyone from Storm Par?"

Dani didn't look up, but she nodded her head as she put another box into the back of the van. "Sure do. We may not like 'em, but we're familiar."

She turned around to lean against the van beside Jess, pointing over to the row of white Storm Par vehicles, where a shorter man with curly hair was standing. Jess hadn't noticed him turn up, but now that she did, she could see a Dodge pickup labeled "Lion": the missing member of the crew. Unlike the rest of his team, who were wearing blue and black uniforms, Javi was wearing a crisp, white button down and black slacks, furthering Jess's impression that Storm Par were neat freaks. Next to him, was an unusually good-looking man, wearing something similar. A pair of dark sunglasses covered his eyes and he stood with his arms folded firmly over his chest. As attractive as he was, he didn't appear very friendly.

"That one there, that's Javi. He's sort of the front runner. He got permission from the government to use military grade equipment to do research on twisters," Dani said. She pointed to the handsome one beside him. "And that's Scott. He got Storm Par the funding to do their research."

"He looks like Superman," Jess commented, pretending to fan herself off like a swooning woman. Dani laughed.

"Yeah, I guess he's a looker," she said. There was a dramatic grimace on her face, as if the words coming out of her mouth made her want to puke. "Definitely not my type."

Dani winked in Jess's direction and she couldn't help but laugh as well. "Not mine either," Jess said. Her gaze traveled across the field again and she raised a hand to gesture towards the woman talking to Tyler. "Who's that?"

Dani followed her gaze, watched the blonde for a moment, but she ultimately shook her head. "Dunno, haven't seen her before," she replied, shrugging a shoulder. She pushed herself off of the van to collect a box Dexter was bringing over, but not before she paused to pat Jess on the shoulder. "I heard she's a friend of Javi's. I wouldn't worry too much."

Jess suddenly found a loose thread on her shirt far more interesting than their conversation. She twisted it around her fingertip, trying to avoid making eye contact. "I'm not worried," she mumbled, but she wasn't sure who she was trying to convince: Dani, or herself. Jess's cheeks felt warm, and she shifted uncomfortably, feeling an odd mix of curiosity and insecurity. As Dani walked away, Jess forced herself to take a deep breath and turn her attention to something else. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long.

"Jess!" She looked up to see Tyler jogging towards her, Ben hot on his tail, while the blonde woman he had been talking to, had disappeared across the field towards the Storm Par vehicles. Jess's brow tugged together into a frown and she straightened, unsure if she, too, should be running. Tyler's face was split into a wide grin, the sort that was usually reserved for stirring up trouble, and he had a hand atop his Stetson to keep it from flying off as he ran over. "We gotta go."

"What?" Jess questioned, bewildered. Tyler's hand graced her elbow and he began to herd her towards the truck, much to her own chagrin. A confused laugh left her lips as she tried to shake off his hold. "What did you do?"

"Nothing—yet," Tyler replied, his eyes glinting. His words tumbled out in a breathless rush as he practically propelled Jess towards the truck. The intensity of his excitement was perceptible, every step he took seemed to vibrate with an adrenaline-fueled energy. "C'mon; we've got our storm."

Despite her better judgement and the nervousness dwelling in her chest, Jess followed him to the truck, where the rest of the team was waiting. Dexter had his computer sitting on the hood of the Ram, a weather scanner reading the radar off the incoming storms. They all looked at Tyler expectantly when he approached.

"So, I take it we're headin' East?" Dexter said, pointing the larger of the two storms on the screen. It was the obvious choice, a lone cell with all the right conditions: circulating hot and cold air, moisture, wind shear—they would be crazy not to chase it. But Tyler had a different plan.

"No. West," he answered, surprising everyone.

Dexter frowned, his fingers hovering over the keyboard as he double-checked the data. "You sure? The cell to the east is much stronger. That's a better show."

Tyler's expression remained resolute. "We're goin' West," he said, his voice firm. Without further explanation, he climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine, all in one swift motion. Jess followed him to the door, just barely clipping the base of the window.

"Are you crazy?" Her voice dropped just above a whisper, eyes wide as she leaned closer to the window.

Tyler cast her a sunny smile, lifting his sunglasses off his face to reveal his eyes. "Maybe, maybe not. I think you're gonna have to trust me on this one. I've got a feelin'."

Jess raised an eyebrow skeptically and she scoffed a laugh. "A feelin', huh? Is that your new scientific method?"

Tyler chuckled, his fingers drumming lightly on the steering wheel. "Sometimes you've gotta to go with your gut. And my gut tells me this will be worth it."

"You and your gut. I remember that causin' a bit of trouble back in the day." She sighed, shaking her head, but couldn't help the small smile tugging at her lips. "Fine. But if this turns out to be a bust, you owe me a beer—and a decent one. Maybe two."

"Deal," Tyler said, his eyes flickering with amusement as he gestured to the back with tilt of his head. "Now, buckle up, cowgirl. We're in for a ride."

With a roll of her eyes and a silent prayer, Jess clambered into the back seat, laying her cane across her lap. Ben got in on the other side, passing her a nervous glance as he buckled himself in, tightening the belt around his waist. The engine roared to life, and Randy Travis's "Better Class of Losers" filled the cab. Fitting. Tyler glanced in the rearview mirror at the pair, just as the Storm Par trucks tore out of the parking lot ahead of them, that artful look in his eye.

"So, who's ready to chase some twisters?"