CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
KELSEY
HE WASN’T SERIOUS. I WASN’T GOING to do it. I couldn’t. No way.
Except that I was sitting in a recliner chair under a hot floodlight, my shoulder bare and my stomach in knots.
“This is insane,” I muttered to myself.
Ben, the guy with the needle, peered at me. “You okay?”
“Sure. Fine.”
I’d signed the release form. I knew what I was doing.
Sort of.
Tattoos were no big deal. I’d often thought of getting one. Except I’d always assumed that if I ever did, I would know exactly what design I was getting.
At the moment, I had no clue, and yet Ben was getting the stencil ready to apply.
“You want out?” Archer asked from my other side. He was holding my hand.
I shook my head. I’d never wanted out with him. I’d only ever wanted in.
“What does he have to do in return?” Ben asked, nodding his shaggy head in Archer’s direction.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I admitted. I’d barely come to terms with what I was doing, though I liked the idea that Archer would owe me something in return. That eased my anxiety somewhat. I’d have one helluva card to play.
I felt Ben applying the stencil. I tried to follow the movement of the pencil, as if that would help me figure out the design, but as far as I could tell it was just a bunch of curves and lines. The only thing they’d told me was that the tattoo would be colored and about an inch and a half across, which was the size I’d have chosen.
As Ben started drawing the tattoo, I had a million second thoughts. I was going to come out of this with a horrible tattoo of a silly cartoon animal or cute angel. I hoped Archer had picked something innocuous like a flower or butterfly, but he and Ben had consulted over the design for an hour, which led me to believe it was a custom drawing. God forbid I’d end up with Archer’s name permanently tattooed on my arm.
No. He wasn’t that arrogant.
Was he?
I closed my eyes and tried to keep my breath even. I heard Archer and Ben talking above me, felt Archer’s hand on mine, but I let myself drift.
It hadn’t actually been a difficult decision to let him choose my tattoo design. I trusted Archer in more ways than I’d ever trusted anyone.
“All right, Kelsey.” Ben wiped the tattoo with a soft cloth. “Ready to see it?”
My stomach knotted again as I sat up slowly. Though the tattoo was on my left upper arm where I could see it if I looked down, Ben gave me a handheld mirror.
“You can also check it out in the full-length over there,” he said, nodding toward the mirror against the wall.
I held up the mirror. The tattoo was an intricate, shaded gray cloud with two golden bolts of lightning flashing from it amidst a shower of rain. Along the edge of one of the lightning bolts, in delicate flowing script, were the words Storm Girl.
“What do you think?” Archer sounded a little nervous.
I stared at the tattoo. It was small, colorful and…
“I love it,” I said.
“You do?”
My heart twisted with ribbons of emotion—pleasure, gratitude, and relief that Archer knew me as well as I’d hoped he did. I looked at him and smiled.
“I absolutely love it,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
And it would remind me of him every time I saw it. I should have been unnerved by that realization, but instead I liked the idea of having a reminder of Archer West, one that would go along with the collection of memories I had subconsciously been storing away. The memories I’d hold on to when we parted ways. The ones no one else would know about.
I looked at the tattoo again. My souvenir.
“Can this be our secret?” I asked Archer. “Just between us?”
“One of many.” He extended his hand. “Pinkie swear.”
I wrapped my pinkie finger around his. I wished neither of us had to let go.
“Because of the grant, they got fifteen new computers,” Tess said. “And they integrated the synoptic lab into the rotating fluids dynamic lab. They even have access to the supercomputing lab’s mainframes.”
“Lucky bastards,” I muttered.
“Yeah.”
“Does Stan Baxter know yet?” I asked.
“I heard he’s going to the board of trustees again to complain about the state of our equipment, so I think so,” Tess said.
My envy over another university’s state-of-the-art lab equipment was quickly surpassed by guilt. Though Stan Baxter had been on my case this year, I knew he was intensely committed to King’s University and its students. That was just one of the reasons he was so insistent that I prove my own dedication.
Now Stan was going to fight for better computers and equipment in our synoptic lab. I made a mental note to ask him about it and find out what I could do to help. We’d all be at an increasing disadvantage if we had to continue working with outdated equipment, which in turn could hurt the reputation of the entire university.
The phone rang. I hit the speaker button, my gaze still on the radar. “Kelsey March.”
“Kelsey, it’s Peter Danforth.”
“Oh, Peter, I’ve been waiting for your call.”
“You have?”
“No.”
Tess laughed.
“Ha ha,” Peter said drily. “Is that Tess? Hi, Tess.”
“Hi, Peter. You’d better talk fast. Kelsey is scowling.”
“Okay, okay. Kelsey, rumor has it you got some phenomenal tornado footage on your recent chase.”
Shock bolted through me. Tess jerked around to stare at me. I grabbed the receiver and shut off the speaker phone.
“Where did you hear that rumor?” I asked Peter.
“From that guy who went with you. Who is he, anyway?”
“None of your business. What did he tell you about the video? When did he tell you?”
“I ran into him on campus, and he said you got footage. I tried to get the tape from Colton, but he played dumb, like he didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“Colton didn’t know,” I snapped, my anger rising hot. “I never sent him the video.”
“Why not?”
I turned away from Tess, not wanting to see the expression on her face. All of my students would be upset to know I hadn’t shared that incredible footage with them. And I could never explain why I still hadn’t. That video belonged to me and Archer alone.
Except that he’d told Peter about it.
“Peter, get your ass out of my business,” I said. “The video wasn’t that great, so forget about it.”
“Yeah, right. You promised me that when you had a scoop, you’d give it to me first. I’d say close-up video of a tornado qualifies as a scoop.”
“How did you know it was close-up?”
“You just told me.”
“You little shit.”
“Look, I’ve been waiting forever for you to give me something,” Peter retorted. “I don’t want to be a shit about this, and I sure as hell don’t want to get on your bad side, but come on. You’ve been stringing me along for over a year, and I’ve still got nothing. Reporting on the Spiral Project would make my career. But you won’t even give me lousy footage of a tornado, so why would I believe you when you tell me again that I’ll be the first to know when something big happens?”
I tightened my hand on the receiver. Even through my anger, I registered the truth of his speech.
“Kelsey?”
“I’m here.” I let out my breath slowly. It was a video, for heaven’s sake. Yes, it was Archer’s and my video, and yes, it was intensely personal, but it wasn’t like I’d be sharing a declaration of our love.
A declaration of our love? What the—
“All right,” I snapped irritably. “I’ll send you the video.”
“You will?” Peter sounded surprised.
“Yeah. You might have impressed me with that assertive speech.”
“For real?”
“Well, not anymore since you just said for real.”
“Oh.”
I shook my head and fought a reluctant smile. “Check your email.”
“Wow, thanks, Kelsey. This is awesome.”
I hung up and turned to face Tess. She was typing determinedly on the keyboard, as if she hadn’t been listening to every word.
“Tess, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said. “I was going to send you the footage from the road, but…”
“Forget it, Kelsey. You don’t owe us anything.”
That wasn’t true. I owed my grad students more than I could say. They were the only ones who had supported the Spiral Project from the start.
I accessed the video on my phone and sent it to Peter, then connected the phone to the computer. After fast-forwarding through images of the clouds, sky, and fields, the downdraft, and the interview Archer had taken of me, the tornado roared across the screen. My shouts mingled with Archer’s yells, our excitement crackling and tangible.
“Archer!”
“Holy fucking shit.”
“Film it!”
“Go! Go!”
“Kelsey, this is incredible.” Tess turned to stare at me, her eyes wide. “I’ve never seen video shot so close.”
I nodded. My heart was pounding again and my mind wanted to fast-forward to two hours later when Archer and I were in the motel room. I rubbed the Storm Girl tattoo through my sleeve, the spot still tender.
“I’ve already done a quick verification from the video.” I forced myself to use my professor voice. “But I haven’t done a rigorous validation yet.”
“I can get that started, if you want,” Tess offered.
“Sure. Thanks.” I pushed away from the desk and grabbed my satchel.
I still heard the roar of the tornado in my head as I drove home. I needed some time alone before I talked to Archer about this. I didn’t like the thought that our storm chase had meant more to me than it did to him.
I dropped my stuff on the kitchen counter and went down to my craft room. I spent the next hour painting a smooth, hollow egg with a star pattern of red, blue, and purple, letting the familiar design ease my tension.
“I’m not always myself when I’m with you,” I’d once told Archer.
“Yeah, you are.” His deep, warm voice echoed in my memory. “You just don’t know it yet.”
Kissing him in a corner booth of a dive bar. Giving over. Eating dinner in my dining nook. Stretched out on the sofa, my head pillowed against his thigh. Hot dancing in a nightclub. Mind-blowing sex. Outrunning a tornado. Painting eggs.
Archer was right. With him, I was everything I was. I knew that now.
But what would I be when he left?