Wes texts the group chat while I’m piling my gear into the car to reposition. It’s a selfie uncomfortably close to the tornado, his hair and shirt soaked with rain and a mile-wide grin on his face. I sigh, type outTry not to end up under a house in Oz, and stuff my phone into my pocket before getting back behind the wheel in search of sunset’s cotton candy colors.
Twenty minutes later, I pop out on the backside of the storm just as the angle of the sun is starting to paint the towering mass pale pink. With any luck, that color will intensify shortly into the brilliant oranges and deep reds I’m hoping for.
What I’m not hoping for is the sight of Wes’s SUV. I’m too far away to be certain, but there aren’t many chasers out here in brand-new vehicles, and there definitely aren’t that many with his towering height.
Sure enough, as I get closer, the guy standing on the edge of the road is definitely Wes. Not in the mood for his gloating, I’m about to blow by and find a spot farther down the road, but the red stains on his exposed forearm look a hell of a lot like blood.
Which is when I notice that his windows, including the rear windshield, are smashed out. Bits of broken glass crunch under my tires when I pull over just in front of him, the storm at our backs. I hop out and scowl at the wreckage with my camera in hand out of habit. Whatever happened, Wes is lucky it didn’t end up much worse.
“She’s going to light up like a damn firework,” he callswhile I stand there gaping at the broken glass and blood spattered across his leather seats with my heart in my throat. There are only a few things that could have blown windows out like this. All of them are scary as hell.
Not that Wes gives a damn.
“Have you lost your mind?” I gesture wildly to his car when he glances back at my shout. Blood dribbles down his cheek from a gash uncomfortably close to his eye. “You did a hook punch again, didn’t you? For fuck’s sake, Wes, you need stitches!”
“I’m fine.” He has the audacity to grin. “It was just a little impromptu shower.”
“In glass!”
Wes shrugs and turns back to the storm, leaving me to stare incredulously, camera dangling at my side. I want to rip his camera out of his hands, but I’ve known him too long to bother. This is classic Wild Wes. Anything to get the shot. Consequences and collateral damage be damned.
“Well, fuck it,” I mutter under my breath, moving around him to line up my own composition. We’ve got maybe ten to fifteen minutes to shoot this thing before the sun sinks under the horizon. His injuries will keep that long, and it’s not like his windows are going to get any more broken.
Besides, I can work and give WesI told you soface at the same time.
We move around each other in silence. Wes makes me nuts, but he’s a talented photographer, and when it comes down to it, it’s not because he has the cash for the best equipment or connections with big brands. When we’re out here shooting, he’s all business.
But when the colors fade and I lower my camera, there’s still blood leaking from the cut on his face. “I really think you need stitches. At minimum, you need to clean that.”
His hand starts to rise. I snatch his wrist and jerk his arm down. “You’re covered in dirt and who the hell knows what else. Do not touch an open cut on your face. What’s the matter with you? You should be on your way to urgent care.” I glance back over my shoulder at his ruined windows. “And a repair shop.”
Wes stares down at my hand on his wrist with an odd expression. I quickly let go and fight the urge to rub my hand on my leggings.
“It’s Friday night in rural Kansas,” he says dismissively. “Nothing is open for a hundred miles. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“This could have been really bad. You get that, right? You getthisis why we were all pissed the other day?”
Wes’s god complex is even worse than I thought. He laughs, as though the very idea that he wouldn’t simply walk away from everything in one piece is ridiculous. “With the steam practically coming out your ears it seems like you’re building up to a good shout. Don’t stop on my account.”
“Goddammit, Wes! Do you have a death wish or something?”
It’s not my finest moment, standing on the side of the road surrounded by nothing but endless stretches of tilled earth, yelling at a bleeding man. A bleeding man who finds this whole thing so amusing that my lingering trickle of guilt for shooting the sunset and not making him go to a doctor immediately fades away with the storm.
“You worry too much, Sloane. I’ll be fine.” He flashes thattrademark Wild Wes grin. “And if I’m not, at least I got the shot, right?”
“That’s insane!”
“I’m not your responsibility.” His attention slides toward the horizon and the empty stretch of road heading west. Far in the distance, the faint red lights of a wind farm throb. “I could use some dinner. You?”
“That’s your plan? Just drive into town and leave your car in the parking lot of a hotel, asking to be stolen? Even without windows that thing is worth plenty.” I jerk my chin toward his SUV. “I have a first aid kit. I can clean your face up at least and then…”
Exhaustion seeps into Wes’s carefully applied mask of good cheer when he turns to face me again. “I am not your responsibility,” he repeats with an edge to the words, as though this whole conversation is trying his patience. “It’s not your job to fix me.”
It sounds an awful lot likeI’m not worth fixing. Wes has been a lot of things over the years, but his rare seriousness tells me he’s not nearly as okay as he’s pretending to be.
“We’re three hours from my house, give or take,” I blurt out, mentally cursing myself even as the words keep spilling out of my mouth. “My brother owns a garage. I’ll call him in the morning, and you can sleep on my couch. No one will fuck with your car if it’s in my driveway for the night.”
All traces of Wild Wes are completely absent from the thousand-yard stare he levels at me. “Why?”
