“No idea. Dennis never mentioned them. I was led to believe the producer asked for us. It makes no sense.”
“Hold up. Who’s that?” Lex’s attention remained fixed on the other group.
I followed his gaze as the stranger from the bathroom approached Olivia. The distress I’d witnessed less than five minutes ago had been replaced by blank stoicism. Again, I was struck by his trim body and unassuming features. This unmistakable draw made no sense. He wasn’t my usual type. I preferred guys a little wrecked, a lot devious, and way less put together. His preppy style was none of those things.
“Do they have a new member?” Vern directed the question at me.
Attention focused on the stranger, I shrugged. “How am I supposed to know?”
“You stalk their channel.”
Again, I shook my head. “Never seen him before in my life.” I would have remembered.
As my group pondered the connection, the guy leaned close to Olivia and spoke in her ear as though imparting a secret.
Olivia glanced in our direction, smile dissolving. Her face reddened as her brows formed a sharpV.She spoke to her group, and within seconds, the entire entourage stared across the lobby—all but the guy from the bathroom, whose gaze remained fixed on the glossy tiles beneath his feet.
“Oh, man.” Noah slapped Vern’s shoulder. “I know who that is? It’s Olivia’s brother.”
“Olivia has a brother?” I asked, perplexed. “Impossible. He wasn’t in any of their videos.”
I would know since I watched them countless times, admiring Olivia’s…Holy shit.
Out of nowhere, the vague sense of familiarity smacked me in the face. Siblings. They were fucking siblings. It made sense now. He and Olivia shared similar features: both unreasonably attractive in a way so unassuming it was easy to miss unless you paid attention, and I’d been paying close attention to Olivia for months.
“They’re twins,” Noah said.
“Twins?” I diverted my attention to my friend before re-examining the pair across the lobby.
“Yeah. I heard he went to seminary school, or whatever it’s called. Was going to be a priest, but got kicked out or dropped out or something. Ended up taking meteorology here in the city instead. I think it was meteorology. He has a fancy degree.”
Seminary school? A priest?
Okay, I saw it. The preppy look could be mistaken for a churchy vibe.
Kicked out?I wondered why.
The guy had a degree in meteorology? Shit. No wonder Olivia had brought him. A degree like that would look damn good on a résumé for a show that was looking to hire storm chasers. I had a bad feeling about this. What had seemed special and exciting—potentially life-changing—a mere twenty-four hours ago was quickly slipping through my fingers.
“Vern…”
“I don’t know, dude. I swear to god. Dennis didn’t mention them. It sounded like we had this in the bag.”
“Let’s go up.” Noah shoved us toward the elevator. “If they’re here for the same reason, we should show our faces first and be sure to make a good impression.”
So that was what we did. We piled into an elevator and rode to the eleventh floor to meet with Dennis Hawking and a producerabout a show that Vern claimed we’d already been given. If the Wind Riders thought their three years of experience trumped our six, they were wrong.
I didn’t need a degree in meteorology to chase storms, and my balls were definitely bigger than both Olivia’s and her brother’s combined. Although I had a sudden and unexpected urge to ask the brother for picture proof.
You know, for science.
4
Gale
Gale
I didn’t want to be in the city, surrounded by people, their questions and judgment. I wanted to be at home, alone, photographing the rain clouds as they moved in, capturing the drops as they beaded on leaves or trickled down windowpanes. I wanted the ozone in my nose and the wind in my hair.
