Edge of Chaos (Love on the Edge #1) (13 page)

Dash smacked my leg and jumped up. “Come on.” He opened my front door.

“What?”

“Get up. We’re going out.”

“No. I’m in my sweats.”

“I don’t care. You’re on the verge of crying again and I really don’t want to see that. You need chocolate. I’ve got two sisters, remember? I know when to arm myself with the good stuff.”

I grinned despite my efforts not to and met him at the door. He whistled at Hail. “You, too, girl.”

She waddled over to him excitedly.

Dash opened the passenger door of his truck and lifted Hail into the center seat. He waited until I’d climbed in before closing the door. I scratched Hail’s ears as she panted and wagged her little curl of a tail.

Hail tried desperately to squeeze between Dash and the steering wheel to talk to the girl at the drive-through window of my favorite all-night ice cream place. Dash won the battle, but watching it made me laugh so hard my sides hurt.

Dash was right—like he often was—the heavenly, creamy, crunchy, chocolate-Oreo mixture was exactly what I’d needed.

He parked in the near empty lot and munched on his chocolate-Kit-Kat combo. Hail panted between us, her tongue hanging out, happy we didn’t leave her behind.

“One time Lindsay called me from this frat party,” Dash said, twirling his spoon. “She was so drunk, she’d thought she had called one of her girlfriends to come pick her up. I showed up and she flipped. Had a screaming fit in the middle of the packed house, said I was keeping tabs on her. That I didn’t trust her. She smashed an almost-empty Vodka bottle by throwing it against the kitchen wall.”

My eyebrows rose. “What did you do?”

He shrugged. “I talked some sense into her and drove her home. Put her to bed. She barely remembered the scene the next day.”

I shook my head. “One time, Justin and I were playing Monopoly. He’d had a few beers, but he wasn’t drunk. I made a crack about his total lack of property buying skills and he turned the whole table over. The game flew against the wall and the pieces went everywhere. He stormed out of his place. Went and drank all night at one of his friend’s houses.”

“All over a game?”

I nodded.

“Tell me you didn’t clean it up,” he demanded.

I gave him a weak smile.

“Of course you did.” Dash sighed. “Don’t hate me, but I honestly can’t figure out why you’ve stayed with him for so long.”

I swallowed the bite of ice cream in my mouth a little too quickly. The freezing burn almost made me choke. I’d never lied to Dash, so why start now? My chest tightened as I tried to formulate the words.

“You remember how I told you about Tulsa?”

He nodded and waited patiently for me to continue, like he always did when listening to me.

“Well, that day I actually suggested we break up. He wasn’t willing to move a couple hours away for me, so I honestly didn’t think he loved me like he used to.” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to continue. “He grabbed his pocketknife, put it to his wrist, and cut himself. Threatened to end his life if I ever left him. Said he’d die without me. And though that was the first time, it wasn’t the last. It’s happened a few more times, whenever I’ve broached the subject of even taking a break.”

The weight that had taken up a home in my chest for the past three years lifted. The simple act of confiding in Dash released tension I didn’t realize I’d had.

“It’s really fine though . . . I’m the last person he has . . . I—”

“Stop,” Dash cut me off. “You don’t have to cover yourself with me, Blake. Never with me.” He sat up straighter, setting his ice cream on the dashboard. “Tell me how you really feel about it.”

I stopped breathing for a moment, thinking it over. “I feel . . . trapped . . . sometimes. Other times, I don’t know, he reverts back to the boy I fell in love with. It’s complicated. I can’t leave him, he’d have no one left, no reason to continue living.”

Dash pressed his palms together, the tips of his fingers touching his lips as if to stop himself from saying more. His shoulders coiled with tension, but after a few long moments, he sighed and glanced at me with a mixture of pity and anger in his eyes. “It makes more sense now, all the shit you let him get away with, and why you can’t be completely honest with him. But, Blake, you have to realize you deserve so much better—”

“Why did you stay with Lindsay after her irrational outburst?” I cut him off, wanting desperately to change the subject. Each time Dash and I talked about the serious side of my relationship it was like cracking open a previously locked box and revealing a truth I wasn’t ready to handle. It was one thing to hold myself responsible for Justin’s happiness, his life, when I thought he loved me just as much, but if he didn’t . . . if he was just using me all these years . . .

“She hasn’t done it as many times as Justin has.” Dash’s voice stopped my dark thoughts in their tracks.

I shoved another bite into my mouth.

“Things with Lindsay are . . . I don’t know. In the beginning she was different. She found the fact that I was a storm chaser interesting. Supported it. Now, it bothers her. Everything bothers her.” He glanced at me before quickly looking down at Hail. “I keep waiting for the day she’ll ask me to choose between the storms and her.”

I completely understood the sickening trapped sensation an ultimatum like that could conjure up. “What would you choose?”

“I’ve been in love with storms all my life. I think the perfect woman would be one who’d never ask me to choose. Does that make me an asshole?”

“Of course not,” I said. “It makes you a man who knows exactly what he wants.”

He scooped up his ice-cream again before holding my gaze. “So, what does Blake Caster
really
want?”

Heat rushed across my skin as I stared at his lips and the way they shaped themselves around the blue plastic spoon. The thoughts from earlier about him shirtless and what all
he
would do to me made my heart race, and suddenly the cab of the truck shrunk ten sizes.

“I . . .” I couldn’t think straight. An ache pulsed low in my belly.

Hail took the opportunity to shove her massive face in my lap, begging for a lick of my treat, and the tension broke immediately.

Dash patted Hail’s butt and started the truck. “All right, girls. Let’s get you home.”

Ten minutes later Dash hefted Hail out of his truck without a complaint about the mess of white dog hair she’d left behind. He kissed the top of her head and watched her waddle inside.

“I love that dog.” He shook his head.

“The feeling is mutual. You know it’ll break her heart if you ever decide to stop coming over.”

“Good thing that won’t happen anytime soon.” His quick declaration shot another burst of warmth through my heart.

“Thanks for tonight, Dash. And sorry about earlier.”

“I’m going to start charging you every time you say you’re sorry. Seriously, woman, you’ve got a complex.”

I smirked. “So, if I really am the best friend you’ve ever had . . .”

“Yes?” he asked.

“What’s your real name?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Never.”

“Seriously?”

He shook his head.

I squinted at him. “I’ll get it out of you one day.”

He took a step closer to me. “You won’t”—he said, and pushed some hair that had fallen out of my ponytail over my shoulder, causing chills to shoot across my skin—“but it’ll be fun watching you try.”

“I KNOW SOMETHING
that will cheer you up,” Dash said as he walked into my apartment.

I’d just opened the door for him, surprised at his visit. It felt like he’d just left. I’d slept half the day, and still had on my sweats. I hadn’t even brushed my hair yet. Fabulous.

Dash rubbed Hail’s ears and patted her wiggling butt before looking back at me. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

I blinked a couple of times, not quite awake. I’d slept hard last night, a shocker since usually after a fight with Justin I couldn’t sleep worth a damn. I’d spend the whole night analyzing what I could’ve done differently to make the situation better. I suppose Dash’s ice cream therapy had worked.

“Of course,” I finally answered him.

He stood up, looking entirely too good in a pair of jeans and vintage Blue October tee. “We’re heading out for another chase.”

My eyebrows raised.

“You want to come?”

“Of course!” I said instantly. “Do I need to pack anything?” Now that I’d shaken off the shock of my first chase, I was able to think more clearly about important things, like extra clothes and if someone would need to watch Hail. Last time I hadn’t given those details a spare thought I’d been so excited.

“No. It’s only a couple of hours away. We’ll drive back after.”

“Awesome!” I stood there smiling like an idiot, anticipation filling my veins.

Dash eyed me up and down. “You might want to change, though.”

I snapped out of my thoughts, glancing down at my sweats and oversized T-shirt. “Right. On it,” I said and sprinted down the hall. I returned in less than five minutes wearing jeans, a snug black tee, and my boots. I threw my hair back in a ponytail.

After a quick text to Mom, asking her if she could stop by and let Hail out in a few hours, I poured enough food in her bowl to last her until later tonight, and told her I’d be back before heading out the door.

I climbed into Dash’s truck with nervous energy coiling around my muscles, the image of the horizontal tornado that roped out before it could touch down fresh in my mind. The visual was intense enough and I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to actually see one hit the ground.

“You can relax, you know,” Dash said, glancing at me from the driver’s side before returning his eyes to the road. He drove well above the speed limit, passing cars with the ease of someone who didn’t worry about getting a ticket.

I let out a breath and sat back against the seat, only then realizing I’d been sitting on the edge of it, the seatbelt stretched to capacity. “Sorry, just nervous.”

He shook his head. “Always sorry.”

I shrugged and bit my lower lip. At the rate Dash drove, we’d make the two-hour trip in an hour and a half easy.

A burst of static blared from his walkie-talkie. A few seconds later John’s voice sounded from it. “Tracker Jacker has caught up and has team leader in its sights.”

Dash scooped up the radio and clicked the button down. “About time. What’d you do, stop for Red Bulls?”

“Burritos,” John answered.

“Did you get us any?” Dash asked.

“Negative. We’re approaching you now.”

“Jerks.” Dash chuckled.

I spun in my seat to look out the back window. Sure enough, the Tracker Jacker changed lanes and slid in behind us.

“What’s the best route?” Dash asked.

“There are two possible locations with potential. One is more toward the east . . .”

I could see John behind the wheel and Paul in the passenger seat looking at his opened laptop.

“I think the one farther west has the best chance,” Dash said.

“In that case, you need to stay on this until we reach 136th. We’ll follow that until we get sight of the storm. Doppler has it converging near Owasso, but you’ll have a better idea once you see it.”

“All right. Thanks, John. Keep me updated if anything more develops.”

“Roger that.”

Dash set the walkie-talkie in the empty cup-holder.

The ride continued in charged silence as I kept my eyes trained on the sky and my thoughts firmly on the chase. I wanted to be a part of this team, to help spot anything that a computer might not be able to. I couldn’t do that if I worried about what would happen if Justin knew what I was doing—regardless if I was still furious with him—or if I thought too hard about the uncontrollable desires I continued to have about the man sitting next to me.

John’s voice crackled over the radio again, refocusing my attention. “Take the next exit and then head down 136th.”

“Got it,” Dash replied and pulled off the highway.

My heart beat a little harder as buildings gave way to farmland. Once we caught sight of a fair-sized wall cloud hovering to the west, Dash hit the gas even harder.

The closer we got, the more massive the thing looked, like a bottle of ink had been upturned, blotting out huge chunks of blue-gray sky. Dash reached behind him and withdrew his video camera case from the back without asking me to take the wheel again. With one hand he managed to get the thing out, turned on, and handed it to me.