Storm Warning by Kadi Dillon

crashing back down to the ground beneath her.
    “I win,” s he said. “Fair and square.”
    “How the hell was that fair?”
    “You’ re stronger than me physically. I h ad to make up for it somehow. ” She shrugged. “ Oh, come on. Be a go od sport .”
    She gave his cheek a little pat.
    “I’m not good at b eing a good sport.” Reaching up, he wrapped hi s hands around the nape of her neck and pulled her down to him . “ Rematch .”
    Talk about fighting fair, Tory thought as his lips caressed hers. She cruised on the sensation and let his taste consume her. She drove her fingers into his wet hair and gripped, Oblivious to the widened eyes and ast onished gazes around them, she lost herself in the kiss.
    Through the roaring in her ears, she heard someone clear their throat.
    “Ah, Tory. This was kind of your idea and all. Are you going to wash cars or play horny teenage girl with the photographer?”
    “Cram it, Adam.” But she rolled off Gabe.
    She grabbed two towels and tossed one of them to Gabe , then focused on drying herself off. When she ’d done all she could , she lifted her chin, picked up the hose and a scr ub brush, and went back to work . Sometime later, a shadow loomed over her.
    “Hey, Tory.” She heard Billy’s voice over the noise of drums and air guitar s screaming over the radio.
    She looked up from the tire she was scrubbing and lifted a brow.
    “There’s a storm in Oklahoma forming. If we leave by eight tonight, we can get there by about three in the morning. Grab a hotel, couple hours of sleep, and set up first thing in the morning. It looks big.”
    Her stomach dropped . Oklahoma.
    “Where at?” s he asked quietly.
    Bill y looked down at the ground and s huffled his feet. “We don’t have to go. ”
    “Just tell me, Bill y .”
    “ We’d want to bunk down in Ada to stay close to the action .”
    Pain slammed into her like a bruising whirlwind. Billy kept talking, but the sound was like a buzz in her ears. She’ d been prepared to hear it and had braced herself for the impact. But Ada brought more than pain. A da .
    “We’ll go.” She interrupted her own poignant thoughts.
    “Are you sure?”
    “I said we’ll go.” Tory dropped the scrub brush in a bucket and grabbed her t-shirt off a chair. “I’m taking a break. Does anyone need anything? ”
    “No,” Billy said.
    “Be back in ten, then.”
    Not quite running, she crossed the parking lot and took the sidewalk.
    Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she would have to go home sometime. She stayed in town during off-season in the tiny apartment she rented. She could never bring herself to live in her parent’s house without them. Now they were going back and from the moment she’d heard Billy say Ada, she knew they would stay at her house.
    She should call the cleaners she’d hired to maintain the house and property and ask them to stock the house. Her mind was on those things—food, toilet paper, fresh towels—as she walked quickly down the hallway to her room.
    She dug her key out and unlocked the door. Shock held her still as she took stock of her room. Her files were no longer in neat stacks on the table, but slung out on the floor along with the contents of her suitcase. She hadn’t been in her room since the morning before since Gabe had insisted that she stay with him, so she didn’t know when it could have happened.
    Not wanting to clutter his space, she’d only taken a small bag to Gabe’s room, leaving the majority of her things behind . What wasn’t damaged was scattered around on the f loor. The room looked as though it’d been slammed by a tornado.
    “Tory , what the hell’s wrong with—” Gabe came up from behind her and without turning, she knew he was staring at the wreckage as well .
    “Who did this?” h e finally asked.
    Tory shook her head mutely and advanced further into the room. “They didn’t miss much, did they?”
    “Tory, who did this?” He walked into the room