I feel like shit. Just like the morning before last. 

The early morning light filters through the dingy motel curtains, casting a pale, uneven glow across the room. There's a knock on the door, followed by the groggy sound of Hunter dragging himself off the couch. 

I can't see him, but I can picture him, hair tangled and face puffy, though he handled his liquor just fine, he was always a heavy sleeper. 

Hunter mutters something unintelligible and shuffles to the door. It opens with a groan, and I can hear the faint sound of someone speaking. 

I roll over on the bathroom floor, my stomach soon getting the worst of me -- my manicured hands clutching around the rusting porcelain toilet bowl. 

The door creaks again, and Hunter's voice drifts in, muffled but discernible. "She's in there."

What the fuck? 

A new, more pleasant voice joins the morning chaos, cutting through the haze of my misery. It's Tyler's voice. Of fucking course. 

I groan inwardly, already dreading the sight of him. It's like a cruel form of torture -- listening to his Tecovas against the sticky wooden floor as he comes closer and closer to where I lay in the bathroom -- all while my throat feels like it's on fire from the vomit pouring out of me. 

He knocks on the door lightly, assumingly because he knows I know he's there. "Mornin', sunshine." 

I pinch the bridge of my nose, recovering as I lean my head up against the rust-stained wall behind me. 

He holds up a cup of coffee, steam lazily rising from the top of it. "Splendid. Your favorite." 

I drop my head between my knees now, resting my warm forehead against the sticky skin of my arms. Nothing sounds appealing to me right now. 

"How'd you know what room I was in?" I ask. 

He chuckles, accent almost showing even just by laughing. "What? Did you expect the security here to be good, Texas?" 

The pounding in my head has intensified just by listening to him -- just by being in the very same room as him for more than two minutes. 

He flushes the toilet for me and kneels down, reminding me that he isn't going to leave me alone right now. The thick musky scent of him surrounds me and consumes me and if I hated it as much as I said I did then I'd be throwing up all over him. But I hate how it makes me feel better even the slightest. 

And the scent of the coffee... God.

"I brought you some water, too." His voice is soft, not at all like what it's been every other time we've interacted the past 24 hours. 

I don't say a word, but I raise my head from where it was hiding between my legs and I take the cold bottle of water from his grip, opening it with sweaty palms and drinking it like it's my salvation -- the cure to this mess. 

"Only two whiskeys, huh?" he jokes, and I don't have to look at him to see his stupid smile. 

I put my head back on my arms, muffling my voice. "Shut up." 

His laughter fills the room that now smells like vomit and booze. Familiar. 

"Think you can handle some breakfast?" He asks, but I shake my head, letting out some sort of noise of protest and disgruntle. He laughs again and stands up, ruffling my hair. "Yes you can." 

           I let Tyler buy me breakfast but I didn't let him stay. He went off to go wrangle more tornadoes, he said. While I said goodbye and now Hunter and I are wrapping up our pancakes and french toast before heading back to the motel and checking out for the week. 

"What a waste of time this was." I say, finally. Swirling my second cup of coffee with a spoon, watching the brown swirl with white sugar in the center. 

"Tell me 'bout it." Hunter has his head resting carelessly on the palm of his hand, shoulders slumped as he, too, watches me stir my coffee. 

My boot anxiously taps against the sticky tile floor, I'm irritated and it's a mystery why, but I'm practically itching to get out of here and out of this state. I swipe my tongue against my bottom lip, wetting it. "Can we get goin'?" 

I watch as he nods, pulling out the car keys from the pocket of his Levi's. But what's right behind him, just miles ahead out the window, is an angry gray tornado that's just touched down from the sky. 

"Shit." 

Hunter freezes when his eyes meet my widened ones. "What? What is it?" 

I stand from the cracked-leather booth and point to the dark gray sky outside and Hunter follows the direction of my finger. "Jesus Christ." 

              Before I knew it, I was speeding down the empty road, following Storm Par's vehicles as they raced behind the cars that I presume to belong to Tyler's crew. 

And as I do, I see the most terrifyingly beautiful image. A smaller twister forms and now it's like a dream -- we're looking at two tornadoes. 

"Holy..." Hunter begins to speak but is left ultimately speechless. 

"Shit." My lips part with a wicked grin. 

"Twins." We both say in unison as we stare at the gorgeous gray vortexes in the center of the horizon. 

The sky around it is often a tumultuous mix of dark, stormy clouds, with lightning occasionally illuminating the scene in stark flashes. The air is thick with the heavy, foreboding presence of the storm, and the light takes on an eerie, greenish hue—a sign of the storm's intensity.

I roll up my window and push my foot all the way into the gas pedal, speeding up almost to the storm chasing vehicles ahead. 

Within seconds, there's two paths to choose from. East is weak and west has better numbers, stronger winds. Promising. 

Tyler must agree because as soon as I make the turn his truck comes into view. He's slowing down now -- allowing me to hear the country music blaring from his speakers as my blue truck gets closer and closer to his red one. 

The clouds get darker and darker the closer we get -- nearly the color of a rock. 

And all it takes is one final push on the gas pedal and we're sharing the road with Tyler's truck. He can hear my engine roaring and that gives me away, he looks over, knowing I'm about to appear and when I do, he smiles at me wider than he ever has since I got here. 

He nods the tip of his Stetson to me and rolls down his window. "Real nice of you to join us!" 

I can hardly hear him over the roaring of the storm, but I'm smiling regardless. 

We're driving alongside one another at a steady pace, watching the sky in awe. 

I don't know if it's the sound of the engines roaring and the country music blaring or the dirt road that's making it so hard for me to see or hell, maybe it's the two twister twins in the sky, but everything about right now -- it's perfect. Almost like... home. Something I've missed more than I can admit. 

After a few quick seconds of driving toward the eye of the storm -- it's just to the west of both our trucks, and I pull over behind him to put the truck in park while he prepares to set the fireworks off and call it a show. 

Finally, I think. I'm guaranteed a front row seat to the most gorgeous tornado. 

But I'm not. Because even though me and Hunter were squeezing each other's hands -- eager to watch the storm take the fireworks and light up the sky... nothing happens. 

The tornado vanishes before Boone or Tyler even get a chance to launch them. Like it was never there at all. 

"What a fuckin' let down." I say, almost laughing at the horrid irony of my first tornado back and it's a waste. Meanwhile the other one, in the distance, is stronger than ever and look as if it's about to blow every single thing away in it's path. 

Tyler gets out of the truck first, staring back at the tornado Storm Par followed with a look of utter annoyance. Hunter and I follow his lead, getting out of the truck. 

With the sounds of our car doors echoing in the empty, storm-clear air, Tyler looks at us -- me -- with a hand over his eyes, shielding them from the bright sun that's seemingly come out of nowhere. "Welcome back, cowgirl."  

He's grinning at me like this means something, but it doesn't. I'm leaving tomorrow first thing tomorrow morning. 

I place my hands on my hips, looking up at him with a knowing look. "Not back." 

He nods like he believes me, but his growing grin says otherwise. "Right." 

A silence falls between us and hangs in the air as we just look at one another. My brown eyes at his green ones. And it doesn't seem like he's even angry about the bad call in the slightest. 

But his expression shifts just the slightest -- like he somehow was able to read the thought off of my mind. "City Girl played us." 

"Guess so." 

It's another silent exchange of looking at each other for a minute or two before Dani jumps out of the RV in which she and Dexter were in. "Uh, guys, the tornado's passing right through a small town a couple miles south from here. We goin' to help?" 

Tyler nods. "'Course. But are you coming?" 

He's looking at me when he asks the question, so I know it's directed toward me. I weigh the question on my shoulders, contemplating the pros and cons, but ultimately, I know I can set side a few hours to help whatever tragedy this town is about to face. 

"Sure."