The numbers on my monitor blur together after sixteen straight hours of staring at weather patterns. I blink hard, trying to refocus, but my eyes sting with fatigue—or maybe it's the remnants of tears I refuse to acknowledge. The radar shows a low-pressure system developing off the Carolina coast, intensifying faster than the models predicted. Unpredictable. Just like him. Just like the way Dakota Miles smiled at me over Facetime three days ago before telling me it was over.
"Harmony, you should go home." My colleague pokes his head over my cubicle wall, concern etched across his face. "That's three shifts back-to-back."
"I'm fine," I say, not looking up from my screen. "This system is developing unusual characteristics. The wind shear patterns are—"
"Someone else can monitor it. We have a whole team for that."
I shake my head. "I need to track this."
What I don't say: I need the distraction. I need the numbers and data and patterns to fill my head so there's no room for replaying Dakota's last text.
My colleague sighs and retreats. Another notification pops up on my screen—the storm system is intensifying rapidly, barometric pressure dropping faster than expected. The data shows it tracking toward Charleston. Toward him.
I zoom in on the radar, fingers flying across the keyboard as I pull up additional models. The system has already been upgraded to a tropical storm, and it's organizing in a way that suggests further strengthening. Charleston isn't prepared for this—their local forecasts are still treating it as a moderate rain event.
I ignore it and pull up the satellite imagery. The storm looks like a tightly coiled spring, ready to unload its energy. My hand hovers over the phone. I should call the Charleston office, alert them to my observations. It's protocol.
Instead, I grab my bag.
"Taking a break?" Another colleague asks as I stand.
"Yeah."
I walk out of the National Weather Service office in Norman with purpose. In my car—a reliable Subaru Outback that's weathered its share of Oklahoma storms—I open my weather app and check the latest updates. The storm system continues its alarming organization.
My fingers grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. The rational part of my brain says to call it in, follow procedure. The irrational part—the part Dakota Miles woke up when he kissed me for the first time—wants to drive straight into the storm.
For once, the irrational part wins.
I stop at my apartment only long enough to throw essentials into a duffel bag: clothes, toiletries, phone charger. Almost as an afterthought, I grab my professional equipment—handheld anemometer, barometer, and the tablet with my proprietary forecasting algorithms. If anyone asks, this is a professional storm chase. Nothing to do with a hockey player with hazel eyes.
The digital clock on my dashboard reads 9:17 PM as I merge onto I-40 East. According to my calculations, I can reach Charleston in about eighteen hours. The storm will make landfall around then. Perfect timing.
"This is nuts," I mutter to myself as the lights of Norman recede in my rearview mirror. "Completely nuts."
But I don't turn around.
Rain starts three hours into my drive, just light sprinkles at first. I turn on the radio, flipping past stations until I find weather updates. They're still underplaying the system's strength. Amateurs.
My phone rings—my boss. I send it to voicemail. Then my mother calls. Then my boss again. I silence the phone and toss it onto the passenger seat.
The rain intensifies as I cross into Arkansas. My windshield wipers struggle to keep up, and I reduce my speed. Lightning flashes in the distance, illuminating towering cumulonimbus clouds.
Dakota's face flashes in my mind. The day he took Marina and I to his favorite spot. He’d watched me, making me feel like I was someone worth paying attention to.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. Stupid, stupid, stupid to let a professional hockey player with a playboy reputation get under my skin. I'd known better. I'd read the scouting report, so to speak. Dakota "Lucky" Miles, Renegades resident heartbreaker. And still, I'd fallen.
A crack of thunder so loud it shakes my car jolts me back to the present. The rain is coming down in sheets now, reducing visibility to mere feet. I need to pull over, wait it out. Even with my knowledge of storm systems, this is getting dangerous.
I ease onto the shoulder, hazard lights blinking feebly against the downpour. On my phone, I pull up the radar. I'm driving right into the outer bands of the system. It's intensified beyond even my predictions, now officially a Category 1 hurricane making its way up the coast.
A flash flood warning pops up on my screen. I scan the topography around me—I'm in a low-lying area. Not safe to stay here.
Back on the road, I navigate carefully, using my knowledge of storm systems to choose the safest route. East is dangerous—that's where the storm's eye is heading. North takes me too far off course. South... south could work. I can skirt the worst of it, then approach Charleston from below.
I glance at my reflection in the rearview mirror. My curly auburn hair has escaped its ponytail, forming a chaotic mess around my face. My green eyes—the ones Dakota has named—look back at me, tired and a little wild.
My phone rings again. This time it's not my boss or my mother, but a Charleston area code. The local weather service, probably. I answer, putting it on speaker.
"Baker."
"Harmony, it's Tom Jenkins from Charleston NWS. Your office said you might be headed our way?"
I wince. So my hasty departure didn't go unnoticed. "I'm tracking the system. Your team is underestimating its strength."
"Actually, we just upgraded our alert. Category 1, possible Category 2 by landfall. Are you really driving into this?"
"I have experience with systems like this." It's not a direct answer.
"Well, if you make it here safely, we could use your expertise. Just... be careful. Roads are washing out along the coast."
After we hang up, I feel slightly better. At least now I have a professional justification for this insane journey. I'm not chasing Dakota; I'm chasing the storm. I'm providing my expertise to colleagues. This has nothing to do with wanting to look Dakota Miles in the eye and ask why—why pursue me so relentlessly only to walk away?
The storm intensifies as night turns to dawn. I stop at a truck stop for coffee and to stretch my legs. The TV behind the counter shows weather alerts scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Hurricane warnings for the Carolina coast. Evacuation orders for some barrier islands.
"You heading east?" the cashier asks, eyeing my professional-grade rain jacket and the equipment visible in my car.
"Storm chaser?" I reply, which isn't exactly a lie.
She shakes her head. "Y'all are crazy. But good luck."
Back on the road, fatigue tugs at me. I've been awake for nearly thirty hours now, running on caffeine and hurt feelings. Not the safest combination. I find a motel just off the highway and check in for a few hours, setting multiple alarms. I can't afford to lose too much time, but driving exhausted into a hurricane is a death wish.
In the shabby motel room, I spread my maps and printouts across the bed. The storm has intensified further, now a solid Category 1 with sustained winds of 90 mph. Charleston will feel its effects within hours. I think of Dakota's beachfront house, shared with his teammates. I wonder if they've evacuated or if they're riding it out, cocky and confident as always.
I doze fitfully, dreaming of hazel eyes and howling winds.
The alarm jolts me awake three hours later. Outside, the sky is an ominous green-gray, a color that makes every meteorologist's pulse quicken. Time to move.
Back on the road, I call the Charleston office.
"I'm about four hours out," I tell Tom. "What's the situation?"
"Deteriorating. We've got storm surge predictions of eight to ten feet for the barrier islands. Most residents have evacuated, but you know how it is—always some holdouts."
I think of Dakota again. Is he a holdout type? Probably. Too stubborn and sure of himself to leave.
The rain becomes torrential as I approach the South Carolina border. Twice I have to detour around flooded roads. The sky is nearly black despite it being midday, and the wind buffets my Subaru like it's trying to push me back.
Ten miles from the state line, disaster nearly strikes. A massive oak tree, its root system weakened by saturated soil, crashes down just yards ahead of me. I slam on my brakes, the car fishtailing before coming to a stop mere feet from the massive trunk.
My heart hammers against my ribs. Too close. I'm breathing hard, hands shaking on the wheel. For the first time, I question what I'm doing. Chasing a storm to a city where a man who doesn't want me lives? Risking my life for... what? Closure? An explanation?
I pull over at the next rest area, which is deserted except for a couple of emergency vehicles. Rain pounds against my windshield in sheets, making it impossible to see more than a few feet. On my tablet, I pull up the latest radar. The storm has turned slightly, its eye now tracking just east of Charleston. The city will be hit by the dangerous right quadrant of the hurricane, where winds are strongest.
I should turn back. This is foolish. Dangerous. Unprofessional.
But as I sit there, watching the swirling patterns of the storm on my screen, something shifts inside me. Weather systems are unpredictable. We can model them, track them, name them—but in the end, they do what they do, governed by forces too complex for even our best computers to fully map.
People are like that too.
Dakota Miles is like that too.
I've spent my entire adult life trying to predict the unpredictable, to control the uncontrollable. I chase certainty in a world of chaos. And when I couldn't predict Dakota—couldn't control how he made me feel or what he would do—I panicked.
The realization hits me like a gust of wind: I'm not really chasing him for answers. I'm chasing the feeling of being alive that I had with him. The feeling of being out of control, at the mercy of something powerful and beautiful and terrifying.
Just like a storm.
I take a deep breath and pull back onto the highway. The rain is still coming down in sheets, but visibility has improved slightly. According to my GPS, I'm three hours from Charleston. According to the radar, the storm's eye will make landfall in about the same timeframe.
Perfect timing, indeed.
As I drive, I make peace with the uncertainty. Maybe Dakota will talk to me. Maybe he won't. Maybe the storm will be as bad as predicted. Maybe it won't. The only certainty is that I'm driving into something unpredictable, and for once, I'm okay with that.
My phone rings—the Charleston weather service again.
"Harmony, where are you?" Tom sounds stressed.
"About to cross into South Carolina."
"Listen, the barrier islands are completely cut off. Storm surge has overtaken the causeways. If you're coming to help with forecasting, head straight to our office downtown."
"What about evacuations for the islands?"
"Coast Guard is handling critical cases, but anyone still out there is basically riding it out now. Including your boyfriend and his teammates, if that's why you're really coming."
I don't bother correcting him about Dakota's status. "How do you know they're still there?"
"Because one of them—Grey? Gray?—called in reporting conditions. Said they've boarded up and have supplies. Crazy hockey players think they're invincible."
Asher Gray. Dakota's roommate and teammate. Of course they stayed.
The wind howls around my car as I continue southeast, following a route that skirts the worst flooding according to my radar. The storm has begun to wobble, its trajectory shifting subtly. This is common near landfall, but it makes predictions harder.
Just like Dakota wobbled when things between us got serious. Just like his surety shifted when I told him I was falling in love with him.
Two hours from Charleston, the worst of the outer bands hit me. Driving becomes an exercise in white-knuckled focus. The wind pushes against my car so hard that staying in my lane is a constant battle. Rain comes in horizontal sheets, reducing visibility to almost nothing. Twice I have to ford sections of road where water pools dangerously high.
But I keep going, guided by my knowledge of storm systems and a stubborn determination I didn't know I possessed until Dakota Miles broke my heart.
An hour outside the city, the wind shifts suddenly. The pressure drops—I can feel it in my ears. The storm's eye is making landfall. For a brief period, the rain lessens, though the wind continues to howl. This is my window.
I push forward, grateful for my Subaru's all-wheel drive as I navigate around debris and standing water. The city appears through the gloom, buildings hunkered down against the storm's assault. Downtown Charleston looks like a ghost town, streets empty except for emergency vehicles.
I head straight to the National Weather Service office, as requested. But as I near the turnoff, I hesitate. The storm's eye is moving through. Soon the back end will hit—often more dangerous than the front, with its sudden wind shifts and potential tornadoes.
Dakota's house is on Pawleys Island. Currently cut off by the storm surge.
I make a decision. I call Tom at the office.
"I'm not coming in yet," I tell him. "I need to check something first."
"Harmony, don't be stupid. The barrier islands are completely inaccessible right now."
"I know these systems. The storm surge will recede temporarily as the eye passes. There's a window."
"That's insane. Even if you could get out there, you'd be trapped when the back end hits."
He's right, of course. It is insane. But so is driving through a hurricane for a man who broke up with me three days ago. In for a penny, in for a pound.
"I'll be careful," I promise, then hang up before he can argue further.
I turn east, toward the coast, toward Pawleys Island, toward Dakota. As I drive, the skies lighten fractionally—the strange, eerie calm of the hurricane's eye.
And in that calm, I have my epiphany. Clear as the brief patch of blue sky visible overhead.
Weather, like love, is unpredictable. We can study it, track it, try to understand its patterns—but in the end, it follows its own rules. The best we can do is prepare ourselves, make informed decisions, and sometimes, take a risk.
I've spent my life avoiding risks. Playing it safe. Using data and analysis to keep emotional storms at bay.
But some risks are worth taking.
Dakota Miles might break my heart again. The hurricane might trap me on a barrier island. Both are possibilities I can't control.
What I can control is my decision to chase the storm. To face the unpredictable head-on. To tell Dakota how I feel, even if he doesn't feel the same.
Because living in fear of emotional hurricanes isn't really living at all.
As I approach the causeway to Pawleys Island, I can see the water has indeed receded temporarily, though debris litters the road. It's passable—barely. The wind is starting to pick up again as the back end of the storm approaches.
I have maybe an hour before I'm trapped on the island.
I press the gas pedal and drive forward. Into the storm. Into uncertainty. Into possibility.
After all, I'm Harmony Baker, storm chaser. And today, I'm chasing more than just a hurricane.