Page 20 of Weather Girl

A grin starts in one corner of his mouth and slowly spreads across his face. I realize my cheeks are warm, a side effect of getting so animated about this topic.

“You’re giving me a look. I am talking too much about the weather. I knew it. I’ll stop. My brother says I have a tendency to get emotional about rain.” With a fingertip, I graze the lightning bolt at my collar. “And he’s not wrong.”

“Ari,” Russell says, laughing. There’s this lovely openness on his face when he does it, and it makes me wonder whether he’s been holding himself back every other time he’s laughed with me. “No. Please don’t. It’s just—your expression completely changes when you talk about it. I can tell it’s more than just a job to you. It’s not just that you’re excited about it. It’s your passion.”

Now I feel my chest bloom with a different kind of heat. However I must look right now, I want to tell him he looked the same when he was talking about sports.

“Is Ari short for anything?” he asks.

“Arielle.”

“Why are you making that face?”

I sigh, unscrunching my nose. “Because even though it’s Ahr-i-elle, everyone thought it was Ariel. Like The Little Mermaid.” I hold up a strand of my red hair, which has rejected the straightening I subjected it to for the camera. “You would not believe how many kids in elementary school asked me where my fins were, or started singing ‘Under the Sea’ when they saw me. It was easier to go by Ari.”

“I like both,” he says. “And you’re safe, because I can guarantee you don’t want to hear me sing.”

This is fun, plotting to get our bosses back together, even if we haven’t mentioned either of them in the past twenty minutes. Aside from Hannah, I don’t really have work friends at KSEA, and I’ve missed this kind of conversation with the friends Garrison took with him after the breakup.

But Russell Barringer and I—we could be friends.

We talk more about Torrance and Seth, making some plans for low-level espionage. Most of it will have to wait until after the new year.

“We’re going to have to get them together outside of work,” Russell says. “You just moved into a new place, right? What about a housewarming party?”

“In my studio apartment? I respect my possessions too much.” I consider it for a moment. “But you’re right. We need to force proximity the shit out of them. It’s just too bad we don’t have a camping trip or anything like they do in the movie, though I guess that was more to scare away their potential new stepmom.”

“No,” he says. “But we do have the KSEA retreat next month. You’re going on that, right?” I nod. It’s a mix of people every year, since the station can’t exactly function with all of us gone. “It’ll almost be like being on vacation, and who doesn’t want to fall in love on vacation?”

In a way, all this scheming makes me feel a little powerful. Garrison thought I was too sunshine? Not real enough? Well, here’s my edge. That TV version of myself, the one he thought I never turned off, wouldn’t be going behind her boss’s back like this, even if it were for the greater good.

We’re down to only chip crumbs when his phone rings. It’s been on the table between us, but we’ve barely glanced at our phones, let alone reached for them. When he sees who’s calling, though, he picks it up.

“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” he says, his mouth set in a firm line.

A server swings by the table and swaps our empty basket for a new one, the chips fresh from the fryer and glistening with salt. I mouth thank you to him, trying not to overhear Russell’s conversation, even though it’s happening two feet in front of me.

“Of course. I can be there in twenty. Hang tight.” He hangs up, smoothing out the collar of his jacket with his free hand. “That was my daughter. She has play practice after school, and I guess she’s not feeling well, and...”

The rest of his sentence is lost as my mind tries to make sense of this new information.

“Your... daughter?”

“Elodie. She’s twelve.” He signals to the server for the check.

I just stare at him. He barely looks older than I am. How can Russell Barringer, KSEA sports reporter, have a twelve-year-old kid? Named Elodie?

When I’m quiet for a beat too long, he says, “Oh. Oh no. I hope you don’t think I’m like, the worst father ever, getting drunk with you at the holiday party. She was at her mom’s that weekend, and I don’t usually go out even when she’s not there. I never drink that much, and never in front of her, and—”

“No, no, I wasn’t thinking that at all. I swear. That’s awesome! Wow. Um... congratulations!” I sputter out. Because congratulating someone on their twelve-year-old child is super normal. Hallmark definitely sells cards for that. Congrats on keeping a human alive for a decade!

“Thank you?”

I clap a hand over my mouth. “Oh my god. That thing I said. About DILFs. I’m so sorry, I hope that didn’t offend you or anything—” I need to stop talking. A bolt of lightning can strike me down any time, even though the odds of that happening to someone in any given year are about one in a million, according to the National Weather Service.

“No—not at all. I mean, you had to tell me what it meant, so...” He trails off, rubs the back of his neck as crimson attacks his cheeks. “We’ll continue this soon?”

“Right. Yeah,” I say, still reeling. “I hope your daughter is okay.”

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