Chapter Text
It had been a flurry of a morning when Boone woke everyone up at six am, hollering about a super cell that was promised to form in a few hours. Most of the Wranglers had not been expecting anything to give for the next few days and as a result, had stayed out at the bar close to their motel until well past two in the morning. Kate was one of the unlucky few who had all in total managed to get, at most, three hours of sleep. She hadn’t planned on being out so late, but everything still felt so new and novel with the Wranglers now that she was joining them for at least the next few months.
And, well, Tyler had also been there.
Tyler who had always given her all the space she may have ever wanted, and at this point, maybe even space that she didn’t want. When Kate landed in Oklahoma with most of her belongings in a few suitcases, she had been expecting to get the full Tyler Owens treatment.
Instead, she felt like she had been disgustingly and utterly friend-zoned.
At this point, she was beginning to think that she had imagined the fact that she swore he was about to lean in and kiss her when he went after her in the airport. And in the truck after they had chased that small storm that had cancelled her flight. And also the second time he had dropped her off at the airport.
Now, it seemed like he was determined to pretend none of that ever happened and that Kate was merely a good friend of his. And that had only made her accept the fact that she had begun to truly like him. Kate liked when they all went out to the bar or a saloon to celebrate, as it meant that she could nurse one drink for the night and unabashedly stare at Tyler while he made sure not to even glance in her direction.
So naturally, she had stayed out until he had decided to call it a night and retreated to his and Boone’s room for the night. Now, running on only three hours of sleep, she was beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake. Dani and Lily had now also begun moving around the room in a hurry, managing to turn on every light possible.
“Won’t we feel ridiculous if we hauled ass before the sun was even up if this storm didn't even form?” Kate whined, in an attempt to return to her sleep.
All noise suddenly ceases as Dani and Lily stop to stare at her. “I truly thought I would never live to see a day where Kate Carter is begging us to not go chase another storm,” Dani marvels.
At this, Kate just groans and begins to drag herself out of her bed.
Given the fact that she was mostly still in a state of sleep, Kate doesn’t consciously remember packing up any of her stuff. She thinks that the Wranglers are actually lucky that she didn't just hop into the passenger seat of Tyler’s truck still wearing her pajamas. She does, however, get in with a giant blanket wrapped around her form, determined to continue her REM cycle the second that the truck pulls out of the motel parking lot.
When she climbs in, Tyler only looks at her once and chuckles at her before he looks away again and begins to inspect the buttons on the modified truck that he currently has zero reasons to currently use. Luckily, Tyler agreed to keep his usually blaring music turned down low so that Kate could get some sleep while they drove east. Somehow, it had ended up that it was just her and him in the truck this time around.
Eventually, Kate awoke to a bright morning sun and the feeling of the truck finally coming to a stop after a few solid hours of driving. She looked over at Tyler and immediately noticed how tired he must be. He could not have possibly gotten any more sleep than she had. Resisting the urge to slide her thumb over his pronounced eyebags, Kate simply sat up and asked, “Are we there already?”
Tyler shook his head. “No, just needed some gas. You can go back to sleep if ‘ya want.”
“Aren’t you tired?” Kate tilted her head. “You’ve got to be exhausted, Tyler. I can drive if you want to sleep a bit.”
Tyler immediately laughed, “No way, Sapulpa. Last time you drove the truck she ended up as barely recognizable piece of metal.”
“Extenuating circumstances! You cannot possibly hold that as a true testament of my driving skills!” Kate guffawed. “Can I get you anything from the gas station then? An energy drink, maybe a donut? I promise I won't run away this time.”
Tyler slightly smiled in her direction, seeming to remember the time Kate had offered him sweet tea only to run away from him all those weeks ago. “Well okay, get me a monster? Maybe one of those chocolate eclair donuts if they have one?”
Kate just nodded and began to untangle herself from the blanket she had been wrapped up in. That was the moment that she realized that she had left her trustworthy crewneck hanging from a chair in their long-ago abandoned motel room. The groan and following thunk of her head hitting the headrest must’ve startled Tyler as he twisted back around to look at her.
“If you don’t want to go in it’s okay Kate. Or is this about the donut choice? Boone always gives me shit for-”
“No, no, it’s not that. I just realized I left my one jacket that I had back in the motel room, and now I am going to have to brave this sub zero 60 degree temperature without it.”
Tyler just snorted at her before he reached back to the back seat and began to dig around until he found what he was looking for. He held it out to her tentatively, as if not sure if she was going to ridicule him for offering her his jacket.
“I mean, if you want, I have a spare that you can wear. It’s a few sizes too big for you so it’ll keep you nice and warm.” He shifted under her gaze as she still made no move to grab the jacket from his hands. “I mean, you obviously don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, I just thought that maybe-”
He was cut off as Kate quickly reached over and took it out of his hands before he had the chance to throw it back into the abyss of the back seat. And there it was. That look on his face that she had only seen the few times that she swore he was either about to confess something to her or kiss her. She hadn’t been imagining it. Had he just truly been trying to give her space as both Dani and Lily had insisted he had been doing?
Kate quickly tugged the large maroon crewneck over her head, immediately overwhelmed by how much it smelled like Tyler. By the time she had looked back towards him, he was well on his way out of the truck, once again leaving her to wonder if she had imagined the whole ordeal. Content with the one piece of Tyler that she had been given, Kate also made her way out of the truck. Admittedly, his crewneck did do a good job of protecting her from the nonexistent cold. It hit her just above her thighs, in a way that she knew it would be just a bit tight on him. That thought propelled her towards the gas station and away from him in order to avoid doing anything she would regret.
Ten minutes and later, they were both back in the truck sipping on their energy drinks. For all the yelling Tyler did at Boone for eating chocolate in the car, Tyler was sure making a mess with his donut that Kate got him. For the rest of the drive, Kate watched the storm cells that were potentially forming and burrowing deeper and deeper down into the crewneck that she knew Tyler would likely never get back.
…
Just as Kate had predicted that morning, the wranglers did feel stupid for hauling ass for absolutely zero storms to form. By late afternoon and with a clear sky looming down on them, they all agreed to call it for the day. As Kate was packing up her things from the makeshift setup she had made by the truck, she saw Tyler fiercely motioning and talking with his hands to Boone who was laughing so hard she swore he was about to keel over. Soon, their conversation ended and Tyler trepidatiously made his way over to her.
“Sapulpa!” He called out.
“Owens, what a surprise to see you here!” She had just finished stuffing her laptop in her bag when she turned around and saw him looking at her with an almost sheepish expression.
“Looks better on you than it ever did on me,” he points out, while his eyes slowly looked her up and down.
Immediately flustered, Kate hoped that this was not his attempt at trying to get it back. Not knowing how to respond, all Kate could pull together was “I always did look good in red didn’t I?”
At this, all Tyler could do was nod a bit, and she swore she saw his cheeks also turn a bit pink. “Um, well, I just came over to ask if you wanted to go get dinner. With me?”
Kate tilted her head at him, “Tyler have you hit your head? I am pretty sure there hasn’t been a day in the last two months where all of us didn’t have dinner together.”
“No, uh, I mean just you and I Kate. The rest of them are going to head over to stay with one of their friends who I don’t really know so I think it’ll be just us tonight.”
“Oh!” It was now Kate’s turn to blush at the idea that she was going to get so much time with Tyler. Only Tyler.
Taking this as a rejection, he immediately begins to backpedal, “It’s okay Kate I get it if you just want to order a pizza and stay in your room tonight there’s absolutely no pressu-”
“No, no I’d love to go to dinner with you! I’ll just watch my reality TV when we get back.”
At this, Tyler’s cheeks seemed to grow even further red as he instantaneously lit back up. “Does Mexican sound good? I saw a pretty promising place as we were pulling up to town.”
“Yeah, sounds perfect, Tyler. Did you want to go now?”
Soon, the two of them were sitting in oddly sticky seats across from each other. Kate wasn’t sure what to say to him now that she had him all to herself, so she kept reading the menu back and forth.
“Are you trying to memorize that thing?” Tyler breaks her out of her spiral.
Kate slowly sets the menu down and finally makes direct eye contact with him for the first time since they got here. “I’m just really not sure if I want a quesadilla or an enchilada.”
Tyler nudges her lightly with his boot under the table. “I’m sorry we dragged you away from your bed so fast this morning. I swear whatever Boone was looking at did look real promising at the moment.”
Kate just shrugged, “It happens, I mean as much as we want we really cannot control the weather can we.”
Tyler hums in agreement just as the waiter finally shows up at their table.
The rest of the dinner goes by much smoother than the beginning. Kate suddenly remembers how much she enjoys having all of Tyler’s attention directed on only her. He has this amazing quality of making her feel like she might be the most interesting thing that he had ever seen in his life.
Yet again, she’s sure he makes everyone feel like that.
The two don’t have another quiet moment until the motel’s front-end employee is confirming if just one room is alright. Tyler quickly looks over nervously towards her, and he must see how taken aback she is because he immediately tries to get them two separate rooms for the night.
“No, no ma’am, we’re just here on business. I think we’d want two rooms, right, Kate?”
“Yeah, of course.” No, of course not.
The clerk immediately starts typing something into her computer at a rapid speed, “So, unfortunately, we do only have one room left for the night. Lots of storm chasers here tonight apparently. can you believe that? Anyways, it does have two separate beds. Did you guys want to try to make that work?
Kate steps up to the counter before Tyler can say anything, “That’s fine. We can share for one night, can’t we?”
She immediately regrets her actions as soon as the two of them walk into their room for the night. While there are two beds as promised, they are pushed so close together that it is essentially turning them into one giant mega-bed that takes up nearly the whole room. Kate also regrets her decision the moment that she hears Tyler turn the shower on in the bathroom. Being able to hear him, and imagine him in that steamy shower is what drives her to open her laptop and at least try to pretend to be focused on anything else.
She is gloriously unsuccessful. With a huff, Kate throws her laptop to the side and instead just lays back in the bed to stare at the ceiling and wonder what she had done to deserve a fate where she is just forced to listen to the man she undeniably has a disgusting high school level crush on wash himself in the shower. Thankfully, Tyler comes out of the bathroom fully dressed and does not torture Kate any further. “All yours.”
Quickly gathering her pajamas, Kate rushes into the bathroom. Of course, the whole room smells like Tyler’s soap and aftershave. After she is out of the shower, Kate decides to forgo her usual large pajama shirt and instead puts on her new favorite crewneck.
When she comes out, Tyler does a quick doubletake at her pajamas of choice, but he does not comment on it. Instead, he waves Kate over, “Take a look at this. Seems promising.”
The forecast does show promising signs of a supercell forming just one hour away from them in the early afternoon. “It’s lame that all the others just ran away. That would’ve been a good one to chase,” Kate sighs as she sits down in the bed right next to Tyler, taking control of his laptop. “Unless you want to go back to our roots.” She looks over to him with a smile, recalling their very first chase on their own.
Tyler seems to immediately light up at their shared memory. “Did you want to try the barrels on this one? It’s been a while since we’ve committed to trying.” That was true. Because of how expensive it was, the wranglers had tried to reserve the use of the barrels for conditions that would provide them the most success.
“Hmm,” Kate scans over the weather radar, “It seems like conditions could be right this time around. And there would be a lot less pressure if we weren’t live streaming the whole thing.” She closes the screen and looks up at Tyler, “Let’s tame us a tornado, cowboy.”
In reply, Tyler gives her one of those toothy smiles that she swears he reserves just for her. At least, she likes to think that he does.
Eventually, Kate makes her way over to her own bed and tries her best to fall asleep. Yet, she is fully unable to do so, knowing that Tyler is so close to her. Turning to her side, she sees that he is also turned towards her. His eyes are open, and he doesn’t seem ashamed to have been discovered staring at her in the dark of the room.
“You’re still wearing my sweater,” he whispers in the quiet.
Kate smiles softly at him, “I like it. Much nicer than my old one.” And it smells like you.
He seems to hesitate for a second, “Kate I-” she can hear him gulp, “I just hope you know how important you are. To the team, and I mean well to me I-”
“Tyler.”
“I’m sorry if I've been confusing. I’ve been confused. I need to get this right with you and I just get so worked up and nervous about it in my head that I sometimes get scared and push you away.”
“Wow. The man who chases tornadoes for a living is scared of me.”
There’s a small moment of silence between them, and Kate wonders if deflecting with a joke maybe wasn’t the best in a moment when Tyler was trying to tell her something. Which is when she realizes exactly what he was trying to tell her.
She scoots even closer to the edge of her bed, minimizing the space between them even more. “I’m sorry, I was just not expecting you to say that. Tyler, I want to get it right too. You are more important to me than I could ever verbalize, but I’ve just lost so much, and I’m just,” she exhales, “I’m so scared.”
“Kate-”
“I’m always scared that I am either making this thing up between us in my head, or even worse that it is real and you are just going to somehow disappear one day and that might be even worse.”
At this, Tyler sits up and scoots further away from her, but before she can panic that she somehow offended him, he holds his comforter up in an offering. “Come here?”
Kate just nods and quickly gets out from under her covers. The second she sits down in Tyler's bed, she feels a million degrees warmer. She slowly settles in and lets him tuck the sheets back over her.
She wasn’t sure of what to do next. It had been so long since she had shared a bed with anyone. However, Tyler doesn’t hesitate to pull Kate into him. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her into his chest so that she can do nothing but smell the soap and aftershave that she had so desperately tried to ignore while she was showering.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence passed as Tyler stroked Kate’s hair, he finally spoke again. “We can take it as slow as we need to, Sapulpa. I just couldn’t continue to not say anything anymore.” And slowly, he slides his hand to the very bottom of his sweater and then places a comforting warm palm over her bare back underneath.
As Kate sharply inhales, Tyler starts talking again, “and you look so goddamn good in my clothes Kate.” His thumb begins to stroke her bare skin.
As much as she wants to give up all pretenses and kiss him right now, she knows that what they both need is some more time. And she can live with that. She has already gotten so much more than she thought she would ever get from Tyler. As she begins to fall asleep, finally comforted by his warmth, he whispers in her ear, “Tomorrow, after you tame that tornado, I’m taking you on a date.” At this, Kate just snuggles further into his neck and sighs contently. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow.