Chapter Text
Tyler woke up bright and early to the sound of his aunt’s roosters crowing loudly. After arriving late last night at the farm after their unpleasant encounter at the rodeo, they had quickly showered and gotten into bed, particularly tired and ready to move on.
Having a full night of sleep in a very comfortable bed had certainly helped him feel better. He had always been an early riser, ready to get outside the moment the sun was up to get his work done. As a child, he’d be up on the family farm to help around and to train, then it was to get to his classes and now it was to storm chase.
Kate, however, was only an early riser when they were actually chasing. If there was a possibility to see something amazing in the sky, she was awake before everyone, planning out their day according to the data and what she could deduce from the various available maps. On the other hand, if they had a day off, Kate could stay snuggled up in bed until late in the morning, unmotivated to get up even for the prospect of a warm breakfast.
For that reason, Tyler found himself enjoying staying in bed late in the morning more and more. Kate was still sound asleep with her head pillowed on his chest just over his heart, the roosters cries clearly gone unnoticed by her, which meant that he was stuck in bed as a human pillow. That was fine with him, there was no place he’d rather be than with her. There was a reason he always plugged his phone on the edge of the nightstands after all.
Tyler blindly reached for his phone and decided to look through his messages, emails and notifications. He quickly edited the pictures he had taken at the rodeo the night before, including a couple of selfies he had taken with Kate, figuring that it would look less like he had been asked to post something if he did so. That and he also loved posting pictures of Kate because she was the most beautiful thing in the world to him and he felt like people should know that too.
He found a particularly cute one of both of them and immediately set it as his new lock screen picture. After, doing his work stuff, he just aimlessly scrolled through social media. He ended up on YouTube looking at videos that other storm chasers had posted without any volume on, but even that got boring after a while.
Tyler put his phone back on the table and closed his eyes again, figuring that he might try to enjoy doing absolutely nothing for once. He quickly realized that the reason he always does something is because he can’t trust his mind to actually follow through with his will to relax. His thoughts were initially pretty nice, ranging from what he could work on his truck while they weren’t driving into tornadoes to fun activities they could do on their time off in the area.
It was inevitable that his mind would eventually move on to last night’s encounter. He still didn’t believe that his parents had had pure intentions by ambushing him, but the little boy in him had wished it could have been a moment where they made up and started on the path of being a family again.
“I can hear you thinking,” Kate mumbled against his skin, burrowing a little bit deeper into him. “Good morning.”
“Did I wake you up?” Tyler was taken off guard for a second, but quickly recovered as he wrapped his arms tighter around her and pulled her a bit more so she was laying on top of him.
“No, you didn’t.” She wasn’t going to tell him that his fast beating heart had pulled her from her sleep as she knew he was still overthinking what had happened the night before. “How did you sleep?”
“More than usual,” he told her, finally stretching out his muscles now that he was unafraid to wake his girlfriend up by moving. “You look like you had a good night.” He brushed her bangs out of her eyes.
“I did.” Kate pushed herself up into a seated position and stretched her hands above her head, her shirt riding up slightly. “I’m hungry, do you think your aunt has already had breakfast?”
Tyler was way too focused on the sight she made, stretching in his bed still all sleepy, to register her question. Even after months of waking up next to her in bed, he still wasn’t quite used to it.
Kate poked him in the sides when he didn’t answer. “Stop looking at me like that cowboy,” she got off the bed before he could work his charm on her.
“Fine, I’ll make you breakfast,” Tyler replied and rolled out of bed too. He grabbed a t-shirt and threw it on, deciding that they might as well make use of having access to an actual kitchen and make themselves a real breakfast for once.
They walked downstairs in their pyjamas only to notice that the house was empty. When they walked into the kitchen, Tyler found a post-it on the refrigerator from his aunt saying that she was out at the market and would be back towards ten in the morning. That meant they still had about an hour before she arrived.
“What do you want?” Tyler opened the refrigerator door and looked at what he had to work with. “I could make you a killer omelet.” There was eggs, cheese and mushrooms so it wouldn’t be a big challenge. “It’s simple, but I have what I need to make that.”
“That sounds good.” Kate sat down at the kitchen island and decided that she was just going to enjoy the show.
Tyler made them a pot of coffee and poured her the perfect cup before really starting to work on their breakfast. Kate could tell that he was still a bit distracted, but at least he looked a lot more relaxed than he had been last night when they had gone to bed.
***
As they were doing the dishes in tandem, the front door opened and his aunt walked in carrying a few bags. Tyler quickly dried his hand on a kitchen towel and took the bags from Maggie’s hands.
“Nice trip to the market?” Tyler asked her as he heaved the bags onto the counter.
“Absolutely, I saw Sharon with her grandkids today. They are spending the summer with her.” Margaret never had any children herself, but had always been the fun aunt where all the cousins would plead their parents to go stay for the night. In a way, in the last few years, she had considered Tyler as her own, even if he was only home a few weeks a year.
“That’s nice, I’m sure they are going to have a lot of fun.” He helped her unpack the bags, placing the produce in the right places while Maggie sat down next to Kate. He felt like there was something else his aunt wanted to say and his instincts were rarely wrong when it came to thing like this. “Did she call you?”
Maggie grabbed his hand as he reached for another item. “She did call me this morning. You know your mother, she doesn’t like to be told no. She was like that when we were kids and she’s probably never going to change.” Tyler’s mom, her younger sister, had called in the morning to know wether he was staying at her farm or not as usual.
“What did she ask?” Tyler he wondered, leaning on his forearms against the counter. “You can be honest, it’s not like you could say anything that I don’t expect.”
“She wanted to know if Kate was staying with you. Well, she called her the girl, but I know what she meant. I think you got under her skin a little bit Katie girl.” Maggie patted Kate’s hand and if she hadn’t liked her before, she certainly loved her nephew’s girlfriend now.
“I don’t know what got into me last night, but I did what I had to do,” Kate replied with a shrug, knowing she would have gone even farther to defend Tyler if she had needed to.
“What did you tell her?” As much as Tyler was proud of his girlfriend, he wanted to know wether or not they had to make their escape before his parent’s descended on the farm and broke their little cocoon of happiness. He wouldn’t be surprised if they swung by the farm in the next few hours and he didn’t want to be there if they did.
“I told her what I always tell her when she finds out you’re here.” It always happened eventually, Tyler would get spotted when going out with her and the information would make it back to his parents. They lived in a small town after all and everyone pretty much knew each other and secrets were rarely secrets for long here. Maggie’s phone would then ring and she would have to be go through a little interrogation about her nephew whereabouts.
“Which is?” Kate asked, curious to find out how deep Maggie’s loyalty went. Considering they hadn’t been ambushed again, she sort of already knew the answer, but still wanted a confirmation.
“That while Tyler is here, if he doesn’t want to see them, then they aren’t welcome to swing by.” Maggie loved her sister, but still couldn’t believe how she treated her youngest son. She had enforced that rule since the day Tyler had arrived on her front steps completely devastated after being kicked out of his home and she would never regret doing so.
Tyler was relieved to hear that even though he knew he always going to be slightly on edge for the rest of their two weeks here. “Good, I don’t want to talk to them.” He was sticking to his long-standing decision.
“Do you think you could go take a look at my car, it was doing a funny noise when I drove into town?” Maggie asked her nephew, changing the subject suddenly.
Tyler knew for a fact that the car was fine as he had driven it himself the night before, but still accepted her request. “Sure, I’ll go take a look.” He walked around the counter and dropped a quick kiss on the crown of Kate’s head before heading outside.
***
“Kate dear,” Maggie took Kate’s hand in her own and turned on her chair to look at the younger girl next to her. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course you can,” Kate also knew what was about to happen the moment Maggie had asked Tyler to check out the car, but she wasn’t really nervous.
“Under all of that loud personality and fearless attitude, there’s a little boy that fiercely loves the people around him. Tyler’s a lot more complicated than he seems.”
“But he’s not,” Kate argued, disagreeing with Maggie’s take on Tyler. “He’s not that complicated, you just have to know how to read him. He loves people and he wants to be loved. He’s loud and bigger than life, but that doesn’t mean he’s not genuine.” The Tyler she knew was loud and cocky for sure, but he also did everything to help the people in his life. After the first conversation they had had at that gas station where she had thrown him off his rhythm a little, she knew he was going to do everything to get on her good side. “It’s in the quiet moments that he shines.”
Maggie smiled softly at the younger girl, realizing in that moment that Kate knew a lot more about Tyler than she had anticipated. “I’m glad you’re here Kate.”
“I’m happy Tyler invited me to come with him.” Kate squeezed Maggie’s hand.
“Sweetie, I don’t think he would have come if you weren’t with him.” It was the truth and both women knew it.
Tyler came back inside in that moment. “Auntie, I don’t hear anything.” If he was being honest, he had just turned on the engine, waited for a few moments and then walked back to the house.
“It’s probably just my hearing dear,” Maggie shrugged it off and winked at Kate, satisfied with the talk she had had with the younger girl. “Now, what do the two of you have planned for the day?”
***
Two weeks later, Kate and Tyler were sitting on the porch when the team’s RV drove down the path. They had spent their time off riding horses, helping around the farm and overall getting some well needed rest. Even more lazy mornings in bed were spent, taking advantage of Maggie’s trips to the markets to have some fun. They had even gone chasing once, unable to help themselves when a very promising cell of clouds had been forming around forty minutes away from the farm.
Boone came out of the van first, clearly fresh and ready to get back to work as he basically jumped up onto the porch. “Katie! T! are y’all ready to shoot some rockets!”
“Boonie, I missed you too. How’s your mom?”
“Even more terrified that I’m going to die chasing,” Boone answered as he plopped down on one of the benches.
“So basically nothing new,” Tyler joked, glad to have his best friends back with him. Dani and Dexter joined them next and all that was missing was Lily. She would be arriving a little bit later as she did a little detour to go get some drone gear that she had found for sale in the morning. “How are the grandkids Dex?”
“Obsessed with Kate,” Dexter replied. His grandkids loved the YouTube channel and had taken quite a liking to the new addition to the team.
“Me and them both,” Tyler laughed and Kate playfully shoved him. “What? Did I lie?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Kate chastised him lovingly. “What about you Dani?”
“Nothing overly exciting, I just helped my sister around the ranch and slept,” Dani replied.
Lily ended up arriving just before dinner, enthusiastic to show everyone what she had found and how she was going to upgrade Cairo. They gathered around the dinner table outside and Tyler helped his aunt serve everyone their meal, before sitting down himself.
They all easily slid back into small talk, a two week separation far from enough to affect their close-knit group. Everyone was recharged and ready stop head out to chase some storms and make fun videos for their fans.
As Tyler sat around the fire pit, surrounded by his crew sharing stories and anecdotes, he was reminded once again that this was his family. Boone, Lily, Dani and Dexter were his favourite people in the world and he would do anything for them. He didn’t have to work for their appreciation, he didn’t owe them anything else other than being himself. He was enough.
Then there was Kate, his lovely gorgeous Kate, who had somehow become the centre of his world since the moment he had laid eyes on her. She was currently laughing at a joke Lily had said, but her eyes found his as if she had known he was thinking of her. Her head cocked to the side in a silent question as she left Lily and walked over to him. Tyler took her hand when she was within reach and pulled her down onto his lap.
Kate’s arms found their home around his shoulders, while his did around her waist as she settled on him. “You look happy,” she said, a similar satisfied look on her face.
“I’m glad we’re all together,” Tyler replied, looking around the fire at the people he loved. “I’m excited to go chase again.”
“Me too, it’s nice to catch up with everyone.” Kate agreed, happy to be surrounded by their rambunctious group of friends. “I feel like we are going to have a great year.”
In that moment, Tyler couldn’t help but agree with her. Tomorrow morning they would hit the road driving towards Alabama to get some initial feel for the chasing season in Dixie Alley. He had so many exciting plans for the year, from taming more tornadoes to going through with his plan to buy some land.
That being said, he had to remember to live in the moment and enjoyed what he had now. He couldn’t change his past, couldn’t force his parents to be better, but he could move on and with the rest of the Tornado Wranglers, he knew he could make it.