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Kate’s so sure that Tyler’s going to kiss her at the airport that the disappointment feels like an actual anvil on her chest, when he doesn’t.
She’s positive that her feelings aren’t one sided. They can’t be - not with the way that he had comforted her in the barn, eyes filled with sympathy as she’d choked back tears of guilt about what had happened five years prior. Not with the way that he had laughed driving into that storm with her, with how his gaze had whipped back to her as she’d yelled she’s gorgeous! - and especially not with the way that he’d looked at her after pulling her out of his overturned truck in El Reno, trying to swipe away his relieved tears when he thinks she’s not looking.
Yeah, Kate’s not dumb - she knows what the look means. She used to see it in Jeb’s eyes every day - she used to look back at him the same way. To be looking at Tyler like that - it’s a foreign feeling, but not an unwelcome one.
Surely, there was no other way to interpret if you feel it, chase it , right? She’d barely known what she was saying until she was stepping up to him at the sidewalk, the words already halfway out of her mouth, shrugging far more nonchalantly than she actually felt - but the look on Tyler’s face almost makes the corny line worth it. It’s half speculation, half admiration - and recently, every look he gives her feels more loaded than the last.
She can feel his gaze on her when she’s hugging Javi goodbye, and when he walks up behind her in the airport, she knows he’s there before she even turns around. When she does, her heart is in her throat - she’s seen her fair share of rom-coms, and when a man chases after a woman in an airport, there’s only one possible thing that comes next -
Or so she thought.
His gaze lingers on her for a moment, but he doesn’t lean in like she expects - just drinks her in, as if there’s nothing he’d rather be doing than just looking at her. Which is all fine and dandy - it’s hard not to feel flattered by those sparkling green eyes, after all - but she’s a woman. She has needs.
Just when she’s decided she’s going to just bite the bullet and kiss him herself, a voice comes over the intercom talking about weather delays and incoming storm and Kate never thought she’d feel disappointed by the prospect of an incoming tornado but this timing is killing her.
The disappointment is short lived. She and Tyler exchange glances, and she marvels at how she can read his thoughts even after knowing him for only a week, how she can immediately tell that he’s game for the chase if she is, without having to say a single word. They rush towards the exit together, dodge a parking attendant squawking about property damage and thousands of dollars in fines as Tyler tosses her suitcase into the back seat, and peel out of the airport as soon as the truck is dislodged, grinning madly the entire time.
Tyler quickly busies himself with the transmission radio, reaching out to the other Wranglers nearby, and Kate pulls up the latest weather report on her phone, tracking cells out to the east. When they come to a fork in the road, he barely has to turn his head before she’s telling him which way to turn.
Kate doesn’t let the kiss - or lack thereof - distract her for too long. At least here, chasing the storm together, she knows the two of them are on the same page.
**
It ends up being a bust - the storm chokes itself out before they even get close. It feels like the clear blue skies ahead are mocking the two of them where they’ve pulled over on the side of the road, and Lily’s voice is tinny through the speaker on Tyler’s phone.
“Nothing else promising out there, Tyler. I think I’m going to head back, I was making good progress on fixing the rotor in the drone before this popped up. She’s going to be back to flying in no time, trust me.”
Tyler smiles, affection in his voice clear even though Lily can’t see him. Kate swoons, internally. She’s back to thinking about kissing.
“Sounds good, Lily. Sorry we ended up interrupting you with this.”
“No sweat, dude. See ya later - get home safe, Kate! Come see us again soon!”
Hanging up, Tyler turns to Kate, flashes a grin at her. “So what’s the damage on the flight?”
Kate checks her phone and sighs. “Delayed until 11pm tonight. Feel free to drop me back off if you’ve got things to do, I don’t want to keep you.”
Tyler’s grin widens. “Not much I’d rather be doing than spending time with you, Sapulpa. You hungry?”
Kate’s stomach swoops - loathe as she’d be to admit it, the nickname does something to her.
“What’d you have in mind?”
**
After a quick browse on his phone, Tyler drives them out to a diner that’s not too far away, gamely letting Kate fiddle with the radio in his truck until she lands on a station that she likes. The two of them spend the drive bickering about Kate’s lack of taste (Tyler’s words) and Tyler’s hatred of fun (Kate’s words), and are arguing about the pros and cons of Taylor Swift’s grip on the pop industry as Tyler swings into the lot.
Abruptly, he stops mid-sentence after putting the truck in park, and touches Kate’s wrist so briefly that she almost misses it. “Hang on, wait here.”
Kate watches Tyler with amusement as he rounds the front of the truck and opens the passenger side door for her, gesturing for her to exit. “What are you, my chauffeur? I can open my own doors.”
“A lady never opens her own doors, Kate.”
Rolling her eyes, she jumps out of the truck. “Right. So next time we’re in the middle of a life threatening storm and I need to get out of your truck, I’ll just wait for you to open my door for me, shall I?”
Tyler is undeterred, and there’s a tinge of smugness in his voice when he says, “Are you saying you’re going to be by my side for more chases, then?”
Kate opens her mouth to retort. Closes it, when no response forms, and settles on glaring at Tyler, who winks and gets the front door of the restaurant for her before she can open it herself.
**
Despite only having known Tyler for a week, Kate’s at ease with him in a way she hasn’t been with others in years. His just has this way, of drawing her into a conversation that makes her trust that he really wants to hear what she has to say - what had he said, the other day, in her mother’s front yard? If you love something, you’ll spend your whole life trying to understand it -
- so Kate opens up to him about her life before the EF5 when he asks. She tells him about how she had pulled her first all nighter to finish her 8th grade science project, and how her mom had cheered the loudest in the crowd when Kate won first place at the science fair that year. She tells him about how she, Praveen, and Javi had become inseparable during a brutal physics class in grad school, and how she and Addy had once been caught by her faculty advisor ripping apart diapers in an abandoned classroom to collect polyacrylate samples. With a surprising lack of tears, she even reminisces about how she and Jeb would wake up at the crack of dawn to chart out their chase routes together, and is touched by Tyler’s genuine interest and empathy for who she is, and the tragedy she’d gone through five years prior.
In return, she’s rewarded with a glimpse of the man behind the Tornado Wrangler. She peppers him with questions and learns about his family -
(Neither his mother or father fully understand how he makes a living off a YouTube channel, but are just relieved he’s not bullriding any longer. He has two sisters, one older and one younger - both of whom have him wrapped around their little fingers and regularly use that to their ruthless advantage.)
- and how he met his crew -
(Boone, hitchhiking on Route 6 seven years ago. Dani and Dexter, at a storm chasing convention in Nebraska. Lily had been trolling the Wranglers’ YouTube channel for a few months, making fun of his and Boone’s data collection methods in the comments of every video - they’d eventually issued a challenge to her on a live stream, not thinking she’d take it seriously - but she and her drone had showed up to their very next chase and she’d walked away with an offer to join their team.)
- and when she asks about what he’s hoping to achieve with his YouTube channel, he shrugs a shoulder and says, “The same thing you want to do with your fancy data modeling and grant money. The way I see it - helping people, that’s what we’re all put on this planet to do. Maybe my methods are unorthodox compared to yours, but if I’m spreading awareness of tornado safety while putting a smile on people’s faces, hey, it’s not a bad deal, right?”
He says it so easily, so simply, that Kate merely stares at him for a moment, wondering how she could have possibly been so wrong about him, the day they’d met. How she’d been convinced he was just some overgrown frat boy chasing storms for clicks and fame, when in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth.
A quieter, meaner voice in the back of her head says maybe she’s still misreading signals. After all, while the conversation’s been easy, it hasn’t exactly been flirty. He hasn’t said or done anything untoward - maybe I’m just so out of practice that I’m misinterpreting every look to mean more than it does -
Her thoughts are interrupted by a waitress, who stops by table to drop off the bill with a cheerful, “Whenever y’all are ready!”
Kate reaches for her bag on autopilot, but is stopped short when Tyler snatches the check off the table.
“Don’t even think about it, Sapulpa.”
Kate quirks an eyebrow at him. “Can’t we split it? Or honestly, I should get it - I’ve kept you occupied far longer than you probably bargained for today.”
“Absolutely not. I’m not in the habit of letting a lady foot the bill. It’s on me.”
“Again with the lady nonsense, really? This isn’t the 1800’s, Tyler. Your chivalry is appreciated, but entirely unnecessary.”
“Humor me, would you?” jokes Tyler, flagging down the waitress to pick up the card he’d put down.
After she leaves, Tyler takes a breath, seemingly steeling himself - and turns back to Kate. “How’s this - I won’t pick up the check - or open doors for you - unless we’re on a date. Fair?”
Kate’s gaze snaps up to his, and she notes, with relief, that the look is back on his face. Maybe not misreading signals, after all.
“Is that what this was? A date?”
“Come on, Sapulpa. I don’t go around causing property damage and buying cheeseburgers for just anyone.”
“No? Who makes the cut?”
“Someone who I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since the moment I met her.”
Kate feels the heat rise to her cheeks alarmingly fast. Hearing him say it out loud so bluntly is a lot to process.
“ God, Tyler. You can’t just…” At a loss for words, she drops her gaze, focusing on a smudged napkin carelessly discarded on the table.
Tyler doesn’t falter, reaching across the table for her hand, twining his fingers with hers and waiting until she looks back up at him before he continues.
“Can’t what? Admit that I’ve liked you since the moment I saw you pull that dandelion from the ground at that gas station out in Fairview? That I think you’re the bravest, craziest, most amazing person I’ve ever met, going through what you did five years ago and still being strong enough to chase storms again?”
“What are you- how can you- we’ve hardly known one another for a week!”
“And yet, I’m finding that I want to know everything there is to know about you, Kate. Why do you think I followed you to the airport, today?”
Kate’s sure she resembles a tomato at this point - hearing what Tyler’s saying is equal parts gratifying and mortifying, and feelings have never been her strongest point, so she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
“If you like me so much, why - why didn’t you kiss me?”
Tyler blinks in surprise - and even though her mind is screaming at her to shut the fuck up , she barrels on.
“If you like me so much, you’ve got a funny way of showing it, Tyler Owens. Who chases after a girl in an airport just to not kiss them?”
And then, to add insult to injury, Tyler throws his head back and laughs , as if Kate’s outburst confirmed something he’d been wondering all along. She nearly snatches her hand out of his in her embarrassment, but he squeezes it before she can, tugging her along her side of the booth so she’s forced to scoot closer to the corner where he’s sitting, utterly relaxed.
“Come now, Sapulpa,” Tyler drawls. “I don’t know what bad manners you’ve picked up in the city, but my mom and sisters raised me right. Here in the South, we state our intentions before moving in on a woman. Then wine and dine them a little bit, take them on a romantic drive to stargaze in the night, and then , if we’re lucky, we get a good night kiss. There’s an order to these things, where I’m from.”
Kate scoffs. “Your intentions? Who even are you? What, are you going to ask my mom for her blessing before our next date?”
Tyler’s grin widens, if that’s even possible. “If that’s what it takes to get a second date, I’ll drive us both there right now.”
Kate’s pout quirks into a smile despite herself - his southern gentleman schtick is stupidly charming. “You don’t have to try so hard. I’ll go on a second date with you, when I’m back in Oklahoma.”
She’d known deep down, when she’d been sitting in the barn poring over her old grad school work a few days ago, that her New York chapter was coming to an end. But sitting here, with Tyler, is the first time she’s had the guts to say it out loud - to admit that the place that had once caused her the most pain was also the place slowly sewing her heart back together.
Tyler’s responding smile is so bright that it feels like she’s staring into the sun. “Really?”
“Really,” Kate says, looking to where their hands are still joined together, and turning his palm over in hers. “I’m going back to try and land this grant, but Oklahoma has its perks, you know.” She counts off, on his fingers.
“One, my mom’s here. Two, Javi’s here. Three, all my old research is here, and I need it to keep improving the model. Four, there aren’t really any tornadoes in New York for field research. And five…”
She looks back up at Tyler, who looks back at her expectantly.
“… five, the barbecue’s better in the South.”
Tyler barks out a laugh, “I was right. You’re a brat with bad manners.”
Kate shrugs, but keeps his hand in hers. “Seems like you’ve got more than enough manners for the both of us, cowboy.”
**
The sun has just set when the two of them leave the diner hand in hand, reveling in the peace and quiet of the warm summer night. Kate laughs when Tyler bounds ahead to get the passenger side door of his truck for her, bowing as he says, “Your chariot awaits, my lady.”
She’s hopped into the seat and waits for the door to shut, but turns sideways when it stays open, to see Tyler considering her, a peculiar look on his face.
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“No, I…,” he pauses, as if debating whether to continue.
“What?!” Kate exclaims, as she turns to face him more fully. “Spit it out.”
Tyler scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, before saying, “Just debating on whether I really should embarrass myself tonight.”
Kate gives him an unimpressed look and wordlessly opens the glovebox, where a number of his autographed pictures spill out onto the floor. “Nothing you say to me is more embarrassing than these.”
He snorts and steps closer, planting an arm on either side of her legs. She’s getting a boost from the height of the truck, so they’re nearly eye to eye. All of a sudden, the closeness registers, and Kate’s heart speeds up.
Tyler speaks. “I want it on the record that I, uh… I did want to kiss you, at the airport.”
Kate’s heart thumps even faster. “So, why didn’t you?”
“Because I knew if I took one step closer to you, I’d have been on my knees, begging you to stay. God, of course I wanted to kiss you, Kate - I want everything with you. I meant what I said - I’ve never met anyone like you, and the thought of you going back to New York without knowing that I’d wait for you as long as you needed me to was killing me. I couldn’t kiss you without knowing whether you felt the same way.”
Kate’s pretty sure her heart has beat its way out of her chest - as romantic confessions go, she’s never heard a better one. And he’s been so unguarded with her tonight, that he deserves to know how she feels, too.
So she shifts even closer, takes one of Tyler’s hands and starts to count off on his fingers, the same way she had done moments ago in the diner. “You said there’s an order to these things, right? Let’s see if I’m tracking correctly - “
She pinches his thumb. “One, you stated your intentions. Heard you loud and clear on that one, cowboy - and you already know I’m coming back for that second date, so I think you know how I feel.”
Then his pointer finger. “Two, wining and dining, was it? I think a cheeseburger and a Cherry Coke fits that bill quite nicely, especially since you didn’t let me pay for it.”
Tyler opens his mouth to interrupt, but Kate is on a roll, and she taps his middle finger. “Three, a nice romantic drive - we’ve taken a few of those together, haven’t we? Pesky storms and all? Let’s call that one done.”
Then his ring finger. “Four, a little stargazing - we’re doing that now, right? Nice summer night, no light pollution from skyscrapers out here in the country - I can see the stars just fine.”
Finally, she links her pinky finger with his, looking into his smiling eyes. “Seems like we’ve checked off everything on your list, so if you’re feeling lucky…”
It’s all the permission Tyler needs, and the last thing Kate thinks to herself is finally! as he leans in and lets his lips slide over hers - once, twice, three times. He kisses like he’s got all the time in the world - slow and luxurious, as one arm comes around her waist to pull her closer towards him - she can feel his heart thundering against her chest, and hopes he can feel hers too.
He groans low in his throat when her mouth opens under his, when the kiss turns from slow to hot and wet and more, more, more -
It takes physical effort for Kate to pull away, panting. Even in the dusky light, she can see Tyler’s eyes blown wide with desire, and she wishes she weren’t about to hop on a plane and go to a city thousands of miles away, where the only way to see him is through a computer screen. His hair is sticking up at the nape of his neck where she’d run her fingers through it, and she has a sudden, mad desire to see what it looks like after a night of sweaty sex. Reign it in, Kate, she thinks to herself.
Tyler clears his throat, and Kate just knows she wasn’t alone in her train of thought - she can read him like a book. He brushes a strand of hair away from Kate’s face before checking the his phone for the time. “We should probably head back.”
Kate hums in agreement, and gives him a peck on the lips before he’s shutting her door, and rounding the front of the truck to jump into the driver’s seat.
As he turns the key in the ignition, he asks, “No way for me to convince you to miss your flight, is there?”
Kate gasps, dramatically putting a hand to her chest and letting her accent thicken. “Sir, I assure you that I’m too well bred to put out on the first date! Where are your manners?”
Chuckling, Tyler reverses out of the parking lot, turning onto an empty road where all that’s visible for miles is the starry night and stars that are twinkling as brightly as his eyes. “Touché, Sapulpa. But now that I’ve got your permission, trust me - you’re getting that kiss goodbye at the airport.”
Kate smiles, reaching for his hand where it sits on the center console, tangling her fingers with his. “Well, if you insist.”
(And he does.)