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#anyways I love twisters
urjustaguyonahorse · 1 month
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you KNOW cathy was so glad when kate came back home after all that time no matter how broken she was but she also must have been so so so unbelievably relieved as a mother to see that kate was opening up to others again and she had people taking care of her. like obviously part of her making tyler stay for dinner and giving him the guest room was typical mom scheming because why would you let a guy like that slip through your daughters fingers? but also, she watched her daughter lose three of her best friends and push everybody else away as a coping mechanism and there's no way she wasn't so comforted by the sight of somebody coming her her aid when she obviously didn't ask for it and staying for her even when it was an awkward situation to say the least. i just know she would love the rest of the wranglers and let them set up base there whenever. she would love having javi back and cooking them all bbq while they play poker in her living room after a long day. she'd let them redo the barn and put bedrooms in the loft and not bat an eye if any of them moved in more permanently in the off season. she would love boone's help with the animals and dani's help with the machinery. she would let dexter move a whole library into the loft "as light reading when we stay" and let lilly spread new t-shirt design ideas across her whole kitchen and give her feedback while she's deciding. she'd love tyler like a son (in law cause she's still a schemer after all) and tease him when she wears his t-shirt and he'd unclog the sink drain like a man. she'd love javi like a (more favorite) son and the guest bedroom in the house would be permanently his and they'd watch house md together. i just feel like a safe place to come back to that's filled with laughter and home cooked food would be exactly what kate and all of them would need to heal and carry on. and knowing kate's in good hands with good people who love her and let her be in their lives would be exactly what cathy needs as a mother who lost her daughter once.
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andoutofharm · 2 months
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their collective bisexual slay is off the charts and their 1 million subscribers on youtube know it
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stevethehairington · 2 months
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okay so it wouldn't be like a DIRECT au of it, just like a heavily inspired by, but BUDDIE TWISTER/TWISTERS AU:
so. buck is a storm chaser. he's got his team, him and a few others, and then abby, his girlfriend. they're working on trying to find a way to tame a twister — to get it to stop before it can start enough to do it's damage. they think they've finally got it, only when they go to put it into test there is a horrible accident and buck loses the whole team, except abby. the two of them are the only survivors. and it is DEVASTATING, but buck is like at least abby and i can lean on each other in our grief, we can get through this together. only abby quits. she quits stormchasing then and there and she leaves, just disappears, leaving buck alone with his grief. (if we want to be Extra Angsty, perhaps she even leaves with some sort of comment that implies she blames him for what happened).
so buck quits too — only it's not a permanent quit, of course. his sisters boyfriend, chimney, is a stormchaser, and when bucks home visiting maddie one day, chimney is there and he's talking about his teams plan (maybe his team was also after the same sort of twister tamer thing — maybe even based off of bucks teams initial research) and he's asking buck about it and buck hasn't thought about this stuff in a while (lies; he's thought about that incident every day since it happened.) but like enough time has passed that talking about it with someone else who's enthusiastic about the research rather than just interested in the tragedy of it all, starts to excite him a little too. and chimney tells him he should come with, when he and his team head out in a week. and after some Thinking and some encouragement from maddie, buck agrees and goes with chimney.
and so buck joins the 118 — consisting of chimney and hen and bobby (and maybe ravi too bc i love ravi okay). and it's good. they're a great team, brilliant, and they're all about helping people too. like, yes, their research is important to them, and they're fighting tooth and nail to achieve their goal, but they're put that on pause if there's even a chance for them to go help people evacuate or find shelter or clean up in the aftermath — and that's something buck really loves about the team. bc that's all he wants to do, help people. so buck fits right in with them and it's. it's fun, again. he did miss this.
and, of course, the 118 has a riiiiiival team — another group of stormchasers who are ALSO trying to find a way to stop the twisters before they can do their damage. they're both close, so it's kind of like a competition between them, which team will capture success first? but this team (not really sure who it'll consist of yet) but im undecided on if eddie would be the leader of the group or if he's just a team member, but. eddie dia,z with his sweeeeet texan twang, and his big cowboy hat and his flashy belt buckles and his charm, he's there. and their team is popular in the stormchasing world, and everyone's eyes are on them too.
but like it's always those two — the 118 and eddies team — at the forefront of it all, they're always chasing the same storms.
and both teams are on the cusp of a big storm, but the 118 catch wind that there's a small town in the path of this one, and they decide instead of following the twisters they're going to head to the town to help the people there. and they end up veering off the path and eddie notices and then HE finds out about the town and he tells his team they need to go help too but his team is like dude NO we gotta get to the twister, the 118 are gone so this is our chance to be the ones to test our tornado tamer solution, WE could beat them. and like eddies team has clearly lost the whole point of all of this — to save people. but HE hasn't, so he goes rogue and he heads to the town instead, where he finds the 118 and they're a bit wary of him at first bc it feels out of character for someone from his team to be here doing this rather than chasing the storm, but at this point im thinking buck and eddie have already had some conversations (MAYBE eddie has actually saved buck once already too so like that trust between them is already built) and buck just immediately starts shouting instructions and eddie falls into line with them and the two of them work flawlessly together and the rest of the 118 is like yeah okay he's good people and they welcome him in too.
and maybe eddies team runs into trouble too and eddie catches wind of it (he's still connected to their radios maybe?) and he's like fuck we gotta help them too so he and buck break off to go help that team (bc even if they're the 118's rivals and even if they're on the verge of the breakthrough the 118 has been chasing too, that doesn't matter rn. what matters is saving as many lives as possible) so the two of them break off to go help and they DO but eddies teams solution DOESNT work, but they took the 118's truck that was loaded with THEIR solution so buck and eddie let that loose and THAT DOES end up working and so buck and eddie save eddies team AND the town AND each other.
and, OF COURSE, through all of that buck and eddie fall in love, and in the end eddie ends up joining buck's team, and they chase storms together, and when they have bad days, when they have close calls, they're there for each other and they're not going anywhere, and they ALWAYS have each other's backs <3
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jeremydaviesarchive · 3 months
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the jeremovie post
here are all the films starring jeremy davies I've seen thus far, with a little description and why or why not you may want to watch them.
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caramelmochacrow · 6 months
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"You're so 'lovely' when you're blushing."
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bluektw · 28 days
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Having just watched Twister (yep, the old one, but I watched Twisters too, some weeks ago) my only thought is: My new backup plan if everything in my life goes wrong is to go chase Tornados.
It was such a fun movie. Twisters is too, both are really entertaining and I like how none of them drag the ""love triangles"". The action is 10/10, I loved every minute of both movies and I can't wait to watch twisters again either in the movie theater again or when it comes to streaming.
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creekbed-burial · 2 months
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Damn this Twisters promo is CRAZY
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hangmanbradshaw · 7 months
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This but it's Jake on the ranch fucking around during a photoshoot that Nat set up to show off his cowboy side and Bradley is just watching him with heart eyes
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Jake intentionally being a little shit all day and driving Bradley crazy because he knows EXACTLY what that's gonna earn him that night when they're back at the nearby cabin they rented. At the end of the shoot it's like:
Jake: Ready to go?
Bradley: Yeah, I'm starving. Thinking I'll make us some chicken alfredo tonight.
Jake: Sounds like music to my ears
*they start to leave, jake starts to put the hat up with wardrobe*
Bradley: Oh no, keep the hat.
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banqanas · 1 day
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I’ve been thinking about this picture for hours now like.
Nacchan Keito looks so intimate its almost embarrassing to look at
(Not to mention keito’s pose!!!!!!!!!)
Meanwhile the four members at the back doesnt even give two shits about whats going on in front of them like.
CL Twitter
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tina-snow · 2 months
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wait twisters is so fun omg
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urjustaguyonahorse · 2 months
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I really adore the casually prioritized importance of friendships in the new Twisters movie. Like obviously there were sparks of romance that i thoroughly enjoyed but the point is that that was never the point. The way that Javi and Kate took care of each other and looked out for each other even when they were fighting. The way the whole tornado wranglers crew acted like family and welcomed Kate right in. The way Tyler was genuinely interested in getting to know Kate and working together with her. There was no big fight between Javi and Tyler over Kate or anybody else. Kate spent the whole movie processing a lot of trauma and was able to be supported by the friends surrounding her instead of having all of her interactions stopped up with an intense budding romance. I just really love it when friendship and people are the most important things.
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bitterlyromantic · 2 years
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the 2 guys who r arguing about the maps in the beginning of twister have GOT to be gay
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bunnyb34r · 1 month
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Well I WAS gonna make gravy since I'm AWAKE but uh... I think I'll wait til 5 like I originally planned 😰
#Its starting to thunder... im scared#my tornado superstition was right i was planning on seeing twisters (again) with mom if she came home early and that was enough to summon it#im kidding obviously but AUGH#everytime theres a storm or rain i have to explain to mom how i can read the maps and it always baffles me thst some people cant like green#is good (light rain) and it gets worse from there yellow to red to PURPLE WHICH IS VERY BAD sand same with snow but that one i do get#being more difficult to read bc it's less intuitive#i really find weather fascinating and i would love to be a meteorologist but god i hate math and theres math there... a lot of it#one time i went to a science museum with my aunt and cousins and we got to pretend to do a weather forcast and god is it hard to#do solely bc you have to move in reverse of what you see on screen to point and shit#ANYWAYS im gonna scream now#one time there was a tornado warning and i bundled bean and my stuffed cat in my blanket and tied them up like a bundle and was texting my#friend like 'im ready 😰' sgdggdgdgd by ready i meant to run not for the storm in general shhdhdhdhdhdh#my biggest fear rn is the crab tank bc i cant MOVE IT and i think theyd be safer in the tank at least less stressed but im scared still#and im huuuungry 😭 i wanna eat dinner but i gotta finish it but im scared to start something#also they think there might be a tornado forming on the lake 😬😬😬😬 dont like that shit#i am not close to it but i mean that thats scary to look at on tv#marquilla
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unironicironic · 4 months
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Yknow
It's kinda ironic in a way that a new Twisters trailer dropped today, with there being a pretty gnarly outbreak
And how lovely it is that my neck of the woods is under a high chance of getting really nasty stuff, already got a tornado warning 🥲👌
Been having a bad feeling just about all day so I guess it's justified
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sehnsuchts-trunken · 2 months
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(Don't You) Steal My Thunder
my tyler owens playlist 🤝 inspiring fic titles
Tyler Owens x fem!reader  7k words
summary: Tyler Owens is the most annoying man you've ever met. But he's set on getting you on his good side. And the more you get to know him, the less you can resist.
a/n: i had to research sm car stuff for this it's not funny. i now know exactly how to describe a truck bed though, so. that's fun.
again, my inbox is wide open <33 i don't guarantee anything, but you can always come talk to me or request smth
masterlist | twisters masterlist
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Tyler Owens is the most annoying man you've ever met.
He prints his face on t-shirts, writes his autograph on mugs, comes up with ridiculous sayings ("Not My First Tornadeo" and "If you feel it, chase it" are really just the tip of the ice berg) and most importantly, he costs you the best shots of tornadoes every goddamn time.
Tyler Owens is a problem.
And Tyler Owens seems to have actively decided to make himself a problem too.
Which would be fine, if he flipped you the bird or told you to fuck off or threw his paper towels at you. Unluckily, those are rather examples of what you have done to him. Because it's not fine, not at all - no, Tyler Owens has decided that it's not enough to be in your way all the time, he has to seek you out and rub your nose in it.
Tyler Owens is the most annoying man you've ever met. He's cocky and he's arrogant and he's entirely too full of himself. He brags too much and calls you "weather girl" too often. He gets under your skin more than you would ever admit.
And, as if all of that isn't enough - Tyler Owens is the very epitome of handsomeness.
It's like god didn't just have a good day when he created Tyler Owens, no, god must have still been in the post-haze of the best head he'd gotten in his whole immortal life when he'd created Tyler Owens.
Because Tyler Owens has the body of a greek god and the face of a Hollywood actor. He's not a pornstar, he's who pornstars worship. He's the Prince Charming little girls dream of and the Christian Grey grown women lust for.
Tyler Owens looks like everything you've ever wanted.
But he's just such a fucking asshole.
You wish you could say you didn't care. You'd love to be the kind of woman who didn't even acknowledge him. But you're not. You're not. You watch his videos when you can't sleep, you chuckle when you happen to overhear his jokes, you ogle his back when he's turned away from you. Sometimes, you get so lost in staring at him that you realise too late when he turns back around, and then you have to act unbothered when he grins his fucking grin at you. That's mostly when you flip him off, desperately fighting to ignore the heat in your cheeks.
Not like it stops him. You honestly feel like it only spurs him on.
Something has to seriously be wrong with him. It's not his face. But something is seriously wrong with him, you're sure of that.
Something has to be wrong with him. No sane person would ever go tornado wrangling. No hate to the rest of his crew - they're nice, you've managed to hold a few pretty normal conversations with them here and there - but none of them are sane either.
Storm chasing is different. You keep your distance. All you need are a few well-placed photographs - and those you can get from a rather safe number of miles away. The weather channel doesn't care about close-ups (not really, anyway). They want something to show the people on their comfortable couches, up in New Hampshire or Maine, so that all of them can say to each other "What poor folks, wouldn't wanna live there" and nod in pity as they switch the channel to watch another blockbuster.
You're just doing your job.
The only problem is that it's hard to do your job properly when there's always that fucking red truck in the way, driving down empty roads right into the heart of the tornado. And because no one on the news wants people to see that and go "Well, can't be too bad if there's still cars on the streets!", in the last few months - ever since you'd volunteered to move back to Oklahoma 'So that we've got someone right in Tornado Alley and don't have to fly people out there every time' - the weather channel has only shown the first few minutes of tornadoes forming. The rest of your pictures and videos lie abandoned in the trash file on your laptop. Except for a few - a very, very few, very, very good pictures of Tyler Owens and his Tornado Wranglers. But those won't ever see the light of day either.
You'd be damned if you let anyone know that while Tyler Owens is busy disturbing your actual work, you're busy taking pictures of him shooting fireworks into tornadoes. Pictures that would make for some damn good headers (if you hadn't buried them far, far down your gallery).
This time is no different. You get a few amazing shots of the tornado forming – surely an EF2, maybe even an EF3 - before you settle in the driver's seat again, your window rolled down and your camera hung around your neck as you push down on the gas. Then, a few miles further, you get even better shots of the full tornado, of the first few minutes of destruction, right there, in the middle of an empty field.
And as always, of course, just as the tornado takes on full form, you spot that familiar red truck through the lens of your camera. It speeds down the pavement right in front of where you’ve swerved onto the side of the road and you snap a few pictures, just because you’ve got the trigger right underneath your finger. Honestly, something about that dirty red paint against the grey skies just looks too good not to capture. But then the truck comes closer and closer and starts to slow down and you let your camera sink.
Tyler has his window rolled down already when he stops the car. There’s that annoyingly handsome grin on his lips, the one that makes you want to slap him across the face.
“You’re too far away, weather girl”, he calls out above the rumble of distant wind and thunder. “The good pictures are down that way.”
“The good pictures are right here.” You lift your camera at him. “Maybe you just need to update your equipment.”
Tyler’s grin widens, but before he can throw another of those obnoxious retorts your way, Lilly’s voice rings out through the car.
“Hey, T, looks like it’s changing course. You should hurry.”
His eyes are still glued to yours, still glued so firmly to yours that it makes your skin crawl. You can’t look away, couldn’t possibly look away. Tyler Owens might just be a cocky asshole, but you’re only human. And the weight of his gaze on yours is enough to keep you stuck in place, clutching at your camera.
“We’re on our way, Lilly”, he drawls without looking away from you. “See you around, weather girl.”
The rest of the pictures you take land in your trash file with all the other pictures of the last few weeks. You’re laying in bed, your laptop propped up against a pillow, the empty plate from dinner on the mattress next to you as you sort through today’s work. That’s the good thing about the time difference – you’ve got until seven to send the channel the day's results.
By nine, you’ve showered, put on a dress you feel confident in and settled on one of the chairs at the local bar. You’ve been telling yourself you need to get out a little bit more – you’ve been living here three months now and you haven’t really made any friends so far. To be fair, your job has kept you out and about most of the time. You’ve spent more hours at gas stations to fill up your tank than you have in your own home. But now you’ve decided to put an end to that. You're a young woman in a new town, you can meet more people than just the cashier at the local supermarket.
So for the past twenty minutes, you’ve been nursing a mojito at the counter and talking to the bartender. She’s nice, she’s your age, she’s extroverted enough to keep sidling up to you after every time she has to excuse herself to do her job. That, and she tells you she’s grown up here, so she knows most of the people around. She’s just serving another customer – a long-haired, brown-eyed, hat-wearing country guy who’s already shared a smile or two with you – when someone rests their arm on the countertop next to you.
“Didn’t expect to see you here”, he drawls, all low, deep Southern accent and you recognise his voice before you’ve even tilted your head up and looked at him. His grin drips down onto his words and wraps itself around your mind.
Tyler Owens isn’t just annoying – he’s unbelievable. He's unbelievable and he’s here.
“So you’re stalking me now”, you say, as drily as you can possibly manage. You've been doing that a lot around him. Dead-panning everything. Schooling your expression into fake neutrality.
"I'm here all the time, weather girl", he grins. "If anything, you're stalking me."
You snort, but it's rather unfunny when you think of all the videos you've watched, hours after they'd been livestreamed, cuddled up in your bed until midnight just to stare at his face. He's not that far from the truth.
"In your dreams, Owens", you say anyway, dragging your eyes back towards your almost empty cocktail glass. You wrap your lips around your straw and drain your drink entirely. What you say and what you do, none of that matters in the end. All of this is just show. Every conversation you've had with Tyler Owens in the last three months has been nothing but a performance. Other than your name, you don't think a single sentence out of your mouth has been honest. Not when it comes to him.
"Let me buy you a beer" is the only answer you get.
His grin widens when you look back up again - so cocky, so unbelievably cocky.
"I don't drink."
You push your glass an inch further down the bar top. Tyler raises his eyebrows. Fuck, someone really needs to kick him in the face. You can't keep having all these little heart attacks whenever he's close enough that you could touch him if you wanted.
Not that you want to.
"You're drinking right now", he says. You rest your palms against the bar top and blink at him.
"I don't drink with you."
He lets out a chuckle, one of those deep ones that settle right in your chest and make it hard to swallow.
"Just this once?", he asks and in all honesty, for just a second there, you actually consider giving in. He's too handsome for his own good. You really need to get it together. He's an ass (what an ass, goddamn). And he's insane. He's an insane ass. Sometimes you have to remind yourself of that - those times like now, when his piercing eyes and his kissable lips and his rugged stubble and his broad, broad shoulders and his drawled voice overshadow everything else.
"Don't you have some livestreaming to do?", you ask, hoping it still comes across just as sarcastic when you're the slightest bit distracted by how gloriously tight the sleeves of his flannel are. "Go chasing tornadoes, not me."
His grin widens inexplicably further. You're sure that if you were in a comic, there'd be a lightbulb flashing above his head right about now.
"Well", he drawls, "if you feel it..."
"Don't you do that shit to me, Owens."
He's raising his eyebrows again, raising his eyebrows as you clasp your hand around your empty glass so hard your knuckles turn white. But you're serious. Just as you'd lost yourself in the view of him, that angelic, sinful view of him, he'd gone and reminded you why you were so adamant to keep your distance. If you feel it, chase it. Ridiculous. Obnoxious. He's an arrogant, know-it-all, suicidal job-wrecker. He's the guy with cameras pointed at him everywhere he goes. He signs mugs and selfies and hats and shirts and bras. He's the reason you haven't gotten a single un-edited shot of a fully formed tornado in the last three months.
"You're not a fan of my catchphrase, weather girl?"
He can't even pretend to look wounded (even though he tries) with how big the grin on his lips still is. You stare right at him, dead-eyed and unflinching.
"I'm not a fan of you."
Lies slip off your tongue so easily by now that you wonder when you'd become morally compromised enough to not even care anymore. It must've happened somewhere along the way, sometime between the first conversation you'd had with him and the one you're having with him right now.
"You wound me", he grins, his palm pressed to his chest.
For the first time tonight, you allow yourself to grin back at him.
"I try."
With that, you slip off your chair and wave the bartender goodbye. You're already two steps away when Tyler calls after you.
"I'd still buy you a beer."
"I'm still not drinking with you", you call back. You don't turn around again. You just make your way back to your car and mark the evening as a half-successful night of socialising on your to-do list.
...
You see him again first thing the next day. Of course. Because there's no tornadoes without the Tornado Wranglers on their tail. By now, you're used to it. You wave at Dani as they come back out of the store at the gas station you're waiting at. They've got both arms full of coffees and for a second, you consider offering your help, but then you hear Tyler shout something out of his car and you suddenly don't feel any desire whatsoever to get up. You've sat yourself down in your truck bed, your camera slung around your neck and the radar on your lap. If all goes right, you're hoping for a tornado to form a little to the east from here. And as much as you dislike Tyler Owens, the fact that he's here soothes your nerves. Where he goes, there's sure to be tornadoes close by.
The few times you hadn't seen him had never ended well for you. You'd missed an EF3 your second week here just because you'd followed the wrong hunch. Meanwhile Tyler, of course, had been in the middle of it.
This might just be the one singular situation that you welcome seeing his red truck around. As long as you can manage to overtake him on the road after.
It's not that you need to be faster. You don't need to reach the tornado first. You don't even take the same way as him most of the time. He wants in there, you just want a sensible picture. Still, you can't help but feel a pang of disappointment every time you hit the brakes and jump out of your car, miles away from the actual cell as Tyler speeds down towards it. You've been telling yourself that it's because he ruins your pictures. It kind of is.
"Hey, weather girl!"
You let out a resigned breath as you tilt your head up and squint against the sun. He's still in his truck, his window rolled down, his elbow propped up against the car door.
"What do you want, Owens?"
Your fingers itch to reach for your camera. It's a visual, him in that fucking car, leaning out of his window with the sun peaking out behind him. But you can't, you can't take a picture of him this openly. Even if you were to argue that it's just the light you'd wanted to capture.
"To give you some advice", he calls out, his lips pulling into a grin. You raise your eyebrows at him. "East isn't gonna work out. Wind's changing. Go south."
He throws you a mock salute and hits the gas before you can say anything else.
Not that you'd been about to.
Instead you just curse to yourself, jump off the truck bed and throw your treacherous technology into the passenger seat with a little too much vigor. Fuck this. You sit at the steering wheel and stare out at the sky for exactly two seconds before you make your decision. Then you start your car and drive south.
You may not be a fan of Tyler Owens, but you've long since admitted to yourself that this man has got a gift. He has an unbeatable instinct when it comes to storms. And sure, you have your fair share of knowledge, but in the end, you're a photographer, not a meteorologist. You won't miss a day's work just because you're too proud to listen to Tyler.
You're a little further behind, but you can spot his truck and guess that he's driving straight on into the cell today, so you take a right and decide to try your luck with the side of the tornado. Not being right in its path doesn't sound too bad anyway.
You actually manage to snap a few well-placed pictures. You don't know what Tyler's doing, but it seems like he's not shooting random shit up the cell today. You'll watch the stream later - you're just the slightest bit curious now what's happening with them. Maybe they're doing some old-school chasing? Or maybe they're doing a challenge. Maybe Tyler is driving blindfolded. At this point, who knows.
It's good for you though. It's a considerable tornado today, an EF2 at least, and you only spot Tyler's red truck again when the cell moves further down the fields, away from him. It doesn't look like it's gonna disappear anytime soon. Maybe today's your lucky day.
Half an hour later, you're sure you've got at least a dozen pictures of the fully formed tornado, long touched down and without the red truck in the way.
You're just packing up your things, already sifting through the photos on your camera, squinting against the sunlight, trying to both tug the zipper of your bag closed and hit the right buttons at the same time when Tyler pulls up next to you.
"You look busy, weather girl", he says, already grinning that damn grin again.
"I am", you say - truthfully, for once. You let go of your bag and lower your camera. You're hesitant, but... "Thanks for the tip."
"Anytime", he grins. "Just do me one favour."
You already know this can't be good. Not with that cheeky look on his face. But he'd just saved you from chasing hot air (quite literally), so he deserves a little treat. And you don't want unsettled scores with Tyler Owens.
"I want to know what favour that's supposed to be before I agree", you say anyway, because with him, you can never be too careful. And in the end, you're only willing to do so much. (Though for him, you'd already do a lot more than you'd admit. A lot more than you hope he's aware of.)
"Let me buy you a beer", he says, and for once, he sounds serious.
The memory of yesterday night flashes before your eyes, of those same words at the bar. With him so close, way too close - with that grin and that stubble and that voice and those shoulders. You cross your arms and stare at him.
"If you're livestreaming this, I'm gonna sue your ass so hard."
He just lets out a chuckle and raises his hands in surrender.
"Cameras are off, I swear."
You stare at him for another silent ten or so seconds. At him in that fucking truck that looks just a little too good in your pictures. At him and his fucking face. That fucking face that you certainly wouldn't mind sitting on, if just to shut him up.
God, he's asking you to drink something with him. He's asking to buy you something to drink with him. You're stupid.
You're so, so stupid.
"Alright, cowboy", you say, uncrossing your arms and reaching for the handle of your car door. "I'll humour you."
...
You're in the bar again by nine that night, the same way you had been the day before. You're wearing a different dress and there's a different bartender, but you've ordered the same mojito and chosen the same place to sit.
Only this time, you're actively watching the door. And when Tyler strolls in, you've got to shift around in your seat and cross your legs. You don't even pretend you're not staring. You just ogle him openly. Not for the first time ever - you'd checked him out very obviously when he'd strutted towards you to introduce himself three months ago - but definitely for the first time in a while. And god yeah, he's a hunk of a man, alright. If you had your camera here right now...
But you don't. So instead, you drop your eyes to his feet (brown leather boots), drag them up his legs (blue jeans), over his chest (red checkered flannel), over his face (god, what you wouldn't give-) and finally rest them on the cowboy hat on top of his head.
When he's close enough to hear you, already grinning, of course, probably at how you're actually sitting there in the same spot as yesterday and hadn't just lied to his face about coming here, you raise your eyebrows at him.
"A cowboy hat?", you ask, your voice as unbothered as you can possibly manage (even though you're very, very, very much bothered right now). His grin only widens.
"Ladies love country boys", he drawls with a shrug.
"Now that's straight out of a song", you say. "You're getting lazy, Owens."
"A song?", he asks. "No, that's an Owens Original."
You pull your eyebrows even further up.
"Ladies love country boys? Trace Adkins?"
"Nope. Not familiar."
But his grin tells you that he's lying. He's a liar. He knows very well where he got that line from. And he knows just how easily he got under your skin with his simple trick. As if his face isn't enough already.
You just shake your head and turn away from him.
"Put your money where your mouth is, Owens. Buy me a beer."
...
Tyler Owens is the most annoying man you've ever met. But he's also a great conversationalist.
The hours fly by as you're talking. One beer turns into two, then into an uncountable number of soft drinks. You both agree that you need to drive home, neither of you is willing to risk a run-in with the police. You need your drivers license for your jobs.
Tyler talks to you about the pictures you've taken today, then about the pictures from last week. He laughs when you blame him for ruining half of them and almost spits out his coke when you slap his arm for laughing at you. He tells you about his crew, about the people they've helped with the money from their dumb t-shirt sales. You think you hate him less by the minute. You're not sure if you're okay with that. But he gets you talking about your childhood and your parents, about school and college and about how you've wound back up here in Oklahoma. That effectively distracts you.
That, and how his cocky grin morphs into a genuine smile the more you open up.
Not that you didn't love the cocky grin. You did, just a bit. As obnoxious as it was. But the way he smiles at you all sweet has you melting right in your spot.
It's not the first time you realise that beneath all that rough exterior, there beats a heart of gold. You've known what those t-shirt sales are for, that he offers food and water after a tornado hits a town, that he carries the injured out of the ruins of their houses and helps find lost dogs. The more you've been around him in the past weeks, the more you've seen of his soft side. Of the way he cares and supports. But in the end, it always is easier to go back to the status quo - to fall back onto mindless snark and fleeting first impressions.
You'd clung so desperately to the image of him as this arrogant, smug, holier-than-thou influencer god for the sole purpose of keeping your own sanity. Because you'd known that without despising him, you would fall head over heels for Tyler Owens, and you just couldn't have that.
But now, with his arm brushing against yours and his hat discarded on the bar top and his smile, that beautiful, beautiful smile on his lips...
"Five bucks", he drawls, already reaching for his wallet.
"What?"
"Five bucks says there won't be a tornado tomorrow."
You raise your eyebrows at him, your glass hovering in mid-air between the two of you. You'd meant to take a sip, but now you're setting it right back down on the bar top.
"You're shitting me."
Tyler just shakes his head. He's grinning again, but it's much softer this time around.
"The winds are looking great. The forecast says it's gonna be the best conditions for tornadoes we've seen in the last six weeks. I've heard Dexter talk about how we're probably gonna see an EF4 tomorrow", you tell him, even though you're sure he's well aware of all of it. This is Tyler Owens, for god's sake. He knows about the winds and the forecasts. He knows that his crew is making preparations already.
His grin only grows. And it's smug now. It's cocky now. It's everything you thought you'd left behind during this conversation. He looks like the Tornado Wrangler again, like the guy who fucks up your pictures and makes your job harder than it already is.
It takes you a second too long to realise why.
"Dexter said that on our live", he grins, as if he can't quite believe what he's hearing. You physically recoil from him. "Do you watch our streams, weather girl?"
"No", you breathe, rigid and frozen, shocked to your very core. No, no, no, no, this cannot be happening. This cannot be happening. You'd... You hadn't made that mistake. He hadn't got you to make that mistake.
"Dexter talked about tomorrow on our live", Tyler says again, straightening his back and grinning down at you like he's just uncovered the lost grave of Cleopatra. "Only on the live. You watched our stream."
"No", you mutter, your eyes wide and your mouth dry, so dry. You need to drink. You need to drink so badly. "No, I didn't."
"Yes, you did. You watched our stream, honey."
The petname runs down your spine and clogs your senses. Honey. Oh, he's an ass, he's an asshole! But you're on the spot, you're on the spot and he's calling you honey, honey, honey. You can't do anything but watch as he leans closer to you, grinning down at you like it's his one true purpose on this earth, like he wants to eat you alive.
"I'd say you watch our streams pretty regularly, weather girl."
You swallow hard and clasp your hand around your glass.
"Yeah?", you breathe, hoping against all hope that your voice sounds somewhat innocent. You're sure it doesn't. You know it doesn't. You probably sound as guilty as you are, but... Hope dies last. Hope always dies last. "Why would you say that?"
"Just a hunch." He shows off those pearly fucking whites for you. "Call it an instinct. I'm usually right."
He is.
He's right now. He's right usually.
Him and his fucking instinct. His goddamn gut feeling about tornadoes, always right all the fucking time. He's like an Oklahoma Jesus. The first coming of Tornado Christ.
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
"I'll take your bet." You drain your glass at once. "Give me your five bucks, Owens."
You don't think it'll work. You don't think he'll let you distract him. You don't think it'll be this easy to stop his vile teasing. He's not the type of guy to let something go. He's not the type of guy to let anything go ever. But he looks at you and he grins at you and he trails his eyes over your face and then he opens up his wallet and pulls out five dollars without another word.
He puts the bill flat on the bar top.
But when you go to reach for it, he pushes his fingers down.
"The price just went up", he says.
You raise your eyebrows and let your hand sink again. Tyler is absolutely unpredictable. You should've known.
"The price just went up?", you repeat. He nods. "What more do you want to bet?"
He's closer now, closer all of a sudden. He's too close, close enough to make your breath hitch. He's looking down at you with that cocky, cheeky grin, with his weirdly green eyes, with his three day stubble and his generally much too symmetrical face. You can't do anything but look back up at him.
"A kiss", he says. Simple as that.
A kiss.
Tyler Owens is the most annoying man you've ever met. He is. Truly. He's annoying and way too full of himself and much too presumptuous. Tyler Owens is the only man who would ever do something like this. The only man who'd bet a kiss on whether or not there will be tornadoes tomorrow.
Especially with that forecast.
The one that says a tornado is basically inevitable.
"Alright", you say. He may be Tyler Owens, the guy with an infallible instinct - but he is also Tyler Owens, the guy who's been doing his hardest to get under your skin. This time might not be any different. For all you know, he's bluffing to rile you up. "I'm in."
...
At eleven the next day, you're standing next to Dexter in resigned silence.
"I really thought today was gonna pan out", you mutter.
"It should have", Dexter frowns, tapping against the screen in his hands. "It should have worked out. The conditions should have been perfect. Everything's been building the last few days."
"But it collapsed this morning."
You turn your head and watch as Tyler comes to a stand next to you, arms crossed, eyes locked on the clear sky up above. He tilts his head to you and grins. Fuck, he's wearing his goddamn hat again. It's like he doesn't even try to be normal.
"Hey, weather girl", he greets. "Ready to cash out your bet?"
You shake your head at him. No, you're not giving up this easily. You never give up this easily.
"The day's not over yet, Owens. You haven't won 'til midnight."
...
You spend most of the next hours sitting in your truck bed, reading a book you'd thrown into your backseat weeks ago and had so far neglected. Lilly hands you lunch around two, Dani offers you a coffee around five and Boone pipes up here and there to joke about the wasted day. Around six, Dexter comes by to let you know they're calling it.
You still have another hour to go. By seven, it'll be too late to send your pictures anyway. But you want the hour. You need the hour.
You still haven't decided what to do about Tyler. About Tyler and his fucking bet.
He's been loitering the whole day, walking by, joking around with his crew, livestreaming a spontaneous q&a just because.
And the more minutes tick by, the harder it is to keep ignoring that you've most definitely lost the bet. Even though you do your best. You read, you check your phone. You stare at your radar. You stare at the weather forecast. You talk to Dexter and Dani and Lilly and Boone. You take a few pictures of the sky. Then you take a few pictures of Tyler, standing some feet away from his truck and looking out at the clouds.
It's only when two of three Tornado Wranglers cars are disappearing down the road, when Tyler Owens suddenly stands in front of your truck bed, that you put down your book and face reality.
"No tornadoes in sight", he says, instead of 'Hello' or 'How are you' like any other person would.
"There's still six hours left", you reason. Even if only one of those is relevant for your job today.
"You really want to wait out six hours to prove I'm right?"
"You're not right", you argue. It's fruitless, it's stupid, it's unreasonable. But... "Not yet, anyway."
Tyler raises his eyebrows at you, lets out an amused chuckle and leans against the side of your truck bed.
"Alright, so we wait."
You eye him from the side. He's fucking leaning against your truck, staring out at the sky, talking about six hours. Goddamn. He can't be serious, can he? His crew is already gone. They've disappeared into the descending sun and he's talking about waiting another six hours. Leaned against your car.
"Fuck's sake, Owens", you sigh, scooching over to the right. "At least sit down then."
You don't talk much at first. You just open your book back up again and try your hardest to ignore that he's even here at all, barely two feet away from you on the other side of your truck bed. If you stretched your leg, you'd hit him right in the hip.
It makes reading close to impossible.
Even though he's not doing anything at all. He's just sitting there, one arm propped up on the side board, that goddamn cowboy hat on his head and his feet hanging off the opened tailgate. It's almost worse that he's not doing anything.
That he's just sitting there and watching the sky change.
You give up on reading entirely when you realise that you've finished exactly five pages in half an hour. Instead, you put your book back in the car, pull out your bluetooth speaker and two water bottles and offer Tyler one of them.
You don't even ask him what music he wants to listen to. You just put on your country playlist and roll with it. By the twitch of his lips, you know he certainly doesn't mind.
Another half hour later, it's starting to get chilly and you're beginning to grow bored of the music. Tyler sitting next to you makes you fidgety, somehow, and you can't really enjoy the songs you usually love so much. So you switch to a podcast. You don't ask Tyler if he minds. He's free to go anytime.
Around eight, the sun starts to set, and the chill turns into an unpleasant cool. You hadn't really expected to be sitting out here so long. You're not prepared for the temperature to drop. You're wearing shorts, for god's sake, shorts and a top. It's summer in Oklahoma - you don't know how Tyler even manages to survive in his long jeans. You certainly wouldn't.
But now you're a little jealous, to be honest. He doesn't look cold in the slightest while you're fighting off shivers. You can feel your hands trembling already.
You really should've brought a jacket. But who brings jackets in 30 degree summer weather?
So instead, you just resign yourself to your fate and rub your hands along your arms. Anything to get some warmth into your body.
For the first time since you've sat back down, Tyler turns his head and looks at you.
"You're cold", he says, eyes raking over your arms and the goosebumps you'd gotten.
"Great observational skills, Sherlock Holmes", you deadpan, even though he doesn't really deserve that. He had so far left you pretty much alone. "A+ on that assignment."
Well, it's hard to break bad habits.
Tyler just chuckles, shakes his head and pushes off of the truck bed. You watch, eyes narrowed, as he walks back to his own car, opens up the trunk and- pulls out a blanket?
Your hands have sunken down to your lap all by themselves by the time he's standing in front of you again, holding out the blanket.
"For you, Watson", he grins as you slowly, carefully take the blanket from him. You mutter something along the lines of a soft 'Thank you' before you wrap the blanket around your arms.
Tyler Owens is the most annoying man you've ever met. But he's also the very definition of "Tough on the outside, soft on the inside". Sometimes, you think the word 'angelic' works for more than just his divine looks.
Your eyes are glued to him as he sits back down next to you and looks out at the darkening sky with that signature grin on his lips, like he knows that you're watching him and enjoys it more than he should. That doesn't deter you though. For the very first time. You don't even stop staring when he turns his head back to you. You don't even stop staring then.
You just look at him until his grin crumbles. Until he's smiling that smile from yesterday night, the one that has your heart squeezing together and then exploding in your chest. You think you could stare at that smile for the rest of eternity and never feel sated.
"What?", he asks, his voice so soft it makes you swallow. Your lips part, but there's no words on your tongue, none in your throat. They're stuck in your chest somewhere, wrapped around your heart so tightly that you can't let them go even now. So you just press your lips together, wrap your blanket tighter around yourself and say:
"So I'm Watson, yeah?"
Your podcast is long forgotten by the time the sky turns dark. So dark that you make Tyler climb into your car and turn on the lights. You're comfortable in your blanket, you don't feel the need to move.
It's around ten when the blanket isn't enough anymore.
You tuck your hands underneath your top, but that only helps for so long. A few minutes later, you're trembling again, trembling even though you're pulling the blanket as tightly around you as you possibly can. Tyler raises his eyebrows when a particularly heavy shiver runs down your spine, one of those that come and go within three seconds.
"Come here", he says, shuffling in his spot and motioning for you to move over to him. You don't really think about it. It's more of a reflex as you fumble the blanket off of your body, scooch over to him, settle yourself against his side and sneak your feet under his thigh. He tugs the blanket back up to your chin, tucks it in behind your back and wraps his arms around you.
Tyler Owens wraps his arms around you.
And he's so fucking warm you literally almost moan. God, you hadn't actually realised just how cold you'd been.
"Damn, you're freezing", he notes as well, just as you nestle further into him and hum in agreement. He's like a living heater right now. You'd like to just crawl inside of him and suck up all his warmth. "You should've told me sooner."
"I didn't tell you at all", you mutter, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath. He smells good. He smells so good. Earthy, musky somehow. You're tempted to turn your head and bury your nose in his shoulder.
Instead, you just satisfy yourself with what you can get. Fuck, he smells so good. He smells just like you'd thought he would, like country and rodeo and thunderstorms. He smells like falling into bed at the end of a successful chase. He smells like more. You want more.
You want more of Tyler Owens.
"Are you sniffing me?", he asks suddenly, but he sounds so amused you can't even bring yourself to feel embarrassed. You just open your eyes and grin at him, tilting your head so you can look up at him.
"What if I am?", you ask, if only to hear that breathless chuckle fall from his lips. Oh, those lips. You're in trouble. "Are you gonna call the cops on me?"
"I could never."
"Yeah, you better not, cowboy", you mutter, eyes dropping to his lips when he grins. He's so close. He's way too close. "There's like thirty things I could call the cops about on your channel."
His grin grows until he's showing off his teeth, glinting against the low light of the leds in your car. He's closer now.
"So you do watch our streams, weather girl."
His voice is so low and he's so close, so close. Your lips part all on their own. You haven't looked back up at his eyes in too long. Far too long. But he's so close, and he's so warm, and he smells so good.
"Alright", you whisper. His mouth is barely an inch from yours. You can feel every breath he takes. "I watch your streams."
And then your lips are on his.
Tyler Owens is the most annoying man you've ever met. He's cocky and he's smug. He makes your job harder than it has to be. He does everything and anything to get under your skin. But Tyler Ownes is the best goddamn kisser this side of the globe.
He trails his hands, his big, big hands, down your sides, pushes the blanket out of the way and grabs at your waist with just enough firmness. He pulls you onto his lap and rests his thumbs over the hem of your top. He breathes into your mouth and takes it slow. He doesn't care that you almost knock his hat out of the way when you try to wrap your arms around his neck. He just holds you tightly to him and lets you tug on his lip.
You honestly don't know how much time has passed when he pulls back, grinning an entirely new grin at you, hazy and euphoric.
"It's not midnight yet", he mutters, the slightest bit out of breath.
"I don't care", you mumble, drawing him right back in for another kiss. You think you might be addicted. You simply can't get enough of him. You can't get enough of Tyler Owens.
But then a thought strikes you, and you pull away with a grin that makes him raise his eyebrows.
You chuckle against his lips.
"If you feel it, chase it, right?"
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rhaenyratargcryen · 2 months
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you're my shotgun lover and i want it all | tyler owens (twisters)
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masterlist ❈
summary: Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells. author's note: i...wrote this...in one.......single......afternoon. my fingers hurt anyway he's so hot i have had a crush on glen powell since 2018 (set it up supremacy) but this movie reawakened something in me. i should probably watch top gun now
pairing: tyler owens x f!reader word count: 9,123 (...oopsie) warnings/tags: pWp (with, y'all!), alternate universe: canon divergence, friends to lovers, friends with benefits
also cross-posted to ao3 okay love you bye xoxo your comments and reblogs are appreciated but not required i will love you all the same i hope u like !!!! <3
all characters are 18+ these are 18+ activities minors pls do not interact my eye is twitching as i write this 
It has been one hell of a week.
The tornadic activity has been off the charts – more storms built up under ideal conditions for weather hell-bent on destruction in a multiple-day stretch than you can remember ever tracking before. Your team had obviously been up for the chase, but now that the storms have passed, and the sun shines on the cleanup efforts, you can’t help but wish you’d chosen a different life path. You love what you do, but God, were you tired. Blisters have formed on the palms of your hands despite the gloves you’d donned. You could practically feel the knots forming in your neck. You shovel one more load of leaf litter before heaving the blade into the ground and leaning against it. Across from you, a backhoe is demolishing and excavating the remains of a house.
You close your eyes and try to just let the sun warm your face, thinking about how fast it can all just be gone. Mother Nature’s a beautiful force, but she can be cruel.
“Hey, don’t be slowin’ down on me,” Tyler jokes, clapping a hand between your shoulder blades. You hadn’t heard him approach, and his voice has startled you, pulling you from your thoughts. “We’re ‘bout halfway done with our part, I think.”
“No,” you reply, swiping the back of your arm across your forehead, trying in vain to clear your bangs from your eyes, but they won’t budge. Tyler reaches up and, almost as if he isn’t even thinking about it, takes the unruly pieces of hair between his thumb and forefinger and tucks it behind your ear, underneath the temple of your sunglasses, to make sure it stays this time. The action is so intimate it sends a flush crawling up your neck. You chance a look around to make sure no one else has seen. “Not slowin’ down, I promise. Just thinking about how lucky we are to be alive. How sad it is that all these people just lost everything.”
You’ve known Tyler since the two of you were in college together, fast friends who’d stuck together through a lot that could've put a strain on any other relationship, although you hadn’t studied meteorology – you’d been in school to be a librarian. 
One night, he’d asked you to stay up and help him with a lab he’d missed for one of his classes, and he loves to say he knew it then – that you were hooked – but you were too far along in your degree to do anything about it now. Switching from an arts degree to one in STEM? You’d have had to start over from scratch. 
Tyler had formed his team while you were in grad school and he was working as a cowboy for the rodeo back home, and you’d dropped out without a second thought when he asked you to be a founding member, to travel the country with him every tornado season. Said he wouldn’t – couldn’t – think about doing it without you. You’ve been riding with him ever since.
The two of you share everything, always have, and sometimes you wonder if it might be too much for the professional relationship you’re supposed to have.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Tyler grins, the hand still glued to your back rubbing gently, sending goosebumps across your skin under your shirt. “To help ‘em feel like their luck is turnin’.”
Always the optimist, Tyler Owens. He clears his throat, the hand on your back pulling away, and steps slightly closer to you.
“One of the folks over there gave these to me,” he says, gesturing to a group of people gathering in front of a house that looks like something had tried to suck it into the ground from dead center. “I saved their cat from their screened-in porch, poor thing had been yowling all night apparently. Know these’re your favorite, so, here you go. I think you earned it.”
You take the tin from him and open it, your mouth instantly watering at the sight of the small, round butter cookies inside. “God,” you groan, picking one up and taking a bite, savoring it over your tongue. You can feel Tyler watching you carefully. “Thank you. You get me.”
“Do we get cookies, Tyler?”
Lily’s voice sounds from your left, and you glance over at her. The shit-eating look on her face tells you she did see Tyler fix your hair for you. Your stomach somersaults.
“If you’re good,” Tyler says, smirking, “after the sun sets, we can head back to the motel, find some shitty bar, and drinks’ll be on me, okay? How’s that sound?”
Lily whoops, turning to Dani, who’d since appeared beside her, and the two snicker and fist bump. 
“You need any help over here?”
You look back at Tyler, cupping one hand above your eyes to shield them from the sunlight. Despite your glasses, it shines bright from directly behind him, and you can hardly stand to look at him. 
“Yeah, I’m good,” you murmur in reply, bending down to toss some siding that had been blown off one of the houses on this street into the wheelbarrow you’ve been using. “You should go see what Boone’s up to – I don’t think anyone has seen him in a minute.”
No doubt Boone was hiding somewhere with one of the breakfast burritos Lily and Dani have been rolling since early that morning, seeing how long he can get away with not doing his part. He’s a good guy, but the manual labor side of the job isn’t really his thing.
“Eh, he’s better off wherever he is,” Tyler laughs, and a small smile takes over your face, too. “Hey, you sure you’re okay? You don’t need a break? You can take a minute to yourself, no one’ll judge. I know how this can all get to you a little more than it gets to everyone else.”
You know him well enough to know he’s not calling you weak-stomached, that he’s genuinely concerned for how you feel, but he’s right. It does all get to you. Settling in to help survivors of these natural disasters is just something that comes with the chasing – there isn’t one without the other for you and the rest of the crew. You nod, glancing back up at him. 
“I’m okay, Tyler. Go off and be the face of the operation – you don’t have to worry about me.”
Tyler’s eyes narrow, his gaze shifting between your eyes, trying to find evidence you’re withholding the truth from him, but he seems to find nothing. With a minute tip of his head, he turns to resume working through a long-term plan for rebuilding the town with the mayor and some other members of the local government. 
This is something else you know he loves to do – shmooze with higher-ups, show off his people skills. Not only are they higher-ups, they’re small-town folk. His kind of people. He knows how to get through to them, how to get them to trust him. You love that about Tyler. He’s never condescending – he always has a genuine desire to help. He’s been through this hundreds of times, and these people may only have been through it this one time. You look around at them, at the people of all ages picking up the pieces that remain of their community, then cross your fingers and send a thought out to anyone listening:
Please let it be the only time.
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After a few more hours of genuinely back-breaking work, you hear Tyler’s sharp whistle and know it’s time, meandering over to his truck where it’s been parked for almost eighteen hours. Using your teeth, you pull your gloves from your hands and hiss. They’ve been rubbed raw, the skin blistering where each finger meets the palm. You try to ignore the throbbing sensation, leaning against the passenger side door and closing your eyes. The rest of the crew sidle up to you, taking long drags from water bottles and cigarettes and trying to make peace with how you’re leaving this place tonight.
“Does anyone else want to break off to shower first?”
It seems Dani’s the only one, and they shrug, putting their hand out, palm up, to Dexter, who hands them the keys to the RV.
“Meet y’all there,” they say, stifling a yawn, and you know it’ll be a bit before you see them. The rest of you will have to pile into Tyler’s truck, and before you can object, the other three crawl into the back seat and leave you on the front bench with Tyler. You let yourself in and close the door behind you, buckling and watching as Tyler shakes someone’s hand and hustles to meet the rest of you. His Texans cap hits the bench before he does, between the two of you, and he turns his keys in the ignition, buckling his own seatbelt.
“Where we headin’?”
“There’s a place with a mechanical bull nearby. I vote there.”
“How nearby is ‘nearby,’ Boone?”
“Uh,” he pulls his phone from his pocket, does a quick Google to double-check. “Forty-five minutes?”
Dexter leans over and grips Boone’s phone, reading the screen. “In the opposite direction of the motel, Boone.”
Everyone groans, objecting, and you press your hand against your temple to alleviate the pressure there. The noise, God, the noise.
“Could we go somewhere closer to the motel, maybe?”
“It’s got a mechanical bull,” Boone stresses, and everyone rolls their eyes.
“Boone, you know damn well we’re not making it back to the motel if we go that far away.”
He groans, and you pull your own phone out, checking Maps to see what’s around the motel.
“This one’s three minutes from where we’re stayin’,” you say, showing Tyler your screen, and he nods, shifting into reverse, backing out, and starting down the one lane of the street that’s been cleared of debris. 
“Hey Boone,” you toss over your shoulder as Tyler shifts into second gear. “By the way. Long time no see.”
Lily snorts, smacking you on the shoulder to let you know she thought that was a good one. Boone shakes his head. 
“Hey, just because you didn’t see me all day doesn’t mean I wasn’t out there, too. How do I know you were workin’, weren’t sitting on your ass in the shade somewhere, hm?”
You hold your raw, red palms out for him to inspect and that shuts Boone up quick. Tyler whistles as he gets an eyeful of your skin.
“God damn, girl,” Lily murmurs. “That looks like it hurts. I think I might have Aquaphor in my bag back at the motel if you want some.”
“I’ll be alright,” you reply, knocking your elbow against her knee behind you in thanks. “Appreciate you.”
The rest of the drive is taken mostly in silence, everyone in the backseat trying to rest their eyes, but you stay up, your eyes on the road, so Tyler isn’t the only one making the thirty-ish minute drive back to where you’re staying, where you checked in only after it’d been decided which towns had been hit the worst, so you could reach all of them easily by truck.
“What’s goin’ on in your head? Hm?”
You turn to look at Tyler and he glances at you from out of the corner of his eye, then at your lap, at the fingernails you’ve picked down to the quick. “Real quiet over there.”
“Nothing,” you reply, your voice barely above a whisper.
“Don’t let Boone get to you,” Tyler says, tapping his right fist on your thigh once, twice, then letting it rest there. You brush your knuckles against his and he opens the fist immediately, taking your hand in his but not squeezing, careful not to put pressure on the blisters on your palms.
“It’s not that,” you start, then realize your mistake, your admission. “I really – I think I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.”
You’re acutely aware of your hand in Tyler’s. It’s not like you’ve ever been shy around him – your cheeks flush at the thought – but this is…different. Sweet. More.
“Yeah, that it has,” he sighs, adjusting his left hand on the steering wheel so he can drive a little more comfortably, but his right hand stays in yours. 
You settle back into silence, Tyler seemingly having dropped the subject, and your eyes return to the road, but you feel him looking over at you, checking on you, every once in a while. You try your hardest not to meet his gaze. 
Soon enough, Tyler is putting the truck in park, then shutting the thing off. The noise – or lack thereof, you guess – wakes Dexter in the back, then Lily, who snorts when she sees your hand in Tyler’s. You pull away and unbuckle your seatbelt, watching as Tyler, with a hurt look on his face, wipes his hand on his jeans and swings himself down and out of the truck.
“C’mon, Boone,” he shouts, slapping a hand on the door that Boone has his head resting against, and the man sits up straight, wiping sleep from his eyes. “The sun hasn’t even gone down yet. Drinks on me, pal!”
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The motel really is that close to the bar, so you all decide you’ll leave the truck parked there and walk home at the end of the night. The unspoken verdict is that you will all be getting shitfaced tonight.
The lingering smell of cigarettes in the air seems to rejuvenate everyone and Lily pumps a fist when she spots the old-fashioned jukebox across the room, then claps a hand over her mouth when she realizes there’s a TouchTunes sitting right next to it.
“Oh, I am so forcing you fuckers to listen to Chappell Roan all night,” she says gleefully, and you laugh along with her, looping your arm in hers and letting her pull you across the room while the boys settle in at the bar.
“So what was that all about?”
“What was what all about?” You play dumb, shrugging when Lily gives you a hard look and unhooks her arm from yours.
“Girl, seriously,” Lily scoffs, bumping your hip with hers and slipping a twenty dollar bill into the TouchTunes. Evidently she wasn’t joking when she meant you’d be listening to Chappell Roan all night. “I saw that thing earlier, the hair thing, don’t think I didn’t. And y’all holding hands in the truck. What’s going on there?”
You shake your head but she grabs your wrist. “I’m serious, Lil. Nothing’s going on. We’re friends – good friends. He noticed I was having a hard time today, and wanted to make sure I was alright. That’s all.”
You can tell she doesn’t fully believe you, and when she opens her mouth to object, you cut her off.
“I’m gonna run to the bathroom, okay?”
Lily watches you, trying to read the small line between your eyebrows, but eventually she nods and lets go of you, letting you turn away from her. You push through the door to the women’s restroom, your nose wrinkling at the smell, but you ignore it. Standing in front of the sink, you watch yourself, hands shaking. This isn’t you. You’re better than this at shoving these feelings for Tyler down, way down – or, rather, you had been, up until this week broke you, apparently. Turning the knob for the cold water to the left, you let it run over your sore hands, hissing at the feeling. Carefully, you cup your palms and watch them fill, then splash the water onto your face, soothing the flush. There. That should help.
There’s a cold bottle of Coors in front of the seat next to Dexter when you arrive back to the group, “Red Wine Supernova” playing from the speakers. You almost snort at all the old men – regulars, no doubt – groaning out their distaste for whoever chose the music all across the room.
“Thanks,” you toss over your shoulder at Tyler, sitting on the other side of Dexter and Boone. He nods and nurses his own. You frown and settle onto the stool, leaning an elbow on the bartop so you can turn and face your friends. The cold beer against the palms of your hands feels so nice.
What’s wrong with him? He won’t make eye contact with you, and you notice his jaw clicking as he grits his teeth. What’s got his panties in a twist?
As the night unfolds, you find yourself laughing more and more, loosening up, letting the stress of the last week fade into memory. Someone has produced a deck of cards from God knows where and Dani – who did join the group eventually – is showing off card tricks you didn’t even know they knew. You feel a warmth spreading through your body, and you can’t stop thinking about how much you love all of these people. Your friends. Your family. Empty bottles are swiftly replaced with full, cold ones without notice, and everyone is languid, relaxed, unburdened by the work that you’re all doing.
You take a pull from your drink, using the cover of the bottle to risk a glance to Tyler three seats down from you to find that he’s already watching you, and the look in his eye tells you exactly what he’s thinking. That somersault-y feeling is lower than your stomach now. You’re only three beers deep, but the air in your head reminds you that you’ve barely eaten all day, so you’re a little more affected by the alcohol than you’d usually be. Impolitely, you reach across Dexter next to you to grab a handful of peanuts from the basket to his left.
Glancing back up at Tyler, you meet his heady gaze again, and he smirks around the lip of the bottle against his mouth. He knows he’s got you right where he wants you. You swallow nervously around another sip of beer.
Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells.
“Alright, y’all,” Lily says, slapping a hand on the bar, startling you out of your thoughts. You watch her, popping a nut into your mouth. “Think I’m gonna head out. I suggest you all do, too, fuckers, it’s late.”
Everyone starts to protest, but one glance at the clock tells you you’ve all stayed much longer than you thought – it’s a quarter past midnight, and you’ve got to be up with the daylight. You balk, but if you want to talk to Tyler tonight, you know you’ve got to shoulder your exhaustion and stick it out a little longer.
“I think I might stay for a bit,” you murmur, watching everyone stand and gather their things. You glance over at Tyler, who you can see clearly now that everyone’s out of their seats, and he’s watching you, too. The look on his face reads plain, now – he wants you.
“I’ll stay with her,” he says, eyes on yours. The green in them has disappeared almost completely, you notice, his pupils blown wide. “Walk her back. Y’all head back if you want.”
“I might stay, too –” Boone’s voice cuts off, coughing as Lily elbows him in the stomach, maybe a little too hard. “What the fuck was that for?”
“You’re going to bed, too, Boone,” Dani interrupts, a hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the door. They poke him once when he starts to protest. “C’mon, now.”
Everyone shuffles out the front, Dexter calling good night, and all of the sudden, it’s just you and Tyler. You don’t know why, but your palms begin to sweat at the thought of being alone with him again. He stands, palming his drink, and slides onto the seat next to you, his body angled towards yours.
He’s never made you nervous like this. You don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you.
“So,” Tyler starts, grinning at you. “You come here often?”
You snort, emboldened by the booze, and he chuckles in response. “Idiot.”
“God, but I do love making you laugh.”
You blush under his scrutinous gaze, and take a quick swig of the dregs of your drink, unsure what to say to that. He mirrors you, taking a sip of his own while his eyes bore into yours. Accusatory.
“You don’t do it much anymore, you know that?”
“Do what?”
“Laugh.”
You press your fingertips to your mouth and Tyler’s eyes follow your hand. “I guess I just haven’t had much to laugh about lately,” you start, sighing deeply. “Tornado season’s been hard this year, and you know how much that – it gets to me. As much as I love what we do. You know. Remember that family a couple weeks back whose daughter was stuck under her bunk bed when it pressed on her too long, lost her leg below the knee? That got to me, Tyler. It did.”
“It gets to me, too,” he murmurs, knocking his knee against yours. “I guess I’m just better at hiding how bad it affects me. You can talk to me about it, though. You can talk to any of us.”
“I know I can,” you breathe, trying to keep your hands from shaking. “I know. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, though, you know, what is there to say? It’s not fair to complain about how sad it makes me to watch these people lose everything.”
“You’re allowed to feel sad. And to feel frustrated. It’s not fair, you’re right, but we’re doing good work, yeah? Fighting the good fight. Figuring out what makes these things tick, how to warn people when they’re in the path, get them outta the way and safe. Maybe they lose their house, their car, but they won’t lose themselves, or each other. That’s what matters most. Just remember that.”
You look up at him, set your elbow on the bartop, and prop your chin on your open palm. Your hands don’t hurt so bad anymore, you notice. “Thanks, Tyler.”
“Anytime,” he smiles, but you shake your head. 
“Seriously. You always know what to say.”
A look crosses his face then, too quick for you to read, and he sets his drink down, flagging the bartender over to close out the team’s tab. You frown, wondering if you’d, ironically, said the wrong thing.
“What’s up?”
Tyler looks back to you, and this time, the look in his eyes is unmistakable. It burns. “Taking you home, sweetheart.”
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The walk back to your motel is done in silence. Tyler’s hand swings next to yours, and you feel it searching for yours more than once, but you don’t take it. You climb the stairs together, slowly, and he walks you to your door. His room is one more floor up.
You can tell he thinks you won’t invite him in, that you’ve changed your mind – or maybe that you never made it up. He hadn’t, after all, told you plainly that that was why he’d stayed with you at the bar. You unlock the room with your key card and step inside, opening the door only far enough for you to fit through it. You turn back to look at him, his face awash in the street lights shining into the hallway. You flip the lightswitch on next to you, illuminating the room behind you, too.
“Well,” he murmurs, making to head back down the stairs. “Good night.”
“Tyler?”
His head turns back to look at you, watching as you hold out one hand and he takes it, letting you pull him closer to you. You press yourself into him, push your whole face against his chest, your hip keeping the door from closing on the two of you. You inhale deeply, the smell of him overtaking your senses. His cologne, yes, but underneath that, the smell of dirt, earth. Home.
You feel his arms wrap around your back and you turn your head to the side, press your ear to his heartbeat. Your hands come up to scratch down his back and you feel it when he shudders.
“Stay?”
You hear his breath hitch in his chest, then the deep rumble of his voice as he says, “Alright, baby.”
With a short inhale, your eyes flutter, nearly closing at the term of endearment. You step back, pulling him with you, and as you close the door behind you, he pushes one hand up into your hair and pulls your head toward his.
“I, uh,” you whisper against his lips when they get close enough to yours, “I think I might shower first, if that’s okay with you?”
“Alright,” he murmurs, unlacing his hand from the strands of your hair before toeing his boots off and carefully setting them under the chair next to the front door. “You want company?”
You swallow. You’ve never done anything like that before. It’s always been quick. When you do this with him, you hardly ever have time for a chat before he’s got your shirt over your head and his mouth on your skin.
“Sure,” you reply. You feel him watch as you turn around and pull your shirt off, reaching back to unclasp your bra. The modesty feels redundant, but you can’t help it.
“Not gettin’ shy on me now, are you? S’not like I haven’t seen you naked before,” he chuckles, and you throw a look at him over your shoulder just as he’s pulling his own shirt over his head. He left his hat at the bar, you think. You’ll have to go back in for it when you pick up the truck.
“Tyler,” you scold, and he laughs at you, steps across the room to wrap an arm around your torso and press a kiss to where your neck meets your shoulder. The place he knows makes you melt. You sigh and push back against him, the feeling of his hard chest against your bare back a welcome one. This feels more like what you know, what you’re used to.
“Shower,” you remind him, and he nods, his forehead pressed into that spot now, and he pushes his fingers underneath the waistband of your jeans, running them along the bit of skin there around to the front, where the fabric splits at the button. He pops it undone, then uses his thumb and forefinger to grip the zipper and slowly – so slowly – pulls that down. He can’t help himself, you know that, and so you hold your breath and wait for him to push his hand into your panties. Ever a predictable man, he does just that, and you gasp at the feeling of his warm hand against you.
“Are you sure?” Tyler’s breath against your neck makes you shiver, and you press your ear to the side of his chin. He runs his fingers along the seam of you, finding first your clit, your legs twitching at the sudden rush of pleasure when he brushes his hand against it, then pushing down to find you wet and wanting. You cry out softly. “You don’t sound sure. You don’t feel sure.”
You hum, your neck stretching back until your head is pressed to his chest, and he pulls his hand back up to start working small circles on your clit, your wetness on his fingers allowing for smooth movement, with just enough friction to have you panting for more. 
“Sounds more to me like you kinda want me to fuck you with my fingers.”
“Tyler,” you whimper, telling him with just his name that you are getting close. He smiles against the side of your neck, pulling his hand away and shoving your jeans and underwear down just enough that his hand has room to smack your clit lightly. You squeal, right leg kicking out at the feeling, and he continues moving his hand in circles to soothe the hurt.
Your breath is coming out of you in short huffs, and before you can come, Tyler takes his hand off of you and wraps it around your stomach to join the other. You pant and whine, rubbing your thighs together to chase the feeling he’d had you practically pressed up against, now ebbing with the loss of his fingers.
“You said you wanted to shower,” he whispers in your ear, pulling your panties back up, and you scowl, pushing away from him. He laughs and holds his hands up in defense as you pick your t-shirt up off your bed and crack it at him like a whip. “Let’s shower, baby.”
“I might kick you out right now, Owens,” you snark, but the small smile on your face gives you away, and Tyler unbuttons his own jeans, leaving them in a pile on the floor at the end of the bed. Your jeans join his, and you’re both left in your underwear.
“You wouldn’t,” he replies, pulling his briefs off slowly, biting his bottom lip as you watch him. “You like this cock too much.”
You can’t help laughing at him, but the sight of him bare in front of you does have you biting your lip. You step forward to cup his growing length in your hand. Before you can move it, Tyler puts a hand on your wrist.
“How’s your hand?” He makes to pull it away, presumably to turn it over and appraise your blisters, but you shake your head.
“S’fine,” you whisper, tightening your grip. You tug once, twice, and press a kiss to his bare chest, then tip your head back to search out his lips. He leans down to oblige you, his lips parting against your mouth as you twist your fist. You love these moments you share with him, when you’re both bare, physically, emotionally, away from the real world, and you can pretend this is an everyday thing. When you’re not trying to tell yourself you feel nothing for him. Like this is just how it is between you.
Tyler groans when you pull your hand away from him and you click your tongue, press that same hand against his bicep.
“Doesn’t feel so good, now does it?”
Before you even know what’s happening, Tyler is picking you up, one arm underneath your back and the other around the backs of your knees. You look up at his face and laugh. “Put me down, Owens!”
He grins and carries you the few paces into the bathroom, placing you on your feet in front of the tub. Tyler leans down and pushes his thumbs underneath the waistband of your panties, waiting for you to put your hands on his shoulders and step out of them.
He lets you pull away from him to turn the hot water on, adjusting the cold side until the temperature is perfect, before pulling you against his chest once again. This time, you can feel his hard cock pressed against your backside, and you hum appraisingly. You reach behind you to fist him again, but he shakes his head – you feel his chin brush against the top of your head – and he groans out, “Mm-mm.”
“What?”
“We’re gonna shower, baby, c’mon.”
You glance back towards him and watch as he flicks the overhead light on. “So we don’t slip and die,” he says, and you laugh, pushing the shower curtain to the side. Holding Tyler’s hand, you step over the lip of the tub and under the steady stream of warm water, inhaling deeply when it hits the sore muscles in your shoulders and back. Tyler groans at the feeling, too, when he steps in behind you.
“Here, switch with me,” he murmurs, guiding you by your waist until you’re the one underneath the water. You let it fall onto the top of your head, over your face and down the back of your hair, for a moment, eyes closed, relishing the feeling. Tyler reaches both hands up and brushes the water out of your eyes, runs his hand over the top of your head. 
“Shampoo?”
You open one eye, the other shut against the water, and nod. You gaze up at him, heart squeezing at the way he’s watching you. His smile widens and he takes the tiny bottle in his hand – it looks even more comically small now – and dumps the product into his other palm, setting the bottle down onto the edge of the tub and rubbing his hands together.
“Turn around.”
You do as he asks, inhaling sharply through your nose when you feel his hands run through the hair at the crown of your head. Your stomach aches with longing as you register how unnaturally intimate this is. His fingers feel so good against your scalp, which is slightly sunburnt, you’re now realizing. He massages the shampoo further into your hair, running his fingers down the back of your neck and across the tops of your shoulders. When he’s satisfied with his shampoo job, he steers you by your arms to face him again, then carefully helps you tilt your head back and rinses it all from your hair.
You watch him pick up the other small bottle from the shelf, warm water still running down the back of your head. 
“I’ll do my conditioner,” you murmur, taking the bottle gently from his hands. “It’s a – it’s a science.”
“I am very good at science, if you can recall.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “It’s something I’ve gotten perfectly right. It’ll take just a sec.”
So you work the conditioner through the ends of your hair, avoiding his gaze as he watches your hands first coat your hair in the product, then rinse it out. He reaches forward to run his own fingers across it, as gently as he can.
“Hm,” he makes the noise in the back of his throat, pulling his hand away. “Soft.”
You can hardly look at him, the twisting feeling in your stomach shifting to something warmer, something further from apprehension, something that feels a lot like want. “You?”
Tyler shakes his head. “I’m good. Here,” he says, rubbing his hands across the plane of your upper back. “You’re tense. You worked hard today. Let me help.”
You weren’t going to protest, but before you can, Tyler guides you forward and out of the direct spray of the shower, then presses his thumbs into your muscle. You groan, your head falling forward onto his chest at the feeling, and he chuckles at you, continuing with his hands. “Feel good?”
“So good,” you whimper, and you feel his cock twitch against your stomach.
“You fucking dog,” you joke, and Tyler laughs against you, pushing your hair off the back of your neck and pressing his thumbs in there, too.
“Hey, what can I say? I like making my girl feel good.”
You freeze. His girl? His girl. He hasn’t noticed your reaction, and he keeps pressing his fingers into your sore muscles, pulling one hand away briefly to push the showerhead down and away from the two of you. You glance up, already missing its warmth, but you find that the steam rising around you is doing a good enough job at that.
“Here, baby,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead and guiding you to press your hands against the tiled wall to your left, running his hands down your back.
“What are you –”
Before you can finish the thought, you feel Tyler’s fingers parting the seam of your cunt from – from behind, and you groan at the feeling of his middle finger slipping inside of you.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he groans, his knees hitting the floor behind you. You toss a glance at him over your shoulder and your own knees nearly buckle at the way he’s looking up at you – with hunger, and with reverence, and with something else entirely unrecognizable. He looks wild. He looks in love.
One of Tyler’s hands clamps down around your hips and he leans forward, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh as his finger starts to shift in and out of you. You shiver and push your face into the cool tile, groaning softly when he finds that rough bit of flesh inside of you, the one that makes you come undone if he works it long enough.
“Yeah?” Tyler sounds fucked out already, his voice breathy against your skin, and you can picture the look on his face, the concentrated expression he gets when he’s trying to make you come. You try to focus on the feeling of the shower’s spray where it hits the edge of your foot rather than how good his finger feels inside you because if you think too closely about how good it feels, you’ll get lightheaded. And nobody wants that.
“Yeah,” you reply weakly, and for a few minutes it’s just like that, the only sound in the bathroom the shower, your panting moans, and the noise your pussy makes as he pulls his finger in and out.
“Sound so good for me, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh again, and you whine, trying to protest when he slips his finger from you. He laughs deep in his chest and lightly smacks the swell of your ass.
“Don’t complain when I’m doin’ somethin’ nice for you,” he jok, and you can feel then that he’s shifting himself around. You want to look over your shoulder, want to see for yourself what he’s doing, but freeze when you feel his palms cupping your ass, his nose pressing against the inside of your thighs.
Your mouth forms the word oh, but no sound comes out until you feel his mouth press against your cunt, tongue pushing inside of you, and then you cry out, chest heaving, when he presses a sloppy, wet kiss to your clit. You pull your face from where it’s still resting against the tile and look down at Tyler to find he’s already looking right up at you. His grip on your ass tightens when you make eye contact with him, and he spreads you open wider for him, eyes narrowing as his tongue flicks again, and again, and again.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he moans against you, the vibrations causing your legs to twitch. You already thought you were going to burst, the steam from the shower, the way he’d washed your hair, the fact that he was in your room at all – it all made you feel slightly insane. To add insult to injury, he’s just pushed two fingers inside of you and immediately found the spot that takes you out, and you start to shake a little.
“Tyler,” you whine, pushing one hand down to grip his hair. He groans when you tighten your hold on it, fucking into you a little faster. “Tyler, fuck, gonna come.”
“So come, baby,” comes his reply, and you do, you come so hard that the toes on your right foot curl until you’re on tiptoe and Tyler has to reach up and grip your waist to steady you. You feel it crest, and peak, then subside, but he keeps working you through it, his mouth moving against you still, and a second, smaller – though still good – orgasm wracks your body right after the first.
You breathe through it, push your foot down so you’re standing flat on the surface of the tub again, and wait for Tyler to pull his fingers out of you. 
“Baby,” Tyler groans, squeezing your hips, his fingernails biting slightly into your skin. “You gotta let go’a me, if you want me to get up.”
His voice, fuck, his voice, you think, releasing your grip on his hair and turning to watch him rise from his knees, the tile cold against your back. You surge forward to kiss him square on the mouth and he catches you, smiles against you when you part your lips to taste yourself on his tongue.
“Was that good?”
“Yeah,” you breathe, pressing one, two, three more quick kisses to his mouth, before he reaches behind you to turn off the water. “So fucking good.”
Neither of you bother with a towel, instead opting to stumble toward the queen bed in the middle of the room and climb right underneath the covers.
“Hi,” you whisper when you’re settled in, the duvet pulled up under your chin. Your eyes rove over his face, then glance over to the alarm clock behind him. 1:56 in the morning. “You still wanna fuck?”
Tyler snorts, reaching over to poke you in the side, gripping the skin there until you start to laugh. “You still wanna fuck?”
“Yeah,” you reply, grinning, when you catch your breath. “Wanna?”
He’s quiet for a second, watching the duvet rise and fall with each breath you take, before he peels it off of you, using his elbow to push himself up until he’s leaning over you. There’s a rosy flush on your chest, your breasts heaving and it’s all he can do not to lean down and take one of your nipples in his mouth, the one closest to him. Instead, he runs the back of his other hand across your chest, catching against the hard peak, and watches your breath stick to the inside of your throat. You feel yourself subconsciously leaning toward him as his face comes toward you. You want him to kiss you, but instead, he angles his mouth to kiss the skin below your chin.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes against your neck, pressing his open mouth to you there, and you gasp at the feeling – of his mouth against you, and of his praise. It all feels so nice. He just made you come in the shower, and now he’s going to make you come in this bed, hopefully more than once. 
You wrap your hands around his back and pull him toward you, watch as he settles in between your thighs. You can feel his thick cock, heavy, insistent, where it presses against you, and you want to take him into your hands, but he has other plans. 
With one hand pressed into the pillow on either side of your head, Tyler uses his knees to knock your legs out further, sitting back against his heels when he’s satisfied. He wraps his big hands around your thighs and pulls you closer, smiling down at you. “You’re so beautiful.”
You blush when he repeats himself, suddenly feeling very bare. He’s just as naked as you are, but you can’t help but feel like he’s seen your whole hand, meanwhile you hardly have any idea what cards he might hold. In the dim light from the lamp beside your head, you notice that you can see the green of his irises again. It seems like the shower sobered the two of you up very quickly.
His gaze locked on yours, Tyler takes himself into his hand, groaning at the pressure of his grip after neglecting his own want for so long, but he suddenly curses, pausing just as he’s about to press inside of you.
“What?”
“I don’t have a condom,” he breathes, sitting back again. He runs one hand through his hair, visibly weighing the options.
“It’s okay, Tyler,” you murmur, leaning up onto your elbows. “It’s okay. I have an IUD, and I got screened after the last time I was with someone. I’m good. I’m good if you’re good.”
Tyler heaves a heavy sigh, running his hands up your thighs. “You’re sure? I’m clean, too, cross my heart. But only if you’re sure.”
You nod. “My head is clear. I think I shook off my drunk an orgasm or two ago.”
A grin crosses his face, and you roll your eyes at him before he even opens his mouth. Two? he mouths, then whistles lowly. You smack his stomach, and he grabs your wrist in his hand, lightning quick, pressing a kiss to the pulse point there. Your jaw falls slack, and you go all soft and pliant, letting him pin your hands above your head. His body comes down over yours, and his mouth presses to your cheek, then your forehead, and when your eyes flutter shut, the ghost of a kiss crosses them, too.
“I’m gonna fuck you so good,” he murmurs, and normally if a man were to say that to you, you would immediately regret letting him into your bed. But for some reason, when Tyler says it, it sends that familiar warmth spiraling down into your gut. You know he means it.
Slowly – too slowly – he guides himself back to your entrance, shifting his hips so they’re resting comfortably against yours, and he presses himself inside of you. You hiss; the girth of him, although a welcome stretch, is also a bit of an uncomfortable one. He leans down to kiss you, working you through it with a thumb pressing circles into your clit, sliding himself in bit by bit until he’s fully seated. 
A groan pushes out of him when you clench around him, testing the waters.
“Careful,” he murmurs, easing his hips back. “I’d like it if this lasted longer than ten seconds, please.”
You laugh against the side of his head, pull your hands down from where he’d left them above you and wrap yourself around his shoulders, pulling him flush against you. Tyler grips your thighs and starts to work himself in and out of you, carefully, gently, but you squeeze his waist with your knees. Encouraging him. Asking him to pick it up. You can handle it.
His hips start to pull back and snap against yours quicker and quicker, Tyler panting in your ear, lifting up onto his palms and pushing himself off of you. He sits up onto his knees and tilts your hips up for a different angle, one that sets sparks dancing in front of your eyes. You groan, head tossed back, and dig your nails into his thighs as his pace picks up.
“Fuck, yeah, that it, baby? I can feel you – fuck, feel you squeezin’ me.”
You hardly have a voice with the rate he’s slipping in and out of you, barely enough to squeak out, “Fuck,” before your cunt has him in a vice grip, working through another orgasm.
“Ohhh, that’s it, huh, that’s it.” His mouth is going a mile a minute, neither of you really paying much attention to anything he’s actually saying. You’re both focused on his own mounting orgasm – you don’t feel like your body is capable of much more than that – and you weakly clamp down around him once more. His eyes squeeze shut, his hips stutter, and he grits out, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck,” before he slots against you and you feel him filling you. You run a hand down his back, soothing him as he comes, biting your lip at the feeling, foreign but enjoyable.
Tyler groans and glances down to where his cock is softening inside of you. He eases his hips back, cupping your face and pressing a kiss to your forehead as he does. “Shit, I’m sorry, are you okay?”
You nod meagerly, pressing the back of your hand against your warm cheek. He watches you and, assured that you’re not going to pass out on him or anything, stands and hobbles into the bathroom. The sink turns on out of sight, and you close your eyes, listening to the water run. Tyler returns with a warm, wet towel and wipes the inside of your thighs, swiping gently across your cunt, before folding the towel and letting it fall to the floor at your bedside.
You feel loose, calm. Safe. You hardly notice him turn the light off, but you do feel the bed dip beside you as he rejoins you under the covers and pulls you into his arms. You melt against his sturdy chest, his heartbeat under your face a comfort, the rhythmic tick tick tick of it lulling you to sleep. But there’s still one thing you have to know before you can relax completely.
His breathing has started to even out, but he hasn’t snored yet, so you know he’ll still hear you when you ask, “Are you gonna leave?”
He grunts an acknowledgement of your question, nuzzling down into the top of your head.
“Do you want me to stay?”
You know your answer, but you still bite your lip, considering the question. You hadn’t thought before that maybe he left after every night you spent together because he thought you didn’t want to wake up with him. “Yes.”
“Okay,” he murmurs against your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Then I’ll stay.”
If he’s at all worried about what will happen when you wake up tomorrow, he doesn’t show it, but anxiety courses through you at the thought of anyone finding out. Does he want the others to know? Because that’s what it feels like.
“Stop thinking about it,” he whispers, like he can hear your thoughts racing. “It’ll be fine. Just go to sleep.”
Easy for him to say. He’s out like a light. And you’re left alone with your thoughts until you fall into fitful, dissatisfying sleep sometime around when the world outside starts to turn blue.
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A pounding on your door wakes you from deep sleep – the deepest you’d gotten all night, at least – and you try to sit up but find there’s a heavy weight on your chest blocking you. You rub the sleep from your eyes, glancing down at the sleeping body next to you. It takes a second for it to register: Tyler’s here. 
Tyler’s here. Sidled up against you, arm thrown over your stomach like this is where he belongs. He didn’t leave. He stayed, like he said he would. His face looks so peaceful – so beautiful – you almost hate to wake him.
“Come on, sleepyhead! Time to get a move on!”
Almost. You scramble to push Tyler off of you, ignoring his noises of protest, jumping out from under the covers and grabbing various articles of clothing off the floor to pull over your naked form. You plop back down on the bed, this time on his side, right next to where he’s starting to wake.
“Dude, get up, they’re gonna know you’re not in your room. They’re gonna know you’re in here.”
“So what,” he grumbles, rolling over as you push him and settling deeper into the bed. “Let ‘em.”
You sit up straight, one hand on his arm. “You mean that?”
He hums and turns his neck to glance at you over his shoulder. “Yeah, ‘course I do. You’re my girl.”
Your face flushes a deep pink and Tyler grins, reaching over to wrap an arm around you and drag you back down into the bed, pinning you under him and peppering an assault of open-mouthed kisses all over your face. You grin, thinking that you could get used to this – just not right now.
“Seriously, Tyler,” you laugh, pushing a hand against the side of his face. He squeezes your hip. “We have to get up. We gotta get back out there.”
Tyler sighs, loosening his grip on your body and kneeling over you. “Yeah, you’re right. Alright, alright.”
He stands and takes the top sheet with him, wrapped around his waist, and heads to the bathroom. To brush his teeth, you hope. God.
“You know,” he says, head popping back out into the room, mouth full of toothpaste. “Yesterday. I wanted them to see us holding hands.”
You watch as he smiles at you and disappears back into the bathroom, then fall back onto the bed, hands pressed over your eyes. 
Fifteen minutes later, the two of you are dressed, teeth brushed, hair taken care of, day packs slung over your shoulder, and you’re pulling the door closed behind you when you hear a whistle that pulls your attention to the parking lot.
“Damn, Owens!”
The voice makes you jump, and you groan. You thought you were going to get away with the sneaking around, but the rest of your team is watching from next to the RV as the two of you descend the stairs together.
Lily and Dani turn to Boone with smug looks on both their faces, and he rolls his eyes and pulls his wallet from his back pocket. They hold their hands out for him to slap two twenty dollar bills down into.
“What’s that?” You ask when you get close enough to them.
“We had a bet that you and Owens would come out of that room together. Well, that one or his. Didn’t matter which.”
“A bet I just lost,” Boone groans, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I thought for sure…”
The rest of the crew snickers, including Tyler, who won’t look at you. You poke a finger into his chest.
“Did you know about this?”
“No, I swear,” he says, hands up, and you don’t know why, but you believe him. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t drunkenly confess to Lily weeks ago that sometimes we, you know…”
You scoff, almost mad, but then Boone shouts and the scoff turns into a snicker because, hey, you love him, but you can’t help but relish in his defeat.
“So they knew?! That’s cheating!”
He storms off while the rest of you laugh, Dani clutching their side and following him around the side of the building to try to make amends, trailing off, “If it makes you feel any better…”
Lily looks over at you, then at Tyler, a grin swallowing her face. “So, are you guys, like, together now? Or something?”
You look up at Tyler, who’s smiling softly at you, clearly deferring to you to answer that question. You feel a surge of affection for him swell in your chest. Clearing your throat, you turn to Lily.
“Or something.”
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