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In the days after El Reno, Kate finds herself nursing a concussion in her Oklahoma home.
Tyler Owens is there, too, somehow. Magically. Kismet, or whatever, Kate thinks to herself.
She escapes to the barn often. The lights aren’t bright enough to make her head pound, but to be safe she doesn’t turn all of them on. She avoids her notebooks and binders, no matter how much she itches to read and read and read, then write and calculate.
She drags her fingers across old pictures, wipes dust off whatever needs dusting, and carries on. Sometimes, she finds herself sitting in the barn just to be… sitting in there. She re-learns the grain of the wood, what creaks and doesn’t, that the table is about to break. She could fix that, if it weren’t for the concussion.
Tyler knocks on the wall behind him as he enters the barn to announce his entrance. His shirt is untucked and a little dirty, red dirt and oil stains dancing across it in splotches.
“I was just about to come in,” Kate says, pushing herself off the ground from where she’d been inspecting the leg of the table. She wipes her hands on her jeans.
“Might wanna be quick about it,” Tyler laughs. “Looks like a storm is brewin’. Don’t wanna get rained on, d’you?”
“I’d prefer not to,” Kate says, shaking her head and laughing. “My mom send you out here?”
“Nah,” Tyler says, shaking his head. “Came out here all on my own. I do actually care about you.”
“I figured that,” Kate says, smiling. The distance between them feels like miles, minutes, and hours. She stands still, just watching him. He watches back. They could have been sociologists in this moment; two people studying one another, picking apart animalistic tendencies, the way they thought, what was he thinking? That was what she always wanted to know. Rain patters on the top of the roof. It ting ting tings against the metal bucket she’d sat on the dirt to catch the water where it leaked.
“Missed the dry part,” Tyler says, a smile quirking onto his mouth. Kate laughs, her shoulders falling and body breaking apart into bubbling laughter.
“We should go inside before it gets worse,” she says. Tyler licks his lips and nods, ducking his gaze away from her own. He holds the barn door open.
“I’ll race you,” he says, before he slams the door shut once she’s outside and breaks into a run. Kate laughs again, loud and sudden and all too real. Tyler’s boots slow him down, but Kate keeps slipping on mud as she runs, her yard effectively a slip and slide. She nearly tumbles into him, grabbing at his flannel as he grabs at her hips to steady her. Rain drenches them, Kate’s hair soaking and curling at the ends. Tyler’s hair drips onto his nose as he looks down at her, that permanent smile split onto his face.
“Who won?” Kate asks, breathless. His nose crinkles as he laughs, her fists slackening their grip on his flannel.
“Well, we ain’t reached the porch yet, so I don’t think either of us won,” Tyler says. “Yet.”
He lets go of her then and slips into a mad dash. She misses the warmth almost immediately, the absence of hands sending a cold shiver down her spine. A memory from not long ago. Five years is forever; five years is nothing. She stands for a moment, brain stalled and sputtering like a bad car engine, before it finally twists the key and she bursts into a run after him. Tyler is already standing on the porch when she finally gets there.
“Beat ya,” Tyler says, still wearing that trademark grin.
“What do I owe you?” Kate asks. “Since we didn’t discuss what the winner got and all.”
“Hm,” Tyler ponders. One of his eyes squints halfway closed as he thinks, half his mouth pulling into the thought. He shrugs, ruffling a hand in her hair. Kate’s shoulders relax. “I don’t know, yet. Let me get back to you.”
“Oh, so you’re playing at somethin’ here,” Kate says, a sliver of a smile pitched onto her face. Tyler only winks. “My mom’ll kill us if we wear our shoes inside.”
They slip their muddy shoes off and Kate takes her socks off too, speckles of mud dotted in the white fabric. Tyler holds the door open for her when they step inside. They drip dry as long as they have the patience for on the rug, which is not long. Kate heads to her bedroom and Tyler heads to the guest room where he practically lives.
After she’s changed, she catches a look at herself in the mirror that sits in the corner of her room. Months after that day, five years ago, she had covered the mirror with a black sheet. The sight of herself made her nauseous, the face of a killer, she would always tell herself. Then she would recite their names. Praveen, Addy, Jeb. It had been her mantra for years afterward, all the way to New York. Had she ever been doing that for herself or for them? She swallows and presses her fingers to the puckered skin on her thigh and takes a deep breath, averting her gaze from the mirror. Tyler is pressed into her doorway. She jumps.
“Jesus,” she says, shaking her head. She presses her knuckles into her eyes. “How long have you been there?”
“Not very,” Tyler says, but the way his mouth is pulled tells an entirely different story. His eyes flit to the scar and Kate feels undressed in an instant. She pulls her shorts down farther, but they aren’t long enough to cover the whole thing.
“What’s my mom up to?” she asks, smiling with a closed mouth and fake curiosity. Tyler’s mouth pulls tighter and he shrugs.
“Making dinner. I asked her if she wanted my help. Thought I was gonna get murdered for asking that,” he says. Kate barks a laugh out and nods.
“Yeah, sounds like my mama,” Kate says. “What’s she making?”
“Fried chicken, I think,” Tyler says. Kate hms.
“I think I’m gonna go sit on the porch,” she says. Tyler nods.
“Do you want me to come with?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. He nods and steps out of the doorway as she slips downstairs and back to the porch. She disregards the perfectly good, perfectly squeaky porch swing to sit on the rickety boards. The rain splats down onto the railing and the roof, dripping back onto the ground. It’s not even a thunderstorm, just a simple rain shower. She watches the way the sky turns dark, the way the clouds turn and make their way across the sky.
“Katie?” her mom asks, stepping onto the porch, the screen door squeaking as it swings open. “Food’s ready."
“Thanks, Mama,” Kate says, standing. She picks Tyler and her shoes up, following her mom through the door. She sits the pair of boots and sneakers on the rug that holds the rest of the shoes, right under the coat rack. Tyler is sitting silverware on the table when they walk back in.
Tyler and her mom carry the conversation during dinner. She only interjects when necessary, only speaks when she’s really spoken to. She picks at her food mostly, but eats half of her plate. She helps her mom with the dishes and when she goes back into her room, Tyler is laying on her floor with a game of Clue set up.
“Where’d you even find that?” Kate asks, laughing. There are several papers stuffed into the box from games of the past. Kate and her mom. Kate and Jeb. Kate, Jeb, Addy, Praveen, and Javi. So on and so forth. The sight of it makes her feel heavy. She hunkers down in front of him. He’s already put cards in the envelope and sat it in the middle of the board.
“Your mom showed me where all the board games were earlier,” Tyler says, jaw cracking in a yawn.
“Course she did,” Kate laughs.
“We ain’t gotta play,” he says, sitting up.
“No, no.” Kate waves her hand. “I haven’t — I just haven’t played in a long time.” He smiles and rolls the dice.
She’s in the dining room with the candlestick and Miss Scarlet when Tyler asks the question. “What were you thinking? When you were in the storm.”
“I, uh. I don’t really think I was thinking.” Kate shrugs. “I think it was Scarlett in the dining room with the candlestick.”
Tyler picks up his cards to show her the candlestick. She curses under her breath. “Nothin’? You weren’t thinkin’ of anything?”
“Not really,” Kate says. “I was just thinking — I mean afterwards, I really thought about how it should’ve happened five years ago. How did I live twice?”
“Ah, because this Earth ain’t done with you just yet,” Tyler says. Kate laughs and shakes her head.
“Clearly,” she says.
“How’s your head feel?” Tyler asks. She shrugs again and sniffs. Tyler rolls the dice and moves his piece. Then Kate’s turn.
“Fine,” she says. She rubs her eyes. “I’m just ready to get off concussion watch. Or whatever.”
Concussion watch makes Tyler laugh, and laugh loud. She blushes and covers her face. “I was so scared you were dead.”
Kate pauses, fingers splitting open so she can look at him through the cracks. “What?”
“When I was in that movie theater and I saw you racin’ toward that thing — I just… I thought that was the last time I was ever gonna see you alive. And all I could think about was how I had so much I hadn’t told you yet,” Tyler says, rolling the dice and moving his piece. He slips into a room, but he doesn’t make his guess. “I was scared. For the first time in a long time.”
“Tyler Owens scared,” Kate says, dropping her hands from her face. “For little ol’ me.”
“I’m serious, Kate,” he says. And Kate feels like she’s stepped on a landmine, waiting for herself to blow into little oblivions. “I didn’t — what was I gonna do? I couldn’t save you and I couldn’t stop you. I was helpless and all I wanted to do was make sure you were safe.”
“This is awful heartfelt,” she says, swallowing around the thick in her throat. He shrugs.
“I think it was Orchid with the knife in the billiard room,” Tyler says. Kate presses her lips into a thin line. She pulls Orchid’s card from her deck.
“You didn’t have to be scared, y’know,” she says. “You do shit like that all the time.”
“Not when it’s that big, Kate,” he says. “You could have died.” You should have died, he doesn’t say. But Kate can hear it, just hanging off the edge of his mouth. She should have. Twice, now.
“I wasn’t thinking about me,” she says. “I was thinking about them. El Reno.” What she could have done five years ago.
“I know, I know,” Tyler says. Neither of them pick up the dice. Neither of them roll. The game of Clue seems entirely forgotten. He’s looking at her and she’s looking at him. Animals, she thinks to herself. We are just animals in this world. “I wish you had been, though. Just a little bit.”
“When I was pulling myself out of your truck all I could think about was how sorry I felt about ruinin’ it,” Kate says, laughing a little. “I thought you were going to hate me.”
“I could never,” Tyler says, shaking his head and tapping his fingers on the floor. “I was so happy to see you were okay.”
“That why you cried?” Kate asks, giggling a little. Tyler leans into her space, head on her shoulder. She anchors to the touch, sighing a little, a hand resting in his hair.
“Mostly,” he says. “It was a little bit about the truck.”
Kate throws her head back and lets out a laugh from deep inside her chest. Tyler’s head falls off her shoulder, but her hand stays in his hair. His smile is brilliant — those straight teeth and crinkled eyes. She bites her bottom lip and watches his face, moving her hand to his cheek. Her thumbs brushes gently across his cheekbone.
“I really wanted to kiss you then,” he says, very softly. Kate tilts her head.
“You did?” she asks. He nods.
“I thought you could tell,” he says. “I was kind of embarrassed about how badly I wanted it.”
Kate smiles. “Why didn’t you?”
“Kind of awkward with Javi hovering over my shoulder,” he says. Kate bursts into another fit of giggles.
“Fair point,” she says. “It’s just us now, though.”
“I know,” he says, leaning into her hand. The weight settles something in her chest. “Can I?”
“I think I’d like it if you did.”
Tyler kisses Kate like the world is ending, but in the softest manner. She sighs, wrapping her other arm around his shoulder. It’s (almost) better than any adrenaline high she’s ever had.