Chapter Text
Tyler knows something is going on. He just doesn’t know what. It’s the same sensation as when he drives into a rain-wrapped storm, when at any moment a stray piece of debris could slam into glass or metal. No way to prepare except to be ready to spin the wheel.
His Kate is actually…mingling.
He digs a finger absently into the knot of his tie, loosening it a little, before he takes a drink of the beer in his hand. It’s not Budweiser, but it’s not a craft beer or anything either; this Broadcasters conference knows that there are enough peasants like him around to enjoy something other than a hoppy dark witches’ brew.
He and Kate and Javi have done their duty at the formal dinner and keynote address (which was boring), and Tyler has made a few good connections for future podcast guests. But then there’s this, the open-bar reception, which he had figured he and Kate would skip. The love of his life isn’t antisocial in the strictest sense – she loves a good Wrangler hangout, and she’s made work-friends she has lunches and book club with out of tornado season – but professional work socializing is Kate-torture. (He doesn’t mind the schmoozing. The point is connection.)
Yet here it’s Tyler standing in a corner, sipping his beer, while Kate is circulating. She’s talked ten minutes with Hurricane Joaquin, she’s talked to Channel 4 Jeff, she’s chatting now with Lisa the celebrity weather presenter from New York.
“What’s up with Kate?” Javi says, materializing at Tyler’s elbow.
“I have no idea,” Tyler says. But his gaze goes to Todd Fucking Spooner in the opposite corner of the room. Spooner’s captured a couple of victims for one of his monologues; they look like they’re trying to escape.
“Tyler Owens, as I live and breathe!” comes a voice from those graduate-school days.
He turns to see one of his friends in his cohort back then. “Janey!”
She’s a smart, solid woman whose professional focus now is mitigation of climate-related effects – but she’s also one of the only ones who has kept up with him after he left the program. They always were buds; she used to take him with her to the gay bar on lesbian nights. (He found being the token straight guy kind of restful, not being the object of anyone’s looks.) He asks about her wife Barb; she asks about Dani, since it was at one of those nights that she introduced them. Javi gets introduced, too, and Janey says nice things about Javi’s presentation.
Then she fixes Tyler with one of her looks. “You had trouble with Spooner?”
“Is that a guess?” He takes a long drink of his beer.
“Nah. But I heard he went up to you and—”
“My wife. Kate Carter, she’s a star at Storm Prediction.” He says it with real pride, but he’s also trying to deflect. “It's handled. It didn’t matter.”
“Well, he’s a fucker,” Janey says.
“No argument there,” says Kate, appearing out of nowhere. She slides her arm in his and smiles at Janey. “Hi, I’m Kate.”
“I’m Janey Peterson, one of Golden Boy’s grad-school friends,” Janey says, beaming. “Hi, Kate!” But her eyes go back to Tyler. “Did you hear that it was your research that got Spooner his initial funding to go out as RightWeather? But then rumor was he had to leave, anyway.”
“What?” Tyler and Kate say in unison. Javi’s eyes have gone wide.
“Talk of the department back in the day, kiddo. Everybody knew he was shady as shit, there was rejoicing in the land when he left the university.”
“Interesting,” Kate says brightly. She looks up at Tyler and kisses his cheek. “I’m just going to take Janey here and get the scoop. You stay with Javi.”
Janey laughs, but says to Tyler, “Hey, before I get dragged off – did I hear you’re project-managing a weather mitigation project with Oklahoma DoT?”
“Yeah. Short-term thing, mostly remote work, just liaising between agencies,” he says. A year ago he got a certification to go with his MBA, and he’s testing out a consultancy gig for the off-season. It’s going pretty well.
“Cool. I’ll call you in a few months, see if you want to do the same thing with my folks in Missouri. We’re hoping to get some fed money,” Janey says.
“I love it,” Kate says, already ushering Janey toward the bar.
“Okay, what’s this about your research and that asshole?” Javi says.
Tyler’s tired of talking about the past. He wasn’t lying that afternoon when he told Kate it doesn’t matter much to him now, but it doesn’t feel good either. “Never mind work,” he says, “let’s talk about what you’re up to with Boone.”
“Let’s not,” Javi says, which is Tyler’s cue to needle him for the next five minutes. By the end of that, Javi’s red-faced and Tyler feels much more himself.
Kate comes back then. She grabs what’s left of Tyler’s beer and chugs it in a strangely demure manner before saying, “You guys ready to leave?”
“So ready,” Javi says, already heading for the door.
As soon as Kate and Tyler reach the privacy of their room, his boots, jacket, and tie come off, and Kate kicks off her heels. Before she can take off the dress, however, he catches her by her waist. “Kate, baby, what have you been thinking about tonight?” he says.
“So many things,” she says softly, gazing into his eyes. “But here’s one thing. Spooner didn’t bother you tonight, did he?”
“No.” He lets her go and turns away to start unbuttoning his shirt.
From behind, she slides her arms around his waist and rests her cheek on his back. That means she’s about to hit him with something, and he takes a deep breath. “Tyler,” she says, “sounds like you're not the only one that son of a bitch has cheated.”
“No. I wouldn’t have been the only one,” he says slowly, thinking it through. “Shit, I probably should have filed a complaint, taken it official—”
“Oh my God, are you kidding?” Kate says, and then, never letting go of him, shifts to face him. Her eyes are deep, dark, searching. “Tyler, who had all the power then?”
“He did.”
“And what was it like to find out that someone who was supposed to look out for you had fucked you over?”
He has to tell her the unvarnished truth. “I felt like five kinds of shit, because I had a second failure under my belt. First bull riding, then grad school—”
“Well, forget that, neither of those were failures,” she says, “but my God, cowboy. You felt like that, but you sucked it up, got another degree, made a family with our friends, made something good. You haven’t stopped making it good.” She reaches up to kiss him, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears when she lets him go. “Tyler Owens, the man you are.”
“Your man, Kate,” he says, soft and deep.
“That’s right,” she says, on a choky little laugh. “That’s exactly right.”
Her laugh goes wild when he picks her up and throws her onto the bed. He’s on top of her before the laugh fades. “Let me drive tonight, baby, okay?” he says against her throat.
“Knock yourself out,” she says, throaty.
He strips off her pretty dress first, then takes off his belt. No headboard, so they’ll improvise – “Hold onto this, raise your arms, pull it apart,” he says, wrapping her hands around the belt. “Don’t let go.”
“Oh, I love this game,” she whispers as she follows instructions.
“I know you do. And you’ll love this, too,” he says as he goes down her body.
He uses his mouth and his fingers to get her off twice before he comes back up, gets his jeans and boxers off, and covers her again. She hasn’t moved since the second orgasm, but her eyes open wide, darker than dark. “Tyler,” she whispers, her voice a little broken.
“You can let go of the belt now,” he says as he slides inside, at last, home at last, and her hands lace themselves in his hair. The ride doesn’t take long, but it’s good for both of them, and he says her name as he lets himself feel.
It’s so good, in fact, that after they get up and get ready for sleep, he cuddles her closer and whispers, “You know, Kate, living well is the best revenge.”
She smiles against his shoulder. He’s almost asleep when he hears her whisper back, “But not the only kind.” He’s under before he can ask her what she means.
She’s not in the room when he wakes up – later than usual – the next morning. On her pillow, however, is a note. Cowboy, Javi’s coming to get you at 8:45. Go with him and don’t ask questions. (PS. Breakfast protein drink in the minifridge.)
Rain-wrapped tornado, yep, that’s Kate.
He hustles through his shower and dressing routine and is finishing their packing when Javi knocks on the door. Rivera’s grinning when Tyler opens the door. “You ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“Fun!” Javi says, his grin getting impossibly wider.
They go downstairs into the conference area. It’s Sunday morning, so there aren’t many people around – most of the good panels are done, the conference wraps up at noon, everybody’s got to check out. But Javi steers Tyler into the Gold Room.
Spooner’s sitting on the dais, next to Cherise from AccuWeather.
Tyler digs in his heels. “There is nothing fun about this!” he hisses to Javi.
“Oh, I think you’ll be surprised,” Javi says, and herds him into the last row.
As Tyler sinks down into a chair, he realizes Kate’s watching him from near the front. She’s sitting with Joaquin, Jeff, Lisa, and Janey, all in a tight little row. When Kate sees his double-take, she grins and does the Wrangler tornado sign before she turns back to face the dais.
Spooner is looking a little green, Tyler has to say. And there’s a surprising number of people here for this uninspiring panel on commercial forecasting.
Once the moderator starts it off, Cherise gives her familiar presentation on what her company offers; Tyler’s not a fan of this service, but he admires her professionalism. Then it’s Spooner’s turn, and it’s a trainwreck from the jump. Looks like Kate’s little psychological game has messed with his concentration; he misreads his slides, he skips important points, he’s sweating like it’s July in Austin. He looks like a complete fool.
And then it’s time for the Q&A.
Joaquin is the first on his feet. “Question for Dr. Spooner. You say you can predict any kind of storm. What qualifications do you have for tropical-storm forecasting?”
Spooner says, “It’s just a storm. I have the background for—”
“So you don’t have any,” Joaquin says. As he sits down, Jeff stands up.
“Question for Dr. Spooner. What proprietary tools does your company have to verify data?” Jeff says.
Spooner swallows. “Well, at the moment I use publicly available data—”
“So does everyone else in this room. Doesn’t make you special,” Jeff says, with a grin at the audience. Everyone laughs.
When he sits down, Lisa stands. “Question for Dr. Spooner. According to your own website’s archives, you missed the severe tornado outbreak associated with the Cat 4 hurricane in South Florida that year. You said the day before—” She looks down at her phone. “And I quote, ‘While hurricanes can spawn tornadoes, nothing suggests they’ll be associated with this one.’ Unquote.”
“Twenty tornadoes, three hundred million in damages,” Joaquin says loudly. “Everyone can make a mistake, but that’s a pretty big one.” He waves at the audience. “We called it at the NHC, by the way, with our friends from Storm Prediction.”
Spooner says nothing. Tyler looks at Cherise and the moderator, both of whom are smiling blandly like this is normal, neither of whom is making the slightest effort to intervene.
Janey stands as Lisa sits. “Question for Dr. Spooner. Why did you leave your tenured position to strike out on your own?”
Spooner says, “I wanted to be my own boss, and I had cutting-edge research on wind shear—"
“Was that really it? Or did student complaints have anything to do with it?” Janey says, before sitting down.
Spooner says, “You can’t know that!”
Good Christ, Tyler thinks, that was it. But the way Janey’s framed this as a question means she hasn’t slandered him. Just asking questions, isn’t that right.
And finally Kate, his brilliant and Machiavellian Kate, stands. “Question for Dr. Spooner – but really, this is more a comment than a question. Doesn’t seem like anyone should do business with you.”
The audience erupts at that, and if Spooner weren’t such a complete son of a bitch, Tyler would feel sorry for him. Kate sits down, smiling.
The moderator does take control at that point, thanking everyone for coming and bringing the bloodbath to a close.
Javi’s laughing. He elbows Tyler in the side. “See, told you it would be fun.”
“Holy shit,” Tyler says, a little numbly. But he can’t stop looking at Kate, his sweet Kate exchanging words and hugs with her co-conspirators. He’s always known she’s tough, but the fact that she did this for him….
He adores that woman, scary as she is.
Kate comes toward him with her posse. It takes a few minutes to say thanks and goodbye to their colleagues, tell Javi they’ll see him back in Oklahoma, head for the elevators. Tyler barely hangs onto his patience, but once the doors of the elevator close and they’re alone, he spins her around and has her back to the mirrored wall.
“Kate Carter,” he says. “My Kate. My wife." He wraps one hand around her nape and kisses her, once, twice, three times, four, five, one for every blow struck at Todd Fucking Spooner. She’s laughing through the first one, but by the fifth, she’s curled her calf around his leg and tunneled her hands into the waistband of his jeans.
The elevator doors ding open. It’s their floor. He steps back and says, “I love you.”
She blinks, then smiles, slow and satisfied. “I know.”
(Postscript: Todd Fucking Spooner leaves the profession soon after this conference.
The post-revenge celebration involves late check-out and several orgasms for Kate, and she even talks Tyler into letting her drive his truck home to Oklahoma. When she gets a speeding ticket just outside Pauls Valley, he doesn't even tease her.
He really does love her.)