⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 ASKING FOR IT ╱ Dinner For Four.𖥔˚
chapter EIGHT

          The next morning, Kate has already abandoned the bed by the time Carmen pulls herself from the trenches of sleep. The remnants of it clings to the corners of her eyes and she groans at the empty spot, but her legs are already swinging over the edge of the bed and settling onto cold hardwood.

Her nerves light with the shock to her system, and she pulls her right leg back toward her chest with a hiss, the other lifting just so off the ground. Still, the feeling of a biting sting that's flesh turned cold lingers. With it, so does the lingering memory suddenly associated with the feeling.

It's hard to imagine that last night was only that━━━just a night ago━━━but that was the unfortunate truth of it, wasn't it? It was only a sad fourteen hours ago that Carmen's world was almost ripped from limb to limb the same way her father's had been.

She should call her mother.

Golden light streaming in from the only slightly cracked blinds in the only window in the room tells her that it's closer to mid-afternoon than morning, and she runs a hand over her face to hopefully wipe the sleep from it. It didn't serve its purpose as much as the second shock when she forced her feet down onto the ground, but she'd have to take what she could get.

Forcing herself to move and strip the sleep from her bones, she shuffles toward Kate's old drawers and pulls them open with a creak. Clothes previously abandoned lay on display for her, and she pushes them around until she finds an old gray t-shirt with a faded logo for their old high school and a pair of threadbare leggings.

Pulling them on, she rummages around the dresser for a hair tie. When she finds one, she tosses her hair up and off her neck━━━the feeling of the knots pissing her off.

Feeling a bit more put together than she had been earlier in the day, she makes her way out of the room and toward the hallway. It's got the same chill running through it that hangs over the entire house, and Carmen crosses her arms and hugs herself as she saunters down the dimly lit passageway.

When she's unable to find either Kate or Cathy anywhere in the little cottage, she resigns herself to having to go outside and slides her socked feet into the boots abandoned by the door last night. They settle against her calves comfortably, years ago broken in and well-loved.

Pushing the front screen open with her hip, arms still glued to her front, she dips her chin toward her chest as she yawns. There's no reason she should be this tired at a time like━━━her hand dips to grab her phone from where she shoved it between her stomach and the band of her legging, checking the time━━━12:37 pm, but she excuses it easily because of the night before.

Outside, chickens cluck as they roam the ground freely, and she smiles as one runs at her before aborting its mission just before headbutting her leg.

From the barn, voices echo past the old wooden doors and to Carmen's ears as she makes her way toward them.

"Just the way I left it."

"I've been wondering what you want me to do with all this stuff."

"You can just throw it out."

"You done? Hmm? It's funny, I keep seeing more and more tornadoes and floods and droughts and...price of wheat and seed going up and up and up. But I'm still here."

Outside the doors of the barn, Carmen comes to a stop before she can push them open and make an entrance uncalled for. It was clear the mother and daughter were having a talk that was a long time coming, and it'd be stupid of her to bulldoze her way into it. Even if neither of them would get upset with her, she wasn't that oblivious. Still, she can't stop herself from listening in.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I haven't been good about calling."

Near the end of her words, a cell phone chimes, and a bone-deep and weary sigh leaves one of the women.

"I've got to get this. Um...'Throw it away,'" she hears Cathy scoff. "I'm still waiting for you to save the world."

Hearing footsteps moving closer and closer, Carmen steps away from the door and shuffles backward until she's a safe enough distance to start forward again━━━making it look like she's arriving at the doors for the first time that morning.

They swing open just as her hand is reaching to push at them, and Cathy blinks before smiling in recognition. "Afternoon, Car," the mother she never knew she needed greets, slipping past her with a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of her arm. "Be easy on her," she mumbles against her ear softly.

"Always." Returning the contact and squeezing the hand on her arm lightly, she smiles weakly as the two part. Taking a deep breath, she makes her way into the barn after a beat or two, spotting Kate at her old work desk.

Her fingers are curled around an old image, and the brunette doesn't need to see it to know the memory trapped inside it. Her heartstrings tug, and she approaches slowly, bending down to wrap her arms around shaking shoulders when close enough. The old and loved version of Jeb and Kate━━━forever frozen━━━falls to the desk with a flutter when the blonde's hands come up to clasp onto her forearms.

The two don't say anything, and it's unclear how long they sit there. Carmen refuses to complain about the ache crawling up her spine in response to the hunched position she crouches in, and instead soaks in the trust of a moment where Kate Carter allows herself to cry and not shy away from her.

Finally, the moment stretches past the faded memories and back into the reality of it all, and Kate shrugs at Carmen lightly. Pulling away isn't easy, for both the tightness of her muscles and the bite of her heart.

"C'mon," she mumbles, "let's head back in."

She stands and makes her way toward the barn doors without a chance of objection from her best friend, but the brunette only follows silently. That is until they pass a set-up of plastic homes and an urban cityscape.

"Oh, Katie," she laughs, arms still tucked against her chest and tilting her head at it. "Remember this?"

The blonde rejoins her, leaning against the wooden post of a support beam and smiling lightly down at the project. "Impossible to forget." Her hand reaches for the button strapped up and out of reach, pulling it toward herself.

Mindlessly, her finger dips into the button and starts the project up easily. Air rushes up for the center of the display, funneling into an all too familiar shape. With heavy hearts, the two watch the houses rip from their metaphorical roots and dance around the grid.

"Build your own tornado. Look at that."

Carmen jumps right out of her skin, spinning to face Tyler's smirking face as he takes steps toward the girls. With a deeper inspection, his eyes betray his concern━━━as does the hand he snakes around the brunette's waist to pull her toward him. His chin dips, and he leans toward her ear. "Don't do that again."

"Do what?" Her head tips back up as her eyes meet his, wide and confused.

"Run away from me."

Frowning, the cowgirl attempts to take a step away. Her thoughts bounce around and scatter as she takes his words in and tries to make sense of them. "I wasn't running from you." There's nowhere for her to go, not when he pulls her against him as he leans on the support beam parallel to Kate. "I was running with Kate." There's a distinct difference, and if he doesn't understand that, he'll never understand her.

He looks down at her, eyes traveling over her face in a way that almost intoxicating and completely revealing. His fingers press into the skin of her hip━━━just where the shirt rides up and exposes a strip of something pale and untouched━━━and he nods. "Okay."

There's nothing else to say, and she's thankful when he doesn't continue. It's telling in a way the words never could be, and she shivers. Thankfully, his eyes flip over her shoulder and to the display behind her.

"So, why the homemade tornado?"

Somewhere in the middle of their conversation, the whooshing of the air had stopped, and Kate's voice is clear and just a smidge too fond as she mumbles, "Middle school science fair project."

Leaning back on the heel of her foot, she shifts and places herself against Tyler's side━━━not that he seems like he'd let her get away if she attempted to. His arm adjusts around her, keeping the contact constant even as he focuses on his conversation with Kate.

"Well, you must've won."

The blonde sighs, but the almost smug smile on her face when she shrugs gives her away. Her eyes shift from the diorama to Tyler and Carmen━━━all of them a too tangible representation of everything she seems to be aching to leave behind. It almost stings physically, the weight that seems to cut into Carmen when she sees the look on her face.

"How'd you find us?" Her eyes linger on Carmen only briefly, and the brunette shakes her head lightly. Tyler's number doesn't even reside in her phone━━━and wasn't that a thought?

"Uh, Dexter pieced it together." His fingers press deeper into her side, a silent apology. "He remembered your name from the news a few years back. I'm sorry about your friends." Evergreen orbs fall from Kate to the girl tucked into his side, and she bites at her thumbnail lightly.

There's no answer to be found in the air around them, and it's only the saving grace of Cathy that she's able to move on without salt in her eyes.

"I'm fixing some food. You three okay eating outside?" She barrels into the barn, either completely unaware of what she's walked into, or all too knowing. It's impossible to tell either way.

"Oh, I'm not gonna bother you, Ms. Carter." Tyler looks up, freeing Carmen only slightly from his capture of her. With the hand of his arm still heavy along her body, the entirety of such an effect is unthinkable.

At the same time, Kate speaks up. "He's not staying.

"He's staying." The tamer's mother waves her daughter off. "You can call me Cathy. Kate, why don't you set up the table?"

          The evening air is crisp around them in a way it only is after a storm, but the four don't pay it any mind as they pass around plates and stories. Growing up the way they did, it's all too familiar to taste the hint of lingering rain in the air and feel the bite of wind not fully receded even hours later.

"That only gets you so far," Tyler continues, pulling Carmen back to a conversation she's only half paid attention to when his hand drops to her thigh. His plate sits polished and untouched, whereas hers is still piled in sections. "Every chaser has to make a guess, and the good ones have an instinct for it."

Carmen thinks of Tyler's team. Of Boone, and Lily, and then the man himself beside her. Thinks of the instincts they must've seen in him all those years ago and decided were worth following blindly into the journeys of their lives.

At the head of the table, Cathy looks at her daughter fondly. "Oh, she had that early on. Always knew when weather was coming, even better than the cows." Her fork glints in the fading sun as she directs it toward Carmen. "That one too."

"Wow, you hear that?" Mirthful eyes bounce between the two. "You're better than the cows. That's a compliment."

Subdued chuckles fall from their lips, and Carmen itches to curl her hand around the expanse of Tyler's━━━still taking up space on her thigh like it's made to do so. 

"Got to have a feel for it."

"Yeah," his eyes dance over to hers, and she leans an elbow on the table. Her plate pushes further toward the center, forgetting in favor of the conversation. As her chin comes to sit in her upturned palm, her lips quirk at him softly. "They've always had a feel for it, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. Kate especially" Her eyes lift to her best friend, who's shaking her head and mouthing 'no,' unaware it's her mother she needs to be worried about.

"One time, I was giving her a bath..."

Looking completely betrayed, the blonde turns to her mother at the speed of a whip. "Can we not?"

"Maybe just a little." There's no stopping Cathy once she gets started, and Kate slumps forward in defeat. Carmen nods eagerly, this particular story is one of her favorites. The cowboy next to her also looks quite curious, but he doesn't seem keen to bounce off his seat like the brunette. You think she wouldn't, considering the amount of times she's heard it, but here she is.

If it weren't for the thumb stroking over her thigh, her leg would be bouncing.

"And we heard thunder," Cathy continues, "and she shot up out of the tub and ran out the house naked as the day she was born..."

Carmen laughs harshly into her hand, tilting her face down toward the table. "Oh, my God." Her best friend groans, and she muffles a louder sound.

"...and I had no idea where she was." At this point, all of them were laughing but the subject of the matter━━━but the quirk of her lips felt like enough of a win. "I was terrified. And when I finally caught up with her, she was standing in the middle of the wheat field, staring at the sky."

It's easy to imagine, a Kate too young to really have a clear picture of staring at a storm in wonder. The way they all did once before they learned just what exactly it was they had yet to touch.

"I got to try that out." His southern drawl is light with humor, and it should not be as charming as it is.

"Will you stop encouraging her?"

"Keep your clothes on, Kate. Let your mom finish."

It's an ugly sound, the snort of a laugh she pushes into her palm as she covers the bottom half of her face and shakes her head. It's too much for a weak joke and brittle evening, but it's been so long since they've let themselves joke about━━━well, anything it felt━━━and it was too good to ignore the joy in her chest.

When she settles enough to look back toward the three around her, her cheeks are still flushed and her cheeks ache just a little, but all of them smile at her almost like she's golden, so she refuses to hide. Even as the attention becomes a bit too much.

Thankfully, and once again, Cathy is deemed her savior as she claps her hands together. It draws their attention right back━━━because no one ignores Cathy Carter━━━and she smiles at Kate something fond and small.

"All I'm saying is, she always loved weather." It's a simple fact. The sky is blue, the green is green, Kate loved weather. "Worse the weather, the happier the girl."

The mother and daughter pair continue to stare at each other as the words cloud the air, blanketing them almost as heavily as the weight of the humidity. The younger Carter woman breaks first, and when Cathy smiles it's not as real as it might have been before.

"What about you?" Her head tilts in Tyler's direction, and he gives her his full attention at the inquiry. "Tyler, how'd you come to do this work?"

Throughout this entire conversation, the heat along her thigh has yet to recede, and she's thankful for the material of her legging as a barrier between their skin. Deep down, part of her nerves still felt fried from the night before, and there was no way to not read into the way Tyler was acting now after it.

"Well, when you love something, you'll spend your whole life trying to understand it."

It has nothing to do with her, and she's most definitely making it up, but the trace of a pattern on her leg skips as he speaks around that dreaded word, and she sucks in a breath.

Get it together, Carmen.

She doesn't. "I'd say you've done a pretty good job so far." Picking up her once-abandoned fork, she pushes the chilled food on her plate around to avoid a forest of feelings waiting for her, if she looked up.

"That's why Katie was studying for a PhD." Cathy, the brunette knows, will need to be given the biggest thank you basket for the ways she's saved Carmen tonight.

Feeling safe enough to look up, she watches the movement of Tyler's chest pushing out as he lets out a slow breath. "Wow."

"I keep telling her to come back and finish it."

"Okay, Mom." Their subject chuckles, the sound awkward and uncomfortable.

"She was heading up a big study with her friends: disrupting tornado dynamics." Cathy points at Carmen, forcing slight attention to her and acknowledging her involvement, but it's not enough to save Kate from what's already wrecked over her in an attempt to wash the rest of the evening away.

She stands abruptly, clearly forcing her body into aborted movements━━━itching to leave but aching at the thought of it. "Uh, does anybody need anything?"

The three shake their heads, and Carmen almost stands with her, but when she catches the blonde's eye, she knows. This isn't one of those nights where she can follow. This isn't a night she can keep them together. If she tried, she'd only succeed in tearing them apart.

So no, she couldn't do this for them.

Instead, she settles back into the seat she'd claim for the meal and finally seizes the hand on her thigh in hers━━━doing something for herself.

▬▬ mads speaks     ╱     are we...are we
getting somewhere??
(yes, yes we are [i screamed])
this is poorly edited, as usual, but y'all
are still here so...until next time! xoxo