The Story Inside

I smelled the rain before it hit. Heavy, metallic, sharp enough to taste on my tongue. The sky had gone that strange yellow-gray, bruised and waiting to split, and I leaned against my truck at the only gas station for miles, watching the horizon flicker like a live wire.
Storms were the only thing that ever made my heart kick anymore. Not women, not whiskey, not any of the towns I drifted through. Just the sky tearing itself open, the rush of wind and thunder rolling over empty fields.
The first drop hit my cheek, cold and electric, and that’s when the little silver sedan pulled in. Hood up, wipers squealing, like it had been fighting the weather the whole way here.
He got out.
Dark hair stuck to his forehead from the wind, damp from the air even before the rain started falling in earnest. Hoodie, jeans, sneakers soaked through. He had the kind of face you didn’t expect to see at a dusty station off Highway 81. Soft edges, quiet eyes, like he belonged somewhere safe. Somewhere still.
Our eyes caught for a second as he glanced toward the awning, and I grinned without thinking.
He hesitated, and that little pause sent a thrill straight through me.
I pushed off the truck and crossed the cracked concrete. “Hell of a night to be out,” I said, loud enough to cut through the low rumble of thunder.
He smiled, polite, a little unsure. “Guess I didn’t check the forecast.”
“That’s the fun part.” I tipped my head toward the storm. “Best kind of drive is the one where the sky looks like it might swallow you whole.”
He let out a small laugh, the kind that sneaks out before you mean it to. I noticed his hands. They were gripping the car keys like he wasn’t sure if he should stay or run.
“Where you headed?” I asked, leaning one shoulder on the frame of his car like I belonged there.
“South,” he said after a beat. “Eventually.”
I hummed, eyes tracing the horizon as a streak of lightning split it open, white-hot and gone in a breath. “Then we’re headed the same way. Storm’s rolling that way too.”
He followed my gaze, and for a second his face lit up in the flash, all shadow and wonder. I felt the first thread of want coil low in my gut.
“You ever chase one?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I grinned. “Then tonight’s your first.”
His eyes grew wide. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Cole. Cole Maddox. I can give you my social security number and mother’s maiden name, too, if that helps.”
He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head and laughed, holding out his hand to me. “I’m Noah Kincaid.”
“Noah.” I drawled the name out, tasting it, feeling the shape on my tongue. “What’ll it be, Noah. We stormchasing, or what?”
He inhaled, lifted his shoulders then let them drop. “Fuck it. Why not?”
I clapped him on the shoulder as my grin spilled across my face. “Hell yeah! That’s the spirit!” I yelled over my shoulder as I started toward my truck.
The rain picked up fast, coming in sideways under the awning. He glanced at his car like he was weighing his odds, then back at me.
I jerked my head toward my truck. “Come on. I’ll get you ahead of it.”
He hesitated, but the storm cracked overhead, close enough to make the ground shiver, and that seemed to decide for him. He ducked into the cab of my truck, dripping and smelling like damp cotton and soap. I slid in after him and slammed the door, the old engine rumbling to life under my hands.
“Seatbelt,” I said, grinning as I pulled out onto the empty two-lane.
Wind roared, rain hammered the windshield, and the world outside went to a blur of gray and silver. Wipers worked hard, slapping in rhythm, and every so often the sky lit up so bright I could see every curve of his face in sharp relief. High cheekbones, dark lashes clumped with rain, mouth parted just a little like he forgot to hide his awe.
“Hell of a storm,” he murmured, watching the sky like it was alive.
“Best one all summer,” I said. I rolled the window down a crack, letting in the smell of wet asphalt and ozone. “Smell that?”
He nodded, inhaling. “Smells like…” He trailed off, searching.
“Like trouble,” I said, flashing him a quick grin.
He laughed, softer than the thunder but warmer somehow. I felt it in my chest.
I drove one-handed, the other resting on the shifter between us. Close enough that if he moved his knee an inch, we’d be touching. He noticed. I could tell by the way his thigh tensed under his jeans, the tiniest shift toward me, like he didn’t want to but he did.
“You do this a lot?” he asked.
“Chase storms?” I shrugged. “Chase a lot of things. Storms, sunsets, bad ideas. Haven’t been caught yet.”
That earned me another look. Longer this time. Curious.
“So, you live near here?” He asked.
“Here? No. I don’t really settle anywhere. I blow into town with the storms. By the time the clouds are gone, so am I.”
“Doesn’t that get…lonely?”
Lonely. The word settled between us, sinking deeper into my skin than the rainwater still left in the fabric of my soaked clothes.
I shrugged again. “I get by. If I want company, I find some.”
He turned to look at me. “Is that what I am? Company?”
I smirked. “You wanna be my company for tonight?”
His next works took me by surprise.
“Just for tonight?” There was no hesitation in his voice, none of the cautious soft tone I’d come to expect. It was bold. It sent a jolt of lightning up my spine.
I couldn’t help the laugh that spilled out of me. “One night is all I ever offer.”
The quiet that followed felt heavy, loaded. Until I broke it.
“What’s your story, Noah?”
He cleared his throat. “My story?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, you know. Where are you headed? Who’s there waiting for you?”
“Houston. Grad school. I’m on my way back from visiting family for the summer in South Dakota. Aberdeen.”
“What are you studying?” I didn’t miss that he didn’t answer my “who’s waiting” question, but I let it slide. For now.
He smiled, then. “Environmental science. Climatology.”
I burst out laughing. “Climatology? No shit. You study weather and you’ve never chased a storm?”
He joined in my laugh. “It’s not like the movies. We aren’t all chasing down twisters.”
I snorted. “Twisters.”
“No really,” he said, “We don’t get these big storms in Houston. Well, we do. But, not like this. Not with the wide open sky and the lightning that looks like it goes on forever, spidering across the sky like breaking glass. It feels…different.”
My heart tripped over a beat or two. “Yeah…it does.”
I needed to change the subject quickly before I pulled over and crawled over the console. Something about the wonder in his voice when talking about the storms here broke something open in me I wasn’t ready to look into yet.
“Your girlfriend gonna worry about you driving all the way back to Houston alone?”
He scoffed. “My boyfriend broke up with me six months ago. Well, I guess I broke up with him, technically. He cheated with my roommate. And former best friend.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
He sighed, “Yeah…so, no. No one to worry about me back in Houston.”
He paused and tensed, then said, “That doesn’t mean you can murder me and leave my body in a ditch. I have an overbearing mother. I’ll be on the back of a milk carton by tomorrow morning. Or…whatever it is they do for missing…27 year olds.”
I laughed again. Full and loud.
“Relax. I’m not going to murder you, Noah. But I’m a little worried it took you this long to think of that.”
The conversation fell away naturally after that as the storm grew darker and more electric in the sky. The rain fell heavier now.
The highway dipped and rose, carrying us into the open fields. Lightning clawed across the sky, and for a split second the truck’s interior glowed white. I watched him instead of the storm.
He caught me looking and flushed.
“Careful,” I said, leaning a little closer over the console, my voice dropping low. “If you keep looking like that, I’m gonna think you wanted more than just a ride.”
He blinked, caught between surprise and something softer. A roll of thunder filled the cab like the world answering for him.
I grinned and turned my eyes back to the road, but I could feel the heat rolling off him now. Could almost taste it.
“Ever kissed someone in the middle of a storm?” I asked, casual but loaded.
He shook his head slowly, and I swore I felt the air shift.
“Guess tonight’s your first,” I said, same as before.
A bolt of lightning tore across the sky, jagged and white, and I felt it in my bones. I slowed the truck to a crawl on the empty stretch of highway and pulled over onto the shoulder, gravel crunching under the tires.
Noah turned to me, eyes wide. “Why are we…”
I killed the engine and nodded toward the storm. “You ever really feel a storm?”
He hesitated, glancing at the rain streaking down the windshield. “I think I’m feeling it right now.”
I smirked, already shoving my door open. “Not like this.”
The rain hit me like a slap, cold and hard and alive. The wind tugged at my shirt, plastered it to my skin, and the storm swallowed the world. Behind me, the passenger door creaked open, and a second later Noah was out in it, hood dropping against the weight of the rain.
“Cole…” He started to say something, but it was lost to the roar of the storm.
I just grinned and grabbed his hand, pulling him a few steps off the road, boots sinking in the wet gravel. Lightning flared again, lighting up his face. Water dripping off his lashes, lips parted, shoulders hunched against the wind.
“You look alive,” I said, low and rough, and before he could answer I kissed him.
The rain was everywhere. Cool on our skin, running into my mouth as I pressed it to his. He gasped, a sharp inhale against my lips, and I felt the shock of it all the way down my spine. His hands clutched at my shirt, wet fabric bunching in his fists, and I wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him in like I could keep him through the thunder.
He kissed me back like he’d been waiting for it longer than either of us would say out loud. It was messy and hard, rain-slick and desperate, a kiss that felt like the storm itself. Wild, fleeting, impossible to hold. He tasted like rain and mint. Like the sky and earth all at once. I couldn’t get enough.
For a heartbeat, the world was just heat and water and the low growl of thunder vibrating through the ground beneath our boots. I tasted rain and him and the edge of something I wasn’t supposed to want, not like this, not this much.
When I finally pulled back, his chest was heaving, his wet hair plastered to his forehead. Lightning flared again, catching in his eyes. It was then I could clearly see the color for the first time. Blue gray like the color of an angry sky.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
I grinned, breathless, brushing my thumb over his jaw where rain slid down in rivulets. “Told you. First time’s the best.”
I grabbed his hand and he let me pull him back to the truck. I knew I should get him back to his car. Or maybe see what I could get away with right here in the truck before driving him back. The tension was as thick as the rain outside by the time we climbed back into the cab. I didn’t want that, though. Not with him.
I wanted to lay him out on a bed. Taste every inch of him.
We sat there for a beat, the sound of our breathing the only sound other than the rumble of thunder and pelting rain.
I turned to him. “I have a crazy idea.”
He raised his eyebrows, “Crazier than picking up a stranger and chasing storms?”
I didn’t grin or smirk this time. Just caught his gaze and held. My voice was low, edged with the desperation I didn’t want to feel. “Stay with me tonight. I’ll get a motel room. I’ll take you back to your car in the morning.”
He kept his eyes on me and I wasn’t imagining the heat in them, “One night. That’s the only thing you ever offer.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’s all I’ve got. But if you want it, it’s yours. Tonight.” I leaned in, hoping he’d meet me half way.
He nodded slowly and closed the distance. I kissed him again. Slower this time, gripping the back of his neck. I felt him tremble under my hand.
When I pulled away he nodded again. “Tonight. I’ll take it.”
The motel was one of those roadside boxes with peeling turquoise paint and buzzing yellow lights. A single row of doors. Rain spilled off the awning in silver curtains, pooling in the cracked parking lot. Perfect place to disappear for a night.
I killed the truck and sat there for a second, feeling the storm pulse through my veins. My clothes were soaked, clinging to my skin. Noah sat quiet in the passenger seat, hair dripping into his collar, watching the rain slide down the windshield.
“This is it,” I said. My voice came out low, rougher than I meant.
He looked at me, cheeks pink from the chill, and nodded. He didn’t ask questions. Just followed me out into the rain, hunching against the downpour as we crossed to the office.
The key was metal and cold in my hand. Room 7.
Inside, it smelled like old carpet and motel soap, but the second the door shut, the storm became a muffled hum behind the thin walls. The world narrowed to us, wet and dripping and alive.
Noah hovered near the door, hair in his eyes, hoodie dark and heavy with rain. His shirt clung to him, thin and soaked, showing the lines of his chest and the rise and fall of his breath. Lightning flashed through the window, and I swear I saw his pulse in his throat.
I didn’t wait. I crossed the space between us in two steps, caught his face in my hands, and kissed him hard. He gasped into my mouth, warm and soft against my cold fingers, and then he was kissing me back, gripping my shirt like he couldn’t get close enough. He let me push him back against the wall, let me devour him for a breathless moment, and I thought I had him. Thought I was leading.
Then his hand slid up into my hair, firm, and the other came to my throat. Not squeezing, just holding. Warm and steady. My whole body stuttered at the touch. The wild motion in me, the need to consume and move and chase, froze under the weight of that quiet claim. My pulse jumped against his palm, and for the first time all night, I felt still.
I met his eyes. They were dark and calm and unhurried, a low roll of thunder you feel in your ribs before you hear it.
“Slow down,” he said softly, voice barely more than a hum.
I exhaled, a shudder I didn’t know I’d been holding. My hands gentled on his waist without thinking, my forehead tipping against his as if the fight had gone out of me.
Noah kissed me then. Slow, deep, patient. It was the kind of kiss that sank under my skin, curling low in my chest, making me ache in a different way. My fingers curled into his damp shirt, holding on like I’d been caught in something I hadn’t seen coming.
When he guided me back toward the bed, it wasn’t rushed. Every move was deliberate, uncoiling tension I hadn’t realized I carried. By the time he pushed me onto the mattress and followed me down, I wasn’t chasing anything anymore. I was letting it take me.
The room smelled like rain and skin. Lightning flickered across the ceiling as he kissed down my neck, slow as the storm outside, every touch deliberate and grounding. My hands roamed his back, but he set the pace, his mouth trailing heat that built and built until I couldn’t hold still.
When he slid his hand back to my throat, just resting there, something inside me cracked open. Not fear. Not submission. Just… being seen, fully and without judgment, in a way I hadn’t let anyone see me in a long time.
I pulled him closer, chasing the warmth of his skin, the steadiness he carried like a pulse. The rest of the night blurred into heat and motion, a rhythm of slow and fast, pull and give, until all I could feel was him and the storm beyond the thin motel walls.
By the time we collapsed together, tangled in rough sheets and damp skin, the thunder had rolled farther away. My breath slowed against his shoulder, my wildness spent. His fingers brushed the side of my throat once more, soft and certain, like he knew exactly what he’d done to me.
The rain had stopped sometime before dawn. I woke to pale light seeping through the thin curtains and the quiet drip of water off the awning outside. The room smelled like damp clothes like the ghost of the storm had settled over us in the night.
Noah was still asleep beside me, one arm draped across his stomach, hair mussed and half-dry against the pillow. For a moment, I just watched him breathe. His chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm that I could almost match. My body ached in that good, spent way, but something deeper in me ached too.
I traced the faint outline of his shoulder under the sheet, not touching, just memorizing. I thought about the way his hand had fit against my throat, steady and sure, how it had felt to be held in a way that asked for nothing except to be there. I didn’t realize until then how long it had been since I had let anyone see me like that.
He stirred, eyes opening slowly. A soft, sleepy smile touched his mouth, and it hit me low in the gut.
“Morning,” he murmured, voice rough.
“Morning,” I said, leaning on one elbow. “Storm’s gone.”
He hummed, glancing toward the streak of light on the wall. “Yeah. Figures.”
We were quiet for a while. It was the kind of silence that was too fragile to break with anything ordinary. Eventually, he sat up and reached for his shirt, damp around the edges where it had hung over the chair.
“You still want that ride back to your car?” I asked. My voice was light, but I could hear the weight under it.
“Yeah,” he said. He looked around for his sneakers, then paused to meet my eyes. There was no awkwardness in it. Just a soft understanding.
I drove him back with the window cracked, the air sharp and clean after the rain. The fields stretched out wide and endless, everything washed bright and new. He rested his hand on the console for a moment, close enough that I could have covered it with mine. I didn’t.
The silver sedan waited under the gas station awning like nothing had happened. He slid out of my truck and leaned in the open door.
“Thanks,” he said quietly. “For the ride. For… everything.”
I nodded, throat tight. “Take care, Noah.”
He smiled, small but real, and then he was gone, backing out onto the road with his taillights blinking against the washed-out morning.
I sat there a minute longer, watching the horizon where the clouds were breaking, feeling the night echo in my chest. The storm had moved on, and so had he.
Weeks later, I waited outside a university library, the humid Houston air curling against my neck and the scent of wet concrete still lingering from an afternoon shower. I didn’t need to wave him down when I saw his tall, lean frame and dark hair. Eyes the color of storm clouds latched onto mine. He walked to me with long, steady strides.
“Chase any good storms lately?” He said with a small smile.
I leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. “The last one I chased caught me.”

Welcome.

This journal is a place for poems, fragments, and long-form thoughts—
writing that comes from the body and lingers in the aftermath.

Some entries are personal. Some are fictional.
All of them are offered gently.

You’re welcome to read quietly, or to comment with care.
Curiosity and kindness are always appreciated.
If something here isn’t for you, it’s okay to pass it by.

Thank you for being here.