The Silent Kind

I dont know what to name this chapter...........

Keith sat on the back porch with his Lone Star beer and Marlboro Reds just watching the rain. It was quiet. Cool. Calm. Nothing like the storms of his youth, 400 miles away in the Panhandle. The Piney Woods softened the sound and storms couldn't roll so fast here as they did across the plains. It was still Texas but just barely.

He didn't think he'd ever get used to all the green. Even as the crisp November air fogged his breath between smokes, the grass of the little back lawn was a deep green St. Augustine. The honeysuckle on the back fence was still just as green as it had been when it bloomed that summer. The roses on their trellis draped a thorny green over the gate flanked by fan palms. The wall of yellow pine beyond the yard was just as green as everything else. Only the dogwoods by the creek and occasional maple or sweetgum in the woods were any other color and they were a bright, fiery red.

It was snowing in the Panhandle.

Sometimes he missed the red clay and cotton fields. But he liked the green too. It was comforting. Alive. Gentle. Not so lonely as the land of cactus and mesquite scrub. Not so harsh as the blazing sun of the Arizona desert. Not that the green didn't have her own bite. Rattlers got nothing on Cottonmouths and the humid heat is so much worse than dry baking. But she accepted him, took him in, wrapped him up in green.

Keith couldn't help a soft smile as he admitted it wasn't the green he really liked. It was her.

He glanced back into the house behind him from his worn old lawn chair by the open door. He could see her sitting sideways on the couch, back against the armrest, headphones on her ears, whole attention rapt on the dull glow of her computer screen. She wouldn't hear a hurricane. And that only warmed his smile.

Soft sounds of cold rain plinked against the tin roof as Keith leaned his head back against the rough cedar frame and watched through the old screen door. Overlarge round wire rim glasses reflected the scrolling code from the screen in front of her. Keith had no idea what any of it meant but he knew it was probably very important. That or she was working on her Battlebot AI again. That made him smile too. Soft smile. An expression he only gave to a very few and she pulled it out of him without trying. Without even looking.

Ash crumbled off the end of Keith's cigarette, reminding him it was there, and he took a long drag to make up for the loss. He held the smoke a moment, eyes still on the girl, then turned back to the rain before letting it out with a sigh. Someday he'll quit. Someday. His brow furrowed slightly as he looked down at the little ember to watch it slowly burn between his fingers. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wood panel wall. Just listen to the rain. It was good. Calm. Quiet.

Keith blinked when a soft thud hit his leg with the weight of a freight train then wrapped a figure eight around his feet. "Hey, fuzzbutt," he murmured a soft laugh not even bothering to glance down at the responding little mew. Just set his beer on the shelf beside him, next to the ash tray, then dropped a hand in a loose fist below the chair. There was another tiny meep before the piebald tabby headbutted his hand like a bighorn ram. Keith couldn't help but smile as the cat rubbed its face over his fist then trailed its whole body across his hand, to the tail, only to turn around and rub up the other side, petting itself with a low, loping purr.

"Timing belt's off there, buddy," Keith teased lightly as he opened his hand to scritch behind the cat's ear. The deep, unsteady pur revved up to a higher pitch a moment before settling back in that broken idle.

'I don't like cats.'

' You'll like this one. Purrs like a motorcycle.'

Purrs like a Harley. So that's what they named him. Not that they actually call any of the critters by their given names. But they named them all. And there were many. Who'd have thought little miss tech had a soft spot for strays. But then she had him, didn't she? Keith took another drag of his smoke then shook his head.