Chapter Text
Detective Angela Lopez and Officer Jackson West were both aware that they probably had more important things to do with their morning, but they couldn’t help themselves. All they could do was stir creamer into their coffees and watch the scene before them unfold.
Their trance caught Nyla’s attention as she was headed into the briefing room for roll call a few minutes early, but stopped when she saw the laser-focused befuddlement on Angela and Jackson’s faces.
“Good morning?” she greeted.
Angela didn’t greet her back, instead staring straight ahead and musing, “Do you ever watch something happen… and you know it’s happening… but you’re amazed at how impossibly slow it’s happening?”
Rather than answer, Nyla turned to Jackson and asked, “Is she okay?”
In response, Jackson tipped his chin towards the other side of the room, and Nyla finally turned.
The scene in question was of Tim Bradford sitting on a briefing room table with his arms crossed watching Lucy Chen show him a half-assed rendition of a TikTok dance her teenage roommate Tamara had taught her over the weekend. She paused only to laugh when Tim’s attempts not to laugh at her failed him.
“Ah,” Nyla said, nodding.
“Morning, everybody!” They all turned to see Nolan approaching with two cups of coffee. Handing one to Nyla, he looked through the glass window to see what had everyone whispering. “They are aware that the walls of the briefing room are see-through, correct?”
“Maybe they’ll get together at Jack’s wedding,” Angela sighed.
“Or when flying cars are invented,” Jackson said.
“Isn’t he supposed to have a girlfriend?” Nyla asked, and Angela shook her head.
“Broke up,” she explained. “Tim said things were never quite the same after that double date and they just drifted until they couldn’t salvage it.”
“Wonder why,” Jackson mumbled from behind his coffee cup.
Nyla rolled her eyes. “Why are you all in their business anyway?” she asked. “It’s more fun to just sit back and watch the mess unfold in its own time.”
“Nyla, all due respect, you don’t live with half the mess.”
“Trust me,” Nolan interjected, “It might be fun when you’re mostly an onlooker but any time spent with either of these two is…”
The briefing room started to fill with fellow officers awaiting roll, and neither Tim nor Lucy even bothered to look at any of them.
“Exhausting,” Angela finished.
“Mildly concerning,” Jackson followed.
“Last I remember, roll call tends to take place inside the briefing room.” The group hadn’t even heard Grey coming, so they had no time to stop looking into the room so obviously. Grey joined the observation of Tim, no longer watching Lucy dance, but now swiping through his phone and from the faces Lucy was making at it, they all assumed he was showcasing his newest collection of Kojo pictures. “Are you all standing around gossiping about your fellow officers?”
“Never,” Jackson lied.
Grey shot him a look that could only be read as “You wanna try that again?”
“We’re gossipping about my roommate!”
“And my Man of Honor!” Angela added. “It’s not gossiping when you’re talking about your best friends.”
“Mmhm,” Grey groaned. “And you don’t think they’ll notice their closest friends blatantly watching them through glass?”
Nolan stopped drinking his coffee to offer, “Sir, 20 bucks says they don’t look away from each other until at least two minutes after roll is supposed to start.”
“What is the hold up here?” Angela sighed. “Wesley and I met, dated, got engaged, got married, and had a baby in the time it took these two to at least start flirting in public.”
“Yeah, well, Wesley was never your boss,” Nyla countered.
“Yeah, but there’s paperwork for that,” Grey added, causing the group to look over at him. “Not that I have a position on this one way or another.”
“Bradford is a strict, by-the-book professional,” Nyla continued. “He’ll never let himself think of Lucy in that way while he’s only seeing her in uniform for 12 hours a day.”
“Well, he could just ask her out on a date then,” Nolan attempted to reason.
Nyla stared at Nolan like he’d just said the sky was purple. “Because I respect you, I’ll give you the chance to realize the flaw in your logic.”
“I realize it, thank you.”
“So, what?” Jackson asked, finishing the last of his coffee. “We make them hang out outside of work? How do we force two people to go on a date?”
“Oh, no… you don’t,” Nyla answered, shaking her head. “Bradford and Chen on a date that they know is a date? At this point, it would be the most awkward thing in the world. Even if one of them did ask the other, they’re so used to being friends and colleagues, they’d probably say 15 words to each other total if they went into it knowingly romantically.”
Nolan quirked an eyebrow. “You know, for a passive onlooker, you sure have analyzed this a lot.”
“No one asked you.”
“Ugh!” Angela groaned in exasperation. “So this is just doomed then? They’ve friend-zoned each other eternally? How do we get them out of their comfort zones and still have it end well?”
They all individually pondered the question. Even Grey could be caught rubbing his chin in thought.
“We don’t,” Nolan finally broke the silence by saying. “We don’t! We keep them in their comfort zones while still getting them more used to each other off the clock!”
Jackson squinted. “I’m not following.”
Nyla’s eyes widened in understanding. “We trick them into going out.”
“Yes!” Nolan agreed, pointing. “They do something together in their downtime as friends! Maybe if we can get them far enough from their titles and just show them how close of friends they really are, they’ll realize they want to be more!”
“We plan it ourselves!” Jackson added, finally catching onto the plan. “Oh, we should send them to a museum. Lucy loves museums and she knows enough interesting factoids to keep the conversation going for hours.”
“Yeah, Tim isn’t gonna be here for that,” Angela said. “He’s gonna wanna do something outdoorsy, like hiking, or something sports-related. Hell, he might settle for beer and a movie on his couch.”
“What’s something they both like?” Nolan asked, earning a shrug from Angela and Jackson. “Well, they both like food, so maybe we send them somewhere with the kind of food they like, but somewhere they haven’t eaten? So it doesn’t just feel like a lunch break on shift?”
It was then that they noticed Nyla chuckling to herself about their musings. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s just cute how you guys think these two will realize they’re into each other after one outing. Really, it’s adorable.”
Jackson narrowed his eyes before turning to Angela. “My museum idea will go a lot better than your hiking idea.”
“Care to put money on it?” Angela asked.
“Oh, yeah, one date won’t work, so two will definitely do the trick,” Nyla added.
“We all plan one,” Nolan declared. “That’s four chances for one of us to be the one to end months and months of… whatever this is.”
“Is there still money involved?” Angela asked. “I’m a good matchmaker and Jack needs one of those fancy strollers.”
“Winner gets $50 each from the losers, sound fair?”
All except Grey nodded at Nolan’s proposition.
“We’ll take turns. Who wants to go first?” Angela looked around the group for a taker.
“I can,” Nolan offered. “Bailey’s been asking me to take her on a crime-free date, so we can figure out some kind of romantic/fake platonic situation.”
“Wait, isn’t there an unfair advantage for the first few?” Nyla asked. “If your date wins, we owe you money, and we didn’t even get a chance.”
“True,” Jackson agreed. “But dates after are gonna have the leftover effects of the dates that came before. You said yourself that the first date isn’t gonna do it, right? The fairness evens out.”
“Honestly, I’d say I deserve a bonus if my date wins.”
“You’re not getting a bonus, Nolan.”
“Wait, wait, so you’re telling me there’s a four out of five chance I’d be out 50 bucks?” Grey interjected, and everyone looked at him again. “What? There’s money involved, of course I’m considering.”
Nolan grinned, happy to add another player. “And a one in five chance of winning $200! Plus, a 100% chance of helping two good friends!”
Nyla stuck a finger in the air, adding, “Unless this goes terribly wrong and ends in both of them hating us and each other forever.”
“An 85% chance of helping two good friends!” Nolan corrected. “Come on, sir, wouldn’t this be a great story to tell at a wedding one day?”
“Oh, they’re never finding out about this,” Angela countered.
Nolan corrected again, “Wouldn’t this be a great story to tell at a wedding behind the bride and groom’s backs one day?”
The group stared at Grey expectantly until he uncrossed his arms to put his hands up. “Fine! I’ll join your dumbass plan. Now, can we please start roll call before LA burns to the ground?”