Work Text:
Lucy had enjoyed a quiet evening, which she always felt she deserved after shift. Hell, she deserved it regardless. She dumped her mind of anything meaningful via Love Island marathon while sipping her favorite tea, then took advantage of her recently emptied mind to meditate. When she was finished with that, she washed her face, treating herself to a charcoal mask to draw out impurities. When she was fully relaxed, she crawled under her covers, still wearing her favorite green kimono robe so she could wake up feeling sexy in the morning, and laid her head on the pillow.
That was when there was a knock at the door.
Lucy groaned and ripped the covers off of herself, planning how to gently remind Tamara to stop leaving her key in her room when she goes out with friends. She stomped over to the door, looking through the peephole to make sure it was Tamara and not an intruder.
But it wasn’t Tamara, nor an intruder.
It was Tim.
She pulled the door open and he beamed when he saw her. “Hey!”
Lucy hadn’t missed the way he weaved on his feet when the door was pulled from under his hand. “You’re drunk,” she observed.
He took a step forward, and she moved so he could come inside. “I’m not that-” His sentence cut off when he braced himself against her kitchen counter. “I’m not that drunk.”
While discussing their plans for the night at the end of their shift, Tim had mentioned he was attending a friend’s bachelor party tonight. He had the day off tomorrow, so she figured he’d allow himself to let loose a little, but not this much.
“How drunk are you right now?” she asked.
He pushed himself off of the counter, standing up straight without wobbling for the first time. “Good enough to know where to ask my buddies to drop me off. Drunk enough that you look really pretty right now.” His eyebrows furrowed as he looked off to the side. “Wait, that’s not… you look really pretty all the time, I don’t know where I was going with that.”
Lucy couldn’t help but giggle. Overall, he seemed fine, not blackout drunk, or worse. Just drunk enough that showing up on her doorstep fumbling over compliments would be a hilarious thing to watch him recall tomorrow. “I don’t know…”
“No, you do! You do look pretty all-”
“No, not about that. I don’t know if I believe how sober you are. Walk over to me in a straight line and let me see.”
He scoffed as if that should be no big deal. Arms out to his sides, he put one foot directly in front of the other, and to his credit, he started out better than Lucy assumed he would. The moment his face showed pride in himself, however, he stumbled, reaching out for Lucy to catch him. She did, grasping his forearms as his hands wrapped around her elbows. And he couldn’t stop giggling, first, at his own clumsy feet, then directly into Lucy’s eyes as he stepped, consciously or unconsciously, further into her space. “Sorry,” he said, his own eyes betraying he wasn’t sorry at all.
Lucy let go of his arms, stepping back from him as she didn’t trust herself this close to him with no inhibitions. “How was your party?” she asked instead.
“It was fun!” he answered. “Preston’s really excited to get married, but his best man went a little overboard on the activities.”
“Oo, what kind of overboard?” She made her way to her sink, figuring she wasn’t going back to sleep just yet, and she might as well fill the time by washing dishes.
She heard him settle into one of her barstools behind the counter. “Well, there was alcohol. A lot of alcohol.”
“Consumed in no small part by you.”
“It would have been rude not to.”
She couldn’t help but smile down at the pot she was working on.
“We drove around in a party bus. That’s what I got here in.”
She nodded like she was impressed.
“The party was at a strip club, and Josh paid for private dances.”
“Oh!” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral. “Like… for everyone?”
“Mostly just for him and Preston, but everyone got a little action. Except me… I didn’t feel like it.”
She turned around, setting the last plate she felt like doing down and drying her hands. “Well, why didn’t you feel like it? It’s not like you have other loyalties right now.”
“I realized a few… many… way too many drinks in that I didn’t wanna be there anymore. I didn’t want to be with my friends in a noisy club anymore, I just wanted to be somewhere with you.”
Lucy took a deep breath, then moved around the counter to meet him at his barstool. “It’s getting late, you can sleep it off here.” She took his hands and started to pull them, but he stayed put.
“And then I drank… some more, and had this crazy thought. I don’t feel afraid of anything right now, so maybe I should just do something I’ve spent too long afraid of doing.”
“Tim-”
“I love you.”
Even though she’d been expecting him to say something along those lines, her hands began to tremble in his.
Her silence prompted him to repeat his sentiment. “I’m in love with you.”
“You’re drunk.”
He frowned. “ No! … Okay, Yes, but I’m telling you the truth.”
She shook her head, tears starting to form in her eyes. “No, Tim, you’ll sleep this off. You’re just drunk, and you’re confused right now, but you don’t mean it.”
His face fell, and Lucy felt the clench of her chest throughout her entire body. “Don’t say that… please, don’t say that, Lucy, I do mean it.”
She shook her head, stepping back to avoid the heartbreak in his reddened eyes. “Go to sleep. There are blankets on the couch, it should be comfy enough.”
“Lucy-” he started, but she’d already reached her bedroom, closing her door behind her. She heard his heavy footsteps grow louder as they approached, replaced when he began knocking gently, but firmly. “Lucy, please come back out. I’m not just saying this because I’ve had a few drinks, I love you. I have for a long time.”
She didn’t answer, crawling under her covers and pulling them over her head as if to hide from his drunken delusions.
“I’ll tell you again tomorrow, okay? And you’ll believe me this time, I promise. You’ll see.”
It was a few more moments of silence until she heard his footsteps retreat, ending with the thud of him landing on her couch.
Lucy hoped he would fall asleep quickly because he’d ruined any chances of a restful night for her.
When Tim opened his eyes, it felt like a bat had hit him on the side of the head. A bat strapped to the side of a truck driving by. On the freeway. He groaned as his eyes adjusted to the light pouring through Lucy’s living room windows. Lucy. Shit.
“Lucy?” he called, looking behind him to her bedroom door, slightly ajar. But she’d closed it last night, that much he very thoroughly remembered.
His eyes fell on a nearby table, which held a glass of water, two aspirin, and what appeared to be a small piece of paper. He picked up the paper first.
Your head probably feels like a nightmare, she wrote. I had to go to work, but I left some bacon and eggs for you in the kitchen, and there’s some bread nearby if you want toast. I have an Uber scheduled to pick you up at 9:30, I hope you’re up by then.
-Lucy :)
That was it? That was all she had to say to him? He had confessed his love for her and she offered him some bread?
He hadn’t planned to do it like that. He didn’t have a plan to do it at all, really, and his drunk alter ego seemed to take it into his own hands. And he thought he’d been prepared for any outcome: ready to take her into his arms if she’d have him or steel himself and take her rejection like a man. What he hadn’t accounted for was the possibility she wouldn’t believe him just because he had a few whiskeys… and vodkas… and tequilas, which he remembered as her drink of choice, which got him thinking about her, which was how this whole mess had started.
And while part of him was grateful that after God-knows-how-long, the truth was finally out in the open for her to do whatever she saw fit, the other part of him truly wanted to die of embarrassment. That part felt like maybe it was a better idea to just offer they pretend it never happened, take the slamming of her bedroom door in his face as a pretty clear-cut rejection. But Drunk Tim, curse him, had made a monumentally stupid promise last night that Hangover Tim now had to fulfill. He had promised her that today, when he was sober, he would tell her again. And as much as her rejection would hurt without any substances in him, he intended to keep his promise.
So, he waited. First, he ate the breakfast she had left him so he could take his aspirin. After, he took the 9:30 Uber she had scheduled to go home, but he didn’t stay home. He gave Kojo some food, took a quick shower, changed his clothes, and got in his truck to drive right back to Lucy’s apartment. After stopping at the Whole Foods between them to pick up ingredients for the best dinner of her life, he finished his journey back to her apartment. Then, he waited.
He tidied up the open area, not that she was a slob, or he was the kind of weirdo to look through her things without her even knowing he was in her home. He just put things where he knew she liked them, washing a few dishes that had piled up in her sink. Then, he lit a couple of candles she had placed through her living room: pumpkin and lavender, since he’d heard somewhere, probably from her, that those scents were aphrodisiacs for women. If he was trying to set himself up for success, sue him.
When he knew it wouldn’t be long before her shift was over, he began making dinner for them both. He’d picked up ingredients for a filet mignon with a cilantro steak butter that he hoped she’d go crazy for.
Finally, her key turned in the lock and she walked in, smelling the air around her before turning to the kitchen. When she saw him, she only jumped slightly. “Tim?”
“Uh…” He somehow spent this whole day pulling out all the stops to impress her without thinking through what to actually say. “How was work?”
Her eyebrows shot up as a tiny smile developed. “Work was good.” She looked around the state of her apartment, her smile growing at the candles he’d lit. “Looks like your day was pretty busy too?”
He exhaled, relieved that she wasn’t put off by his gesture. “Yeah, you can say that. I should be done with this soon.”
“Need me to help?”
She said, stepping into the kitchen, but he pointed at her with her own spatula. “Ah, ah, ah, I make the dinner. You do whatever you do to get comfortable while I finish up.”
She threw her hands up in surrender. “Yes, sir!”
Soon, they were both full and satisfied, the tension from Lucy’s shift melted away by the Cabarnet Tim had bought to pair with the steak. She’d just finished telling Tim about a drunk jaywalker they’d stopped who had gotten awfully handsy with Nolan, and Tim relished the sound of their mixed laughter bouncing off of the walls of the apartment.
Lucy seemed to notice it too, because suddenly, she went quiet, her eyebrows furrowing. “Tim?”
“Mm?” he replied, setting his wine glass on the table after finishing it.
“Why’d you do all this?”
What?! He’d cleaned. He’d made filet mignon. He’d lit candles meant to open her up to romance (among other things). What did she mean, ‘Why’d you do all this?’
His silence made her uncomfortable, and she began squirming slightly in her seat. “I mean, if this is about last night, you really don’t need to apologize for anything, or do all this as a ‘thank you’ for letting you stay over, it’s really no big deal, any of it.”
For a moment, he regretted how he’d spent his day. The idea that him baring his soul was no big deal to her, drunk or not, activated every alarm in his head telling him to nonchalantly wrap this meal up, cut his losses, and go sulk in his truck.
Damn Drunk Tim and his promises, though.
“You’re right, this is about last night.”
Her lips squeezed together as she looked down to her lap, fidgeting with her hands. “And is it an apology?”
“Yes,” he replied, immediately regretting it when her face fell. “Wait, no. Okay, both.”
She looked up, a mix of hope and wariness evident in her brown eyes.
“No, because I meant everything I said. Yes, because you shouldn’t have found out that way. You deserved better from me.”
Her eyes widened, her jaw stuttering as if she wanted to say something, but nothing was coming out.
So he continued. “It’s not just when I’m drunk that I wish I was with you. It’s any time I’m out with friends, or out at all, really. If I’m at the grocery store, or just walking Kojo, I wish you were there. When I am actually with you at work, I wish we were somewhere else. At a nice restaurant, or a bar just hanging out. Most times, I just wish we were at home on my couch watching whatever chick flick you put on, you under my arm… and I could just kiss you whenever I wanted. So you need to know that this did not just start last night on a drunken whim.”
She blinked until her eyes closed altogether, shaking her head ever-so-slightly.
“Unless you don’t feel the same way,” he mused, his posture deflating. “In which case, I’ve just ruined our working relationship and made this really awkward.”
“No, no, that’s not it, I’m just… processing.”
It wasn’t until she said that that he really looked at her, noticed the way her eyes darted back and forth, her eyebrows twitching their way to the middle.
“You still don’t believe me,” he realized. “Let me fix that.”
He stood from his seat to cross to hers, taking her hands from her lap and pulling her up to stand. Keeping their hands clasped, he looked into her eyes, noting how all of the turmoil and doubt he’d seen there cleared up the longer she looked into his.
“I love you. I am in love with you. And if you want me to, I’ll keep telling you that, no matter what state I’m in.”
She let go of his hands to grab his face and pull it down to her, kissing him gently. “Good,” she muttered before she went right back to kissing him. “Because that would have sucked so much if you didn’t mean it.”
He smiled before closing the gap between their lips once again.
It wasn’t until much later that she began walking forward, pushing him until his back was nudging her bedroom door fully open.
Tim’s grip on her waist tightened. “Woah, what’s happening here?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure he had an idea.
“ Now who’s the clueless one?” Her eyes were hooded as she removed her cardigan. “You made my apartment smell like lavender, Tim. You fed me steak and wine. How else did you see this dinner ending?”
Tim grinned, leaning forward for another kiss as he reached an arm behind her head to shut the door.