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I always thought I had reached peak awkwardness after every awkward conversation I’d ever had, but I had a feeling this next one was going to take the cake.
Why, you ask? Because of the previous night. It was barely a week after we’d taken down Fittes, and as it turned out, more than just the Problem had been shifting.
Last night, Lockwood and I had kissed. On the lips, if that wasn’t clear. Our employee-employer relationship irreparably broken. Not that I really minded.
Last night, we’d decided to start a relationship- a romantic one now, one that had honestly been building for much longer than either of us were currently willing to acknowledge- despite both of us having no idea how that worked, and this little fact was going to lead straight to the new awkward conversation.
Not my next conversation with him, I mean, but telling the team. About us.
Well, George and Kipps, to be more specific. I’d already told Holly, but she was sworn to secrecy and promised to act surprised with the rest of them. She’d deduced something was up as soon as Lockwood and I had come back after our walk, the little gold necklace still secured around my neck.
At the first opportunity she’d snuck up to the attic, and threatened me with doing my laundry for me and purposely messing up my tea until I spilled. Then we’d both giggled like little girls at a slumber party.
We don’t talk about that part.
Anyway, now Lockwood and I had to tell the others. The morning after the walk, he’d come up to me in the library.
“Hey, Lucy.”
As always, my mood instantly lifted. The morning sunlight streaming in looked a little brighter. I turned around and smiled at him. He grinned back.
“I was thinking. . . We need to tell the team, don’t you think? About, uh-“
“Oh yeah. Kipps is coming over for dinner tonight, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Do you think we should just tell them then, all at once? That’d be better, right?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. I’m not an expert, but that sounds good to me.”
“Great.” He grinned again. “Honestly, I think George will be fine with it. I don’t know how Kipps and Holly will feel, but I can’t imagine they’ll be mad.”
“Me neither.” I smiled back. We stared at each other for a bit, caught up in the luxury of these calm moments without fear.
There was a noise in the hallway, I could hear George coming towards us. Before I could lose my nerve, I stood on my toes and quickly kissed his cheek. Then I turned and dashed for the basement, but not before I saw his blush and an adorably embarrassed and happy smile. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling either.
I couldn’t understand why I was so nervous about this. All I knew was that I was. Extremely nervous.
I guess it was because I just knew how awkward it would be. With me, that was a given, and with Lockwood and emotion, I almost felt as if we were destined for failure, about to be trapped in a silent graveyard of awkwardness and silence, scattered with the headstones of stuttering and inadequate explanations.
Holly was definitely happy when I told her, and I’d been nervous then too, and superbly awkward at first, but it wasn’t like Holly had given me the option to be silent. Having no previous experience with romance had definitely not helped my conversation skills in the area.
I’d always thought I’d been too busy for romance, but the more I thought about it that day, there wasn’t really anyone else for me but Lockwood. I mean, I didn’t really know a lot of other people, but it was more than that. I’d realized I’d always felt that way.
Ever since I’d met him, the idea of being with anyone else had seemed fundamentally wrong. I always figured that was because I was an agent. I didn’t have the time. I wasn’t pretty. And we were always so busy it was hard to think of relationships at all, really, other than the mutual trust and sarcastic one-liners to lighten the near-death situations. We had become friends, him and George and I, which is bound to happen when you live in the same house as someone, and I’d grown to trust and love them more than my own blood family.
I’d confused these new feelings of friendship with a more. . . romantic inclination towards Lockwood. Back then, and even now, until very recently- having a schoolgirl crush was unthinkable, and I’d denied it subconsciously. But it had been there, influencing my every action, making me more worried about him and care about him more than anyone else in the world.
There was nothing wrong with that, I had realized last night with him. We could be agents, and still fight ghosts every night of the week together, dating wouldn’t change all that. It probably wouldn’t be considered a normal relationship, but then again, when had be ever been normal?
All this didn’t stop me from being nervous to tell the team, though. I told myself over and over that it was going to be fine. They wouldn’t be, like, mad or anything. I knew that.
Even so, I couldn’t tell you much about what I did that day. It went by in a kind of anxious haze. I do remember that I wore Lockwood’s sapphire necklace, though. It wasn’t an everyday kind of necklace, but today wasn’t an ordinary day. I kept it underneath my sweater. Maybe it would give me luck tonight.
Lockwood himself and I weren’t alone together much besides that moment in the library. We were so concerned about being suspicious, it probably made us seem more suspicious. But 5 o’clock came around somehow. Kipps came. George cooked. I sat in my attic room, wondering what on Earth to say.
Holly knocked on my door, closed it behind her. Then she bounced across the room and flung herself on the bed next to me.
“Soooo, what’s the plan? Please tell me you came up with a plan. I think George thinks you two had an argument or something.”
“Yeah, we’re just going to do it tonight. At dinner. ‘Cause Quill is over and everything.”
“That’s it? You haven’t planned what you’re going to say?”
“Well... I’ve been thinking-“
“You and Lockwood didn’t plan it out together?” Holly interrupted again. I sighed.
“No? Have you met us?”
She snorted elegantly. “Touché. Okay then, what’ve you been thinking?”
I paused, thought. “I have no clue.”
She looked at me with pity. “Oh, Luce. This is bad.”
“I know. You don’t have to look at me like that, I know.”
“Grub’s ready!” George hollered at the top of his lungs.
“Oh, dear. . . out of time. Just improvise, I guess. You’ll be fine. Good luck!” Holly raced out of my room. I felt sick.
I gave her a good ten seconds to get clear. Then I followed her, a little more slowly. On the landing of the second floor, I met Lockwood, coming out of his door. Instead of calming me, like the sight of him normally does, it just made me more nervous.
I’d rather fight a Poltergeist and a Pale Stench at the same time and risk the permanent damage to my nostrils than have this conversation. But it had to be done. On the surface, Lockwood looked calm, but I could see that he was nervous too.
“Ready, Luce?”
“Nope.”
He grinned. “Me neither. Should we just get it over with right off the bat?”
“Yes. That’s probably best.”
He took my hand and squeezed it for a moment, then let it fall away. It made me feel a little more confident as we walked in the kitchen.
George was mildly annoyed. “You two took your sweet time! I made my specialty chicken pot pies and everything and you could have let them get cold-“
Lockwood held up a hand. “We’re sorry, George. And sorry again, but before we eat I’d like to propose a toast. And an announcement.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. I poured two more drinks. George looked between us, confused.
“You’re not resigning again, Lucy?”
“No! Nothing like that. A good announcement. I think.” True to her word, Holly didn’t roll her eyes or look at me with that fond mixture of pity and disbelief like she had 2 minutes earlier, though I could tell it took a tremendous amount of willpower. “But first- shall we?” I held my glass up. Lockwood did the same. Kipps, Holly, and George took their cues and raised theirs.
“To us!” Lockwood said. He grinned and drank.
“To us” the rest of us repeated. We drank in unison. Then they all stared at Lockwood and me. The time for stalling was up.
I still didn’t have a thing to say.
I looked at Lockwood. Lockwood looked at me. We both cleared our throats and looked down. George, Kipps and Holly all stared.
Holly was a good actor, I could barely see the glee on her face. Maybe I shouldn’t have sworn her to secrecy, then she could have done this in her cool, efficient, definitely-not-awkward style.
But then I’d have to confess asking for her advice with all things romantic. Actually, I was right. We could do this.
Maybe.
One of us had to speak. Lockwood was the first to crack.
“So. . . Umm, well. . .”
“Spit it out, Tony, for God’s sake. It can’t be that bad.” That was Quill. He only pulled the “Tony” card when he was joking or getting mad. I couldn’t tell you which one it was now.
“We’re- dating.” That was me. I know. Awkward. It just kind of burst out. But what else were you expecting? I certainly wasn’t expecting anything less. My face burned hot, like a reverse ghost-touch. It had to be turning red. I could almost hear Lockwood’s turning an identical shade.
I stared at the Thinking Cloth. One of George’s old, disgustingly graphic cartoons stared up at me, but somehow looking at its vulgar face was easier than the living eyes of our friends. “So. . . Yeah. That’s all. That’s the announcement.”
After a couple seconds, I dared to look up. George, inexplicably, was looking at his watch with a furrowed brow. Kipps seemed to be counting on his fingers. Holly winked at me.
I looked over at Lockwood. He glanced at me and shrugged, though he made a decent stab at a smile.
“YES!” George shouted, shattering the silence.
I jumped. I couldn’t hide my confusion. Lockwood couldn’t either.
“George, what...”
Holly was full on grinning now.
“YES!! It’s been about 6 months! I WON!”
Holly was giggling, looking pleasantly disappointed. “Oh, well, you were right, it took longer than I thought. I always thought you’d win, you’ve known them for the longest. . .”
George wasn’t listening. He was gleefully looking at Quill.
“SUCK IT, Kipps! You owe me 20!”
Kipps was swearing under his breath. “Come on, Tony, Carlyle- you couldn’t have waited for 2 more months? I swear I thought it’d last longer. . . I don’t have it all on me, Cubbins, stop pawing at my jacket!”
I had never been more confused in my life, not even when that one ghost in Clerkenwell had started speaking in rapid-fire Russian to me in a back alley. That case had not ended well.
Lockwood was way ahead of me, as always. “You guys had a bet. . . On if Lucy and I would get together.”
Kipps hummed an affirmation distractedly, still batting off George’s gropes for his wallet.
“An actual bet. With actual money.” continued Lockwood.
“When you two got together, not if.” replied George, finally turning away from Kipps. “Thanks guys, I’m going to make a fortune off this! How much did good ol’ Flo put in again? 45? I gotta see her tomorrow.”
“Flo?”
“Florence Bonnard risked 45 betting on if Lockwood and I would date?”
“Not if, Luce! When! Flo’s nothing compared to Barnes, though. He put in, like, 60. Hells yeah! I’m gonna buy so many donuts, and none of the rest of you people who thought you knew my best friends better than me get any!”
Lockwood and I stared as Holly’s shock over George’s impending sugar consumption nearly knocked her out of her laughing fit.
“Barnes?” asked Lockwood finally. “Barnes agreed to bet? He had an opinion on this?” Lockwood was as shocked as I’d ever seen him. Worse than Mrs. Barrett’s tomb. I doubted I looked much better. Holly almost fell off her chair, laughter renewed at the sight of our faces. Kipps was fuming.
“I can’t believe it. I really thought it’d take you stubborn fools longer. . . Unbelievable.” Kipps said, shaking his head.
George started cackling like a madman. He looked over at Lockwood and me, and started laughing even harder. “You absolute idiots! I can’t believe you thought we didn’t know! You two have been sweet on each other from the start, do you think I’m blind? I reckon even the skull would’ve got in on it if it had any money!”
Holly was still laughing uncontrollably. Kipps had joined her. Lockwood and I stared. Then he looked at me, gave me a slightly shell-shocked smile.
“I think that went better than expected, don’t you?” He was straining to hold in his laughter now. I grinned back, and kissed him. I couldn’t help it. The others were cheering now too. Lockwood started giggling, and my own laughter burst out like water from a broken dam.
We didn’t stop laughing for a long, long time.