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Tim noticed how Lucy was practically vibrating in her seat as they drove to Nolan’s house. “You take game night way too seriously,” he noted.
“We’re on a winning streak, babe. We won the last 3 months in a row, and we’re about to whoop everyone’s butts again tonight!” She said excitedly.
“Hell yeah we are! Team Bradford is about to own game night!”
She saw the competitive fire in his eyes, causing her grin to widen. To egg him on further, she told him, “You know, Angela was talking a big game earlier today at the station.”
“Please,” Tim scoffed, “she can’t beat us. Her teammate is WES. He only comes to drink wine with James. He doesn’t care about winning.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“We’ve got nothing to worry about, baby.”
Soon enough, they arrived at Nolan’s house, greeted by Bailey, and walked inside to find the other couples had arrived- Wes and James were sipping their drinks while in some deep conversation at the same time Nyla, Angela, and Nolan were laughing on the couch.
“Okay, now that everyone’s here, it’s time we get started!” Bailey addressed the group excitedly. “So, for tonight’s game, we can play…”
“Charades! What about charades?” Lucy proposed.
“No way! You two have that weird telepathy thing where you know exactly what the other is thinking even when Tim does a bad job of acting something out,” Angela insisted.
“We don’t have ‘weird telepathy’ it’s called being married,” Tim replied.
“You’ve literally been married the shortest amount of time out all of us,” Nolan noted.
“Actually, Lucy was his rookie 5 years ago I think? Yeah, they’ve been acting married since then, so really they’ve been married the longest,” Nyla said half jokingly. From her first day watching Bradford and Chen work together as Training Officer and rookie, she could tell there was a connection between them.
“We didn’t act married! I could barely stand her,” Tim pointed to his wife.
Lucy swatted at his shoulder and clicked her tongue. “You are SUCH a liar! I impressed you with every decision I made,” she reminded him with a satisfied smirk tugging at her lips.
“Don’t quote my end of year evaluation of you to me. That was at the END of the year. Not the beginning.”
“You do realize you’ve had the same banter since she was in long sleeves?” Nolan chuckled.
Tim rolled his eyes and watched as Lucy moved to stand right in front of him with barely any distance between them. “You’ve always liked me whether you want to admit it or not.”
She was wearing one of those cute accusatory looks on her face that he loved so much. “All that matters is that I love you now,” he said sweetly and dropped a kiss to her forehead.
“Good answer,” Bailey congratulated him on saying the right thing.
“We’re not playing Family Feud,” Nyla shook her head, noting how teams ALWAYS say that when players offer answers to Steve Harvey. Of course, when their Mid Wilshire family plays, Grey is invited as the host of husbands versus wives Family Feud.
“Hang on, we can’t play Family Feud without Grey,” James said, only having heard his wife’s comment.
“No, we’re playing Charades apparently,” she replied.
“Damn, we’re gonna lose to Tim and Lucy AGAIN,” James predicted. Though he was not too competitive, the Bradfords were awfully smug about their victories.
“Yes! Get ready to lose everyone!” Lucy said happily.
“Hang on, let’s make tonight’s game night interesting and switch up partners. If you wanna play Charades, pick a different teammate other than your husband,” Angela challenged.
“Come on, Ang, Lucy and I…” Tim started to whine.
“Don’t complain! You can still go home with her,” Nyla cut him off.
Lucy squeezed Tim’s forearm and promised, “It’s gonna be fine.” Then, she stood up tall on her tip toes, brushed a kiss to his cheek, and whispered, “I’m so gonna kick your butt.”
His mouth dropped open, and he was not even a little surprised to see the eager look in her eye. The same one she wore every time she competed. “You’re on!”
“Great! Tim and I can be partners,” Angela volunteered.
“Ooh, Nyla, do you wanna be my partner?” Lucy asked.
“Absolutely not. Nolan and I have a chance at winning now that you and Tim aren’t on the same team,” Nyla shook her head.
“I’ll be your partner,” Wes volunteered.
“Come on, man. We gotta stick together while these crazy people duke it out,” James stage whispered.
“He’s right. I’m playing with James,” Wes changed his mind.
“I think we have a pretty good chance of winning,” Bailey offered sweetly.
“We better,” Lucy nodded.
In James’ opinion, there were 3 good things about game night: the best part was the wine, second best was the free baby sitting provided by Tamara who played with all the kids in the other room while the parents had their fun, and the third was all of the entertainment provided by his favorite officers who were competitive and chaotic when it came to simple games. A world war was almost started by a game of SORRY!, which is why that particular game was removed from the cabinet of options (no one talks about what happened the last time they played SORRY! together). Still, it was always fun to watch.
Every game night started out the same, one round to warm everyone up, break for dinner, and then the REAL competition began.
Charades had become a game night staple that everyone enjoyed between the shock at witnessing Tim and Lucy’s telepathy and Bailey’s amazing gestures that Nolan never understood, making everyone wonder how he could possibly be a cop.
The game was tied up- Tim and Angela with 14 points and Lucy and Bailey with 14 points. With 10 seconds left, Lucy knew she did not have much time to act out one more thing and hopefully win.
She started by making a motion of her stomach being large.
Bailey shouted incorrect guesses at first: “full!” “SANTA CLAUS!”
The next guess flew out of her mouth: “PREGNANT!”
Lucy nodded with a smile and then pointed to herself. Bailey knitted her eyebrows together, unsure if she was inferring the gestures correctly, but with less than a second left to potentially win the game, she cried out her guess, “HOLY CRAP ARE YOU PREGNANT?”
A smile took over Lucy’s face, a little too emotional to do much more than that, to confirm Bailey was correct and watched as everyone’s mouths fell open. Tim stood at his wife’s side and put an arm around her. His eyes were swimming with emotion, the joy clear on his face.
They exchanged a look before he told everyone, “We had our first ultrasound today and couldn’t wait to tell you guys. You’ll all be aunts and uncles soon enough to a baby Bradford.”
Lucy heard the wonder in his voice and pulled herself tightly to his side before resting her head on his shoulder and a hand on his heart where she felt it beating.
Cheering and chaos erupted as everyone stood to congratulate the couple on their news, thrilled that their family was expanding.
“Baby Bradford,” Angela beamed and gave Tim as much of a hug as she could manage given the way Lucy still clung to him, emotion misting her eyes.
“Damn hormones,” Lucy whispered while wiping at the first tears that fell.
“I can’t believe you’re having a baby. With TIM no less,” Nolan pointed in her former Training Officer’s direction.
“I can believe it. Like I said, they’ve been acting married way before they actually got together,” Nyla smiled.
To avoid any further debate, Tim said, “What matters now is that I’m gonna be a dad and Lucy is going to be the best mom.”
“You’re gonna be an amazing dad to our baby.”
“If Kojo is any indication, Tim is about to spoil the kid rotten,” Wes joked.
“I don’t spoil Kojo. She’s the one who gives him extra treats,” Tim looked down at Lucy.
“You’re the one who used to cook him breakfast before you even made ME breakfast until I started eating for two,” she reminded her husband.
Tim rolled his eyes even though his wife MIGHT have been correct.
Sometimes, even though she keeps the thought to herself, Nyla finds Tim and Lucy to be absolutely adorable. “You know, Nyla would be a pretty name for a girl.”
“Or John for a boy,” Nolan piped up.
“We haven’t really talked about names yet,” Lucy responded and reflexively put her hand on her stomach just thinking about her baby. Though her stomach showed no signs of the pregnancy yet and still did not really feel the life growing inside of her, emotionally, Baby Bradford already flooded her heart with love…and her body with hormones as a new wave of tears filled her eyes.
“Bailey is a good name for either a boy or a girl. I bet Tim can’t wait to have a little boy to throw a football with,” Bailey guessed.
“Since we started trying, we agreed we don’t care what the sex of the baby is as long as she’s healthy,” Tim shared.
“SHE? You’re making it pretty clear you want a girl,” Lucy pointed out.
“I would be lucky to have a daughter as smart and powerful and beautiful as her mother,” Tim mused and kissed her softly. “But, I hope our daughter takes after me when it comes to tidiness. I can’t live with 2 messy girls.”
“If this is about our laundry discussion this morning, you can sleep on the couch tonight,” Lucy threatened jokingly.
“FINE!” He surrendered. “Guess I’ll never have a clean house again living with a bunch of girls who leave a mess everywhere they go.”
“A bunch of girls?” Angela asked to clarify.
“Hopefully, we’re not stopping at ONE kid. We agreed we’d like to have two or three,” Tim explained and looked to Lucy who nodded her agreement.
“I’m sure you’ll have no trouble at all trying to get her pregnant again,” Angela smirked.
Lucy covered her eyes in her embarrassment as her cheeks pinked up, “That only happened that one time in Tim’s office.”
Nyla flashed them a look of disbelief. “Literally no one here believes that.”
Before Tim and Lucy could lie some more about what may or may not have happened at the station (or that they suspect one of those quick rendezvous resulted in this pregnancy), Tamara emerged from Nolan’s bedroom where she was watching a movie with all the kids. She opened the front door of the house, which made everyone curious since no one had heard a doorbell ring or a knock to signal someone had arrived.
In walked Grey who barreled right over to Lucy to throw his arms around her and happily exclaimed, “I’m gonna be a grandpa!”
“Who told you already?” Tim asked as he watched his Watch Commander squeeze his wife tightly.
“I only texted Jan,” Wes said innocently.
“Jan?” Angela questioned.
“He’s my guy at the station when everyone here is too busy working,” Wes justified. “I thought he’d love to know.”
“Smitty’s the one that told me. He must’ve heard from Jan, then I texted Tamara to ask where you guys are, so I could come over,” Grey told the group.
“We were planning to tell you separately,” Lucy was disappointed that the surprise was spoiled.
“It doesn’t matter how I found out. I’m just so happy for both of you.” He patted Tim on the back and said, “You know, Wade is a good name for a boy.”
The rest of the group continued to offer baby names, talking over each other, but Tim and Lucy stopped paying attention; they gazed at each other happily, ecstatic about the next chapter of their life where they would become parents together.