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“Ashley and I broke up.” Tim blurted out the words like a secret confession, something sacred he was divulging just to her.
Lucy turned around sharply, the gravity of those words slowly sinking in.
“Well, I guess, technically, she broke up with me.”
Something indecipherable fleeted across Lucy’s face, a look of processing and what that meant setting in.
“I’m sorry.” Lucy didn’t know she was really that sorry.
“Thanks. Look, and just so you know, I-I did appreciate your whole radio gag…a little.” He teased her playfully, refusing to acknowledge how seen it had made him feel, how loved.
It was always the little things with Lucy. She read people like the morning newspaper. But with Tim, it wasn’t even like she had to read him. She just knew him well enough to know what was going on in that sheltered, structured, confusing brain of his.
The lengths she went to see him happy.
The smile she gave him was just elemental enough of playfulness—and what could be detected as a bit of flirting??
The two of them had their own little dance they did, oblivious to themselves, but to anyone who watched them together, it was obvious they were in perfect coordination.
Lucy’s smile twisted. “Well, good,” she said.
Tim nodded imperceptibly, a new vibration settling between them.
Her mouth parted, like she was formulating a new thought (maybe one of comfort? Something about Ashley? Something about Chris?), when—
“Lucy!”
Speak of the devil. Chris had burst through the front doors and was heading towards them.
“Ready to go?”
Lucy’s instinct was to move towards Tim. To hug him, console him, tell him that it was probably for the better, tell him anything, when she realized that Chris was standing right there. So instead, she moved closer to him. Towards Chris. Her boyfriend.
“Uh, yeah. D—uh, do you want to join us? We’re gonna go grab a bite to eat.” Lucy’s eyes were fixated on Tim’s.
Tim’s face gained the politest, appeased, annoyed face Lucy had ever seen. “Oh, no no. I’m good.” He shot a big grin towards Chris. “I’m g—I’m—I’m beat.” Tim chuckled.
What he absolutely did not want to do right now was be around Lucy and Chris. Well, he wanted to be around Lucy, but Tim didn’t know if his heart could take seeing the two of them happy together when he knew that the person he wanted most was mere inches from him. Because they were happy together, right?
“You two have fun.” With a nod, Tim headed towards his truck.
As Tim turned away from them, he felt his heart tug. He wanted to run back to Lucy, to tell her to leave Chris. To give him a chance. To give them a chance.
Chris’s arm settled on Lucy’s back. “Mediterranean sound good?”
Lucy looked at her boyfriend, a smile plastered on her face. “Yeah, that sounds great.”
She almost didn’t hear what Chris said. The only thing running through her mind was the fact that Tim and Ashley had broken up. What did that mean? Did it have anything to do with Vegas…or what had almost happened after Vegas? She tried to push it out of her mind, she was with Chris, but the second Chris reached to get the door, Lucy couldn’t stop herself from looking back over her shoulder at Tim.
What Lucy had missed was Tim’s eyes following her as she walked away. Because no matter what, to acknowledge the hidden feelings was to say that they could never go back.
Tim was silent his whole drive home. He had known it wasn’t working out with Ashley long before they had actually ended. When he collapsed in the hospital, he knew Lucy would come, but he didn’t want her to worry. His first instinct was Lucy. It would always be Lucy. Whether they admitted it or not, their relationship had shifted.
The parallels between him waiting for her in the hospital and her staying with him induced only a wave of longing in Tim. When he had drifted off in the hospital, he woke up to see Lucy’s face. From then on, he knew he always wanted to wake up and see her face.
She wasn’t meant to be with Chris.
Lucy arrived home to her apartment that night, alone, the leftovers from dinner tucked away neatly in a brown paper to-go bag. As she unlocked her front door, she remembered how she had asked Tim if he wanted to come inside…and his reply had been “I shouldn’t.” Not, “no”.
The questions that Lucy used to ask herself about her feelings were rapidly fading by the day. It was no longer, “Do you want to be with Chris?”. Now, it was “How long will you stay with Chris?”. The kiss she and Tim had shared in the plane bathroom was the kiss she kept reliving in her dreams. It had been the most passionate, fulfilling kiss of her life. She had felt the shift when Tim had kissed her back, fervently, nearly gasping “more” when she pulled away.
Except Chris had almost died because of her. It was Lucy’s fault that Rosalind had come after Chris. It was Lucy’s fault that Chris had almost bled out on her couch while she stood five feet from him and imagined herself kissing Tim.
It was like admitting that ghosts exist. Scary, new, unprecedented.
How long could they keep up the charade?
But Chris was safe. Chris wouldn’t break her heart. He already did, in the break room. Chris wanted a life with her. Lucy was beginning to realize that wasn’t what she wanted.
Tim had played his ace.
But both forgot they weren’t playing poker.