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Lucy Chen fumbles as she digs her hand into her tight pocket, her fingers wiggling around until they wrap around the hotel keycard. She quickly swipes the plastic over the scanner and turns the handle, storming inside as if she was running away from something.
“Lucy-” Tim Bradford begins, but she’s already reached for the TV remote, switching on the first news channel available.
“Serial Killer Rosalind Dyer escaped during her trial today. Authorities are unsure of her whereabouts, and hundreds of law enforcement officers are on the lookout,” an unempathetic news reporter explains.
Lucy feels her anxiety bubbling over, consuming her from top to bottom. She’s had many nightmares about this exact scenario happening, but never in a million years did she actually think that she would have to live through this. Again.
She turns to focus towards the news, stupidly hoping that it can provide the sense of clarity that she’s so desperately lacking. But before the news reporter can continue her story, she feels the TV remote slide out from her death grip. Tim holds it up to the TV and switches it off, making sure to throw the remote far from his fellow officer’s reach.
“Hey!” she exclaims with annoyance, but Tim firmly shakes his head.
“Watching isn’t going to change what happened. We have plain-clothes security all around us, Rosalind wouldn’t dream of coming anywhere near us- you. I won’t let her.”
From the day that she was kidnapped, everyone she’s interacted with has offered her the same generic words of encouragement. ‘You’re safe now! It’s going to be okay!’ And she never believed it, not for one second. But for some strange, odd reason, she believed Tim. She believed that in this hotel room, next to him, nothing bad could happen to her.
“Thanks,” she nods quietly, collapsing onto the foot of the bed. She buries her head into her hands, scratching her head in an effort to subsidize the incessant pounding.
Once she finally comes up for air, she takes a moment to observe the hotel room that Hajek had put them up in for the night. It is one of the nicest hotel rooms she’s ever stayed in; the red furniture and open concept practically scream luxurious. Her eyes search the room for the other bed, Tim’s bed, but she just can’t seem to find it. And a bed is hard to miss.
“What’s wrong?” Tim asks, following her eyes as they anxiously dart across the room.
“There’s only one bed…” she mutters, nervously running her hands through her blown out hair.
“Oh,” Tim pauses and takes a deep breath, “I guess it makes sense. Couples usually sleep on one bed.”
It finally hits Lucy again that she’s on an undercover operation, playing Tim’s girlfriend. She kicks herself for being so wrapped up in her worry, ultimately compromising both her and Tim.
“It’s fine, I’ll take the floor,” Tim announces, in an attempt to slow down the gears he could see spinning intensely behind Lucy’s eyes.
“No, you can’t risk sleeping weird and getting injured,” Lucy pauses and bites her lip. She rests her chin on her hand and looks up at Tim. His gaze is both strict and caring, protective. “It’s not weird if we share the bed… right?”
Tim’s mouth opens, unable to conjure words to respond to his fellow officer. In theory, it really wasn’t weird for them to share a bed in this situation. They were posing as a couple, and asking for an extra blanket would raise brows, considering their previously displayed intimacy. But on the other hand, it was kinda weird.
“I guess we don’t really have a choice, huh?” Tim shrugs. This was going to be a long night.
Quiet engulfs the room, and Lucy and Tim lock eyes. There’s a silent exchange in their eyes, as if they are agreeing on the tension that is to come.
“Well, I’m going to take the first shower if you don’t mind. I can practically feel the hair gel eating away at my scalp,” Lucy signs, brushing her hands against her pants as she stands up.
“Yeah, sure. I’m gonna order room service, do you want anything?” he asks as Lucy makes a beeline for the bathroom.
“Uh, some fries sound amazing right now,” she calls out, and Tim nods his head as he opens up the menu. He skims the menu, his mouth is practically watering as he thinks about food. He finds a mushroom dish that sounds right up Lucy’s alley, and he’s about to ask her if she wanted a full meal. His head turns up as she swings the sliding door behind her, but it doesn’t close. Tim watches as the wood bounces off of the doorframe, leaving a crack big enough for Tim to see Lucy. All of her.
Blissfully unaware, she slips off her jacket and shimmies out of her jeans. Her bodysuit is the next to go, and even though she’s turned around, Tim can do more than imagine what is only mere feet in front of him. He secretly finds himself filled with disappointment when she steps into the shower and out of frame.
It takes her absence for Tim to realize that his heart had stopped beating, and he consciously steadies his breathing as the shower turns on. He feels his appetite slip away from him, and his vision goes blurry as he stares back down at the menu. What the fuck just happened.
________
The fifteen minutes that Lucy is in the shower are the longest fifteen minutes of Tim’s life. He doesn’t know what to do with himself as he awaits her arrival. He knows that this was probably just a trivial accident, something she didn’t mean to do. But a part of him secretly hopes that she knew what she was doing. But it’s wrong; he’s with Ashley, and she’s with Tim. So he pushes it so far down that it’s unrecognizable; a mere thought in a universe of actions.
“I feel like I’m never gonna get this product out of my hair,” Lucy calls out as she exits the bathroom, breaking Tim out of his trance. She’s surprised to find him in the same position that she had left him in, clutching the room service menu in his hands as he stared off into the distance.
“Oh, hey,” he blinks and turns his attention to her. “How was the shower?”
“The water pressure was excellent,” Lucy huffs as she adjusts the small piece of fabric holding the robe together at her waist. “I would give it a couple minutes to warm back up again, but definitely try it out.
Tim wonders how she is so oblivious, how she is able to move on with her life after acting like a couple. Her dialogue is casual and informal, as if they are two friends spending time together like normal. He tries to ignore the heaviness of his heart, disappointed by the fact that Lucy clearly isn’t reading into this as much as he is.
She ensures that the appropriate amount of skin is covered before she fully turns around to face Tim.
“Did you end up ordering anything?” she asks, motioning to the menu still in her partner's hands.
“Oh, no, sorry. I can right now,” she stumbles, but she waves him off.
“It’s okay, I’m tired anyway. I think I’m gonna call it a night early, since we have a busy day tomorrow.” Tim nods. “Can I use the bathroom for a few minutes, just to dry my hair?”
Tim holds up a thumbs up, but a pit forms in his stomach as she begins to walk away. So instead of acting with logic and reason, he listens to his heart, something he didn’t know he was able to do so easily.
“Lucy, wait,” he calls out, and she whips her body around, her hair swirling around and falling into place like dominos.
“Yeah?” she asks sweetly, without a hint of annoyance behind her voice. The butterflies in Tim’s stomach pick up speed, and he worries that he’ll hurl right there in front of her. He chastises himself for speaking without thinking, because he isn’t sure how to formulate words to describe his foreign feelings.
“We should talk about the kiss,” he says quietly, just loud enough for her to hear him.
All of the little noises she was hearing before: the bathroom exhaust fan, the air condition, feet stomping on the floor above, all went quiet. She didn’t expect Tim to bring up the kiss, something they had to do for work. If she was being honest, it had been running around her mind more than she would have liked to admit; but she had pushed it so far down, a distant memory at this point.
“Um, what about it?” she scoffs, trying to brush it off. She had been avoiding this conversation for days, but here it was, hitting her head-first.
“The airplane bathroom. Your apartment. Look, I-I don't know. Call me crazy, but it just doesn't feel like pretend.”
She knows he’s right. As much as she wants him to be wrong, she knows that he’s right. Lucy has had an almost sad amount of long-term relationships that have panned out into nothingness. She thought that kissing was… alright. But with Tim, it was different. It brought her back to life, and that was scary.
She isn’t sure why, but she feels the need to defend herself. “Uh... It's an intimate act. I mean, we'd have to be dead inside for it to not trigger something, right? It -- It's basic biology.”
“Okay, so... So you're saying it's not a big deal? Doesn't mean anything?”
“Yeah.”
Tim sounds relieved, his tone emulating a weight being lifted off of his shoulders. Because that’s how he should feel. His relationship with Ashley isn’t threatened, and he can carry on his life like normal. So why does it feel like Lucy just ripped his heart straight out of his chest?
____
By the time Tim finishes his shower, which was almost as good as Lucy described it to be, his partner is already fast asleep, curled over on the right edge of the large bed. Part of him wants to leave her there and find some other way to occupy the night, but he can’t, in good conscience, leave her alone with Rosalind Dyer on the loose.
Like it was yesterday, he remembered digging her out of the cold metal barrel, her skin rough and lifeless. The blue hue painted on her lips haunted him quite frequently, living in his dreams when he least expected it. Maybe sharing a bed wasn’t so bad, because it meant that he could protect her.
As quietly as he could, he lifts up the covers and slides underneath them. Lucy slights shifts, inching further from the center of the bed, further from Tim. Her hair is layed out across her face, a few strands falling into her mouth as she breathes.
Tim gazes over her watching her chest rise and fall as the seconds tick by. At first, her breaths are long and deep. But the more he watches her, the shorter and quicker they get. Her toes curl underneath the blanket, letting on that she is in fact awake.
“Lucy,” Tim whispers, letting her know that he sees right through her.
“Yeah?” she mumbles, acting as if he’s woken her up, but they both know that she’s been wide awake.
“Can’t sleep?”
Lucy sits up and rubs her eyes as she turns to face Tim. “How can I sleep when Rosalind is out there somewhere?”
And Tim can’t even imagine what she's feeling right now: the insecurity, fear of the unknown.
“Lucy, if I could march out of this hotel and go hunt her down myself, I would. But Rosalind is smart, and she knows that coming for a police officer for the second time would be suicide. You’re safe, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
And she believes him. He somehow always knows what to say. Or maybe she’s receptive just because it’s coming from him. She feels her eyes well up and doesn’t stop the tear that slides down her cheek.
“Come here,” Tim whispers, pulling her into an embrace. She rests her head on his shoulder, letting the tears fall onto his shirt, and he doesn’t stop her.
She knows that it’s wrong, that they’re too close for comfort, but she feels safe. So she doesn’t move. And Tim isn’t exactly pushing her away either.
“Thanks,” she smiles softly, running her hands through her hair. “But I think I could take her in a fist fight. I’ve got like… 3 time’s the muscle mass as her.”
“Oh, could you know?” Tim laughs, and Lucy confidently nods her head, brushing her cheek against the fabric resting on Tim’s shoulder. Sure, she’s just talking nonsense out of exhaustion now, but she’s smiling, and that’s all that matters to Tim.
“Absolutely. I’ve fought off much worse.”
“Oh, I bet.”
Once silence fills the room again, Lucy can feel her eyes become heavy, succumbing to the exhaustion. She forgets her surroundings, forgets that she’s not resting on a pillow.
“Goodnight, Tim. Thanks,” she whispers into the darkness.
“For what, doing my job?”
And thank god the lights are off, and Tim can’t see the smile spread across her face.
_____
Based on Tim’s observation of her movements, Lucy falls asleep within one minute and forty-seven seconds of uttering her last word. Her limbs are like dead weight, and Tim can’t bring himself to move her away. He almost prefers her attached to him; it’s the only way he can ensure that she really is okay. It’s the only way he has complete control over her.
Somewhere in the night, she tangles her feet up with his, and the blanket is kicked off before the sun even comes up. And it’s weird that it feels normal to function as a unit. But what happens undercover stays undercover, right?