Work Text:
For all that the Q word was banned in the shop, Lucy had to admit, she liked the afternoons when things were a little more… restful. When the streets were filled with people going about their daily lives in a very law-abiding manner, but she never fully trusted it.
Not with an hour left on shift, and her hopes pinned on clocking out on time so she could lie on the couch with a glass of wine.
Still, there was something soothing about travelling the streets of LA with the sun brilliantly bright overhead and Tim sitting beside her, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping on the open window - his one concession to the unseasonably early Spring heat. She could only imagine the temperatures the Summer would bring, and that thought had her stifling a grin.
Sensing the shift in her mood, Tim eyed her warily. “What?”
“Hmm? Nothing.”
“Uh-huh.” Voice dripping cynicism, his eyes flicked continuously from the road to her face as he planted both hands on the wheel.
“No, nothing. I was just thinking of how warm it’s getting—”
“I’m not turning on the AC. The window’s open.” Then he frowned and checked the temperature on the dash. “It’s not even that hot yet.”
Amused at how quickly he jumped on her comment and, also, after the many hours, days, weeks, months, years of riding together, she knew his opinion on AC—he was wrong but she was also more than aware of that too. “Would you let me finish my sentence? I was simply saying that, with it being so warm already, this summer will be a scorcher.” She paused, biting her lip before lobbing the grenade. “You’ll probably have plenty of reasons to hang out on the beach.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw and he averted his gaze stiffly out the front window. “No.”
“Ashley can work, you can lie on the beach, work on your tan…”
She very definitely did not think too long about what he might wear while doing that, but she didn’t have time to as she got the exact reaction she was looking for: the half-snarl and disgusted look.
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not? It’ll be the perfect way for you to spend time with your girlfriend considering the amount of hours you work.”
She hadn’t heard him mention anything about Ashley recently so maybe things had cooled off… not that he’d tell her. Mister ‘No personal talk in the shop’, locked up tighter than Fort Knox didn’t even tell her he had a girlfriend. Which admittedly smarted a little since she’d long ago established that they did fall under the umbrella of friends.
“I see Ashley plenty. We went for a meal last night, and I think we’re meeting for drinks tonight if nothing else crops up.”
“Two nights in a row? Things must be getting serious—” He eyed her shrewdly, brows slanted over blue that reflected the sky, and she quickly added, “So where did you go last night? Anywhere nice?”
The muscle ticked again, this time lower in that carved jawline and he sat a little straighter in the seat, both hands flexing around the steering wheel. “Just a sushi place.”
Okay, if It was just a sushi place, then why was he acting so uptight… oh. “The little sushi basement? The one I told you about last week? The one that’s only open a few nights and does the tea ceremony?” Appalled and betrayed—dick— she reached across the console and swatted his bicep. “Seriously?!”
Tim yanked his arm out of her reach as she moved to swat him again and sent her an injured look. “Why did you tell me about it if it wasn’t a hint for me to go there?”
“Uh, because I wanted to go there.”
“Then go!”
“I can’t just—Oh my god. You’re such a guy. I cannot believe you took Ashley. She doesn’t even like Kojo and you took Ashley to my tea ceremony sushi place? That’s just… great. Great.”
Her cheeks flushed with heat knowing she was overreacting, but still! How did he take her talking about the newly opened omakase-only restaurant tucked into the corner of Little Tokyo as a hint to bring Ashley there? Which, of course, he did because he was dating Ashley and she seemed nice (terrible taste in dogs notwithstanding) but Lucy wanted to go.
Not that she wanted Tim to take her, that wasn’t the angle, and not that they couldn’t eat a meal together because they were friends and friends did that—it just wasn’t something she and Tim did outside of work.
And she didn't want to examine that too deeply. How going to dinner with Jackson or Aaron or even Nolan was a completely different thing than going to dinner with Tim, because ever since that charged moment in his house after Jackson’s death, she couldn’t trust herself to be alone with Tim.
Nope, no, that was going back into the box, firmly labelled do not open, and locked with a neon red padlock.
“Are you jealous?”
“What? No!”
“Because you sound jealous.”
“I am not jealous,” she told him firmly, squashing down every thought into the box and shoving it back into that deep, dark hidden place where it could not, should not, resurface. “Why would I be jealous?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, and he was using the tone, the cautious one he tended to take when he suspected there was danger ahead, but he wasn’t quite sure when the def-con 4 explosion would trigger. “You’re the one giving me grief about taking the woman I’m seeing to a restaurant that you mentioned.”
She groaned. Put like that she did sound a little, teeny, tiny bit jealous. Which she wasn’t. “I’m not jealous. I might be a little envious.”
He stared out at the road as they travelled along with the late afternoon traffic, but his body angled towards her, a subtle movement that told her he was paying complete attention to this conversation. “There’s a difference?”
“Yes. Jealousy has connotations that are personal and involve—no. I’m not jealous. Envious is more accurate.”
“Okay? So what are you envious of? Not going to the sushi restaurant? I can get you sushi if you want it that badly. If I’d known, I’d have grabbed a to-go bag.”
His lips tilted up in a wry grin, inviting her to laugh with him but she couldn’t, not now when she could feel the rising tide of frustration bubbling up inside of her.
“If you’re just going to make fun…” She shifted in her seat, opening up the console to input some data, and turned her thoughts away from the urge to internally examine what was brewing inside the iron-clad box… with leaking seams.
“Lucy.”
“It’s fine.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, determined to focus back on her work. A second passed and then, with a lick of her lips, she unloaded, because, whether she liked it or not, Tim excelled at helping her parse through her feelings. “I just… everyone’s in relationships now. Angela and Wesley are married, Harper and James are having a baby, Nolan wants to propose to Bailey—"
“Seriously? He’s known her five minutes.”
Technically true, but still—
“When you know you know. How do you even have a girlfriend? You don’t have a romantic bone in your body.” He stilled, brows jumping up before he slowly tilted his head in her direction, daring her to rethink her words.
She huffed out a breath.
Fine. He might not have a romantic bone in his body but she could understand why he appealed to Ashley.
Didn’t mean she had to agree with him out loud.
“My point is, I’d like to have someone too. I guess it’s just hitting me: I have no one and that was fine because—” Neither did Tim “—I had Jackson and…”
Shame mixed with grief burned her throat, closing it, as she turned her gaze out the window to study a thin streak of white cloud passing behind the tall buildings. “That sounds awful. I didn’t mean it like that, I just—what is wrong with me? Am I giving off a vibe? A keep away vibe?”
Because she could understand if she subconsciously did that. Her first relationship with her college boyfriend had been a train wreck. She was a psychology student who hadn’t realised her boyfriend and best friend were sleeping together.
Her next relationship with Nolan came to an abrupt halt because of her career aspirations, and the last one sputtered out like a weak flame via a text message.
So, obviously, she had a few well-placed barbs in her fences, but she didn't build walls, and she considered herself to be a well-adjusted, soft, and caring person.
Who worked insane hours and never got a chance to go out for drinks because all her friends were homebodies now, or underage.
She had no hopes and no prospects.
“What about the baby lawyer?”
“What? Who?
“The ADA?”
“Chris Sanford?” What did he have to do with anything?
“Yeah, you two have been—”
Had been what? Her eyes widened. No, Tim couldn’t possibly think…
Catching her expression, he back peddled quickly, hand lifting from the steering wheel to express his confusion. “He’s obviously interested and you… you’re not flirting with him?”
“No! No, he’s been gung-ho on charging minors—wait, you think that’s how I flirt?”
She pursed her lips, wondering if, god forbid, Sanford thought she was flirting? Because babysitting the rookie lawyer and informing him about how to do his job was not her idea of flirting. And, honestly, she was pretty sure she had more game than that.
“Maybe?”
She glowered at him. “Well, it’s not. That’s—I’m clearly annoyed every time I talk to him. Which, now that I think about it, is how I feel a lot of the time when I talk to you, so now I’m reevaluating all our past conversations in case I face a HR complaint for flirting.”
“Cute,” he muttered, scanning his mirrors and increasing the speed to overtake an overly cautious red jeep. “Okay, fine. You’re not flirting with him, but he is definitely flirting with you.”
Doubtful, she thought with a scoff, but Tim’s pointed look had her reassessing their previous interactions in a new light. Was that why Chris kept coming to her with his opinions? Realistically Tim was the better option since he was the arresting officer on their reports, but Chris always found her, often popping up out of nowhere.
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just never realised he thought about me in that way.”
“Oh, come on, his little hangdog face lights up when he sees you across the room and he almost knocked Nell into a wall trying to get to you on Monday.”
Well. Hmm. That was almost flattering. And Chris wasn’t bad looking, actually he was pretty cute. Smart, almost obnoxiously so, and eager to prove himself, but hadn’t she been the same when she first started? A little bit of wear and tarnish would smooth out those edges. And he would understand her hours, they could talk about the job, they could certainly debate and she could sway him to her way of thinking, over a meal, a glass of wine, maybe? A little bit of candlelight could do wonders.
“No.”
She blinked out of the fantasy and jerked her head to stare at Tim as he pointed a finger in her direction.
“Absolutely not, Chen.”
“What? I’m not even doing anything.”
“You’re thinking it and I’m telling you now, you can do better.”
She snorted and averted her gaze, cheeks hot under his scrutiny. She hated how well he could read her. It was infuriating. “Obviously I can’t, or I wouldn’t be in this situation. And Chris is nice, and I’m sure he’d be interested in a sushi tea ceremony…” The idea of it was looking up with every second.
“He’s a lawyer!”
“If that’s the criteria for dating in LA, that’s going to wipe out a lot of the guys I meet. Besides, you were the one who suggested him in the first place.”
Deep furrows appeared on his brow as he gaped at her. “I didn’t think you’d take my suggestion seriously.”
“Are you jealous? Because you sound jealous.”
Tim’s jaw ticked again as he attempted to maim her with a look. “Funny. And no, I’m not. I just don’t want to have to listen to you mooning over him and then moaning when you inevitably break up with him. Dating someone you work with is a bad idea.”
“Wow. Wow,” she drew out the word, "you just put us together and broke us up in one sentence. And I do not moan.”
Another pointed look that had her squirming before he chose a different tact. “Look, I’m just telling you now, you can do better than some muppet—”
“Muppet?!”
“Yeah, muppet. With that hair and Del Monte’s hand up his ass, yes, he’s a muppet.”
“Oh my god.” Exasperated laughter burst from her lips. “What age are you?!”
“Old enough to know that you two would never agree on anything.” He indicated to slide into the traffic travelling south towards Mid-Wilshire.
“That could make things interesting. Opposites attract. I mean, look at you and Ashley; you hate the beach and yet you’re both dating.” And she wasn’t telling him he could do better.
“Hating the beach and having different ideas of how the judicial system works are not the same thing.”
“Well, maybe, I can change him!”
The words were out before she could stop them and she clamped a hand over her mouth, too late to stuff them back in. Tim blinked a few times before slowly turning to stare at her.
“Did you just say you could change him?”
Horrified mirth bubbled and she tried to hold back the insane urge to giggle, but when the creases at the corner of Tim’s eyes deepened and his lips twitched as he fought a smile, she gasped out a laugh.
“That came out wrong.”
“No, I think you meant that which means you need an intervention. I’m calling Angela, we’re going to go get a drink—”
“No,” she cried, reaching for his bicep as he picked up his phone. “No, don’t call Angela. I’ll go home, I’ll be good—”
Tim shook his head and untangled himself from her grip. “You can’t be left alone tonight, Chen. Chris might pop out from under a table and drag you off to a chapel. You’ll be Lucy Sanfor— no, that sounds horrible.”
“Stop,” she laughed, too amused by his over-the-top reaction to feel embarrassed when the phone went to Angela’s voicemail.
“Lopez, get a babysitter, we need to stage an intervention for Lucy. She’s considering dating the baby lawyer. She needs saving from herself.”
“Angela, are lawyers good in bed? Tell me later when old man Tim’s fallen asleep in the booth!” she shouted over Tim’s frantic move to cut the call.
She chuckled, curling into her seat when Tim scowled in her direction, but the warmth in his blue, blue eyes rivalled the sunshine warming her side. “If you’re taking me drinking, can I get sushi first?”
He heaved a put-upon sigh. “Fine.”
She beamed at him and settled back in her seat. Maybe she didn’t have a special someone to take her to tea ceremony sushi places, but she did have someone who’d look out for her and stop her from making bad choices and that, to her thinking, was infinitely better.