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Lucy closes her car door behind her with a small sigh. Her worries about Seth still running rampant in her mind. She is so sure there is something off about him. Either his stories aren’t adding up, or the kid has the worst luck in the entire world.
She really, really should go back to her apartment. Rationally, she knows that nothing good ever comes from having dinner with an ex that you’re still in love with. But every part of her longs to be there with him, to pretend like they were them again, even if it’s just for one night.
But before she can stop herself, she is getting out of her car and walking back to Tim’s front door. Almost tentatively, she knocks, and he opens up within seconds, a confused look on his face.
“Lucy,” he asks, leaning against his doorpost with his arms crossed, “did you forget your keys or something?”
“No, um,” she pauses before answering, taking a deep breath, “dinner. Dinner sounds nice, actually.”
The way his smile instantly widens makes him look almost boyish. Lucy swears her heart grows bigger at the sight of it.
“Come in,” he says warmly, stepping aside to let her into his house. The house he had decorated with her in mind. Despite the fact that they have been broken up for months, Lucy still lives on in the little things in his home.
The pillows on his couch, the pictures on the wall, but most importantly, the memories he relives every time he sees or does something they had done together in there at some point. Cooking in his kitchen together, watching a Lakers’ game recording while cuddling up on the couch or just simply being there.
“Can I make you a drink?”
No answer follows.
“Lucy?” Tim asks again, looking over at where Lucy is standing, staring blankly at something.
Crap. The picture of them on the beach. And the one of them with Angela. He hasn’t taken those down. Hell, he doesn’t want to take them down. To him, it serves as a reminder of what he is fighting to get back.
“What? Sorry, I wasn’t listening,” Lucy admits almost sheepishly, wiping her hands off on her skirt, the denim doing no good to rid her hands of their clamminess.
“I asked if I can make you a drink,” Tim repeats easily, a soft smile on his lips.
“Can I make you a drink?”
“I’m good.”
Lucy clears her throat and nods. “Yeah, I’ll just have whatever you have lying around.”
Tim joins her a few moments later and hands her a bottle of beer, which she accepts with a small smile.
They don’t say anything for a while, Lucy too busy giving Kojo some more butt scratches and Tim far too busy looking at Lucy like she’s the best thing he has ever laid eyes on.
Because she is.
“What?” She asks after a while, looking up from where she has been paying attention to Kojo – almost as if she could feel his gaze burning into her, because Tim has that look on his face.
“Nothing.”
“Tim.”
“Why’d you turn around and come back, Lucy?”
Lucy presses her lips together in a small smile as she thinks of some clever retort to give him rather than the actual answer.
“Didn’t feel like going home and cooking dinner,” she answers with a grin, taking a sip from her beer.
Tim laughs softly and shakes his head. “Haha, very funny.”
“Oh, I’m hilarious, I know,” Lucy fires back easily, her smile widening.
It almost feels like nothing has changed between them. Like that horrible breakup in the parking lot never happened.
The silence that follows is comfortable, the two of them taking turns in nursing their beers.
Tim is the one to break the silence this time.
“You have any idea what you want to order? I don’t really mind,” Tim says with a small shrug, turning his body slightly to face Lucy.
“Can we do Vietnamese? I’m starving.”
“Streets of Vietnam. That’s where we ended up. I guess this is our first official date.”
“Mm, last night was, for sure. I mean, it’s a better story for the grandkids.”
“We’ve got grandkids now, nice.”
“I could do Vietnamese,” Tim agrees and immediately pulls his phone out to place the order.
Lucy just smiles and turns her attention back to Kojo, who barks and wags his tail happily.
“Oh, you missed me, too, didn’t you?” Lucy murmurs softly, running her hand over the dog’s fur.
Tim knows she means the too to say she missed Kojo, but he can’t help but wonder if it isn’t somehow aimed at him, too. Because he sure as hell hadn’t been talking about Kojo when he said the feeling of missing someone was mutual.
Because if it was aimed at him, she would have been absolutely correct. He misses her every day. The more he works on himself in therapy, the more he turns himself into the man he wants to be (and not just for her, for himself, too), the more he begins to realize what a great thing he walked away from and just how much he regrets it.
Even though he knows he had to do it.
She deserved, and still does deserve, someone better than the man he had been then.
But things are different now. He is different now.
Maybe one day he will be lucky enough to win her back, but he isn’t going to ask for that. He wants her to see how much he has grown and want him back because she wants him back. Not because he does.
“Alright, I just ordered your regular. Hope that’s okay.”
Lucy nods and hums in affirmation.
“You want to talk about how you think your rookie is evil? You know, for someone who talks about her T.O. being such a ‘hardass’,” he says, making quotation marks with his fingers, “you’re not exactly going easy on your rookie either. Just because he was late to roll call once doesn’t make him an evil mastermind.”
Lucy gasps in exasperation, but breaks into a wide smile mere seconds after.
“I never said he was evil,” she says with a small giggle, “there’s just something off about him. I don’t know. It just feels like he has an excuse ready for every time he’s bound to mess up. It’s weird, right?”
“Either that, or the guy has the worst luck in the world,” he reasons with a shrug.
Lucy looks at him and tilts her head with a really? look.
“Okay, yeah, I’ll admit, it is a little weird.”
Lucy shifts on the couch, subconsciously moving a little closer to Tim.
“I’m not saying that he’s like corrupt or anything, I just… I have a feeling.”
“A feeling?” Tim cuts in with a chuckle. “You’re spending too much time with Celina.”
“Shut up,” Lucy laughs softly, “you know what I mean. Something’s off about him, and that’s my amazing cop skills talking and not whatever influence you think Celina has on me.”
Tim just shakes his head with a grin, taking another sip from his beer.
“Like I said, he would have had to pass a polygraph, Lucy, if something’s really up with him, I’m sure it would have come forward in that.”
“Because polygraphs are very illuminating, huh,” she teases playfully.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, I love you.”
“True.”
“Okay, big one. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“Do you want me to be an undercover detective?”
“Yes.”
“You liar.”
“Huh, I guess we really do have a problem.”
He can see Lucy is still not fully satisfied with that, much like she had been during their conversation earlier.
“If you think it’s something worth mentioning to Grey, you probably should,” he suggests.
Lucy pauses for a moment, considering whether or not it really is that big of a deal.
“No,” she eventually settles on, because she didn’t want to ring the alarm bell if it wasn’t absolutely necessary to do so. “I might just be overthinking this because he’s my first rookie.”
“Then don’t. And if you need me to have a talk with him, you know where to find me,” he shrugs and places a gentle hand on her knee. “And, for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a great job. You know, for a rookie T.O.”
Lucy feels her cheeks heat up immediately at his compliment, even though he tried to cover it up as a teasing jab, she knows he meant every word he said. She clears her throat, but doesn’t move to shift his hand off her leg.
“I doubt you talking to him would help, though, he’s not exactly your number one fan,” Lucy says softly, bringing her beer up to her lips. “Almost kicked him out of the shop for saying he’s glad you’re not his training officer.”
Tim can’t help but smile. “Defending my honor, aw.”
Lucy playfully slaps his chest and rolls her eyes.
“He’s terrified of you.”
“Good. He should be.”
“Tim,” she chides gently.
“Joke. Seriously though, if you need my help.”
She shakes her head quickly. “No, I can handle him, don’t worry. Thank you, though.”
Tim nods. “Of course.”
Lucy settles back against the couch with a small sigh.
“Okay, enough work talk,” Tim decides, putting his hands on his lap. “You want to watch something while we wait for the food?”
For a moment, Lucy is quiet, as if she’s contemplating whether or not to bring up her suggestion.
Tim, who knows her like the back of his hand, immediately takes notice of this and points his beer bottle at her in a mock threatening way.
“If you’re about to suggest we watch a true crime documentary, the answer is no.”
Lucy laughs softly, a hint of blush on her cheeks.
“I wasn’t. I was going to ask if we could watch Top Chef,” she looks at him hopefully.
And with those doe brown eyes staring at him, who would he be to deny her that.
“I know I made you promise to not watch Top Chef without me, but I couldn’t wait. I’m sorry.”
“Bad girlfriend.”
“No!”
“Nope.”
“No, I’m sorry!”
“Horrible.”
Tim smiles fondly at the memory of them curled up on the couch, binging old seasons of Top Chef while waiting for the new season to come out.
“Yeah, Top Chef sounds nice.”
Lucy claps her hands together excitedly. “Great! Do you have tonight’s episode recorded?”
He does have it recorded. Mostly because he pre-records the entire season once it begins airing. But also because he wants to be able to talk about it to Lucy in case she ever asked anything about last night’s episode at work.
“I do have it recorded. You put it on, I’m going to grab another beer. You want one?”
Lucy shakes her head. “I’m good, thanks.”
Tim stands up with a nod and walks over to his kitchen. When he’s there, he can’t help but look over at Lucy, the sight of her on his couch, putting on something on his television so easily warming his heart. For a moment, it seems like she never really left.
Seeing her pause the video, waiting for him to come back, bending forward to pet their dog, because yes, Kojo still is and always would be theirs, warms something deep inside his chest. He misses her like crazy, but for now, he is just going to enjoy the night and her company for as long as she’s going to let him. Small doses, he reminds himself. The fact that she had agreed to dinner was already a major win in his books.
They end up watching about half of the episode before the food arrives. Tim presses pause and walks up to the door to take their food, immediately bringing it over to Lucy.
“I can’t believe you still know my regular order,” she says excitedly, grabbing the to-go chopsticks that came with the order.
“How could I ever forget, you’ve made me order your food so many times I see your weird orders in my sleep sometimes. I mean, who eats their burgers with extra pickles,” he retorts easily as he sits down on the couch next to her.
“Jerk,” she mutters halfheartedly, taking a bite of her food. “It’s just as good as I remember.”
Tim nods, reminiscing about the times they had ordered from that place while they were still dating.
“Of course it is, especially compared to the one near your apartment.”
“That’s not fair, that’s barely a real Vietnamese restaurant anyway.”
“Still means I win,” he shrugged with a smirk.
“How does that mean you win? You’re not the one that made the food,” she mutters, rolling her eyes jokingly.
“Well, it’s my restaurant of choice.”
“I’m literally the one that picked the food, I still don’t see how that’s a valid argument.”
Tim holds his hands up in surrender and smiles. “I thought you said we were good at arguing, seems like you’re lacking good counterarguments if all you can do is say mine is invalid.”
“But we’re so good at arguing.”
“I know, but I’m hoping that we’re good at certain other things as well.”
“You wanna find out right now?”
Her cheeks flush at the memory and she points her chopsticks at him defensively. “I still think I win the argument. Your point didn’t even make sense.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” he relents with a grin.
“Whatever,” she mutters fondly as she turns the episode back on.
They eat the rest of their food in a comfortable silence, aside from the few comments Lucy makes about the food and some mistakes this one chef keeps making. The one she very clearly does not like.
“Do you have some personal vendetta against the guy?” Tim asks, laughing as Lucy makes another comment about ‘what kind of idiot can mess up a poached egg that badly’.
“You did not just say vendetta? What are you, ninety years old, grandpa?”
Tim puts his hand on his chest in faux offense, making Lucy laugh.
“Okay, ouch. I’m not that old.”
“Sure, you’re not,” Lucy mumbles jokingly, quickly ducking as Tim tosses one of the spare chopsticks at her, Kojo immediately diving after it to play fetch.
“No, Kojo, that’s not—” Tim starts, but Kojo is already happily bouncing back to his owners, tail wagging excitedly as he shows off his amazing catch.
“Do not talk to my baby like that, look at how happy he is,” Lucy puts her food aside to pet Kojo, who only seems to get more excited at that.
“Your baby? Last I checked, that’s my dog.”
“Excuse you, he’s our dog.”
Our dog. God, he hates the way his heart just jumped up at that.
It makes it so easy to pretend everything was still the same as a few months ago.
Our dog, our house, our future.
Lucy seems to notice Tim tense slightly at that and clears her throat, brushing some hair from her face. “You know what, fine, I’m willing to share him, since you’re taking such good care of him.”
Tim chuckles softly, glad the brief tension has been resolved.
“Yeah, yeah,” he waves his hand at her and smiles. “Our dog, happy now?”
“Very,” Lucy nods with a smirk.
Once the episode is over, Tim grabs the takeaway containers and tosses them into the trash.
“God, how is it eleven already,” Lucy sighs loudly and pushes herself to her feet. “I should really go home. I’m sure Celina’s back from Nolan’s by now and her and Rachel are wondering where I am.”
Tim nods a little sadly. He hates to see her go, because it would break the illusion that he has allowed himself to enjoy all night long, but he understands she has to go back.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” he says as he makes his way out of the kitchen.
At the door, Lucy bends down one final time to bid her goodbye to Kojo, scratching him between his ears. “See you soon, Kojo, I’ll be back,” she whispers, and she can only hope Tim didn’t overhear.
When she notices Tim standing beside her, she rises back up again, looking over at him with a small smile. For a second, it feels like there’s a moment there with the way he is looking at her so intensely. With so much love it almost makes her want to stay for the rest of the night, or however long he would let her.
No, she couldn’t. Not right now anyway. She needs more time. Hell, he probably does, too.
So instead, she opts for a small dose herself.
“Thank you for tonight. I had a really good time,” she admits almost shyly.
Tim returns the shyness, shoving his hands into his pockets with a small smile. “Yeah, me too.”
They stand together at his front door in a comfortable silence, Lucy leaning with her back against the wood as she smiles at him.
Seeing him like that, so different from the man who had broken her heart, makes her happy. He looks happier. On the path to healing. And it gives her hope. Hope that one day, they’ll go back to evenings like this, minus the part where she leaves at the end of the night to go back to her own apartment and instead spends the night in their bed.
One day, she promises herself, and him, without ever saying a word out loud.
She’s sure he can see it on her face anyway, in the soft smile on her lips, the light flush of her cheeks and the unmistakable twinkle of love in her eyes.
“No, really, Tim. Thank you for tonight. I can tell you’re really making progress,” she waits for a little so she’s sure he heard her. “I’m proud of you,” she then adds.
The way his smile instantly lights up makes every moment of heartbreak worth it.
“Thanks,” he whispers, nodding slowly. “I’m really trying to be the man you deserve, if you’ll still have me by then.”
Lucy’s face instantly softens as she places a hand on his arm in a silent promise that yes, she would still have him then. No matter how long it was going to take.
“I know you are,” she responds, looking up at him tentatively. “I really did see that tonight.”
Tim nods appreciatively, managing a smile whilst simultaneously fighting the turmoil of emotions inside him.
“It’s getting late, so I’m going to head out, but I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Tomorrow’s a new day, remember,” she repeats her words from a few weeks ago, smiling the exact same way she did then.
And he can’t help but laugh. “Tomorrow’s a new day,” he repeats.
Then, Lucy stands still for a moment before standing on her toes to press the faintest of kisses to his cheek. “Good night, Tim.”
“Good night, Luce,” he whispers back, the nickname rolling from his lips like it never left them.
And if she sees him blushing, which she does, she doesn’t say anything about it.
“Yeah, good night,” she says once again before stepping out the door and walking to her car.
Tim watches her drive away until he can’t see her car anymore and closes the door with a small sigh.
Tonight was a big step towards where he wanted them to be. And tomorrow indeed would be a new day.
fin.