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Gus and Lassie were bonding and Shawn was not a fan. It was okay when Lassie hated the both of them, but it wasn’t fun anymore now that he was ‘bonding’ with Gus. First of all, Gus was his best friend and how could he do that to him? Not that Shawn had ever admitted he had a crush on Lassie, or liked men for that matter, but still. And secondly how come Shawn couldn’t bond with Lassie!? He’s tried! He’s even toned back his teasing on a few occasions hoping Lassie might come around and still, nothing. But Gus teaches him tap dancing and suddenly the two of them are best buds, what gives!?
He was ranting to Jules about it, who did not seem pleased with the conversation and kept insisting that Lassie needed a friend. (Also where he got the word ‘bonding’ from.) Which was probably true, but that friend did not need to be Gus. Couldn’t he have found anybody else? Also Shawn was available for friendship! Lassie could be friends with the both of them, even. Shawn wouldn’t mind their friendship if Lassie just stopped hating him. But he certainly did mind when Lassie still hated him while being all buddy-buddy with his best friend. It wasn’t fair. Gus never even liked Lassie. Gus thought Lassie had actually killed that gang member.
“Shawn, Gus can have other friends, Carlton isn’t stealing him from you, okay? So relax.”
The problem with ranting to Jules was that he had to dance around the bush a little and pretend he was jealous of Lassie and not Gus, because even though Shawn’s pretty sure he’s made it pretty obvious he wants to be friends with Lassie he’s a little scared if he talks too long about it somebody might notice there’s a little more to it than that. And it would be weird for Shawn to accidentally out himself to Jules before coming out to Gus. But Gus made that really difficult with how uncomfortable he already was with hugs/cuddling/trips to Canada/whatever else Gus kept calling gay. Someday he’d do it though. Someday.
“Yeah, I know,” Shawn whined, “But Lassie’s already calling him Burton.”
“Yeah, friends usually use each other's names. Is that really bothering you?”
“Gus doesn’t even like his first name! And Lassie’s never-” That was a little too close. He was absolutely not about to whine about Lassie never calling him Shawn. For starters, because he and Lassie weren’t friends, and Jules would surely point that out, maybe even tell him that Lassie hated him, and he really didn’t need to hear that. “And they’re doing that show together tomorrow.” He said instead.
“Tap dancing is really helping Carlton.”
“I know.” Shawn groaned, collapsing across her desk. “But- Well-” He was running out of ideas that didn’t give away that he really just wanted Lassie to stop hating him.
“Do you want to tap dance?”
“What? No.” Shawn straightened back up. “Absolutely not.”
“Well, you have other hobbies with Guster, right?”
“Obviously.” Shawn rolled his eyes. Maybe it would be okay to admit he didn’t want to be hated. It wasn’t like he was confessing his crush. Nobody wanted to be hated. Being hatred sucks. Shawn sighed. “I just- Why does- If he’s going to be friends with my best friend can’t he at least stop hating me!?” And maybe that was a little bit too loud.
“Oh. This is about Carlton.” Jules nodded, slowly. Shawn groaned and collapsed over her desk again.
“I’d even take indifference at this point. I mean, what do I have to do here?”
“Well, maybe if you didn’t insult him every time you saw him, just for starters.”
“But that’s just, like, the game we’ve got going. And it’s not every time I see him.” Shawn argued, raising his head just enough to glance at Jules, who just raised her eyebrows in disbelief which was totally unfair. “Sometimes I give him compliments and he still blows up with rage.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe it’s because you’re being insincere?”
“I am not being insincere!” Shawn yelled, once again, too loud. He straightened up as well, possibly looking way too defensive. Jules just raised her eyebrows at him. “I’m not! I do not give out insincere compliments.”
“You might need to tell him that then, ‘cause we all thought that’s what you were doing.”
“Damnit.” Shawn muttered. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk to Lassie… tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh.” Jules gave him another slow nod before Shawn turned around and left the police station.
It didn’t bother him at all that she didn’t believe him because he honestly wasn’t sure if he even believed himself. How was he meant to look Lassie in the eyes and tell him he meant every compliment he ever said about him without looking desperate and instantly giving away his crush? Maybe if he just started slower? He could wish him luck on the show? Or something? Ask him to stop hating him? Nope. That was far too forward. Definitely just wish him luck. Of course he’d be wishing Gus luck as well, and maybe that would make him look more sincere to Lassie. What could possibly go wrong?
Apparently everything could go wrong. Famous last words and all. He wished Gus luck with no issues, obviously. And he was pretty sure Lassie heard it considering he was standing right there. But when he wished Lassie luck he just rolled his eyes at him. Of course he still wouldn’t believe it. Even though he used the exact same words and tone as he did with Gus.
And then after the show when the four of them meet up outside Shawn tries to say good job. Once again starting with Gus, because maybe if Lassie noticed that the tone was the same he’d believe he meant it. Or maybe he just thinks he’s making fun of him too, Shawn had kinda teased him a lot about the tap dancing, but even then he’d at least have to know that it’s playful teasing. Except, he doesn’t. He scoffs at him instead.
“Yeah, I’m sure you loved watching me embarrass myself.” Lassie crossed his arms.
“What?”
“When I blurted out, on stage, that I knew who the West Side rapist is.” Lassie gave him a pointed look. “Which reminds me, I have to get to the station.”
“Wha- Wait. Come on!” Shawn yelled after him but Lassie just kept walking away.
“O’Hara, you coming?” He called over his shoulder.
“Sorry, Shawn.” She gave him a small smile before following after Lassiter.
“Did you really have to antagonize him right after the show?” Gus asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Shawn was sure at least Gus knew he was only teasing.
“I was being sincere!” Shawn yelled. “Why does nobody get that!?” He threw his arms up before stomping away. Which was a completely terrible decision considering Gus was the one that drove him to the show. He sighed, spinning back around and heading for the blueberry. Gus followed behind him silently and unlocked the car. Shawn climbed in first.
“Okay.” Gus started, as he slid into the driver's seat. “I get that you were being sincere, but what’s got you so mad?”
“I- ‘Cause you’re being all buddy-buddy with Lassiter and-”
“I can have other friends, Shawn.”
“No I- I know that. I just mean-” Shawn took a deep breath. “How come he’s decided to get along with you but still hates my guts?”
“Well, to be fair, I’m not pretending to be a psychic.”
“Do you think he’d hate me less if I told him I wasn’t?”
“Shawn! No! That’s how we get fired. Or even go to jail!”
“Geez.” Shawn put his hands up in mock surrender. “Yeah, okay. I won’t.”
“Do you really want him to like you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Gus sighed. “I guess, maybe you can try asking him about his interests? But you have to actually sound sincere.”
“Cool, just one problem, I thought I sounded sincere five minutes ago and it blew up in my face.”
“Yeah.” Gus sighed, again. “I don’t know, cross your fingers then.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m trying, okay?”
—————————————————————
Shawn and Gus entered the station the next day because they still had a check they needed to pick up. Shawn shooed Gus off towards Henry to collect their check and headed over to Lassie’s desk by himself.
“Hey,” Shawn greeted. Adding what he hoped looked like a sincere smile and not his usual teasing smirk. Lassie glanced up at him and then back to his computer screen. “How was your morning?” Shawn continued, leaning against the side of Lassie’s desk.
“It was better before you showed up.” Lassie answered. Which, ouch.
“Yeah, okay, that’s fair.” Shawn waved a hand around in dismal because he needed to jump past that comment quickly and get onto the friendship building. “Exactly how many Guns do you have in your house?”
“I’m not answering that. Just in case people ever try to confiscate them again.”
“Okay.” Shawn nodded. “Uh… do you want to talk about the civil war?”
“I’m working, Spencer. You should try it sometime.”
“Right.” Shawn nodded. “Do you wanna hang out on Saturday and talk about the civil war, or guns, or something?”
“Okay, what is wrong with you?” Lassie looked up and met Shawn’s eyes.
“Nothing!”
“You’re being weird.”
“I’m always weird.” Shawn smirked. Lassie just raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, just uh… think about Saturday.” Shawn took a step backwards, gave Lassie a smile and finger gun gesture, and then spun around to go find Gus. He was waiting by the front door with their check in hand.
“How’d it go?”
“I think he thinks I’m still teasing or I’m sick or something like that. So, not great.”
“Oh. Better luck next time?”
“I guess.” Shawn sighed. “You want ice cream?”
“You know it.”
—————————————————————
A couple days later, with no new case, Shawn bought a coffee for Lassie and a smoothie for himself and headed down to the station. Gus was at his other job, and the main point was to befriend Lassie, but it couldn’t hurt to try to get a case while he was there anyway. Shawn smiled at Buzz as he passed through the station towards Lassie’s desk.
“Hey Lassafrass.” He greeted, setting Lassie’s coffee down on his desk. Lassie just squinted at it. “How was your morning?”
“What is that?” Lassie pointed to the cup.
“Coffee.” Shawn answered. “Three cream, three sugar.”
“Why?”
“What, I can’t get my favorite detective a coffee?”
“One, I’m not your favorite detective. Two-”
“Sure you are.”
“Spencer.” Lassie growled. Shawn bit his lip. Lassie glanced back at the coffee like it had offended him somehow.
“It’s just coffee, Lass, it doesn’t bite.” Shawn said, humorlessly. Lassie glanced at him, still squinting, and then back to the cup. Shawn sighed as Lassie popped the cover off the cup. “Geez, Lass, what do you think I did?”
“I don’t know, but this is suspicious. You don’t bring me coffee.”
“I do now.” Shawn shrugged before taking a sip of his smoothie.
“What else is in it?”
“What?”
“Did you add some of your smoothie or spit in it or something?”
“No! Why would I- Okay, forget it, never mind.” Shawn spun around. Forget getting a case. Guess that meant Saturday was a bust too.
—————————————————————
Gifts and talking were definitely not helping him befriend Lassie. Which was totally fine, because Gus had a point anyway. Lassie hated Shawn because he claimed to be psychic, and obviously Shawn couldn’t admit he wasn’t but he could stop dragging Lassie into his visions so often. No more love declarations under drawings of tiretracks, sitting in his lap, grabbing his leg, or touching his face. Totally doable. Not showing up to Lassie’s crime scenes would probably also help, but Shawn did have to make money so he’d just focus on not using Lassie as a prop for the time being.
“Good afternoon Lassipants." Shawn greeted. Maybe he shouldn’t do that either? Lassie didn’t really seem to like any of the nicknames Shawn came up with after all.
“No.” Was Lassie- Lassiter’s response. Shawn glanced at Gus, maybe he could use their friendship in order to get in? Sometimes things he didn’t like could still be useful.
“What, you won’t even let Gus in? We’re just here to help.”
“If the case doesn’t involve pills, Guster's not very useful.” Oh, that wasn’t going to be good.
“What!?” Gus scoffed. “Wow. Okay. I can’t believe we were almost friends, you suck.” Shit. Gus and Lassiter being friends while Lassiter still hated Shawn was torture, sure, but it was also the only practical thing that could give him any hope that maybe someday Lassiter wouldn’t hate him forever, or at least so fucking much.
“Wha- You're not?” Lassiter replied. Fuck. Their friendship was so over. If Lassie was going to go back to disliking Gus so soon a friendship between the two of them was certainly doomed..
“Yes I am! I sol-”
“Wait. No, you guys can’t fight.” Shawn interrupted.
“Seriously Shawn? You didn’t even like that we were friends in the first place.” Gus shot back.
“I- Yeah, but you can’t fight. Stop it.”
“What does that even-”
“How about the two of you go discuss this elsewhere?” Lassiter interrupted. Shawn sighed and dragged Gus away, they’d get in on the case later.
—————————————————————
“Shawn what the hell was that?” Gus asked when they were back in the blueberry
“What do you mean?”
“First you don’t want us to be friends and now we’re not allowed to fight? Also leaving a crime scene without any information?”
“I- I don’t like you being friends without me but you being friends is also the only reasonable thing suggesting that maybe Lassie- Lassiter and I could ever be friends.”
“I don’t get why you want to be friends with him so bad anyway, he’s a dick.”
“Yeah, but he’s so cool when he’s being an asshole.”
“Shawn, that’s how you make terrible friends.”
“No I-”
“Like Micheal from Highschool, who never stopped insulting you but you just ate it up, or that guy you told me about that made you move back to Santa Barbara that gave you that black eye, what was his name?”
“His name is not important, and Lassie wouldn’t hurt me.”
“He’s threatened to shoot you like a hundred times.”
“But he never has.”
“He tried to choke you once!”
“… Yeah, but that was kinda h…”
“Kinda what?”
“Nothing. Nevermind.”
“Shawn.”
“It’s not Important. What is important is that Lassiter stops hating me.”
“I can’t believe you.” Gus shook his head as he started the car.
“Tacos?”
“Sure, Shawn.”
—————————————————————
Shawn did not get on that case later. Instead he avoided the station for three days and let Lassie solve it. He would’ve gotten involved if Lassie- (damn it) Lassiter wasn’t able to crack it, but he was so it was all good. Gus pretended like he cared the first day but then he just focused on his real job, it didn’t affect him as much when they didn’t get cases.
Unfortunately a week after that case, Shawn heard about an alien abduction. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to work, he liked his job, it was just that Lassie hated it when Shawn joined him on a case, and Shawn was trying to find a way to get on the guy's good side. He could probably get right back to work once they were finally on good footing and it wouldn’t annoy Lassiter as much then. But they simply weren’t there yet.
However, Lassiter did seem to like to give him the crazy ones, he handed him the case about the naked guys waking up in a field after all, so Shawn showed up to the guys house. He cut into the conversation just as Henry was saying no one would believe the alien story.
“Was he tall and scaly or short with a huge lollipop head?”
“Tall, I think.” The man replied.
“Reptilian.” Gus whispered.
“Probably hostile.” Shawn whispered back. “Alright, people, we’re gonna need a speak and spell, and seven pounds of mashed potatoes.”
“Enough.” Lassiter cut in. “Mr. Kessler if your coworker doesn’t show up in the next eight hours feel free to file a missing persons report. Until then, stop wasting our time.” Lassie put on his sunglasses when he was finished talking, which was a pretty cool move that made Shawn wish he could kiss him, but he had already fucked up talking about aliens so he just watched him walk away.
“You have a very nice home.” Jules told the man before following after Lassiter and Henry.
“This UFO, was it more like a bright sphere or two soup bowls glued together?” Gus asked, stepping closer now that the crowd was gone.
“Uh, no, it was a sphere, definitely. W-what are you guys? Are you UFO chasers?”
“Nothing as ridiculous as that.” Shawn chuckled, we’re psychic detectives.”
“And we can help you get to the bottom of what happened last night.” Gus added.
“Ah, fantastic, you’re hired.” The man smiled, and Shawn and Gus smiled back as Gus reached his hand out for a handshake.
“Shawn!” Henry called, because of course he didn’t leave. “May I have a word?”
“Excuse us.” Gus told their new customer as they headed toward Henry.
“I really don’t think you should be taking this case.”
“Well I don't think you get a say in my non police department cases.” Shawn shot back.
“Look, we all know there’s 0% chance that you don’t end up believing this kook.”
“How do you figure that?” Shawn asked.
“Because you want to believe him, Shawn. Just like you wanted to believe it wasn’t a weather balloon when you were a kid, and you wanted to believe that it was aliens that abducted Joe Piscopo.”
“That remains my theory until someone can pinpoint the man’s whereabouts.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Spencer, I promise you we will not let our interest in UFO’s affect our judgment.”
“Good. ‘Cause you run around town telling everybody that an alien did this, you’re gonna look like a couple of nut jobs. Shawn, I can’t hire but jobs.” Shawn really hated working with Henry.
“Dad, would you relax, please, obviously we don’t think aliens are responsible.”
“Good.” Henry nodded. Lassie honked his horn then and Shawn has never been more proud. “Hold your horses!” Henry shouted back, but then immediately turned to go to the car. Well, not immediately, he attempted Lassie’s sun glasses move first, but he was nowhere near as cool.
“Because if aliens did do this, there’d be signs of electrical disruptions.” Gus said and Shawn laughed.
“Exactly.” He agreed right before catching sight of a broken light. “What else would we see Gus?”
“Well there most definitely would be a visible ground disturbance.” Gus replied and Shawn glanced at the bent over plants. Fuck.
“Right.”
“So, uh, where do you guys want to start?” Mr. Kessler asked.
“How ‘bout your Terrance?” Shawn suggested. And, what do you know, when the three of them got up there he spotted the crop circle. Either it was aliens or an alien obsessed kidnapper trying really hard to cover his tracks in the worst way possible. Shawn glanced over at Gus with a smirk, he smirked back.
—————————————————————
The case was going really well right up until Mr. Kessler went on TV and announced that Shawn and Gus were investigating his case and believed him about the aliens. They were so screwed. Henry had called as soon as it was announced too. To think they got to meet up with an old friend just before and hangout in his secret nerd lab. If only Mr. Kessler kept his mouth shut like Gus told him too.
And just to put the cherry on top of the cake Henry informed them that Kessler was a conspiracy theorist, on anxiety meds, and if he misses a dose is prone to psychotic episodes including seeing’s panda in his company kitchen a year ago and seeing a UFO while on vacation ten years ago. They really shouldn’t have taken the case. One, because of Henry’s point about them being susceptible to believing it was aliens, and two, because he did not belong in the police department until he had a plan about how to go about talking to Lassiter.
Speaking of Lassie- Lassiter, he was actively interviewing Toby, the man who was supposedly abducted. He had taken a cab to his parents house after his car wouldn’t start, turned off his phone, and slept in. So there was no kidnapping. It did not explain the crop circle, tipped over plants, or broken path lights though. At least he avoided having to talk to Lassie.
Except, Henry thought he should join the meeting in the conference room, since he was working for Kessler. Great way to ruin whatever good footing he made by trying to talk about the man’s interests, bringing him coffee, and inviting him to hangout. He just had to exit fast after getting any helpful information, and it would all be fine. Once he spotted the mark on Toby’s arm, he’s was all set.
“Man, he’s gonna hear it at the office on Monday.” Toby joked.
“Actually your firm just suspended him until he completes a month's stay in a mental health facility.” Jules replied.
“Wow, who- who’s gonna get all his cases?” Toby asked, which was opportunity.
“We’re available.” Shawn cut in. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Spencer? Gus, here, is a whiz at legal zoom, my cousin has a personal injury law firm called Accidentes. Heard of it?”
“I I haven’t-”
“You will, you will. Good work people.” Shawn clapped, and exited the room, muttering a ‘papa bear’ at Henry on his way out just to piss him off. He had to be a nuisance to somebody and Lassiter was off the table for the time being. Of course the other cops at the station were snickering at him, but that was fine as long as he avoided Lassie.
“Excuse me, Spencer.” For fucks sake! Shawn slowly spun around to face Lassie. “Quick question. How does it feel to be so wrong that you are now,” Lassie gestured around the station, “a waking joke?”
“Just like you.” Shawn replied, his mouth moving faster than his brain. Fuck. “Minus the kind boots and the soft eyes.” He added to soften the blow a little. Lassie actually smiled though so it was all good and dandy.
“Ha!” Lassie pointed at him. Shawn wanted to see that smile on his face more often. “Wow, this is- This is really a big moment for me. I may even do a little dance.” He announced, buttoning his suit jacket. “Oh, yes I will.” And he started walking backwards, shimmying his shoulders. He was adorable. Once his jacket was buttoned he snapped his fingers and clapped his hands as he really started dancing. Seriously adorable. Shawn bit his tongue. He really needed to get his shit together.
“Alright.” Shawn turned around. He could not be caught watching Lassie dance. Not when he was looking right at him anyway, he could watch the guy tap dance while he was lost in a crowd and Lassie couldn’t see his face, but he wasn’t sure he trusted his control over his facial expressions enough to watch him dance while he was staring at him. Especially since Lassie chose that moment to start singing. “Thats it, Gus. We are gonna find out what really happened, and we are gonna clear our good names.”
“Let me ask you something? If you were an up and comer at a law firm and you were abducted by aliens-”
“Because that happens.” Shawn interrupted.
“Would you tell anyone? I know I wouldn’t. Because they would think I was nuts.”
“Like I do, right now. That dude was not abducted, Gus.”
“Okay, well you have three seconds to come up with a better theory to explain all this weirdness. Three, two, one, bzzzt.”
“That’s my trick!”
“How do you explain the radar, the recording, the indentation on the lawn?” Gus was forgetting the broken lights, brand new car that wouldn’t start, and the tie over and bent plants.
“Let me tell you, it was a plane on the radar,” Gus scoffed, “someone pranking Yanni in the recorder, and the indentation could have been a million things.”
“Shawn, how do you explain the three strange markings on Toby’s arm?”
“You saw those?” Dang, more things to come up with excuses for.
“Of course I did. And I didn’t have to do this.” Gus squinted and turned his head to the side. Not this again.
“Are you mocking my ‘it’s a clue’ face?”
“Yep.”
“Do it again.” He did. “I don’t look like that.”
“Yes you do.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“Shawn, you know that abductees often had strange markings on their skin.”
“So do I when I don’t use enough sun screen.” Shawn argued. “Now, come here.” Shawn reached to flick Gus’ ear but he dodged. Shawn tried the other ear, then both at the same time. “Stand still and let me flick your ear.” Shawn tried again, another dodge.
“He was abducted, Shawn.”
“He was not.”
“Yes, he was.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Was not. Wasn’t.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Wasn’t infinity! If you’re gonna act like a child like this then we’re gonna have to bring in a third party to settle this disagreement.”
“Fine, who?”
And they were back on their way to their old pal, Dennis, once again.
—————————————————————
They were all set up to investigate on their own using Dennis’ nerd lab, and staking Toby in Dennis’ collectibles right up until Toby jumped off a building. Now, Shawn was back in the station talking to Jules about the suicide. Jules informed him that Toby had donated all the mind in his account to a charity an hour before jumping. And everything was fine as he tried to tell Jules there was more to it than just suicide, until Lassiter stepped over. He really just couldn’t catch a break. How was he supposed to get the guy to stop hating him when they worked together? What the hell did Gus do? Explain things like a normal person. Shawn almost slapped himself.
“Let me guess,” Lasstiter started, “you think the Loch Ness monster did it.” At least he was smiling. Shawn knew he couldn’t really be mad when the case was crazy.
“Alright.” Henry cut in before Shawn got the chance to reply. “What are you two doing here?”
“Came to get going on the Toby Shore case.” Shawn answered.
“Why? You’re not being hired on it.”
“Surely you can’t be serious.”
“Shawn, I warned you. I can’t stick my neck out for two guys who are currently viewed as the village idiots.”
“Village idiots? Who here thinks that?” Shawn questions and the entire station raised their hands, including Dirty Larry in his orange jump suit. “Dirty Larry!” Shawn called, offended. Larry slowly lowered his hand cuffed arms with a small shrug. Shawn turned back around to see Jules hand in the air. “Jules.” He added, sadly.
“Sorry.”
“Gus and I might be a lot of things, Handsome,”
“Chiseled.”
“Intelegent,”
“Urbane.”
“Whatever that means. But we are not idiots.” Shawn hit the fan on Jules desk, turning it on and blowing papers everywhere. “Oh, I’m- I’m sorry, guys, my bad.” Shawn went to help pick up papers, and stealing some of course, as Henry shut the fan off. “That’s all me, but come on, who needs a fan this big? Seriously?
“Leave, now!” Henry scolded.
“Fine.” Shawn replied.
“Fine. We’re out.” Gus added, following Shawn on his way toward the exit.
“Alright.”
“Smooth move.”
“Come on, man, give a brother some credit.” Shawn pulled the stolen papers out of his pocket. “Let’s see what we got here.” He flipped the papers. “Nada. Recipe for Juliet’s weird cleanse. Preliminary coroners report.”
“What does it say?”
“Apparently they found a strange object in Toby’s… stomach.”
“Embro.”
“Come on.” Shawn sighed. And off to autopsy they went.
—————————————————————
Good news, not an alien embryo, just a flash drive. Bad news, the flash drive was with Lassie. Good news number two, Shawn did not have to speak to Lassie to get a look at what was on the file, he had a friend with a secret nerd lab that could hack into the guy's computer instead. Bad new number two, Shawn is an idiot and wanted to see Lassie’s search history and accidentally got a look at some interesting porn he should absolutely not know Lassie watched and would haunt him for the rest of his days.
The really good news, however, was that Shawn solved the case. Budding textiles. And the really bad news, because of course it kept going back and forth, Budding Textiles found them snooping around when Shawn hit that button on the ground vibrations machine truck thing. And because, as previously mentioned, Shawn is an idiot he told the CEO everything they knew and the guy threatened to shoot them. At least he texted his dad.
Before the cops showed up however, Dennis did, and started flinging nunchucks around like a ninja. (If only he wasn’t straight and married.) Until he hit himself in the face of course, it was helpful though, to kick Shawn’s unhelpful and unwanted thoughts away, he had enough crushes on his friends, and frienemies or whatever he and Lassie were. Unfortunately for Dennis, Lassie and Jules arrived shortly after and Lassie zapped him with a taser because he didn’t know him. He had the dopest smile too.
And more bad news for Shawn, because of course, Gus wanted to go do a victory dance of his own to pay back Lassie. Lassiter. Fuck. Shawn would be lying if he said he didn’t want to, but he lies all the time, so of course he lied again, but Gus won the argument and they do everything together, so they walked into the station, looking over the article about them in the paper. Lassie spotted them on their way and spun around.
“Hey, Lassie!” Fuck. Why!? If he was gonna do I stupid dance to piss the guy off couldn’t he at least drop the fucking nickname!?
“Alright. Alright. Let me have it.”
“No, I have better things to do with my time than gloat about being a hero.” Shawn began. Gus glanced over at him as he was talking but turned back to Lassiter when he caught onto the fib, he had won after all. “And the fact that you unnecessarily caused one of our friends to whiz himself.”
“Mmhm.” Gus nodded.
“I’m actually here for some police advice.” Shawn finished. He watched Lassie's eyes light up and wished he could actually ask for advice and not go along with the plan but Gus would be so disappointed, and dancing was going to be fun for Shawn too. Maybe some other time though?
“Really?” Lassie asked with a smile. Definitely some other time. He really wants to see him smile more.
“No.” Shawn shook his head and Gus smiled. “It’s boogie time.” The two of them started dancing and Shawn watched the smile wash off Lassie’s face. Too bad.
“Is there ever a high road with you guys?” Jules asked. Shawn wished.
“Shawn, Gus!” Henry called.
“Jerks.” Shawn muttered at Jules. “Well, well, well, well, if it isn’t ‘ignore your son’s urgent text’ man. At least you told Juliet and that she took it seriously.”
“Well, I thought you guys were still goofing around.” Henry replied as if they hadn’t almost gotten shot if it weren’t for Dennis, an ordinary citizen, and his nunchucks. “Your credit hasn’t been too high of late.”
“That’s no excuse. You can make it up to us by approving these expenses.” Shawn replied as Gus passed Henry a paper.
“What? Seven thousand dollars in dental work for Dennis Gogolack?”
“And a new pair of underpants.” Gus added.
“Twenty two packs of razzles? Season tickets to the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA? Are you guys serious about this stuff?”
“As a Rebecca Lobo set shot.”
“Glass!”
“Alright, look, I’ll think about it. In the meantime Chief Vick wants you to take a look at this counterfeit thing.”
“Oh, look at that.” Shawn and Gus said in union. “Now you want us. Well guess what it’s gonna cost you.”
“How much?”
“Two grand.”
“Fifteen hundred.”
“Sorry, hero’s don’t work for less than two large.”
“Fine.” Henry threw down the paper.
“Sweet. Now can we see you make it official?” Gs asked.
“Yeah, just put it right in the old, uh, bibbity-bobbity.”
“Mmhm.”
“Thanks dad.” Shawn stated as soon as Henry hit enter. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
“Woah. Tomorrow? Why not right now.”
“Because, we’ve got to visit some friends.”
—————————————————————
Thankfully the counterfeit case was not a team up with Lassiter and Jules, and got solved within four hours. Not so thankfully when they collected their check it wasn’t for two grand and instead fifteen hundred because Henry was a lying son of a bitch (no offense to his grandma). After collecting the check Shawn and Gus strolled over to Jules’ desk because she liked them and was safe to bother, and started bothering. Well, not necessarily ‘bothering’ Jules seemed to enjoy the conversation, but that wasn’t the point.
Shawn glanced over at Lassiter while they were talking, he was typing at his computer completely ignoring his and Gus’ presence. Then Shawn watched him squeeze his eyes shut and rub his left temple. Shawn sighed, picked up his jacket he had folded over Jules’ desk, and dug around in the pockets for some aspirin. He gets a migraine like once a month, it runs on his mothers side, and totally understands the struggle. Shawn took a few strides over to Lassie- Lassiter and set the bottle down gently on his desk. Lassiter glanced at the bottle, then up at Shawn.
“How did you…” Lassiter tailed off as Shawn raised a finger to his temple. He rolled his eyes but took the bottle of Aspirin and shook a couple pills out into his hand. “Thanks.” He muttered before taking a sip of his coffee to swallow the meds.
“No problamo.” Shawn responded, quietly, before taking the bottle back and returning to Jules’ desk. Maybe stuff like that was his shot at friendship?
—————————————————————
Shawn was sitting on his apartment floor at 2pm on a Wednesday with his phone open to Lassiter's contact in his phone. (Which was still set to Lassie so hopefully he never opened the contract around the detective.) He had typed out and deleted six messages already. He wanted to try to ask to hang out again, but it just wasn’t coming out right.
“hey, i know that other thing didn’t work out but maybe we could hang this sat?”
Deleted. It pointed out that Lassiter had refused him before and sounded desperate.
“any chance u want to hang out this wkd?”
Deleted. Lassie would probably think he got the wrong number.
“we should get lunch sometime, how does this sat sound?”
Deleted. It sounded too close to a date. Which would be nice, but Lassie would never agree. Lassiter! God damn it!
“u want to head down to a range sometime and see who shoots better?”
Deleted. If Shawn won that competition Lassiter would probably shoot him to get rid of the witness and then wind up in prison for either murder or attempted murder and hate him forever.
“i like ur eyes”
Deleted. Way too forward and also not asking to hang out. What the hell was wrong with him?
“do u want to watch cops @ my place on sat?”
Deleted. Once again, it sounded too close to a date. Shawn groaned and flopped over on the floor. He was hopeless. He slowly rolled onto his back and held his phone above his face. He chewed on his cheek in thought.
“hey, do u want to go to the natural history museum this wkd? i know war history is more ur thing, but it could still be fun”
He typed out it, stared at the words for a moment, and then deleted it. Everything sounded wrong.
“hi, lass, i want u to stop fckin hatin me, h&k’s, shawn!”
And that also got deleted for obvious reasons. Shawn took a deep breath. When did he forget how to start a conversation? And he dropped his phone on himself. Dammit. Shawn took another deep breath, and another. It shouldn’t be this hard to ask Lassiter to hang out with him. Then his phone buzzed from its position on the floor next to his face. Shawn sighed as picked it up. It was Lassiter.
“What?” Was all it said. Shawn glanced up at the message above, apparently when he dropped his phone he typed and sent ‘b’ which was probably worse than anything else he could have possibly said.
Shawn: “sry, drpd my phone on my face!”
Lassiter: “What?”
Shawn: “im clumsy”
Lassiter: “What do ‘sry’ and ‘drpd’ mean?”
Shawn: “sorry & dropped”
Lassiter: “Oh.”
Lassiter: “What were you planning on saying? Before dropping your phone.”
Shawn: “nthin!”
Lassiter: “I don’t know what that means either.”
Shawn: “nothing.”
Lassiter: “Spencer, I’m not stupid, you would’ve had to have had my contact open in order to accidentally text me just by dropping your phone.”
Shawn: “fine. do u wanna hang?”
Lassiter: “What?”
Lassiter: “No.”
Shawn: “Cmon, we cld go to a range”
There was a long minute of silence where Lassiter's typing bubble appeared, dispersed, reappeared, and disappeared again before he finally responded.
Lassiter: “Fine. I get out at six, be at the station.”
Shawn: “thks!!”
—————————————————————
Shawn was at the station at five thirty, because being late to hang out with Lassie when he was the one who suggested it would surely ruin any chance they had at being friends. Shawn strolled into the station, said hello to the desk lady, planned on smiling and waving at Buzz but he wasn’t there so he didn’t get to, and then sat cross-cross-applesauce on Jules desk. She looked up and raised an eyebrow at him.
“Shawn it’s the end of the day, you’re not getting a case.”
“Oh, I know.” Shawn nodded. “I just wanted to ask how your day’s been.”
“Fine?” She squinted at him. “I actually was just about to start getting ready to go home.” She pressed a few keys on her keyboard and then stood up. “I’m half an hour late actually, ‘cause I had to finish up this report.”
“Oh.” Shawn nodded and glanced over at Lassiter. “He stays late everyday, doesn’t he?”
“He stays till seven at least twice a week.”
“Damn.”
“Well, I’ll see you around Shawn.” Jules smiled as she grabbed her purse and jacket.
“See you around.” Shawn replied as she started walking away. He turned to face Lassie and watched him work from his perch on Jules’ desk. He noticed Lassie glance up at him a couple times but he didn’t say anything until after he finished working and shut his laptop.
“Alright.” Lassie sighed, standing up. “Come on, Spencer.” He ordered, walking not towards the exit but towards the practice range at the station. Shawn probably should’ve expected that, but his plan was to go elsewhere and rent a gun, he didn’t have one on him. Still he followed Lassiter down to the range.
“You know, I kinda thought we’d leave the station.”
“We have a range here?”
“Yeah but I don’t have a gun here. Most other ranges rent guns out, Lass.”
“You can use mine.”
“What? You’re gonna let me use your gun? Like, for real? Am I in the twilight zone?” Shawn asked. Which was probably way too much. Lassiter liked it when he talked less.
“I’ve seen you shoot before, on the hood of a car going ninety miles an hour with a bullet in your arm, I think you can handle it.”
“I love you.” And WOW. He was just full of mistakes recently. Jesus fucking Christ.
“What?”
“Nothing!” Shawn shouted. Again, a mistake. “I will be very careful with your gun.” He continued at an acceptable volume.
“Before you said that I was pretty sure you would be,” Lassiter opened the door to the range, “but now I don’t know if I trust you anymore.”
“Which part?” Shawn squeaked.
“What? The ‘very careful’ it sounds sarcastic.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic, I was changing the subject.” Shawn clarified.
“… Okay?” Lassie stopped in front of one of the stations. “I guess, you can’t be worse than that rookie the chief assigned me while O’Hara was undercover, either way.”
“Oh shit. Yeah, I heard about that, she broke your gun.”
“I hated her so much.” Lassie set his jaw. “I thought the chief was mad at me, but…” Lassie trailed off and shook his head. Shawn bit his cheek to refrain from asking Lassie to keep going. “Here.” Lassiter passed Shawn a pair of headphones, he put them on. Shawn watched quietly as Lassie put on his own headphones. “Step back.” Lassie ordered. Lassiter. Whatever. Shawn listened.
Shawn watched Lassie shoot. He was good, which was not at all surprising considering he was obsessed with guns. Of course Shawn was about to pull his ‘matching up the bullet holes’ move and then Lassie was going to shoot him out of jealousy but whatever. Speaking of, Lassiter turned around and held out his gun.
“Your turn.” He said. Shawn smiled and took the gun. Time to metaphorically sign his will. Shawn stepped up to the shooting stand He took a deep breath, aimed, and fired. When he’d taken all his shots he placed the gun down and turned back to Lassie, who was squinting at the target. He stepped forward and hit the button that brought the target toward. “Damn.” He whispered.
Shawn chewed on his tongue (lightly). That wasn’t really the response he was expecting. Shawn kinda wanted to start teasing him and say he was the better shooter, but if Lassie wasn’t already sweating with jealousy Shawn should probably keep it that way; he did want to be friends after all. So instead Shawn just rocked back on his heels a few times waiting for Lassie to say something else.
“Okay.” Lassie sighed. “You can shoot first on the next one.” He started taking the target off the hanger. Shawn gave him a thumbs up. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?” Shawn asked. What the fuck did he do to give Lassie the impression something was wrong?
“You’re being quiet.” Oh. Well that kinda ruined the plan. Maybe he could find a middle ground that still seemed like him but also didn’t piss Lassie off? This was going to be harder than he thought.
“Nuh-uh.” Shawn replied. Lassie narrowed his eyes at him.
“Wha- Fine.” Lassie sighed, walking away to get a fresh target. Shawn took a deep breath. It really was going to be harder than he thought. He has to talk or Lassie will be suspicious, but he can’t talk too much or he’ll be annoying and they’ll never make it as friends. It was like being around his father. Shawn really missed just being blue to let loose around Lassie. If only Lassie didn’t hate everything about him.
When Lassiter came back to the stand to hang up the new target Shawn made sure to smile. Lassie just squinted back at him though, so it didn’t actually work. Not being suspicious; step one: failed. Shawn almost sighed but caught himself and only sighed internally.
“So…” Shawn started, without a plan because he was an idiot, “How’s the war on squirrels going?”
“Okay, seriously, what’s wrong with you?”
“What? I’m talking.” Shawn whined.
“Weirdly.”
“That was a totally normal question.” Shawn defended.
“No, it’s not. Since when do you even care? You asked about my guns and the civil war a months ago, bought me coffee a few days later, and then texting, left a crime scene after I asked you to, and then texted me asking to hang out just to be all quiet until I called you on it and then you tried to fix that by asking about squirrels, you are being weird.”
“Firstly, I have absolutely asked about the squirrels before.” Shawn pointed at Lassiter accusingly.
“And secondly..?” Lassiter prompted. Shawn picked up Lassie’s gun. “Really?” Shawn aimed and fired five times, just as they’d done before, then passed the pistol back to Lassie. Lassiter took the gun. Shawn watched him take a deep breath before he began, and then he stared at the focused look on his face as he shot. “I think I missed that last one.”
Shawn glanced over at the target. He definitely had, in fact Shawn was pretty sure he’d missed two before Lassiter pressed the button to bring the target back to them. Then once the target was closer he confirmed the two. Lassiter had managed to match up three of the holes, was about a centimeter off on one, and probably three centimeters off on the last one.
“Damn.” Lassie mumbled. Shawn did not respond. If he smiled Lassie would probably think he was mocking him. If he started talking he was about ninety percent sure he’d say something stupid and make Lassie mad at him. If he nodded Lassie would call him out on being quiet again, and while he was technically falling into that anyway at least without nodding he could pretend he just didn’t hear it.“Why aren’t you talking?” Damn it.
“I am talking?” Shawn raised an eyebrow.
“Not as much as you usually do.”
“Wha- Okay, you know what, that’s not fair.”
“What does that mean?”
“I am being less annoying! And I- I can’t even do that right! I am really trying, okay?”
“You- Fuck.” Lassie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay, um, stop that. You- You don’t need to be less annoying. Well- No. Not like that anyway. You could- I mean- Nevermind. Point is you don’t have to not be you.”
“Then I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” Shawn shot his arms up.
“I- For what? Why do you suddenly even care that you’re being annoying?”
“Because I don’t want you to keep hating me!” Shawn yelled. “You can’t like Gus and keep hating me. I was here first! And- And I believed you didn’t kill anybody when Drimmer framed you, Gus didn’t! I might be annoying but I annoy the crap out of Gus too, just ask him! But I- I can tone it back. Just, give me a shot. And I know you and Gus aren’t friends anymore, but still!”
And maybe he was losing his mind and throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler, but he was just really fed up with the whole thing. Gus got to be all buddy-buddy with Lassie without even trying or wanting to be his friend, he just taught him how to tap dance. It wasn’t fair.
“Okay. Wow. First of all, I don’t hate you. You are annoying, but I don’t hate you.”
“Really?” Shawn asked.
“Yes. I thought you knew that?”
“I- I don’t know.” Shawn shrugged. “It goes back and forth sometimes. Like sometimes I think we’re friends with an unspoken rule not to say so out loud, and we just tease each other because it’s fun. And sometimes I recognize the fact that you’re not having fun and question if you’ve ever been having fun, and then I want to hug you because I really don’t mean to actually be insufferable, but then I think about all the times I’ve offered you a hug and… Well, I realize we’re not friends and I’m just fucking delusional. But then you do something sort of nice for me and I go right back to imagining we are friends until you remind me I’m not part of the team or something like that and… it’s a cycle. And now I’m ranting and sounding all self deprecating and being annoying and- Why haven’t you interrupted me?”
“Spencer, I didn’t…” Lassie trailed off. He pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing, “Oh sweet lady of Justice,” he sighed. “Come here.” He held his arms out for a hug. Shawn’s eyes widened.
“Really?” He asked, and honestly he should’ve been embarrassed about how high his voice got with excitement. Lassie just nodded and Shawn threw himself into his arms with a grin. Lassie wrapped his arms around Shawn’s back. Best day ever. “This means we are friends, right?”
“Yes, Spencer, we are friends.”
“Thank you.”
“And,” Lassie dropped his arms and Shawn took the hint to step back, “if you want, you can come over for dinner next Saturday.”
“Yes! Yes. Thank you.”
—————————————————————
Shawn knocked on Lassie’s door just after six. He was technically three minutes late but he was pretty sure he shouldn’t arrive early to his house, just if they went anywhere else. Shawn smiled when Lassie opened the door.
“Hey Lassafrass.”
“Hi, Spencer.” Lassie greeted, stepping out of the doorway to let Shawn in.
“I never thought you’d willingly let me into your house.” Shawn mused, stepping inside and making a show of looking around the place like he didn’t already have it memorized. “What’d you make for dinner?” Shawn sniffed the air.
“Lasagna.”
“Nice.” Shawn nodded, stepping over to the stove. The lasagna was in a reusable house pan and not one of the tinfoil ones frozen lasagnas come in. “Oh.”
“What?”
“It’s homemade, you didn’t get a frozen one.”
“Uh… Yeah. I didn’t work today so I had time to cook.”
“Cool.”
“You can sit at the table you know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Shawn put his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m going.” And he did indeed head for the table. Shawn sat down as Lassie began scooping them out some lasagna. They were quiet for a moment as Lassie brought their plates to the table and sat down across from Shawn. Shawn smiled at him before taking a bite of the lasagna. “Oh, wow, that is awesome.” He commented before even swallowing, which looked like it disgusted Lassie but whatever. He swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were an awesome cook? I need to eat here more often.”
“If you start randomly showing up at my house demanding food I am not going to feed you.”
“Aww. Come on Lass, you’d let me starve?”
“I didn’t- You can get your own food.”
“I’m just teasing. Though through my stomach is definitely the fastest way to get to my heart.”
“I’m not trying to get to your heart.”
“You don’t have to try, you’re already there.” Shawn winked. Lassie rolled his eyes.
“Just eat.” Lassie sighed. Shawn took another bite.
—————————————————————
“I got you coffee.” Shawn passed Lassie a paper cup down as he entered the chief's office with Gus to get the results of the toxicology report. Turns out he was right and the victim was poisoned. He smiled when he got to watch Lassie take a sip of the coffee, trusting him now. It was really nice how far they’d manage to come.
“We’re still waiting for toxicology to confirm, but it does look like he was dead before he hit the ground. Appears to be poisoning. So kudos Mr. Spencer. Sorry Carlton.”
“In Lassie’s defense toxicology is not a science.”
“Actually it’s a science of studying toxins.” Gus corrected.
“Get out of here.”
“No, it is.”
“Well I guess that does make you look a little foolish.” Shawn patted Lassie’s shoulder and the guy shot out of his seat.
“You know what, I’ve got the home run suspect on this one. Once I was given five minutes to collect my thoughts I recognized the victims fate as one Gillian Tucker, formally Mrs. Gillian Vanderholt.”
“I thought I recognized her.” Jules replied. “She used to be married to Walter Vanderholt.”
“Closed the case of his suicide five months ago but something never sat right with me.”
“What are you getting at?” The chief asked.
“I think she murdered her husband and got away with it. Now she’s dating our victim and suddenly he’s dead too? Come on, chief. Let me run with this one.”
“What if we let them work together?” Henry commented from the corner like the creepy old man he was becoming. “Seperatly, but together.”
“That lonely bald guy in the corner makes no sense.” Shawn replied.
“Am I the only person that’s freaked out he’s been sitting there the whole time?” Gus questioned.
“Henry, this is your call. You’re the one in charge of consultants.”
“You’re not afraid of the competition, are you, Shawn?” This fucking guy. The second he and Lassie start finally getting along he wants to put them against each other.
“Of course not, as long as it doesn’t involve people trying to best each other.”
“Well, I’m up for it.” Lassie agreed, before taking another sip of the coffee Shawn gave him. At least he had that to celebrate before it all crumbled down. “Matter of a fact, I’ve already won.” He added on his way out. Damn it.
—————————————————————
They went about the case like they had gone about every single other case they had ever worked. Which was bad. They were supposed to be better. They were friends now. But they poked fun at each other at the dead guys house, and in Lassie’s car when they ended up staking out their two suspects together. Old habits die hard. What was less in the range of ‘normal’ was Lassie waking in on Shawn and Gus’s fake date with Gillian and Eugenia.
“What are you guys doing in our personal space?”
“We don’t want to rain on your early bird special, but we thought you should know you’re dating our prime suspect.” No. No. No. No. Work teasing was fine, their friendship could probably survive that, but this direction was deadly.
“This is not a date. Come on. We’re working, this is an investigation.” Shawn replied. He could salvage this before Lassie said something really mean and then Shawn was mean back, and then they hated each other again.
“We get it, you know, it’s hard out there.” Oh for fucks sake Jules. “Not everybody has as many choices.” He was in a living nightmare. “Don’t be ashamed.”
“You don’t seriously think that Gus and I are interested in these women? Look, I don’t know about you guys, we’re trying to solve a murder here.”
“Oh.” Lassie nodded. Please don’t. But he didn’t continue, he just looked over at Gus mad brought all their attention to Gus sniffing Eugenia’s neck. Or maybe failing at kissing her neck? Gus got up and joined them in the entrance hall.
“What’s going on?”
“You tell me.” Lassie replied.
“Oh? Oh that? It’s not what it looks like.”
“No. We get it. Apparently while you and Spencer are exploring your disturbing new fetish for older women, O’Hara and I were discovering we were right about Tucker.”
“Gillian had access to the bottle of scotch Lance was going to be drinking that night, and she may have poisoned it.”
“Was he drinking a gabardine hightail? Prescott created that drink. It’s in his book.”
“Prescott taught Lance everything. He knew what he would order. And Prescott could have easily spiked that punch. Now if you don’t mind, Gus is a little busy trying to get some sweet nookie off his old auntie.”
“For the case.” Gus added.
“For the case.”
“Good luck.” Lassie replied.
“Go get ‘em tiger.” Shawn set Gus back into the office space. Lassie shook his head as he turned to leave. At least neither of them had said anything too overboard.
—————————————————————
Then of course he gets ‘barely’ poisoned and literally no one gives a shit about him. In fact, his own father is more worried about his reputation if Shawn doesn’t get down to the station in time for Prescott's questioning. But it’s fine because soon enough, Shawn and Gus solved the case. Eugenia and her moth balls. Plus Shawn got to teach the gentleman’s seminar while Prescott and Gillian were on their honeymoon.
It was also about time he spoke to Lassie in a non case related situation just to make sure they were still good. And what better way to do that than to bring the man more coffee?
“I got you coffee.” Shawn set a paper cup down on Lassie’s desk and smiled at him. “Glad the case is all wrapped up?”
“Yeah.” Lassie sighed. “At least we were both wrong.”
“What? Come on. It’s more like we were both right.”
“No, both our suspects were innocent.”
“Well, yeah, but about the motive.”
“Spencer.”
“What?”
“We were wrong.”
“Actually we got the guy- girl, so-”
“Because of Guster and his knowledge of what makes up mothballs.”
“Fair.”
“I do like this new trend of you getting me coffee though.” Lassie took a sip of it.
“Yeah.” Shawn waved a hand in dissmissal. “I just know you’re gonna need it to deal with me.”
“Eh, this case wasn’t that bad.” Lassie shrugged.
“Yes!” Shawn shot his arms up with victory and Lassie squinted at him.
“Were you… worried it was?”
“No. Maybe? Doesn’t matter.” Shawn shook his head.
“Spencer?”
“I just wanted to be sure our friendship survived the case.” Shawn sighed.
“It did. We’re good.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want to come over for dinner again?”
“Always.”
“Yeah, okay.” Lassie scoffed, but not a rude one like scoffs often are. “Does tonight work or do we actually have to schedule something?”
“Tonight works. What time should I be there?”
“Seven?”
“You eat late.”
“I get home late.”
“True.” Shawn nodded. “And are you cooking again or…?”
“I’ll probably just order Chinese food. Sorry.”
“Nah, that’s fine.” Shawn brushed him off. Though he would really like to eat more of Lassie's cooking.
“I’ll cook for you again some other time.”
“Aww, you do love me.”
“Spencer.”
“See you at seven!” Shawn smiled and waved as he took a few steps backwards.