Work Text:
Tim Bradford had never had a problem with the word no.
Ask anyone who knew him, and they'd probably tell you it was his favourite word. Some might even argue it was his entire personality.
No, he wasn't changing the training schedule because someone had a dentist's appointment. No, he wasn't letting an officer get away with a sloppy report because they'd had a difficult shift. And no, he wasn't interested in hearing why someone thought the rules shouldn't apply to them.
The word came naturally to him. Easily. Sometimes, he suspected, a little too easily.
So why, exactly, did he have such a difficult time saying it to Lucy Chen?
He knew the answer, of course.
It had everything to do with the way she looked at him when she wanted something. The slight tilt of her head, the hopeful little smile, those big brown eyes that somehow managed to make him feel like the most terrible person in the world for denying her even the smallest thing.
It was like kicking a puppy. A very pretty, very manipulative puppy who knew exactly what she was doing.
For the past three weeks, Lucy had been campaigning for a dog walker.
Apparently, taking their dog to daycare was no longer the best arrangement for him. Lucy had several reasons for this, all of which she'd explained to Tim at least twice a day.
“Baby, look!”
Tim barely had time to register the sound of Lucy's voice before she came rushing into the living room, phone in hand, and practically threw herself onto the sofa beside him.
He caught the cushion she'd knocked out of place before it could fall to the floor.
“What?”
“Look.” She shoved her phone towards him, nearly knocking it out of her own hand in the process. “Look at her reviews.”
Tim muted the television and turned towards her.
Because that was the thing about Lucy. She could be talking about the most inconsequential thing in the world, and he'd still find himself giving her his full attention. It wasn't even a conscious decision anymore. The moment she started speaking, some part of him automatically tuned in.
It was a habit he'd developed somewhere along the way, and one he suspected he was never going to break.
He glanced at her phone.
There was a picture of a smiling woman crouched beside a golden retriever, followed by a list of glowing reviews. Apparently, she was reliable, patient, communicative, and absolutely adored every dog she'd ever worked with.
Tim read through them with the appropriate level of scepticism.
“She has a five-star rating,” Lucy said encouragingly.
“So does the coffee shop down the road, and you still complain about their coffee.”
“That's different. Their oat milk is always weird.”
“Right.”
“And look at this one!” She scrolled down excitedly. “She sends pictures throughout the day. And updates. And she takes them on proper walks, not just around the block. Oh, and she has experience with rescue dogs, which is good because Kojo—”
“Lucy.”
Tim looked at her. She looked back.
And there it was. That smile.
Not even a particularly calculated one, if he was being fair. Just Lucy, sitting beside him in one of his old T-shirts and a pair of shorts, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders, looking so comfortable in their home that he sometimes wondered how he'd ever lived without her in it.
She had one leg tucked beneath her, the other stretched out across the sofa. Her knee was pressed against his thigh, and she smelled faintly of whatever shower gel she'd stolen from his side of the bathroom this week.
She was beautiful. She was also, apparently, determined to bankrupt him one small domestic expense at a time.
“Baby,” she said again, softer this time.
Tim closed his eyes briefly.
God help him.
He opened his mouth to tell her that if she wanted the dog walker, they could get the dog walker. That she could have pretty much anything she wanted, provided she continued to look at him like that and remained in his life for the foreseeable future.
Before he could say a word, something caught his attention.
A flash of brown and white moved across the living room. Tim's eyes dropped. Kojo trotted past the sofa with Tim's PlayStation cable dangling from his mouth.
For a moment, nobody moved. Then Lucy burst out laughing. Tim managed to corner Kojo beside the armchair and retrieve the cable, which had mercifully survived the ordeal with minimal damage.
“Do you have any idea how much this costs?”
Kojo licked Tim's hand staring back at him.
“Don't try to charm your way out of this.”
“Tim,” Lucy called from the sofa, still laughing. “He's just trying to get your attention.”
“He has my attention.”
“See? It worked.”
Tim looked at her over his shoulder. She was grinning at him, completely unrepentant.
“This,” he said, gesturing towards the dog, “is exactly why he needs daycare. He cannot be trusted to behave himself at home. He has a personal vendetta against my electronics.”
“How could you say that about your own son?”
Tim rolled his eyes.“I am not having this conversation.”
He dropped the cable onto the coffee table and returned to the sofa, only to find Lucy already standing. Tim watched as both Lucy and Kojo disappear around the corner. A moment later, he heard Lucy's voice drifting from the bedroom.
“Don't listen to him,” she whispered to Kojo. "You're a good boy. You're the best boy. He just doesn't understand you.”
Tim leaned back against the sofa and stared at the ceiling. He was going to lose his mind.
He was also, he realised with some irritation, smiling.
***
It was almost eleven by the time he got home from work
The house was quiet, the lights in the hallway casting a soft glow across the floor. He closed the door carefully behind him, set his keys on the little dish Lucy had insisted they keep by the entrance, and kicked off his shoes.
He'd barely taken two steps into the living room when he stopped.
Lucy was asleep on the sofa. She'd curled herself into the corner, one arm tucked beneath her pillow and the other resting loosely across her stomach. A blanket covered her legs, though it had slipped down to her waist, and her hair was spread across the cushion beneath her head.
She was wearing another one of his shirts. Of course she was. Kojo was curled up at her feet, his nose tucked beneath his tail.
Tim stood in the doorway and looked at them. He wasn't sure how long he stayed there.
There was something about seeing her here, in his house. Their house.
It still caught him off guard sometimes, the knowledge that this was his life now. That he could walk through the front door after a long shift and find the woman he loved asleep on their sofa, safe and warm and waiting for him.
That there was someone to come home to. Someone he was going to marry. Tim let out a quiet breath.
Was it possible to love someone this much?
He crossed the room quietly and crouched beside the sofa.
“Hey, baby,” he murmured, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her cheek.
Lucy stirred, her nose wrinkling slightly, but she didn't wake.
He smiled. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, lingering for a moment before pulling the blanket back up over her shoulder.
She made a small, sleepy sound and curled further into the cushions.
Tim's chest tightened. God, he was gone.
He could still remember the first time he'd realised he was in love with her. Or, more accurately, the first time he'd stopped being able to lie to himself about it.
He'd spent so long trying to convince himself that she deserved better than him, that he wasn't the kind of man who could give her what she needed. And now here he was, standing beside a sofa at nearly eleven at night, trying not to wake her because he didn't want to disturb her sleep.
He'd never been happier to be wrong about anything in his life.
He straightened and picked up the cold mug from the coffee table.
Lucy liked to have a cup of tea before bed, especially on nights when she was tired. Sometimes she'd drink half of it and forget the rest existed. By the time the kettle clicked off, Tim had made himself comfortable at the dining table with his laptop open.
He hadn't planned on doing anything else that evening. He'd been on his feet most of the day, and all he really wanted was to get Lucy up, climb into bed beside her, and sleep for approximately twelve hours.
But first he had a little research to do.
He wasn't agreeing to anything. He was simply looking at the available options so that, when Lucy inevitably brought the subject up again, he could explain why their current doggy daycare arrangement was perfectly adequate with the benefit of additional information.
A soft sigh came from the living room. Tim looked up.
Lucy was stretching beneath the blanket, her arms reaching over her head as she slowly emerged from sleep. She blinked a few times, then turned towards the dining table.
The moment she saw him, her face softened into a sleepy smile.
“You're back? I didn't hear you come in.”
“That's because you were snoring so loudly you woke Kojo up.”
Lucy's mouth fell open. “I was not!”
He barely had time to brace himself before she grabbed a cushion and threw it at him.
He caught it one-handed. “Violence. Very mature.”
“I'm going to violence you.”
“That's not a sentence.”
“I'm sleepy. Don't correct my grammar.”
Tim laughed, setting the cushion on the chair beside him.
Lucy was all soft edges and messy hair until someone said something she didn't like, at which point she became remarkably energetic for a woman who'd been unconscious thirty seconds earlier.
“Come on. Let's go to bed. We've got work tomorrow.”
Lucy groaned, letting her head fall back against the sofa.
“Don't remind me.”
“You want your tea first?”
She lifted her head. “Did you make me one?”
“I'm making one.”
“You know me so well.”
He shook his head, unable to stop himself from smiling.
“Yeah, yeah.”
He returned to the kitchen, poured the hot water into her favourite mug, and watched the tea bag slowly colour the water.
Behind him, he heard the soft shuffle of her footsteps.
When he finally turned around, Lucy was standing beside the dining table, looking at his laptop.
She looked at him and back at the laptop.
A slow, delighted grin spread across her face.
“Oh my God.”
Tim immediately regretted every decision he'd made that evening.
“Don't.”
“I knew it!”
“You knew nothing.”
“I knew you'd come around.”
“I haven't come around. I'm researching.”
Lucy burst out laughing, stepping closer until she was standing right in front of him.
“You big softy.”
“I'm not a softy.”
He reached for the mug and placed it on the counter in front of her.
“There. Your tea.”
He rolled his eyes, but she was already moving towards him.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his chest, and Tim's hands settled automatically at her back.
He could feel her smiling against his shirt.
“This is so a yes,” she murmured.
“It is not a yes.”
“It's a yes in Tim Bradford language.”
“There is no such thing.”
Lucy rose onto her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth.
It was supposed to be a quick kiss. A thank-you, perhaps. A little victory lap. But then she smiled against his lips, and Tim felt whatever remained of his resistance disappear entirely.
He slid one hand to the small of her back and kissed her again.
She made a pleased little sound, her arms tightening around him, and Tim forgot all about the laptop, the dog walker, and the fact that he was supposed to be the one holding his ground.
Because she was kissing his cheek, then his jaw, then the corner of his mouth, peppering his face with little kisses until he couldn't remember what he'd been arguing about in the first place.
She kissed him again, slower this time, and Tim let himself sink into it.
She could have the dog walker. She could have the extra pillows on his side of the bed, the thermostat set to whatever temperature she wanted, and the last bite of his dinner. She could have the mornings when he woke up early just to watch her sleep, the evenings when he came home exhausted but stayed up talking because she had something on her mind, and every quiet, ordinary moment in between.
She could have the future he'd once been too afraid to imagine. She could have his name, if she'd let him give it to her.
Anything she wanted. Because if there was one thing Tim Bradford had learnt, it was that loving Lucy Chen had never felt like giving something up.
And if she wanted a dog walker along the way?
Well.
He supposed he could live with that.