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Without a doubt, Lucy’s favourite thing about living with Tim was the proximity.
She’d never considered herself particularly clingy in her previous relationships. In fact, she was usually the first to preach about the importance of maintaining your own life when you were with someone. Spending time apart, having different hobbies, remembering that being in a relationship didn’t mean you had to do absolutely everything together. She believed in all of that wholeheartedly.
She just also happened to really, really like being around her boyfriend.
She loved the little things that came with sharing a home with him. Walking into the kitchen after a long shift to find him cooking dinner, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and stealing a piece of whatever he was making before he could tell her to get out of his way. Coming home exhausted to find him on the couch, Kojo’s head resting on his lap, and watching Tim pretend not to notice when she inevitably squeezed herself into the remaining space beside them.
And she especially loved moments like this.
Lying in bed with just a lamp on, her head resting on his chest, one leg thrown over his beneath the duvet. Tim’s hand moved slowly up and down her back, his fingertips occasionally catching on the fabric of her sleep shirt. There was nowhere else she needed to be, nothing either of them had to do. They could talk or sit in comfortable silence, and neither would feel the need to fill it.
Lucy had spent years looking forward to the day she’d have this sort of relationship. She just hadn’t expected it to be with the man who’d once made her question every career choice she’d ever made.
“Do you ever think it’s crazy that we’re together?” she asked, tracing a small, absent-minded pattern against his chest. “I mean, if you told your past self that we’d be here now, do you think T.O. Tim would believe you?”
Tim huffed a laugh, the movement of his chest making her head bob slightly. His hand paused at the small of her back before he pulled her a little closer.
“I think if T.O. Tim knew we were dating, he’d assume the virus he contracted was making him hallucinate.”
Lucy lightly slapped his chest. “Excuse you.”
“What?”
“You could at least pretend to be a little romantic.”
“I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”
She lifted her head to look at him, and he was wearing that familiar, infuriatingly pleased expression that always made her want to kiss him and smack him at the same time.
“Come on. I mean, yeah, us dating is pretty shocking, but are you telling me you didn’t have a little crush on me back then?”
“If I had a crush on you while you were a rookie, I’d be a terrible training officer.”
“I guess that’s true.”
And it was. Unfortunately.
Lucy settled her cheek back against his chest, trying to look as though she’d accepted this perfectly reasonable argument. She had, after all, been the rookie. He’d been her training officer, and there were certain boundaries that mattered. She knew that.
Still, it wasn’t quite the answer she’d been hoping for, as childish as that was.
Because the truth was, despite the constant criticism, the public embarrassments, and the way he seemed to take a personal interest in making sure she never got too comfortable, there had been moments when she’d looked at Tim Bradford and thought he was kind of cute.
There had been something about him, even back then. The sharp jaw, the broad shoulders, the occasional glimpse of something unexpectedly gentle beneath all that gruffness. The problem was that any time she started to appreciate those qualities, he’d open his mouth and remind her why having a crush on her training officer was a terrible idea.
The crush would promptly die. Only to respawn by the next shift.
“But…” Tim cleared his throat.
Lucy’s head lifted from his chest so quickly that he actually laughed.
“But…?” she prompted, suddenly very interested.
He glanced down at her, looking faintly amused by how eagerly she was watching him. His thumb brushed over her back again, a small, absent gesture that she doubted he even realised he was making.
“I did think you were pretty.”
“You did?” She couldn’t hide the grin spreading across her face.
Tim rolled his eyes at her immediate delight. “Yes, I thought you were pretty. When Grey told me I’d been assigned the new hotshot rookie, you turned to look at me, and the light behind you hit you all weird and made you look pretty.”
Lucy stared at him. The light behind her?
“All weird?” she repeated.
“I'm trying to tell a story here, Luce.”
“Sorry. Please, continue. I wouldn't want to interrupt this beautiful declaration of your feelings.”
“It's not a declaration of anything.”
“Of course not.”
“You were sitting pretty far away, though, so maybe I was seeing things.”
Lucy pushed herself up a little, looking down at him with a delighted expression. “No, no, no. You thought I was pretty. Don't try to backtrack now. You had a crush on me!”
“I did not have a crush on you.”
“You so did.”
“I did no—”
“Okay, so when did you first fall for me?”
Lucy sat up properly now, turning towards him. They were getting into this.
Tim Bradford was a fortress. He kept things close to his chest, while he’d done the work in therapy to let people in, and while Lucy could see every day how much more open he’d become with her, there were still things she wanted to know.
There were parts of their story she’d only ever been able to guess at. Moments she’d replayed in her head, wondering whether he’d felt what she’d felt, whether she’d been alone in the little shifts that had eventually brought them here.
She wanted to know what he remembered. What he'd noticed. When she’d stopped being just Lucy Chen, the rookie who talked too much and occasionally drove him insane, and become someone he couldn't imagine his life without.
And if she could get him to admit he'd fallen first, well, that would just be a bonus.
She folded her arms and gave him her most expectant look.
Tim stared back at her. “Absolutely not.”
Lucy gasped. “Timothy Bradford!”
Tim shrugged, settling more comfortably against the pillows and tucking one arm behind his head. The movement pulled the sleeve of his T-shirt tight around his bicep.
Lucy had to exercise a truly heroic amount of self-control not to lean down and kiss him, abandoning the conversation entirely. It was honestly a little ridiculous how attractive she found him. They lived together. She saw him every day. She'd watched him brush his teeth, complain about the neighbours, and spend twenty minutes looking for his keys only to discover they were in his hand. Surely, at some point, the novelty of his face was supposed to wear off.
Apparently, she hadn't reached that point yet.
“Okay, how about this?” she said, shifting onto her elbow. She slipped her hand beneath the hem of his T-shirt, resting her palm against the warm skin of his stomach. “I'll confess something about us from before we got together, and then you confess something.”
Tim's eyebrows lifted. “Is this a trap?”
“Why would it be a trap?”
“Because you're smiling like that.”
“This is just my face.”
“Your face has never meant anything good for me.”
Lucy gasped, though the effect was somewhat undermined by the way her fingers began drawing lazy circles against his skin.
“Wow. Okay. And here I was, offering you an opportunity to share your deepest, darkest romantic secrets.”
“Deepest and darkest?”
“Don't get excited. I'm not asking about your childhood trauma. I'm asking about your feelings for me.”
“Much worse.”
She pinched his side.
Tim caught her hand, laughing under his breath, and brought it to his mouth to press a quick kiss against her knuckles. It was such an easy, thoughtless gesture that it briefly derailed her entire train of thought.
Which was inconvenient, considering she was trying to win an argument.
Lucy leaned forward before she could lose her nerve, brushing her lips against his in a slow, lingering kiss. She let it deepen just enough to feel his hand settle at her waist and his mouth curve into a smile against hers.
Then she pulled away.
Tim followed her for half a second before catching himself, his eyes opening to find her sitting back with a very pleased expression.
He blinked at her.
“Whatever you want,” he said, licking his lips.
Lucy grinned. She loved that. Loved that she could still catch him off guard with a kiss, that the man who could stare down just about anyone without so much as blinking could be rendered momentarily useless by her mouth.
It was a power she intended to use responsibly.
Mostly.
She considered her options. There were plenty of things she could confess, but she wasn't about to hand over her most embarrassing secrets before Tim had contributed something equally incriminating. She had standards.
“So,” she began, trying to sound casual. “This is a little embarrassing.”
Tim immediately sat up a fraction, interest sharpening his expression.
“Oh, I'm listening.”
“Don't look so happy about it.”
“I'm not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“Lucy, tell your story.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then took a breath.
“Do you remember that rookie? Barnes? Katie Barnes?”
Tim thought for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. The army vet I trained for a day. What about her?”
“You remember that day I got a little anxious because you were treating her so differently from how you'd treated me as a rookie? I mean, you bought her coffee, for God's sake, and you let her drive!”
Tim stared at her. “Lucy, that was years ago.”
“I'm aware of how time works, Tim.”
“I'm just trying to understand how we're still talking about this.”
“Because I'm getting to the point.” She waved a hand at him. “You told me that different rookies needed different teaching styles, which, fine. Whatever. That's a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
“Thank you.”
“Don't interrupt. That's not why I was anxious.”
His eyebrows drew together. He was clearly trying to work out where she was going with this, and Lucy had to bite back a smile at the fact that she had, for once, managed to surprise him.
“I was jealous, okay?”
The confession came out in a rush. Lucy dropped her face into her hands, her voice muffled against her palms.
“I thought maybe you were interested in her. You had the whole army thing in common, and you were being so nice to her, and she's pretty, and you're pretty, so I just—”
“You think I'm pretty?”
Lucy lifted her head slowly. Of course. Of course that was the part he'd chosen to focus on.
She rolled her eyes. “You know I do, Bradford.”
“Always nice to hear.”
“Can you take this seriously for one second?”
“I'm taking it very seriously.”
“You're smiling.”
“Am I not allowed to enjoy a compliment from my girlfriend?”
“Not when you're using it to avoid the point.”
Tim's smile widened, and Lucy groaned, dropping her forehead against his shoulder. She could feel him laughing quietly beneath her cheek, his hand coming up to rub her back.
“I can't believe I just told you that,” she muttered.
“Hey.” His voice softened, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It's cute.”
She lifted her face to glare at him. “Don't patronise me.”
“Wouldn't dream of it.”
“You're impossible.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” she agreed, unable to keep the smile off her face.
She settled back against the pillows, still holding his hand, and watched as his expression shifted into something more thoughtful. There was a knowing little smile at the corner of his mouth, as though he'd just fitted a missing piece into a puzzle.
“Well,” he said, “that explains a lot about that day.”
Lucy closed her eyes. “Oh, God. Please don't.”
Tim gave her hand a squeeze, his thumb moving over her knuckles. “For what it's worth, I liked Barnes. As an officer. She was good at what she did, and I thought she'd make a good cop. But I honestly never looked at her that way.”
Lucy peeked at him through her fingers.
“Really?”
“Really.” His mouth twitched. “Didn't realise your mind was running wild with all that.”
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “I know you probably think jealousy is a useless emotion, and you've probably never felt it in your life.”
Something changed in his expression.
It was subtle, but Lucy had spent enough time studying Tim Bradford to recognise when she'd stumbled into something he hadn't intended to share. The amusement faded from his eyes, and his thumb stilled against her hand.
“Tim?”
He glanced down at their joined hands before looking back at her.
“I've felt jealous before.”
Lucy blinked. “Really? With who? Isabel?”
“No.” The answer came so quickly, with such absolute certainty, that she almost laughed. “Not Isabel.”
Tim held her gaze for a moment, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a small, almost reluctant smile.
“With you.”
Lucy’s lips puckered in surprise. “You did?”
Tim hesitated, his expression shifting as he considered how to explain himself. Lucy waited, resisting the urge to fill the silence with another question. She could tell he was choosing his words carefully, which, from Tim Bradford, was practically an invitation to be patient
“As silly as it sounds looking back, yeah. It was with Caleb.”
Her eyebrows shot up
“When he came to the station asking for your number. And with Emmett, too.” Tim shook his head, as though he still couldn't quite believe it himself. “Emmet was a firefighter, for God's sake, and you didn't even seem to care. Then there was Chris. You two argued the first time you met, and somehow you still gave him a chance. We argued all the time, and you never thought to give me one.”
Lucy burst out laughing. So much for Tim Bradford, the fortress. Apparently, once you got him talking, it was hard to get him to stop.
“I knew you were jealous of Caleb! You literally scrunched up the piece of paper he wrote his number on.”
“Yeah, well.” Tim's mouth tightened into a faint grimace. “I should've done more than that.”
Her laughter softened, and for a moment, her thoughts threatened to wander back to a time she'd rather leave behind. Tim seemed to notice the change. His hand gave hers a gentle squeeze before he shifted, the familiar teasing expression returning to his face.
“Okay,” he said, “what's next on the confession list?”
Lucy looked back at him, a fresh little thrill of excitement running through her. She hadn't expected him to admit that so readily, and now she was curious about what else she'd been wrong about all these years.
“Okay.” She turned towards him, tucking one leg beneath herself. “When was the first time you saw me as something other than just your rookie?”
Tim went quiet.
She watched him think, his gaze drifting towards the ceiling as he searched his memory. There was no immediate joke, no sarcastic remark to deflect the question. He was actually considering it.
“The first time you came to my house,” he said eventually. “After Angela was taken.”
Lucy felt herself grow still.
“You were wearing my clothes, and I think I short-circuited " He paused, his eyes returning to hers. “And then we hugged. I knew I should've been focusing on getting Angela back, but all I could think about was you sitting on my couch, wearing my clothes. And how much I wanted to kiss you.”
Her heart gave an unexpected little kick.
Tim's thumb moved across her knuckles again.
“But I didn't know if that's what you wanted. And with everything that was going on, I didn't want to take advantage of the situation.”
Lucy stared at him, suddenly transported back to that night. The fear, the uncertainty, the awful feeling that someone they loved was out there and they had no idea how to get her back. Jackson. And in the middle of all of it, there had been Tim. His house, his clothes, his arms around her when she'd needed them.
“I was going to kiss you as well.”
Tim sat up so quickly that the mattress shifted beneath them.
“You were?”
Lucy smiled at his expression. He genuinely looked as though she'd just informed him she was leaving him for Smitty.
“Yes, Tim. I was.”
“When?”
She threw her head back, laughing. “Oh my God, your face.”
“Lucy.”
“I'm answering!” She was still smiling when she looked back at him. “I know I was upset about Jackson, and worried about Angela, and probably not in the best headspace. But I knew I wanted you even without all of that going on. I was actually on my way to your room.”
Tim's jaw dropped.
“You were going to come to my room?”
“Yes!”
“To do what?”
Lucy stared at him.
“Bradford.”
“I'm asking a question.”
“You know exactly what I was going to do.”
A slow, disbelieving smile spread across his face. “I really don't think I do.”
She nudged his thigh with her knee. “I was going to see if you felt the same way! I thought we had a vibe, okay? You'd just hugged me, and I was wearing your clothes, and I don't know. I thought maybe there was something there.”
“And you were just going to come and ask me?”
“I hadn't exactly planned a speech. I was going to figure it out when I got there.” She shrugged. “But then we got a location on Angela, and we left.”
Tim leaned back against the pillows, blowing out a breath as he processed this new information.
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“We could've—”
“Don't finish that sentence.”
He looked at her, the beginnings of a grin tugging at his mouth. “I'm just saying. Imagine if we'd both acted on our thoughts that night.”
Lucy laughed again, but this time it was quieter. She could picture it too easily. Two people who'd spent years getting under each other's skin, suddenly standing on the other side of a line neither had ever dared to cross. Maybe they would've kissed. Maybe everything would've changed.
Maybe it would've been a complete disaster.
They might have ended up here much sooner, but Lucy wasn't sure she would change a thing. Not the awkwardness, not the missed opportunities, not even the years they'd spent pretending there was nothing between them.
She reached for his hand again, threading their fingers together.
“I'm okay with how things played out between us,” she said. “All of it.”
Tim smiled, his eyes lingering on her face.
Lucy watched him for a moment before she remembered why they were playing this game in the first place. She shifted closer, her eyes narrowing with renewed determination.
“Okay. Now the final question.”
He gave her a wary look. “There's more?”
“One last question.”
“Are you not tired?”
“Tim.”
“Fine. What's the question?”
Lucy grinned. “When did you fall for me?”
Tim sighed but didn't answer straight away. His face pulled into a frown as he considered her question. Lucy waited, watching the thoughtful crease form between his eyebrows.
“Well?” she prompted eventually.
“Honestly?” He looked back at her. “I don't know.”
Lucy stared at him. “What do you mean, you don't know?”
“I mean, I don't know.”
“How can you not know?” She sat up a little straighter, genuinely incredulous. “You've just spent the last ten minutes telling me about every man I've ever looked at, but you can't tell me when you fell in love with me?”
“It wasn't every man you've ever looked at.”
“Tim!”
He laughed, reaching for her hand again.
“I'm serious, Luce. Do you know exactly when you fell in love with me?”
“Of course I do.” The answer came immediately.
Tim raised his eyebrows, clearly inviting her to elaborate.
Lucy opened her mouth. “It was…”
She paused. It was when…?
She frowned, looking away as she tried to find the answer. Surely there had been a moment. Some defining point when Tim had stopped being the infuriating man who seemed to have a personal vendetta against her confidence and become the man she wanted to come home to every night.
Except, the more she thought about it, the harder it was to find.
There had been little moments. The times he'd surprised her by showing how much he cared, even when he'd rather swallow glass than admit it. The times she'd caught glimpses of the man beneath the sharp edges, the one who'd always been there even when she hadn't known how to look for him.
Somewhere along the way, her annoying T.O. had become her friend. And then, without her quite noticing when it happened, he'd become the person she wanted beside her when things went wrong, the person she wanted to tell everything to, the person whose presence made even an ordinary day feel a little better.
She couldn't point to one moment and say, There. That's when it happened.
Lucy sighed, sinking back against the pillows. “I guess you're right. I don't know.”
Tim's smile turned smug.
“Don't.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“Your face did.”
She poked him in the chest. “I'm having a moment of self-reflection here. Don't ruin it.”
“Wouldn't dream of it.”
She gave him a look, and he laughed before pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“I think it was a lot of things,” she admitted. “A bunch of little moments that added up, probably. I just never really thought about it that way.”
Tim nodded, peppering short sweet kisses along her face.
“You were my annoying rookie,” he continued, “and then, somewhere along the way, I was thinking about kissing you, and I couldn't seem to stop.”
Her heart gave a small, helpless flutter.
“Suddenly?” Lucy pressed her lips together, smiling as she settled down to listen.
Tim looked at her for a moment, his expression softening.
“I don't remember exactly when it changed,” he said. “I just know that it did. And I'm glad it did.”
Something in Lucy's chest warmed at the simplicity of it. Just Tim, looking at her like he was still a little surprised he'd been lucky enough to end up here with her.
She leaned forward and kissed him. Tim's hand found her waist, keeping her close. When she finally pulled away, his forehead rested against hers, and she could feel the smile he was trying not to show.
Lucy glanced towards the bedroom door. Beyond it, their home was quiet except for the occasional soft huff from Kojo in the living room. Their clothes were probably scattered over a chair somewhere, there'd be dishes to wash in the morning, and Tim would inevitably complain if she stole too much of the duvet.
Ordinary things.
And somehow, she couldn't imagine anything better.
She looked back at him, her fingers curling around his.
“Me too.”