Coming soon!
“Oh!” Lucy lets out a surprised exclamation, and Tim turns his head slightly to see her looking down at her phone.
They’re riding together today - with no new rookies to train, it’s an occurrence that’s been happening more often lately, though not as often as Tim would like (not that you’d ever get him to admit it). He avoids addressing her for as long as he can, but he can’t ignore the knot being drawn between her eyebrows and the way she bites her lip as she studies her phone.
“What is it, b-- Chen?” He bites out, scrambling to correct his slip up. The sooner he lets her talk things out, the sooner they can put whatever is bothering her behind them, that’s all. This has nothing to do with actually him being worried for her. “Instagram post went viral? New Tiktok trend?” Tim hates that he even knows what those words mean, let alone how to use them correctly.
“What? Oh, no, it’s, uh...” his eyes are back on the road but he senses her glancing over at him, “it’s Tanner.”
Tim knows he’s going to regret this but it’s too late now, “who’s Tanner?”
“Tanner. The firefighter, who works with Emmett. I asked him out after Emmet broke up with me?”
“Right, that Tanner, the guy you wanted to go out with to make Emmett jealous.” Tim remembers being slightly surprised by that turn of events. He knew Lucy had been hurt by Emmett dumping her, but she didn’t seem the type for pettiness.
“I know,” Lucy groans, and out of the corner of his eye, Tim sees her cover her face in her hands for a moment, “it wasn’t my best moment. Tanner knew and he was okay with it...but after you and I talked, I realized what a bad idea the whole thing was and I called it off. He said he was going to ask me out two weeks later but he never did. Until now.”
“So that was him,” Tim states more than asks, jutting his chin in the direction of her phone, “Tanner.”
“Yeah. He’s apologizing for being a few weeks late, but he wants to know if I want to meet for drinks tomorrow night.”
Tim should really put this conversation to a stop - talking to Lucy about her dating life has never been his favorite pastime, especially after Caleb. Although, his reasons now for not wanting to talk about this seem different somehow, but it’s not something he feels comfortable trying to put a name to.
He does want to help Lucy, though, he wants her to be happy, whether it’s with this Tanner guy or someone else. And she seems to be having trouble getting her rhythm back since her kidnapping. It’s not that he feels guilty - although sometimes he still does - it’s mostly that he’s angry for her. Caleb shouldn’t get to get away with this; he doesn’t deserve to have left such a long lasting effect on Lucy. Lucy is bright and so full of life and he hates to think of this hanging over her for the rest of her life. So he’ll offer up his two cents on the situation, and then maybe someone will have mercy on him and commit a goddamn crime today.
Excited to share this fic soon, hopefully later this week!
