Protecting Sunshine

4. Hot and Cold

Lucy tried to tell herself it was NOT a date. She and Tim just went to The Station to enjoy a drink. As...friends? A label was just too hard to assign at the moment, but it was nice to spend more time with him. He was funny and smart with a magnetic smile that made her forget everything else. For a few moments, she even forgot about the Secret Service agents standing behind her while they sat across from each other at a little table in the corner of the bar.

Tim paid for the drinks, even though she INSISTED she owed him one. "I'm a gentleman. I'm not gonna let a lady pay," he explained. Lucy wondered if he was being chivalrous by paying or turning their outing into a date- they saw a movie and had drinks afterwards all on Tim's dime. Lucy used to wonder what it would be like to go on a normal date without agents shadowing her and radios being whispered into every time she goes to the bathroom, and the evening with Tim felt like the closest she would ever experience to one of those normal dates. But, maybe she was being presumptuous. Maybe he was just being a gentleman?

Perhaps merely as an act of chivalry, Tim walked Lucy all the way up to the front door of her unit. He wore a small smile on his face while keeping his hands in his pockets as they stood together in silence. Though he spoke freely in the bar, he had become shy and quiet right outside of her condo.

She was unsure if they were in the hallway of her building for seconds or an hour, since time stretched oddly in his presence. Lucy half hoped he would kiss her goodnight and confirm that it was, in fact, a date, but he just STARED at her silently. Not that she did anything better- she looked up into his eyes, silently begging him to kiss her, but Lucy found she was too afraid to take the initiative. So, they held each other's gaze for some indeterminate amount of time before Lucy said a quiet "good night", which he returned, and then she went inside her condo.

Lucy waited at the front door just in case he changed his mind and knocked. He didn't.

So, she did not have confirmation if it was a date or not, and she tried hard not to think about it.

Tried unsuccessfully.

"Lucy? Are you even listening to me?" Wes asked when he finally noticed the far-off look on his friend's face.

She blinked a few times and finally answered, "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"What has gotten into you? You've been like this all week," Angela noted.

"Nothing," Lucy lied and scanned the bar again. They were sitting at The Station at the same table she shared with Tim last week, and she hoped she would see him again, since Lucy had seen him at the bar twice, but there was no sign of him.

"This is about that cop," she guessed with a quirked eyebrow.

"No," Lucy lied.

"What cop?" Wes asked.

"Lucy met someone, and he's a cop, but I thought you asked him out, and he turned you down?"

"Ouch," he added.

"Tim may have said no to drinks or coffee, but then we came to this bar last week, and he paid, but...I don't know. I have no idea what to think," Lucy groaned. She wanted to add the part about going to the movies, but Talia and Aaron were in earshot- admitting to where she went when she snuck out would have been rubbing salt in the wound Talia still had not forgiven her for.

"You got drinks with him and didn't tell me?" Angela asked, offended.

"I'm trying not to think about it."

"So, naturally, it's all you've been thinking about," Wes joked.

Lucy rolled her eyes while Angela chuckled.