Beneath Your Beautiful (A Chenford | The Rookie Fanfic)

Part Thirty-Six: The Housewarming

Week 2, Day 7: Saturday

The buzzer goes off, and they break apart from each other, neither making eye contact as they both simultaneously begin to move toward the intercom. Lucy stops short and does an awkward little whirl as she turns back toward the kitchen, "I — erm — I'll just... be over here." She points awkwardly as her cheeks flush and, lord, why does she have to be such a weirdo sometimes? What was she even doing blatantly coming on to him like that?

But even as she's questioning herself, she can see Tim's hungry, appreciative gaze in her mind's eye. The way he looks at her — it does things to her. Short circuits her brain and makes her forget that she doesn't want to flirt with him. Does she?

Their guests straggle in over the next half hour. Tamara shows up first, and Lucy can barely contain her excitement as she envelopes the younger woman in a huge hug, demanding details about her classes and her roommates and who she's dating and literally anything else that's happened in her life since she last saw her at the wedding.

Tim watches them curiously for a moment, seemingly trying to puzzle out their connection. But then the buzzer goes off again. Jackson and Angela come through the door talking and laughing like old friends.

Tim and Lucy look back and forth between them in confusion as Tim takes the bottle of wine Angela is extending to him. Jackson hands Lucy a gorgeous bouquet.

"Do you two know each other?" Tim asks.

"We met at the wedding and chatted a bit about work. I mentioned that serial burglary case I was working — the one with the crew of zombie ninjas. Well, can you believe the next week I got a call from Jackson saying he'd picked up a heavily intoxicated zombie ninja after he got reported for a dine and dash? I'd been working that case for months without a lead, and this guy managed to crack it right open for me."

Jackson shrugs but looks pretty pleased with the acknowledgment. "It was just good timing."

Angela claps Jackson heartily on the shoulder, "And humble, to boot! Anyway — he's great. Really good people, Lucy. A little weird about tasting the best crème brûlée in town, but other than that, I'm a big fan."

Jackson grins and elbows Angela, "That crème brûlée was evidence, okay. Look, I just like to follow the rules."

Lucy cracks up, "Now that's an understatement if I've ever heard one. This guy ended up getting an extra bag of chips from the hospital vending machine last week and spent 45 minutes trying to track someone down that could absolve him of his guilt."

Jackson groans, but his grumbling is interrupted by Wes' arrival. Angela's husband looks harried as he fixes her with a glare. "You couldn't have warned me the tank was on empty?" he accuses.

Angela grimaces, "Did I not mention that? I'm pretty sure I did. Oh yes, I remember now, it was during that one conversation. Remember? When you didn't give me the list of food allergies in Jack's class and I showed up with twenty-four anaphylaxis-inducing cupcakes?"

Angela and Wes continue to argue as they make their way further into the apartment. Jackson throws an arm around Tamara in greeting, and they fill their plates with snacks before settling in across the dueling duo. They swivel their heads like they're watching a tennis match as they gleefully observe their animated bickering, which has progressed into something about the locations of Jack's school, their respective jobs, and the dry cleaners.

The rest of their guests arrive in a steady stream — Lucy's Aunt Amy, Tim's friend Emmett, and Jackson's boyfriend Sterling. Genny is the last to arrive, apologizing profusely and sharing a graphic story about projectile vomit to explain why, sadly, her husband Mark wouldn't be in attendance tonight.

Between the party attendees and the film crew, their apartment is packed to the brim. They open up the balcony to circulate the air and extend the space.

To Lucy's surprise, Tim proves to be a pretty awesome bartender and mixologist, banging out a steady flow of frozen margaritas and cocktails for their guests. She had just planned to crack open a few bottles of wine, but Tim had brought back more than just some vegetarian snack options from the store, which turned out to be exponentially better. After everyone's had a chance to mingle and munch on some appetizers, the group settles down with drinks in hand for some friendly competition.

And thus begins a head-to-head partner's Pictionary tournament for the ages. Like Tim and Lucy, their friends and family don't lack in competitive spirit. Only Tamara seems a little unsure about the seriousness with which all of these grown-ass adults are taking the game, but once another round of margarita refills inspires some uninhibited shit-talking, she ends up as invested as the rest of the party.

"Are you kidding me? My pre-schooler could draw a better horse than that blindfolded in his sleep hanging upside down," Angela heckles.

"Good try, Tim," Genny mocks as he walks away from his lopsided blob of a drawing, "I can totally see how that was a dragon and not a very angry, very pregnant chipmunk."

"Shake it off," Lucy orders with a firm clap on the back. "We're still in this."

Angela throws her hands up in dismay when their time runs out, "What is wrong with you, Wes? It's obviously a chair. And the arrow is pointing to the edge of the seat. You're hopeless."

"What?! How is that a chair? It looks like a graph. The arrow is clearly pointing to an upward trend."

"This isn't Wall Street, Wes. It's Pictionary!"

Wes shrugs, "Then why did you draw a graph?"

After a few false starts, Tim and Lucy find their groove.

Tim draws a simple turtle on the page.

"Turtle! Tortoise! Ugh never mind - it's a phrase. The Tortoise and the Hare? Slow and Steady Wins the Race?"

Tim gestures for her to continue, quickly adding a stick figure with crazy spirals coming off its head and a gigantic smile that is clearly intended to be Lucy. He adds a heart to the canvas.

Lucy leaps to her feet screaming, "Once in a lifetime opportunity!"

"YES!" Tim yells back.

They exchange an overenthusiastic high-five to celebrate their victory.

"Little intense for Pictionary, don't you think?" Angela glowers with an eye roll.

Tim scoffs, "Didn't you just threaten to divorce your husband over that chart or whatever it was?"

"It. Was. A. Chair." Angela seethes.

"How on earth...?" Sterling questions, shaking his head as he stares at Tim's drawing in dismay.

Lucy picks a challenge card on her next turn, and frowns for a moment, seemingly stumped. She glances toward Tim and then draws a single star on the page, waiting uncertainly for him to guess.

"Star? Sky? Space? Wish? Shooting star?" Lucy's hopeful expression fades, and she turns back to the board to try something else.

"Hope?" Tim finally offers.

Lucy claps her hands together joyfully. "Yes!"

She beams at him, and instead of giving him the high five he is waiting for, snakes her arms around his waist for an impromptu hug.

"You remembered," she says, gazing up at him with a soft smile as she pulls back.

He returns the smile, with a gentle squeeze around her waist, "Of course I did."

"How on earth...?" Sterling repeats, tilting his head and squinting at Lucy's illustration.