I Pretend You're Mine

7. Hope

Tim snapped his mouth shut, and he saw that she had noticed the way he tried to speak but then didn't; Lucy slumped her shoulders just a little when he decided to stay quiet. He wondered why she seemed disappointed while the energy between them was still charged. Nevertheless, he wanted to say something, so he landed on, "We'll have to leave Carmel eventually, and when we do, it can't be like after our last undercover operation."

Lucy had not expected him to say that, nor did she know what he meant, so she raised an eyebrow in question to silently urge him to elaborate.

"I know we sorta...drifted after the last time we went UC, but I can't go from living with you here to going back to you avoiding me when we're in L.A.," he explained.

"Me avoiding YOU? You're the one that pushed me to go out of town to UC school and got a new aide by the time I came back. You barely even look at me anymore! The last real conversation we had before this trip was at the food trucks, and that was only because Aunt Amy was there."

"That's not true! I've been trying to talk to you, but..." Tim paused, suddenly at a loss for words.

"But what?" She wanted him to provide some sort of explanation as to why she lost her friend.

"I didn't know what to say after...everything."

She gathered his meaning immediately; "after everything" meant after Lucy had invited him into her apartment where they would have slept together if Chris was not found bleeding on her couch. "You said nothing happened, and you're right. Nothing did, so we should just forget about it."

"I'd like that. I want us to be friends again."

The word "friends" hurt her more than she wanted to admit, so she nodded and tried not to let her face show how much it pained her.

"Okay, so we're agreed. What happens undercover stays undercover, and when we go back to L.A., we'll go back to normal."

"Does that mean you want me to be your aide again?"

That was a loaded question. Tim would love to have Lucy as his aide if for no other reason than to have the opportunity to spend 12 hours a day right next to her- breathing in her scent, listening to the sound of her voice, having the best conversations, and overall, passing the time between calls quite enjoyably simply because of her radiant presence. Yet, 12 hours a day so close from the one he loves who can't love him in return sounded like a form of torture too cruel for him to inflict on himself. Still, he asked, "Do you wanna be?"

It might have been too harsh to scream "NO!", but her mind shouted the response internally. Lucy did not want to be his aide- that would mean nothing else could happen between them. Now that she has experienced a little glimpse into a life with him as her fiancée, she was unable to simply be his aide. "I like going on patrol alone," she lied.

"Okay." Tim was so relieved that he was sure she noticed.

He stood there wearing the smallest smile but seemed to be out of words (this is what happens when you love a man of few words...it's maddening). "Okay," she parroted and searched his eyes for a second more to find something beneath the softness that looked like pain, but she was not sure. "We should find Amy and Tamara."

Tim nodded and followed her out of the cottage. He knew he was being a coward, but at least he could have the comforts of their fake relationship for as long as they were here, so he interlaced their fingers during the walk over and felt instantly happier at the contact.

She held back from crying just barely, because how could he be so comfortable playing the role of her fake fiancée but not feel anything more for her?