Hooked Into You

Once their business was squared away, Tim offered to clean up the garbage from dinner while Lucy changed out of her uniform and met him at his truck.

When he saw her walking toward him with a garment bag slung over her arm and a duffle bag, his entire body engaged in an eye roll.

"Lucy, I said you didn't need to bring a dress," He opened the back door for her and placed her things in the truck before shutting the door and opening the passenger for her.

Lucy just stared, he was acting weird, nice even. He'd been like this all week, too.

"It's just in case, Tim." She hauled herself up into the truck, "What if I meet some hot soldier in the lobby who happens to need a last-minute date to the dance? I don't want to let my country's servicemen down, it's the least I can do." Lucy buckled her seatbelt and flipped over to watch Tim get in behind the steering wheel.

He sent her a side eye and a grunt before backing out of the parking garage and making his way up north.

Three minutes was all it took before Lucy began keeping up her end of the bargain and was talking him through wakefulness for the next eight hours.

"What's the deal with your new rookie?" Lucy blurted out after rehashing the day's arrests and discussing how Tamara might do watching Tim's house and Kojo.

Tim had been assigned the recruit two weeks prior, as a transfer from the Northeast division. Details surrounding the transfer were sparse, though it raised many questions as the officer had only been with the department for a week and a half before leaving. It was rare for a rookie to be reassigned stations during their probationary year.

"What do you mean?" Tim asked, not needing to play dumb. She could be asking regarding the situation with their last arrest, or she could be asking overall.

"Well, I mean, you said with Barnes, you needed to teach her the world wasn't out to get her, whereas with me you had to show me how scary the world could be. What do you need to teach Officer Howard? Do you think they'll make it through the program?"

Lucy was intimately familiar with Tim's reputation as a training officer. He'd had 12 probationary employees drop out before the end, and only four (herself included) made it successfully through the program.

Three quit in the first week, five before the first month, and only four had reached the six-month mark before washing out. Out of the four who completed the program under his training, only three were still on the job, and they were some of the most reputable, stand-up, competent officers in the department (herself included).

"What's it to you?" Tim asked, skeptical about gossiping about his new rookie with his old rookie. He knew Lucy was curious and quite frankly, nosey. He took his job seriously, and he needed to let her know how her questions made him feel sometimes like she was depreciating his responsibility.

He wanted to give it at least another year before he considered her more of a cohort than a trainee. He wasn't usually friends with his rookies, but Lucy was different. Plus, most of his old rookies moved to different stations and departments. There was never an opportunity to shift the relationship further beyond trainer/trainee.

Lucy picked up on his tone, reading that he was offended by her playful way of speaking. He had mentioned it before, after being prodded at by her subtle leading questions, that her excitement often came off as disingenuous interest, and she argued back, pointing out his privilege in never being questioned, and they never agreed on who won that discussion, though Lucy knew her words had gone deeper than Tim admitted.

Keeping the things she had learned in the 13 months riding with and getting to know just how to challenge Officer Timothy Bradford, Lucy adjusted her tone and response with one that would deescalate their conversation back into a safe and curious conversation instead of an interrogation or attempt to push him for sensitive information regarding the training progress of a probationary officer.