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It takes Lucy a second to place the attractive brunette who called her name at the coffee shop—Carmen, Carly, Catherine?—but once she does, the image of Officer Barnes in rookie blues comes rushing back.
"Katie?" she confirms with a smile, and the brunette's eyes light up.
"Oh my God, hey, I knew that was you! How are you? How's Officer Bradford?"
"Well, Tim's a sergeant now." Lucy tilts her head. "You know, I think you were his last rookie."
"Oh, man. I wish I'd been able to send him off on more of a high note."
"The thing with Tim is..." Lucy always struggles to distill the tangle of contradictions that is Tim Bradford into words, even though she's had plenty of practice. "Sometimes he knows you're doing what's best for you even if he doesn't want to see you do it."
Katie nods thoughtfully. "Resigning was definitely the right call, I just felt bad having to tell him. He was so nice to me."
Lucy laughs in spite of herself. "Sorry, I forgot how different our first impressions of him were."
"Was he a total dick to you?" Katie inquires with a frown.
While Yes is on the tip of Lucy's tongue, she withholds it in favor of a more tactful response. "He was a great teacher, but not the easiest person to get along with. Although since I became a P2, I would actually say we've become friends."
She hasn't really verbalized this to anyone before now, and the way Katie smiles makes Lucy think she's genuinely glad to hear it.
"Hey, do you want to...?" Katie points to a table, and Lucy beams.
--
When they initially met, Lucy had kind of got a vibe from Katie's short hair and swagger, which Jackson soon confirmed by saying his friend Heather's ex-girlfriend used to date her; Lucy swears every queer person in L.A. is connected by no more than three degrees of separation. She wonders what he'd think about the two of them running into each other like this, and, God, she misses him every day.
--
Lucy isn't sure how much Katie thinks Tim shared about her brief LAPD tenure, but the answer is not much. He'd made a vague statement about how adjusting to civilian life can be hard, then, when pressed, demurred with Chen, it's not my experience to tell—and while Lucy respected that, she couldn't help being curious.
Weirdly, Katie reminds her of Tim a little, all simmering intensity and angular cheekbones, although instead of sharp blue, Katie's eyes are warm and brown.
"How have you been since, um..." Lucy begins tentatively, unsure how to phrase it, and the other woman shoots her an easy smile.
"My two-day tour as a rookie?"
Lucy chuckles. "OK, I didn't want to put it like that."
"I've been good," Katie says honestly, giving her a reassuring grin. "I've been... reintroducing myself to the world, but I need to find a better way to put that, because it sounds super dumb."
"It's not dumb," Lucy assures her, and is rewarded with another brilliant smile.
"Well, I'm in therapy. I do a lot of hiking. I'm a security guard by day and an aspiring guitarist by night—and by that I mean I've been trying to figure out Smoke on the Water for, like, a month, so I don't think I have much of an aptitude."
Lucy laughs. "Music can be calming, though, whether you're listening to it or playing it. Doesn't matter if you're good at it—gotta get that dopamine where you can."
"Exactly." Katie bumps her coffee cup against Lucy's as if they're clinking glasses. "You get me." After they exchange smiles, she concludes, "So, the short answer to your question is that I'm doing better; I'm not there yet, but I'm on my way."
"No regrets about putting in your papers?"
She shakes her head. "None. I figure I'll re-evaluate in a few months, see where I am; you and Sergeant Bradford may not have seen the last of me."
"I hope not," Lucy says, her tone more flirtatious than she'd intended. She feels a flutter in her chest as Katie's eyes meet hers.
--
Lucy's not sure what it means when Katie asks her to dinner. She accepts without really thinking about it, and doesn't realize until later that going out to eat with another woman might have a different connotation if said woman likes women.
For the umpteenth time this week, she wishes Jackson were here. In his absence, she heads to Angela, whose frazzled demeanor is upstaged only by the glob of baby food in her hair, which in turn leads her to Tim, who laughs at her.
"I– sorry, run that by me one more time."
She hasn't seen him this delighted since he orchestrated that flour-filled IED blowing up in her face.
"Tim, I need advice here," she says reprovingly.
"And I'm listening." He makes a laudable effort to look solemn, and while she's not completely buying it, it's close enough.
"So, should I get her to clarify whether it's dinner or, like... dinner? Or is it too late?"
Although rendering Tim Bradford at a loss for words is a rare occurrence, she thinks she's managed to accomplish it.
"Listen," he tells her eventually, spreading his palms, "I've personally never gone to dinner with a woman without it being a date, but..."
"But you're a boy."
He smirks. "A very handsome boy."
"OK," Lucy concludes, rolling her eyes, "you're going to be no help at all."
"No, listen, we'll figure this out," he assures her, and he does look serious now. "What impression did you get when she asked you?"
"I don't know!" Lucy replies a little hysterically. "She asked, and I said yes!"
He mulls this over. "What if you just show up and see how it goes?"
It's not the advice she expected from him, yet it's also not the worst suggestion ever. She ponders it for a few moments.
"I'll take that under advisement," she tells him—then, more softly, "Thanks."
--
Lucy's not sure what to wear to a date/not date, so she compiles one outfit for each scenario and then goes for something in between. She doesn't know why she's so nervous—if it's the question mark hanging over the evening, the promise of spending more time with Katie, or what—but seeing Katie's megawatt smile across the restaurant instantly puts her at ease.
Katie's wearing a crisp white shirt under a leather jacket, which, while not giving Lucy answers about her intentions, makes her look handsome regardless. Lucy wonders whether Katie would be offended if she verbalized that, and decides not to find out.
--
Overall, they have a great evening, although Lucy still isn't clear on its purpose; there's a point when Katie's grin seems too dazzling to be platonic, and another point when Lucy thinks she might just act like this with everyone. The fact that Tim is the person Lucy spends the most time around these days doesn't exactly help her conundrum—his flat affect gives rise to a scowl if she's lucky, and she honestly thinks he might have thrown off her entire barometer for human interaction.
--
After Katie asks if she lives alone, there's a second when she considers spilling the whole story—how she lived with Jackson and now she doesn't, but there's this teenage girl who stole her car...
In the interests of brevity, she says simply, "I have a roommate," and Katie nods.
"Do you want to come back to my place?" she inquires obliquely, and Lucy truly can't tell what she means by that.
"Um, OK."
--
Katie's place is very her—small and stylish, with a black leather couch in the living area and a shiny black guitar angled against the wall.
"Can I interest you in the first two-thirds of Smoke on the Water?" Katie quips, and Lucy chuckles. "But if I'm gonna do that, I need a beer."
As Katie heads to the fridge, Lucy sinks nervously onto the couch, smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of her dress. When she glances up, Katie's staring at her with a beer in each hand, and she feels her cheeks get warm.
"What?" she asks with a self-conscious laugh.
"You've never done anything with a girl, have you?" Katie's tone isn't judgmental or accusatory—more than anything, it's genuinely curious, and it dawns on Lucy that maybe she wasn't sure if they were on a date either.
"Um," Lucy begins, then decides that response speaks for itself.
"Are you gonna run for the hills if I sit next to you?"
Although there's mirth in Katie's voice, there's pain there, too, and Lucy feels a pang of sympathy for her.
"I would never," she says honestly, and Katie smiles at her, soft and bright.
--
Lucy's never thought much about being with a girl—what it might be like, how it would be different. She'd assumed it'd be more or less the same, and she supposes she's about to find out.
"Oh," she gasps as Katie's lips trail up her jaw line, coming to rest at her ear. Katie may not be a guy, but she's a human, so Lucy figures tangling her fingers in the other woman's cropped hair is a solid bet—and, sure enough, Katie's sharp exhalation feels hot against her skin.
--
"Let me know if you're not cool with any of this," Katie murmurs huskily, charting a course to Lucy's collarbone with quick, precise kisses. Lucy keeps expecting to be weirded out and then isn't.
The outfit she chose for dinner showed the barest hint of cleavage, and now Katie's lingering at the place where fabric borders skin. She looks up, her brown eyes dancing.
"Can I?"
"Yeah," Lucy says dazedly, easing her dress off her shoulders, and before she knows it, Katie's nuzzling at her nipples through her bra.
"Holy shit," Katie murmurs reverently as she coaxes Lucy's left breast out of its confinement, and Lucy shudders when Katie takes her into her mouth and suckles her.
--
Katie traces a line down past Lucy's navel with her tongue, glancing up to make sure Lucy's still into it, and, yes, very yes. Without breaking eye contact, Katie presses her face into Lucy's folds, fluttering her tongue against Lucy's clit, and Lucy almost loses her mind over how good it feels.
--
Lucy's had guys do this to her—she's not some blushing virgin—and she'd truly had no complaints, it's just that Katie doing it… hits different. Katie licks her like she already knows the landscape, nose bumping Lucy's inner thigh, and when she pulls some kind of sinful maneuver that involves the delicate scrape of teeth, Lucy's breath hitches in her throat.
Katie's watching her the whole time, gaze dark and focused; as her thighs start to tremble, she can feel the other woman smile against her and has to close her eyes. She wonders briefly where Katie even learned to do this—maybe from Jackson's friend Heather's ex-girlfriend—before the wave crests and she stops wondering anything at all.
--
"Hey," Tim falls in beside her as she heads toward the locker room, "how'd it go with Katie?"
"Great," she says sheepishly, trying and failing to sound blasé. She can tell she's blushing wildly, which doesn't help.
Tim actually stops walking, his expression a mix of surprise and what she's pretty sure is admiration, and she laughs over her shoulder.
"It was good, Tim; I'll see you at roll call."