A/N: Sorry for the delay, once again. But it's summer now and so I will be trying my best to get the creative juices flowing and hammer out more chapters (while still making sure they're well-written). I don't want to leave this story as a WIP, so I'm going to work out an outline and find a great place to end it (but no worries, I still have quite a few chapters in mind before that happens.)

Chapter Twenty: Fortune Cookies Really Do Come True!

He walks into the station that next morning to a round of applause.

Lassiter rolls his eyes. He'd told one person, just one! Of course, it was O'Hara and the news was an engagement, so he guesses he shouldn't be surprised.

O'Hara herself is smiling at him from her desk, then joining him on his walk to the break room. "Hey, Carlton. Have a good night?" she asks.

Lassiter nods. "Great night, actually."

"I bet."

Lassiter ignores the implication and her knowing grin, and instead sips his coffee. "By the way, we just got a call about a DB in an apartment on 6th. Gotta be there ASAP," she reports. "So, are you both excited? Did you tell your mother yet?"

Lassiter marvels at the way O'Hara can go from dead bodies to wedding issues with no real transition.

"Not yet," he grumbles. He'd taken Elizabeth to meet his mother a few months ago. It hadn't been a total disaster, which was surprising but...he still isn't looking forward to telling her the news, to which she will surely reply, "Again, Carlton?"

He shakes off the thought, walks out of the department with O'Hara in tow.

"Do you think it will be a big wedding? What's Elizabeth have in mind? Ooh, how'd her family take the news? It's going to be here in Santa Barbara, right?"

"O'Hara!" he snaps. "You do realize we became engaged last night, right? We haven't given much thought to wedding plans."

They've reached the parking lot and Lassiter's car, and they get inside the vehicle.

"I'm sorry, Carlton. You're right, completely. I'm just so excited for you!"

"Well, calm it down a bit, O'Hara. We've still got jobs to do."

"Okay, okay. But you're happy, right?"

Happy? Happy doesn't even cover it. Blissful, ecstatic, complete, fulfilled, in love, rapturous, euphoric. A thousand words Lassiter never thought he'd use to describe himself run through his head. There is no better feeling in the world, he is sure.

But O'Hara doesn't need to know that.

"Yes, O'Hara. I am very, very happy." he says, and smiles just briefly.

Juliet smiles back, so widely and genuinely that he could almost believe she'd read his mind.