Chapter 3
It had been several months now since Shawn and Gus opened Psych, their psychic detective agency. Things were going well for them and they'd continued to work with the police department and taken several private cases on the side as well. Honestly, everyone (including Shawn herself) was surprised she'd stuck around for so long, but this really did seem to be the perfect job for her. She got to hang out with her best friend every day, their office was right on the beach so she was able to work on her tan whenever she wanted, and they almost always worked with Lassiter and Juliet when they worked police cases. Juliet had fast become a close friend to both Shawn and Gus, and Lassiter continued to be Shawn's favorite person to mess with. She hadn't been so content ever. The only thing Shawn could currently complain about was the fact that she seemed to be going through quite a dry spell on the dating front. Sure, she had plenty of flirtations on a semi-daily basis, but nothing was landing. She definitely needed to find a date, and soon. Just a few weeks ago they had been working a case in which Shawn had been pretending to channel a cat who was channeling a murder victim and ended up in a very intricate dance number in the chief's office. The theatrics had certainly gotten out of hand with that one. She had ended the routine quite out of breath and somehow found herself unceremoniously sprawled in Lassiter's lap. She would've enjoyed the complete and utter shock on his face (and the fact that he clearly had no idea what to do with his hands) a bit more had she not been so surprised at her actions herself. Sure, she would flirt a bit and she did like to get a bit touchy feely with Lassie on occasion, but she wasn't usually that bold.
All of this lead up to Shawn, dressed in tight jeans, motorcycle boots, and a cropped tank top under her leather jacket (as opposed to her usual baggy jeans and character shirt under a plaid button-up) walking into Tom Blair's pub on a Tuesday. Now, most people would say Tuesday is a terrible day to try and pick someone up in a bar. They would tell you the weekend is when you want to try your luck. After all, who drinks on a Tuesday? To that, Shawn would answer "winners". Weekend drinkers are the ones with boring Monday through Friday 9 to 5 jobs. The ones who tend to be young 21-24-year-olds looking for some free drinks with no strings attached. Shawn was looking for someone who had a schedule almost as crazy as hers, who wouldn't ask questions if she had to leave suddenly in the middle of the night for a case. Someone who could buy their own drinks and only came out so that they didn't have to sit at home alone while they drank. That's the kind of person she could relate to. Imagine her shock when she glanced around the bar and the only person to jump out at her was one Head Detective Carlton Lassiter. She took another look around. Nope, everyone else was either old enough to be her father or had that "creepy" vibe. Shawn sighed. Maybe this was a sign that she should stop trying to pick people up in bars. She walked over to Lassie's table. At least she could sit and have a drink while she was here.
Lassiter looked up when he heard a chair move back from his table. How the heck did she know he was here? He blinked. Maybe he was hallucinating. How many scotches had he had tonight? "Hey Lassie-frass, what's happening?" No. That was definitely her. He blinked again. "How do you do it, Spencer?" he asked. She cocked her head to one side, a look of confusion on her face. "What? Come up with fun nicknames for you? I guess you just inspire me Lassie." She grinned. He shook his head, "No, how do you jump in on a case and spout off the most ridiculous theories and somehow prove them? How do you solve the cases that we don't even know are there? We close a case and you get a 'premonition' or whatever and end up finding something that no one would ever think of. How do you do it?" Shawn looked at him, her eyes wide. Apparently, he'd been thinking a lot about this. And just how drunk was he? There were four empty glasses on the table, but this bar was typically pretty good about keeping the tables bussed so there really was no telling how many he'd had. He did seem a bit fuzzy around the edges. "I solve cases the same way you do, Lass. I look at the clues and make connections. I just don't let little things like 'logic' hold me back," she smiled at him. Lassiter seemed to think about that for a minute. He looked at her like he was trying to solve a puzzle and none of the pieces belonged together. Eventually he shook his head again and gave a little half-smile. "You know, Spencer. You astound me."
His open admission knocked the breath right out of her. 'How did he do that?' she wondered. It was like he could see right through her and figured out exactly what to say to make her all girly and swoony. "Okay, big guy," she joked to lighten the mood. "I think it's about time to get you home. Where are your keys?" He continued to look at her for another minute before he fumbled around in his pocket, pulling out his keys. She took them from his hand and helped him stand, almost landing them both in a heap on the floor when he didn't get his balance right away. He caught himself fairly quickly and she draped his arm over her shoulder to help him keep steady as they walked out to the parking lot. She couldn't help but appreciate how she could feel his muscles flexing under his shirt as they walked. She didn't exactly get to hold her arm around him very often. He usually pushed her away pretty quick when she tried her touchy feely routine on him. Surely no one could blame her for enjoying this while she had the chance. She got him folded into the passenger seat and made her way around to the drivers' side door. As she slipped inside, he was watching her again with narrowed eyes. "Why are you driving my car, Spencer? This is police issue and you're not on the insurance." Shawn gave a soft chuckle at that. "Lassie, you are drunk. Do you really think it's better for a drunk head detective to drive his police issued car than for the sober psychic to drive said car to get him home safe?" He seemed to be thinking it through and Shawn took the opportunity to buckle him in and pull out onto the road. It took ten minutes before he answered, "Fine. I guess just this once, it's okay for you to drive. But you better put the seat back the way I had it! I finally got it to the perfect setting!" She laughed again and promised, "I'll make sure to put everything back exactly the way I found it Lassie."
"You know, I used to be a good cop," he said out of nowhere a few minutes later. She whipped her head around to look at him. "You have some of the best reasoning I have ever seen. You are unstoppable. I don't know how you do it." He sighed. "You know how everyone thinks I've been separated for 9 months?" Shawn nodded. "2 years," he said. Her eyes went wide. "Yep. 2 years today. And I was the one who kept trying to fix it. But it's over. I'm over. I may as well quit. Here-I want you to have these." He took out his cuffs and handed them over to her. "Lassie, you're still a great cop!" she tried to hand the cuffs back to him, but he wouldn't take them. "No, really! You are an amazing cop, and any woman would be lucky to be with you! I mean, look at you. You're tall and strong and have eyes that a girl could just do cannonballs into." She glanced over at him again and sighed. He was asleep. Of course. It was another ten minutes before Shawn pulled the car into Lassie's driveway and took nearly eight more to get him up the front steps. She held him propped up between herself and the edge of the door frame while she fumbled with his keys to find the one that would unlock the door. It was with great relief that she finally got him settled into his bed with his shoes and tie taken off to make him as comfortable as she could with as uncooperative as he was being. As she walked back out to his living room she suddenly stopped and groaned. How the heck was she going to get back to her bike? The pub was a twenty-minute drive and there were no busses running at this time of night. She wouldn't trust a taxi at this hour, either. She sighed and looked between the couch and the door of Lassie's room. She was pretty sure he was a very early riser. Which meant she'd have to be gone by 5am at the latest if she wanted to avoid the awkwardness of him realizing he'd been drunk in front of her. She was certain that if he didn't see her in the morning, he wouldn't even remember that they'd met at Tom Blair's. After a brief deliberation, Shawn set the alarm on her phone for 4am, shimmied out of her jeans and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch. She wrapped herself up like a burrito and snuggled down into the couch and was asleep almost immediately, despite how uncomfortable the couch was.
The next day when Shawn and Gus went by the police station and bumped into their favorite detective team, Shawn was proved correct when Lassie seemed to have no recollection of running into her at the bar. In fact, when she ventured to ask how he was doing he denied ever having been at the bar at all. He was obviously still down about the crime-solving slump he imagined himself to be in. As a result, Shawn decided she was going to fix his self esteem by solving his case from behind the scenes. Gus was refusing to help but Jules agreed that, so long as Lassiter had no clue that they were involved, it could actually work. As it turned out, Jules was quite the little fast talker. She had a gift for planting things in Lassie's head while making it seem as though they were his ideas all along. The nudges seemed to do the trick and Lassiter was full of inspiration, sticking just a few steps behind Shawn throughout the rest of the case. By the end of the week, they were wrapping up the case. Lassie had even made the final connections himself. Sure, Shawn had to give him the foxglove clue, but Lassie had already figured out who the killer was along with his motive. And he definitely would have gotten the foxglove once his warrant came through even without her help. So she felt totally justified in throwing his words back at him after the final wrap up. "I must say, Detective. You astound me." And if she put a little extra sway in her hips as she walked away, who was complaining?
