The next day Tim drove his truck around the same block three times just to waste time. He didn't want to show up at Lucy's too early and seem too eager. He had stopped to get himself a sandwich at a local deli for lunch and then decided to get something for her too. Of course, he didn't know what she liked so he ended up with four sandwiches total and a cobb salad. A few minutes before twelve, Tim drove his truck up her street and parked in the driveway. Lucy was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch with her laptop in her lap. The rocking chair at one point must have been bright white, but the paint was chipped revealing the wood underneath. She shut her laptop when she saw Tim pull up. Tim noticed she was in a pair of black dress pants and a blue button down blouse. Her hair was down and, just as Tim suspected, it framed her face beautifully.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" Tim asked.

Lucy shook her head. "No. Just finishing up some client notes. I like to write them down after each session so they're fresh in my mind."

"How did Alex do starting at his new school today?" Tim questioned.

It touched Lucy that he asked about her son. "Good. He was nervous, but he's in class with Tyler and a few of the other kids on the team. So that made things much easier. Plus he saw Genny in the halls, which he was very excited about."

"Yeah. I always thought it would be weird to go to the same school your parent teaches at, but Tyler loves it."

"I feel better knowing he has someone there to keep an eye on him. Anyway, I'm just going to run up and change into something more appropriate for home repairs. Did you have lunch yet? I can throw us something together if you want and we can sit down and talk about a to-do list."

"Actually I brought lunch," Tim said.

"Oh."

"For both of us. I didn't know what you liked so I got a little bit of everything."

"That's very sweet. Thank you. Ah, come on in." Lucy said, opening the front door.

"I'm just going to get some stuff from the truck. I stopped by Genny's ex's this morning. He let me borrow whatever I wanted."

"That's great. Well, I'll run up and change and why don't you take a look around?"

"Sounds good."

As Lucy went into the house, Tim first grabbed the sandwiches and salad he had gotten for lunch and brought them into the house. Then he returned to his truck to bring in a toolbox. He had other tools and equipment, too, in the back of his truck but decided to just start with the basics. Without knowing exactly what Lucy wanted to accomplish, he didn't yet know what tools he would need.

After delivering the food to a small table in the kitchen and dropping the toolbox on the floor off to the side, Tim began to look around. The house was definitely eclectic, but Tim could see that it had good bones. Some minor work would have to be done here and there and the interior would definitely need to be brought up to date, but the house itself was gorgeous. Much like its current occupant.

"So, what do you think?" Lucy asked, coming down the stairs with a T-shirt and jeans on and her hair in a loose braid.

Tim had to stop himself from answering that she looked beautiful. He knew she wasn't talking about herself. She was talking about the house.

"I think the house has great bones. Nothing I see seems like too big of a job, so I think we can do this."

"Good."

They sat down together at the kitchen table. Tim showed Lucy all of the different sandwich options. She stifled a laugh when she saw just how much food he had brought, including a vegetarian option just in case. She went with the turkey and cheese wrap, which had been Tim's first instinct to buy for her. As they ate, they started a list of the projects that needed to be done. Replacing the window of the guest house, fixing the hole in the front steps, nailing down a few loose floorboards on the top floor, taking down wallpaper, fixing a plumbing issue in the ensuite upstairs bathroom, painting the outside of the house so that it was all on color, finishing the pergola, and so much more.

"I think we've got enough to start with," Lucy said.

"Yeah, I'd say so. Those loose floorboards should be easy enough," Tim said. "I can go deal with those right now so Alex doesn't trip on them."

"That would be great. I'm going to start removing the rotten wood on that front step."

"Great."

"Thank you for lunch," Lucy said.

"You're welcome."

Tim got up and went to pick his toolbox up off the floor. As he bent forward and then went to stand up straight again, his back spasmed. He clutched his back and yelled out in pain.

"Are you ok?" Lucy asked, immediately at his side. She instinctively put one hand on his chest and the other around his back to help hold him up.

Along with her support, Tim was using one hand to lean on the kitchen counter nearby to keep himself from falling to the floor. His free hand massaged the spot over where the bullet was.

"Yeah, sorry," Tim replied, gritting through the pain. "I have some back issues."

"Should I call an ambulance?"

"No. No, no. I'm fine. Just gotta give it a second."

"Do you want to…sit down? Can I help you over to the couch?"

"Actually, right here is just fine," Tim said. He slowly lowered himself to the ground, gently leaning his back against the kitchen counters. He sat completely still for a full minute, letting the pain subside.

"I don't even think I have any pain killers," Lucy said. "Maybe some children's tylenol?"

"Really, I'll be fine," Tim assured her.

Biting her bottom lip, Lucy slid to the floor, opposite him. He locked eyes with her for a moment and she smiled at him. She had such perfect lips. He wondered what they tasted like.

"If you're having problems with your back, I don't want to make it worse by you doing home improvements."

"It just spasms sometimes," Tim told her. "It's feeling better already."

"Tim…"

Something about the way she said his name made him trust her. And he suddenly wanted to tell her everything he had been keeping bottled up for so long.

"I was shot," he stated simply. "I was shot in the back while trying to save an officer I was training. We were both taken to the hospital. I survived, but was left with a bullet in my back. The officer I was training didn't make it out of the hospital."

"That burden must be incredibly difficult for you," Lucy said in a calm, even tone.

Tim was surprised by her reaction. She hadn't said she was sorry like so many other people did. She hadn't changed the subject immediately because talking about it made her uncomfortable like it did for others. Most importantly, she hadn't said it wasn't his fault.

"Thank you for sharing with me," she continued.

"It happened a few months ago and I got cleared by the doctors to go back to work, but not by my department mandated shrink. So, my boss gave me six months to clear my head and then they'll reevaluate."

"For someone who is so dedicated to your work, six months can feel like an eternity."

"Thank you! Nobody else seems to get that."

"It's a good idea after a traumatic event to be around a support system. Do you have anyone to support you back in LA?"

"My friends are all cops. They're sympathetic, but they get to keep working. I don't have any family besides Genny. And my ex-wife and I have been divorced for over a year now."

"Then It's good that you came here," Lucy commented. "To be with family, of course."

"You're very easy to talk to," Tim said. "I'm not usually this open."

Lucy shrugged. "I wouldn't be very good at my job if I wasn't easy to talk to. But since you're not officially a client of mine and since you shared something difficult…"

"It's your turn," Tim insisted.

"I left my fiance in New York because he didn't want to be a dad."

"Where is Alex's dad?" Tim asked. "Sorry. That's a personal question."

"No, it's ok. I don't know who Alex's dad is."

Tim was a little surprised by that news. He didn't want to judge and he didn't exactly know what to say. "Oh, I…"

"What I should have said is Alex is adopted."

Tim wasn't expecting that. "Oh."

"I met Alex and his biological mother about four years ago through my work with the NYPD. Alex had just turned three. His biological mom was a victim of domestic abuse. I worked with her on finding housing away from her abusive boyfriend. He wasn't Alex's father. She told me she didn't know who Alex's father was. She was a drug addict and didn't always make the best choices. But she was trying to get clean and I did everything I could to help her, including letting her live at my place for a while."

"Sounds like you adopted a puppy," Tim commented.

"What?"

"Not an actual puppy," Tim clarified. "It's a term training officers use with their rookie cops. It's when a person who cares a lot, someone like you or one of our rookies, goes out of their way to help someone else. It's like you adopt an abandoned, abused puppy. I tell my rookies all the time not to let it happen to them because that puppy is just going to take and take."

"Do your rookies ever listen to you?"

"Not usually. They all end up with a puppy at some point."

"Did you ever have a puppy when you were a rookie?" Lucy asked.

"That's a story for another time," Tim answered.

"Well, I guess you could say I adopted a puppy. I worked with Alex's bio mom for six months. We got her clean. We found a nice apartment she could afford with government assistance. She even got a job in a hotel and we got Alex into daycare. Everything was going really well. Until the police were called by the daycare Alex went to because nobody came to pick him up one day. They found his biological mother dead in her apartment. It was an overdose. I don't know what triggered her to use that day, but…her death changed Alex's life and mine. It was Thanksgiving weekend and all of the usual emergency foster homes were either full or people were too busy with family over the holidays. Since I was a state social worker, I was able to take him temporarily. And of course I couldn't say no. I couldn't let him go to a group home."

"That's because you're a good person with a good heart."

"And I really do like puppies," Lucy said with a smile. "So anyway, Alex's placement with me was only supposed to be temporary, but I fell in love with him and I started the adoption process soon after. The only problem was, I couldn't legally adopt without the father's consent except we never knew who the father was. So, that started an investigation, which was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. And all that time I just fell more and more in love with Alex and I knew I was meant to be his mother."

"That's incredible."

"I met my ex Chris at work maybe a year after I took Alex in. Chris is a lawyer who works in the prosecutor's office. When I met him, I was overworked and trying really hard to be a good single mom. Chris was kind and he was ok with me having Alex. Things were ok for almost three years. I mean, it wasn't some magical romantic fairytale like you read about in storybooks, but Chris treated me well enough and he was nice to Alex. Chris proposed and asked me to move in with him at the two year mark and I said yes even though I shouldn't have. But he was safe and it felt easy. A few months ago, though, Alex's adoption papers were finally approved. Alex would be legally mine. Unbeknownst to me, Chris didn't want that. He told me the morning of the adoption ceremony at the courthouse that he wasn't sure he could be with me if I legally adopted Alex. I broke up with him right then and there."

"He sounds like a prick," Tim said.

Lucy laughed. "Yeah, maybe a little. If I'm being honest with myself, I should never have stayed with him for as long as I did. There was no spark."

"Spark is important," Tim added quietly, thinking about how he had had an instant spark with Lucy. He wondered if she felt it too.

"It is. But by then I had given up my apartment to live with him and I knew I'd have to find a new place in the city, which seemed so overwhelming as a single parent. But then when my aunt died and I was notified by her lawyer that this house would be mine, I jumped at the chance to start a new life with Alex here." Lucy paused. "And I can't believe I just laid all of that out there here on the kitchen floor," Lucy said with a little chuckle. "I guess you're a good listener too."

"You're an amazing person, Lucy Chen."

"You barely know me."

"I know enough. Besides, I'm a police officer with the LAPD. I'm good at reading people."

"How's your back?" Lucy asked.

Tim had been so enthralled in their conversation that he hadn't thought about his back.

"It feels good," he answered.

"Think we can get up off the floor?"

"I think it's worth a try."

Lucy stood up first. She reached out her hand to Tim. He slipped his hand into hers. It fit perfectly. She counted down from the number three and helped to hoist him to his feet.

"If you want to go home and rest I completely understand," Lucy said.

"No. Besides, I think it's Genny's couch that's the real culprit here."

"You were shot in the back and you're sleeping on a couch?"

"Genny's apartment is only a two bedroom. I didn't want to kick Tyler out of his room. I've been looking at a few hotels in the area. I'll figure it out. Don't worry about me. Now, those floorboards aren't going to fix themselves."

Tim picked up his toolbox, with no pain this time, and started climbing the stairs. Just with a five minute conversation with her, he felt like a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.