Lucy wakes up feeling cold.
It's mid-December in Los Angeles so cold to her is probably warm to those battling snow storms and frigid temps below zero. It's probably in the high forties, low fifties, but her apartment isn't made for this kind of chill. The insulation in the windows and the walls is so thin even the slightest bit of cold air seems to get through. The air and heating system in her apartment is old, and it's struggling to keep up with climate change and more use in both the summer and the winter.
She reaches out to pull the comforter up higher, but then she realizes she can't find it, all she has over her legs is her thin sheet. She grunts when she realizes the man next to her is wrapped like a burrito in the whole thing.
She swats at Tim until he wakes up with a mumble of acknowledgement.
"Either you cuddle me, or stop hogging all the blankets," Lucy grumbles.
Tim laughs through his yawn, but opens the comforter to her so that she can slide over next to him under it and then brings it down and wraps it around both of them tightly, bringing his arms down to slide around her waist.
"Maybe if you slept in something substantial," he mutters as he lets his fingertips slide over the skin between her waist and her shorts where her t-shirt has ridden up, then sliding down to tug at the hem of the shorts for emphasis, "you wouldn't get so cold."
"Shut up," she mutters with a happy sigh. "I didn't hear you complaining when I went to bed." She vividly recalls the way his eyes had followed her all the way to bed, focused on the bare skin of her legs.
"Mmm, not complaining now, either," he teases with a whisper into her ear and a kiss to her shoulder. "But you're welcome under my blankets anytime."
Lucy snorts. "They're my blankets, first of all."
"Well, maybe they should be ours," he says simply and she's not sure if he's intended for it to come out or it just fell from his lips in his exhausted stupor.
"Maybe they should," she agrees easily with a soft smile as she closes her eyes.
He squeezes her hip in acknowledgement but it's two in the morning and probably not the time to make a big life decision so he hums quietly into the space beneath her ear.
"I could take these shorts off you," he adds with a smirk that she can feel against her skin. "Really warm you up."
She laughs as she turns to roll over and face him, glee overtaking her at the playful expression on his face. Sometimes she still can't believe this, almost a year later. That she and Tim are here, that they talk to each other like this, that it's completely normal and fun and comfortable and thrilling. She hopes it always feels like this. She's starting to think it always will. "You're such a tease."
"You love it."
"I do," she hums as he sneaks one of his legs between hers to warm her up, and she presses her cold foot against his shin, making him hiss and she laughs as he pinches her side.
She mutters something incomprehensible into his chest as she starts to drift back to sleep, now warm and content under the blanket and cuddled up to Tim.
Maybe, one day, they can find a place with a little less draft, a little more insulation, and a brand-new HVAC system.
(Then again, what would be the fun in that?)