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The first time she comes in, she’s alone. It’s early on a Tuesday night and despite the fact that she’s frowning as she slides into one of the barstools, Jake’s immediately drawn to her for reasons he can't really identify. She’s beautiful, that much is obvious, even with the exaggerated creases between her brows and the way she can’t seem to stop nervously toying with the edge of a nearby soggy cardboard coaster.
But it's not like there's a shortage of beautiful women who roll through the bar. Still - there's something about this one that beckons him forward.
Jake pushes off the edge of the back counter upon which he’d been leaning, wiping the last remnants of cranberry juice off of his hands from the drinks he’d just finished making for the group of sorority girls currently giggling in the back corner (they make up ninety percent of his current clientele - Tuesdays are notoriously slow). The newcomer chews her bottom lip almost absently, her eyes glazed over where they’re locked on the grubby rubber mat beneath the sink on the far wall. She seems to snap to attention when Jake stops in front of her, straightening slightly in her seat as he slings his hand towel over his shoulder and leans forward toward her, hands planted wide on the edge of the bar. “ID?” He asks.
She seems to start before she pulls her purse off her shoulder and digs through it. He kind of hates having to ask, but with the university just a few miles down the road, he’s seen his fair share of underage drinkers sneak in and out in the last week alone. The last owner, an old fart named McGinley (who actually hired Jake), didn’t give a rat’s ass if they were underage - so long as they could pay. But the new guy who bought the place out after McGinley retired a year ago was pretty adamant about the legality of their whole operation. Ray Holt kind of bugged Jake at first - until the police showed up one Friday night and arrested fifteen underage students and Jake very nearly went to jail for serving alcohol to minors. Terry, the manager on duty at the time, was his saving grace that night; ever since then, Jake’s been a stickler for ID’s.
She finally finds her wallet - apparently buried at the bottom of the bag - and opens it to rifle through the various cards inside. Most of them look to be months-old gift cards or memberships to stores, though he does catch a flash of a student ID card peeking up from the cash slot and a debit card and a credit card tucked safely in the little card slot above the plastic window where her license sits.
“Here,” she says, pulling the license from the little pocket and offering it to him across the bar. He takes it and scans the information quickly, trying hard not to look at anything other than the birth date.
(Her name is Amelia Grace Santiago, she’s 5’4”, three years and seven months younger than him, and her home address is listed out of New Jersey. And she celebrated her twenty-first birthday four months ago.)
He flashes her a smile as he hands the card back, but her echoing smile doesn’t touch her eyes. “What’ll it be?” He asks, reaching for an empty wine glass.
She rolls her eyes, shoving her wallet back into her purse almost violently. “ Ugh , surprise me. I’m drinking to forget.”
He pauses, looking sideways at her, through his lashes. “Bad breakup?” He asks as casually as he can, bypassing the wine glasses to grab a whiskey glass instead.
She scoffs. “I got an eighty-nine on an exam.”
Once again, he pauses, the tips of his fingers just brushing the whiskey glasses. She’s not looking at him anymore - rather, her gaze has adopted that far-away look again, drifting over the bottles of alcohol lining the shelves on the wall behind him. “Wait - an eighty-nine ?”
Her head swivels around toward him, confusion making her brown eyes sparkle in the low light. “Yeah,” she says, nodding uncertainly.
“And you want to forget that because…”
“It’s a bad grade.”
“It’s practically an A -”
“But it’s not an A.”
He stares, an incredulous smile forming on his face while he waits for the punchline. Her brow is furrowed now, her lower lip caught between two rows of white, straight, evenly-spaced teeth. That’s when it hits him: she’s serious.
“Well,” he finally pulls the whiskey glass out from beneath the counter and sets it on the bar in front of her before twisting back for the Jack Daniels’, “I’ve got just the thing for forgetting.” She watches in subdued silence as he expertly pours the right portions of everything into the glass, and he pretends that her lingering stare isn’t affecting him as much as it is. “Try that,” he says once he’s got the little black straw in and a fresh coaster beneath the glass.
She slides the glass closer to herself before lifting it off the coaster. The straw catches between her lips and her cheeks hollow, before her eyes widen as the drink presumably hits her tastebuds. “Oh my God ,” she rasps a moment later, turning her head away to cough over her shoulder. When she looks back to him, her eyes are a little more watery than before. “What is this?”
“Blackberry whiskey lemonade.”
“It’s incredible.”
He hopes she can’t see the heat rising up his cheeks.
“It was just a midterm.” She says a little off-handedly a few minutes later. He looks up at her from where he was wiping down the bar, noting how she’s angled in her seat to face him, how she’s chewing her lip again in what he’s beginning to suspect is a nervous tick. “I mean, they’re important - but it’s not like I can’t pull average back up to an A before the end of term. Right?”
“Right.”
She nods, reassured. “I’m Amy.” She looks a little looser now - a little more open, inviting, friendly - and this time, her shy smile crinkles the corners of her eyes.
“Jake.” He says, slinging his towel over his shoulder and reaching forward to shake her hand. His palm is cold and a little bit damp from the towel, magnified tenfold when her warm fingers squeeze firmly around his hand. “Nice to meet you, Amy.”
Amy comes back again the next night - this time, with a friend. They seem to be engaged in a pretty serious conversation; although, Jake’s caught Amy glancing his way twice, now, and she’s only been here for twenty minutes.
He tries not to take it personally that they sit at a table near the back of the bar rather than at the actual bar (he also tries not to think about why he’s having such a hard time not taking it personally), which proves to be a bit easier when their waitress, Gina, comes back with their drink orders.
“Lemme get a vodka cranberry and a blackberry whiskey lemonade for the two chicks who just came in,” Gina says in her customary bored tone. He feels a strange flutter in the pit of his stomach - Amy really liked the drink he made for her. Luckily, Gina’s too engrossed with her phone to notice the dopey grin he’s doing a terrible job of hiding as he sets about making the drinks.
It’s always a bit busier on Wednesdays than it is on Tuesdays, garnering the need for Gina to waitress so Jake can focus on tending bar. Gina’s a natural at memorizing orders, despite her rather blunt and callous attitude - apparently, it’s some kind of legendary thing on the NYU campus to come down to Shaw’s and get roasted by Gina. It gets particularly bad on Fridays and Saturdays, when the place is completely packed and Jake hardly has time to think between filling drink orders for drunken college students and professors alike. Still, he always notices at least one group of people gathered around Gina at some point throughout the night, hanging on her every word, laughing uproariously every few minutes.
“The short one seems uptight.” Gina says conversationally as Jake hands her the drinks. He glances back - Amy’s friend is a good four inches taller than her, and that’s just with them seated. “Should I tell her there’s a call for her from the forties from a grandma who wants her clothes back?”
Usually, Jake would just shrug. All in good fun, right?
“No.” He says, realizing a beat too late how sharply the word leaves his mouth. Gina freezes, brows shooting toward her hairline, lips parting in disbelief. “I-I mean - no, don’t do that. They look like they’re in the middle of something serious. I don’t think they came here for a Linetti Roast.”
Gina’s eyes narrow suspiciously, but after a moment she seems to let it go. “‘Kay,” she spins on her heel and sashays out from behind the bar, but not before pausing at the corner to lean back toward him. “By the way, if you ever talk to me like that again, I’ll tell everyone you’re originally from a clan of cannibal hipsters.”
“Why do they have to be hipsters?”
“Why do you only own flannel shirts?”
She walks away before he can think of a retort, leaving him to look down at his red-and-black checkered flannel shirt in bewilderment.
Amy and her friend stay at their table long enough for the entire rest of the bar to completely change over. Jake tries not to stare, but he’s pretty short on other options - he can either study the plumes of grey ear hair sticking out of that one old guy’s head, rearrange some of Charles’ cooking supplies in the back for fun (but judging from the occasional knock of metal against wood coming from the kitchen, he’d venture to guess that Gina’s already doing that), or he can glare up at the stain that has been on the ceiling for at least six years now. All things considered, Amy seems to be his safest bet.
He limits himself to one three-second glance every five minutes, which is how he misses it when her friend gets up and leaves and Amy abandons the table to take up residence in the same bar stool she’d occupied the night before. He looks up from rearranging glasses beneath the bartop, and she’s suddenly there, moodily stabbing at the ice at the bottom of her empty glass, staring at the wooden grain beneath her forearms.
“Hey,” she looks up at him briefly without moving her head, but her gaze pretty much stays locked to the bar. He wants to ask her if she’s okay - mostly because she’s so clearly, clearly not - but when he opens his mouth, the question dies on his tongue. “Want a refill?” He asks instead.
She slides the glass toward him without a word and he takes it, letting his gaze linger a little longer than completely necessary on her face. She isn’t looking back - she isn’t looking anywhere, really - but her mouth flattens into what he thinks might be an upward curve when he hands the glass back to her. She slurps half of it down in one go.
“It’s...not my business,” he starts carefully. Her gaze darts back up to his face, so he quickly busies himself with shifting a few pint glasses around. “But I gotta ask...is everything okay?”
She takes a long moment to answer. “That was my roommate.” She finally says, her voice so soft he has to strain a little to hear her. “She lost her scholarship - they’re sending her back home.”
He frowns, and she stirs her drink with her straw. “I’m sorry.”
A brief but genuine smile flashes across her face. “Makes the eighty-nine seem really stupid, doesn’t it?”
He hesitates for only a second. “I mean, it seemed kinda stupid before, but now it’s extra stupid.”
Genuine indignation lights her features up, before it quickly melts into a more playful look. “Oh, just shut up and make me another one.”
He does.
He has the next night off, and he has to work very hard to convince himself that going up to the bar as a customer is a bad idea.
Jake doesn’t see her again for four more days.
It’s pretty stupid, really, the little wave of disappointment he feels each night when he realizes she isn’t coming in. He hardly even knows anything about this girl, aside from her apparently sky-high goals for herself, that she’s a student, and that she’s now living alone. Still, there’s something about her that intrigues him - he definitely wouldn’t mind actually sitting down and having a conversation with her.
Not that he would ever have the time to do that while on the clock. Still, he finds himself picturing her face when he goes and hides in the bathroom in an effort to catch his breath during big rushes.
He’s pretty much resigned to the idea that he’s never going to see her again, which is what makes the sight of her flouncing through the front door in a pretty yellow dress (despite the fact that it’s nearly forty degrees outside) that much more pleasantly surprising.
She’s got another friend with her, a sullen-looking woman who makes Amy’s beaming grin appear that much more blinding by comparison. “Jake!” She waves, and he smiles at her in acknowledgement.
He finishes up with the two older gentlemen who’d come in just before them before sliding down three feet, stopping right in front of Amy. “This is my new roommate, Rosa,” she says, gesturing to the woman beside her. Jake reaches across the bar and shakes Rosa’s hand. “This is Jake. He’s the best bartender in New York City.”
“That’s probably an exaggeration,” he says, reaching up to readjust the hand towel hanging over his shoulder, blush creeping up the back of his neck. “What’ll it be?”
“Jim Beam on the rocks.” Rosa grunts.
“Is Jack okay instead?”
She pulls a face and rolls her eyes. “If that’s all you got.”
“We got a shipment coming in tomorrow morning, so we should have more Jim by then. Sorry.” Rosa shrugs, and Jake glances at Amy just as Amy glances at him. She shoots him a look - can you believe this chick? - and Jake suppresses a grin. “Amy, the usual?”
She smiles, clearly delighted, and nods.
“Rosa’s enrolled at the police academy.” Amy tells him as they both slide onto their stools. Jake glances up at Rosa, but Rosa does not appear to be paying either one of them any attention. “She wants to become a detective. Right, Rosa?”
“Eventually,” Rosa grunts.
“That’s pretty badass,” Jake says as he stoops to grab the container of blackberries off the bottom shelf. “I wanted to be a cop when I was a kid. But that was mostly because of Die Hard .”
Rosa’s dark eyes flick up to his face. “Solid movie. Not the best cop movie, but solid.”
“Yeah? What’s the best cop movie, then?”
“ Robocop .”
“What about Turner and Hooch ?” Amy pipes in.
Rosa whirls around to shoot an incredulous look at Amy, which works out in Jake’s favor - neither one of them catch his suppressed grin. “ Turner and Hooch ?” Rosa repeats, her disdain obvious. “ God, it really is like living with a grandma.”
A hurt look crosses Amy’s face.
“I dunno, I always liked Turner and Hooch ,” Jake hears himself say. Rosa and Amy swivel around to face him - Rosa looking skeptical, Amy looking hopeful. “I mean, Die Hard will always be my favorite - but Turner and Hooch is definitely in my top three.”
“Really?” Amy asks.
No. It’s not even in his top ten. But if saying so will keep that intoxicating sparkle in her eyes -
“Really.” Jake confirms as he slides the drinks across the bar.
He’s not sure how or when the decision was made, but every Monday night, Amy and Rosa come in together and sit at the bar and the three of them argue about cop movies while Jake pours drinks. Which is good, because it only takes about two weeks before Jake sees the same soft spot he’s got for Amy developing in Rosa, too.
Amy herself is in a lot more often than that, though.
She’s taken to studying there at the bar on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, distractedly sipping at her blackberry whiskey lemonade while rifling through flashcards, rapidly typing papers out on her laptop, and pouring over lengthy textbooks. Jake proves to be an excellent study partner - she’ll hand him her note cards and he’ll lean back against the back counter as he quizzes her on the minute differences between art styles and art history.
She’s an art history major, something she’s oddly proud of, and it only takes one impassioned speech after another patron scoffs at the study for Jake to realize that it’s probably a hot-button issue back at home.
“Three of my brothers are doctors,” Amy says one night when he brings it up, and her weariness is palpable. Jake can’t help it - he feels his brows shoot up toward his hairline. “Another one who’s about to finish his master’s degree is on-track to receive a grant for stem cell research.” She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, her gaze down and to the side. “I know I’m smart enough and capable enough to do the same kind of thing, but...it’s not what I want.”
Jake hums in understanding. It’s not a foreign concept to him by any means; of course, his whole personal crisis came about upon realizing that all the trouble he’d gone through in his late teens wasn’t actually because he couldn’t finish college - it was that he just didn’t want to.
“Besides,” she says as she shuffles her note cards, “I know both the twins are looking at getting into degree programs in the arts once they graduate high school. So it’s not like I’ll be the only disappointment in the family.”
She leans forward, holding her cards out toward him. “How many brothers do you have ?” Jake asks as he pulls the cards from her grasp.
“Seven.”
He stares for a moment, but there’s a grim edge to Amy’s even gaze that tells him she’s definitely not lying. “And...and sisters?”
“None. You’re looking at the only girl, besides my mom.”
“Wow. Seven brothers. I can’t even comprehend what that must’ve been like growing up. I’m an only child,” he explains. “Actually it was really just me and my ma most of the time.”
“What happened to your dad?”
He shrugs, reaching up to tug at the loose strings hanging from his hand towel. “Left when I was seven.”
Pity - the kind he hates - flashes through her gaze. “That’s awful,” she says quietly.
He shrugs again. “It happens.”
“It shouldn’t.”
There’s a new edge to her voice, despite the gentleness to the timbre. She almost sounds mad, as though she considers his idiot father abandoning him to be a personal offense. He imagines, briefly, what it would be like if Amy ever met Roger - what would she think of his old man? What would she say to him?
It’s so strange, how badly he wants to find out.
“You’re right.” He says simply. She nods, and he shuffles the cards in his hand. “So. Seven brothers. I can’t even imagine how terrified your significant other is when you bring them home.”
He means for it to sound more nonchalant, but the moment the words have left his mouth he can feel his entire face flushing. He feigns interest in the note cards he’s clutching, studying her pretty looping cursive even though the words themselves are blurred. Amy scoffs, and he can’t help it - he winces.
Just a little.
“I wouldn’t know,” she says coolly. “I’ve never brought anyone home.” Jake lifts his head slightly, eyes narrowed in disbelief. “I’m a senior , Jake. I don’t have time to date right now. I’m just trying to finish college. Besides,” she shifts, suddenly looking vaguely uncomfortable, “no one’s ever...y’know. Asked.”
She refuses to meet his gaze. He thinks for a moment - trying to think of what sage advice Terry might give her, if Terry were working tonight - but he’s coming up empty. “I - I find that hard to believe,” he finally says after a prolonged silence.
Amy’s face is a pretty shade of pink when she peers up at him through her lashes. “Thanks,” she says softly.
He smiles, trying to ignore the way his heart does this weird mini throb when he realizes how big and liquid her eyes suddenly look in the dim lighting.
He still sees them that night, when he’s laying wide-awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling, desperately chasing sleep.
It's not until he finds Turner and Hooch playing on one of the more obscure channels and sets his DVR to record that he finally feels his eyelids droop.
Despite Gina’s initial criticism, the rest of the staff quickly grows to love Amy.
Terry is, perhaps, her biggest fan. Mostly because he overheard her asking Jake about the artwork on the far wall - a Terry Original Masterpiece - and then launching into a lengthy discussion of how beautiful and dynamic the piece is. Terry practically threw Jake out of the way in his haste to get to Amy, and when Jake straightened up, he was greeted by the sight of Amy wrapped up in one of Terry’s signature bone-crushing hugs. Jake had laughed at the slightly panicked look in Amy’s eyes, only barely able to see her over Terry’s bulging shoulder.
(She claimed muscle soreness for three days after that.)
Charles adores her, mostly because she’s the first person he’s met who is willing to sit and listen to him gush about his annual trips to Paris. What’s most fascinating, Jake thinks, is that Amy actually manages to look actively engaged throughout Charles’ entire spiel about every minute detailed difference between French cheese and American cheese. She is, obviously, most active in the conversation when Charles gets to all the art museums he visits - even so, she sits with her chin in one hand and a far-away smile on her face the entire time.
(Sometimes Jake catches her taking a steadying breath when Charles breaks away to fill an order in the kitchen - he always shoots her a sympathetic smile when she glances his way.)
Gina mostly likes her because Amy never catches the more subtle burns Gina sneaks into conversation. Jake likes to stick close by whenever Gina’s around, chuckling every time Amy misses the joke, ready to step in and gently redirect Gina’s attention when it all gets to be a bit too mean. Amy takes it like a champ - a bewildered champ, but a champ nonetheless - and always has a grateful smile ready when Jake comes to her rescue.
(Amy calls him her hero after one particular save; it sticks with him for a week.)
Holt doesn’t really know what to make of her at first (at least, that’s what Jake gathers - Holt is, perhaps, almost as hard to read as Rosa is). He’s only been there at the same time as her a handful of times, but the disapproving glint in his eye was unmistakable. Jake can no longer count the number of times he’s been on the receiving end of Holt’s don’t let the regulars distract you lecture. It only takes a few nights for Jake to sense it building - that is, until one fateful night in early November.
Jake tries to focus on the meticulous clockwise circles he’s scrubbing into the bartop rather than the muffled sounds of Holt barking out sharp demands to their landlord over the phone in the kitchen, but it’s proving to be difficult. He shoots a glance to his left; Amy is in her usual stool, textbook open before her, wide eyes trained on the kitchen door. She must sense him looking, though, for a moment later she meets his gaze.
The kitchen door suddenly swings open and Jake snaps back to the bartop, praying his moment of distraction went unnoticed. “Unbelievable. Unbelievable! ” Holt half-shouts. “This is the eighth time I’ve called Madeline about this leaking pipe, and still - nothing! She continues to claim that the plumbers aren’t returning her calls, but I know she hasn’t actually placed the call yet. It’s as if she doesn’t care the floor is about to rot through.”
Jake does his best to keep the exasperation in his sigh to a minimum. “I can try to find a bigger bucket,” he offers.
This is how it always goes. Holt rants, Jake offers to find a bigger bucket, Holt scoffs and dismisses it, Jake shrugs, Holt storms back to his office and slams the door.
“Um - hi,” a tentative voice says at the end of the bar. Jake turns to find Amy on her feet, peering curiously at the two of them. “I could take a look at it, if - if you guys want me to?”
“You think you can fix this?” Holt asks, his condescending disbelief evident.
Amy’s jaw clenches for a brief flash. “My parents don’t really believe in gender roles. My dad taught me how to do some basic house repair when I turned sixteen, just like he did for all my brothers. If you guys have a toolbox, I can look and see if it’s something I can fix.”
Jake turns back to Holt, eyebrows raised. “The other option is the bigger bucket, and we all know how you feel about that .”
Holt seems to deliberate for a moment, before he throws his hands up in apparent defeat. “Fine. I’ll find the toolbox.”
Jake hurries to lift the hinged bartop for Amy as Holt disappears in the back office. “I’ll keep an eye on your stuff,” he assures her as she makes her way to the kitchen.
“Eh,” she waves her hand over her shoulder. “I don’t really feel like studying either way. Wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
There’s a playfulness to her smirk that makes Jake snort and roll his eyes. “Right. You don’t wanna study.”
“I’m capable of doing other things, y’know.”
“Yeah, like fixing sinks. Allegedly.”
“ Not allegedly, okay, I swear I can actually -”
She’s interrupted by the office door banging open quickly followed by Holt lumbering across the kitchen floor with their rusted toolbox in hand. “Here.” He says, thrusting the thing into Amy’s arms. “It’s that sink.”
He points to the sink in the far corner, and Amy scurries toward it, toolbox rattling all the way. Jake glances back once over his shoulder, checking that her belongings are still where she left them, and by the time he turns back to look at her, she’s on her back beneath the sink frowning up at the exposed pipes. “Oh,” she says brightly before sitting up and dragging the toolbox closer. “It’s just a couple of loose compression nuts,” she announces as she digs through the box. “Since it’s a metal trap, I can’t tighten them by hand - aha!” She produces a pair of pliers triumphantly before tipping backwards beneath the sink again. Holt shifts, arms crossed tightly over his chest, and Jake glances back at Amy’s things again. “That should do it,” she says a moment later.
Holt stalks forward immediately and twists both knobs, sending water streaming out quickly. Amy shuffles out of the way as Holt steps backwards; all eyes lock in on the pipes beneath the sink.
They rattle and groan, but not a drop escapes.
Amy, to her credit, does not let a single ounce of smugness show on her face when she looks up at Holt from her place on the ground. Holt’s arms uncross slowly, swinging down at his sides as he stares at the sink. “Well - hm.” He clears his throat and glances at Amy before he looks back to the sink. “I - thank you. Um -”
“Amy.” Amy says, thrusting a hand up toward him.
Jake almost laughs at how ridiculous the scene before him is - the sink on high, Amy criss-cross on the kitchen floor, Holt tentatively reaching down to shake her hand. Her grin is broad and pleased; success obviously suits her.
“Allow me to compensate you,” Holt says as he shuts the tap off and Amy gets to her feet.
“No need. Your bar has been the best study spot I’ve ever experienced, that’s more than enough.” Amy smiles steadily as she hands Holt the toolbox back.
“Well. Please feel free to take advantage of the space any time you’d like.”
Holt turns away, which is how Amy’s positively glowing smile ends up bestowed upon Jake. He grins back, genuinely impressed - it took him a solid three months just to get Holt to tolerate him. “Alright, that was impressive,” he admits as she floats toward him.
“If you knew anything about plumbing, you’d know that isn’t true - but I don’t even care, he likes me!”
Somehow, some way, she’s managed to worm her way into all of their lives; she walks into Shaw’s and it’s like their own personal celebrity has come in.
He loves how much it makes her smile, but also, secretly, kind of misses when he had her all to himself.
Her visits get a little more sporadic as the semester wears on, until eventually Jake goes a whole week and a half in the middle of December without seeing her a single time. It’s weird, how much it affects him, how he keeps looking to that empty barstool and feels that same jarring pang in his chest upon realizing that it’s empty.
Charles, bless him, recites that line about absence making the heart grow fonder in a dreamy voice after catching Jake looking for the sixth time in an hour. He seems to be convinced that Jake and Amy are destined to be together, going so far as to scribble Jake’s number on Amy’s coaster while neither one of them were looking the last time she was in. Jake was lucky - he’d managed to snatch the coaster away before Amy noticed.
Jake’s the first to attest to exactly how awesome Amy is. He’s yet to learn a single detail about her that he doesn’t like (and that includes the time he overheard her singing to herself spectacularly out-of-key in the bathroom). It’s maybe sort of his number-one goal every time she comes in to make her laugh at least five times. And he maybe really really likes her smile.
But he doesn’t have romantic feelings for her. She’s only twenty-one, after all, not to mention the fact that she is, by all accounts, utterly uninterested in dating. And he’s pretty content with his life the way he’s living (which is to say, alone).
He doesn’t like Amy. Not like that, at least. She’s a friend, but nothing more. A friend he enjoys spending time with, a friend he cares about.
Which is why, when she finally resurfaces at the bar on a Sunday night, her glossy hair disheveled and knotted back in a frizzy bun, eyes rimmed red and made all the darker by the shadows clinging to her skin (which is several degrees paler than normal), Jake is immediately concerned. She looks zombified, dead on her feet as she hangs her thick winter coat and even thicker scarf on the hook beside the door and shuffles toward the bar.
Terry, who’s standing between Jake and Amy, takes one look at Amy before turning toward Jake. His eyes widen slightly - significantly, though Jake can’t quite identify why - before he ducks into the kitchen.
He approaches her slowly, watching her sink down against the bartop, eyes glazed in misery. “You don’t look so hot,” he says once he’s close enough. She huffs out a half-hearted laugh before all the humor is wiped from her face; she’s slumping in the bar stool, practically laying across the bar, the side of her face smushed against her hand. “You okay?”
“I have a cold.” She says, and her voice is clogged and nasal and hoarse. She sniffles, and he steps backwards instinctively. “And I’ve had finals all week. I just got done with the last one. I’m exhausted.”
“So why didn’t you go back to your dorm?”
“I don’t live in a dorm,” Amy says, waving her hand dismissively. “Rosa and I live in an apartment off-campus. But I can’t go over there now because Rosa’s girlfriend is over, and even though they told me they didn’t mind if I came home, I’ve spent enough time around the two of them to know that I won’t get any peace and quiet over there, so I’m just...trying to stay out of the way.”
He feels a little wave of annoyance on her behalf. “That’s kind of inconsiderate of them,” he says off-handedly.
Her eyes light up briefly. “I know!” She says. “I go home for winter break tomorrow and I was really hoping to spend a little time with Rosa before I went - and I still have a bunch of packing to do -” she huffs, hand slipping an inch further up the side of her face. “This is the worst.”
Jake nods sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Ames. That really sucks.”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice small and thin. Everything about her screams exhaustion; even the occasional shivers that rock her body seem sluggish and slow. Jake frowns, a brief flash of Terry’s widened gaze appearing in his mind.
“Hold on one sec, okay?” He says softly.
“‘Kay.”
He moves as quickly as he can toward the kitchen, shoving the door open to find Terry and Charles chatting near the industrial refrigerator. “We’re pretty slow right now, right?” Jake asks.
Terry nods.
“Would it be okay if I took the rest of the night off?”
He smiles this time. “Sure, Jake. Let me know if you need tomorrow night off, too.”
“Thanks, Terry.”
Amy’s sitting exactly where he left her by the time he comes back. She glances up at him when he slides back into her view, gaze drifting down to where he’s unknotting his apron, before her brain seems to catch up to what she’s watching and her brows furrow. “Are you leaving?” She asks as he lifts the bartop hinge.
“Yeah.” He makes his way around the bar, stopping right beside her, offering her his hand. “We both are.”
She stares down at his hand like she’s never seen anything like it before. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere where you can lay down on a bed.”
She groans, but takes his hand and lets him guide her off the barstool. “I don’t wanna go back to my apartment,” she whines on the slow march toward the door.
He snorts as he grabs her jacket and hands it to her, waiting until she’s struggled through getting her arms through the sleeves before wrapping her scarf around her neck himself. “We’re not going to your apartment.” He tells her once the scarf is securely tucked into place.
His arms fall back down to his sides and she seems to be on auto-pilot: she catches his hand in hers, her palm smooth (if a little clammy) in his. He pauses, lets the foreign feeling settle over him, ignores the red flag in his mind because this should feel a whole lot weirder.
But it doesn’t. At all.
It’s bitterly cold and snowing when Jake opens the bar door, and he hears Amy release a strangled groan as the frigid air bites at their faces. Jake screws his eyes shut and tightens his grip on her hand before pulling her outside and leading her quickly toward his car, parked on the side of the building. He opens the passenger’s door for her and waits until she’s buckled in before crossing to his side, fishing his keys out of his pocket as he goes.
A continuous, involuntary hiss is escaping his throat as he slides into the driver’s seat and slams the door behind him. His nose is numb and there are snowflakes clinging to his hair but it doesn’t matter because Amy’s shivering violently just a few short inches away. “Almost there, almost there,” Jake tells her, fumbling with the key in the ignition.
The moment the engine starts he cranks up the heater, smiling in spite of himself at the long, low groan Amy releases upon the first blast of heat. He waits a moment, warming his fingers in front of the vents, before reaching down to put the car in drive.
He goes slow. Because of black ice. Also, because Amy’s already being lulled to sleep, and he’s trying to put off the inevitable trip between his car and his apartment for as long as he possibly can. So his five minute commute becomes twenty minutes, and he has to gently shake Amy’s shoulder when he finally eases the car into his parking space. “We’re here,” he whispers.
She hums quietly, sleepily, blinking blearily. She tries to speak, but all that comes out is a glorified slurred hum; the urge to lean across the center console to kiss her temple is both overwhelming and confusing.
The freezing trek between his car and his apartment seems to be enough to wake her up, if only slightly. She is, at the very least, alert when he pushes the door open and ushers her inside; her eyes, glazed and bloodshot they may be, rove his sparse walls with a definite gleam of keen interest.
“You live here?” She asks as he sets his keys down on the little table beside his door.
“Yeah.”
She spins around again slowly, taking everything in for a second time. “It’s nice,” she says once she’s facing him again.
He scoffs. “It’s a shoebox.”
“A nice shoebox.”
“It’s alright.”
“It’s better than the stupid dorms I had to live in freshman year.”
Jake considers her for a moment. “True.”
She shivers again, then, and suddenly he remembers why they’re there. “Sit,” he tells her, pointing to the couch he actually remembered to clean that morning. “I’m gonna make you a hot toddy, you’re gonna drink it, and then you’re gonna go to sleep and let the whiskey heal you.”
He’s already started toward the kitchen, mind set on the teapot, when he hears her huff. “Are you ever not mixing drinks?” She jokes weakly.
“No.” He tosses the word over his shoulder as he reaches up to rifle through his cabinets for the box of teabags his mother had left the last time she was over. “Now shut up and preserve your strength.”
She makes an indignant sound that he chooses to ignore. For a few minutes, his apartment is filled with the sounds of him filling the teapot and measuring out the tea and searching high and low for the bottle of whiskey he’d left half-full...somewhere. He has a sudden memory of it in his closet - how it got there, he’d rather not know - and so he leaves the teapot warming on the stove to pad through his living room quickly, toward his bedroom.
He stops short when he catches sight of Amy. She’s perched on the furthest edge of his couch, looking as though she’s trying to bury herself in her scarf and coat. “What are you doing?” He asks before he can stop himself.
“I’m doing what you told me to do,” she says, and if she didn’t sound so sick he thinks she might be indignant.
“Just - get comfortable, you weirdo. Take your coat off.”
She shakes her head quickly. “Too cold.”
The pot probably has another minute or two before it boils - enough time for him to rush to his bedroom and yank the thick comforter off of his mattress. He can’t wipe the triumphant grin off his face as he hauls it back in, the grin that grows even broader when he hears her disbelieving noise from somewhere beyond the mass of blanket in his arms. He drops it unceremoniously at her feet. “Take the coat off.” He says.
“Jake -”
“Do you trust me?”
She studies him for a moment. “Yeah.” She whispers.
He nods and chokes down the sudden, confusing emotion rising up his throat. “Then take your coat off and let me take care of you.”
Her eyes flutter closed briefly before she reaches up and slowly unwinds the scarf, letting it fall to the floor at her feet. She reaches for the zipper next, and drags it downward with shaking fingers. Her shivers have morphed into downright trembling that only seems to grow more violent as she sheds her coat, but a half-second later he’s got the comforter thrown around her shoulders. He pulls her to her feet briefly so that her entire body will be cocooned by it, and just as she tucks her feet up beneath herself on the couch and he folds the comforter over her knees, the kettle begins to boil.
He makes quick work of pouring the hot toddy, but by the time he gets back out to her, her trembling seems to have diminished. “Warm enough?” He asks as he offers her the steaming coffee mug. “I have more blankets -”
“I’m fine,” she whispers, bringing the coffee mug close and inhaling. Her nose is faintly pink in the light cast across her through the kitchen doorway, and her eyes are closed in what he hopes is relief at the warmth radiating through the mug. “Thank you, Jake.”
His chest is suddenly too tight for him to speak, so he nods, hoping she won’t notice.
She doesn’t.
She groans again at the first sip of the hot toddy, and then doesn’t speak for a long time - long enough to drain half the mug and for Jake to pull up all of his recorded movies on his DVR. She’s distracted up until she hears the first notes of the movie he chooses; suddenly her eyes are wide open and trained on the television screen.
“ Turner and Hooch ?” She rasps, and he grins as he nods. “I can’t believe you actually have it!”
“I told you it’s in my top three. Of course I have it.”
She hums in quiet, tired laughter and sets the mug on the side table to her left, settling a bit further into his couch, gaze fixated on the TV.
She lasts twenty minutes. He’s impressed, really - he was betting on fifteen - but the exhaustion seems to get the better of her and eventually her head lolls onto his shoulder. He goes still, almost rigid, immediately at war with himself.
He lets her sleep for ten minutes. Because she’s exhausted and she’s earned a little couch napping. Not because the warm weight of her leaning against him is the most comforting thing he’s ever felt. He forces himself to gently rouse her ten minutes in, though, because if he lets her stay like this she’ll wake up with a crick in her neck and the last thing he wants is for her to be in pain on the long drive home.
She barely stirs when he shifts beneath her, so as slowly and gently as he can, he manages to stand up and to lift her up off his couch. She’s ridiculously light, even as dead weight, and he only fumbles once over a stray sock on his bedroom floor before he lowers her down to his mattress, easing her head down on his pillow.
She murmurs something in her sleep when he steps away and he pauses, waiting.
“ Jake ,” she murmurs, before burrowing down further in his comforter.
It’s at that precise moment that he realizes: he’s in deep for Amy Santiago.
She gently shakes him awake the next morning and when his eyelids split open he finds her kneeling beside the couch, looking considerably better if still a bit paler than usual. Her voice is only a little hoarse when she thanks him and her smile is so small and genuine when he walks her to the door that it would have made his heart perform backflips if he was any more awake.
As it is, he doesn’t feel the backflips until he throws himself down on his bed and is immediately engulfed in the scent of her perfume lingering in the sheets, five minutes after Rosa picks her up.
The month that follows is one of the longest months in Jake’s entire life.
He goes over that night a dozen times in his head, picturing every last detail of her - from her pink, running nose to the delicate fluttering of her lashes against her cheeks to how warm and light she’d felt in his arms - over and over and over again until it all begins to blur and he’s not even really sure he really remembers what she looks like anymore. It’s ridiculous, objectively, just how deeply (and quickly) this woman has become engrained in his life.
The only thing that keeps him treading water while she’s away is the dim, far-off hope that somewhere in New Jersey, she’s thinking about him, too.
“Have you considered asking her to get a drink with you or something?” Gina asks him one night after she catches him scrubbing down the area of the bar right in front of Amy’s usual stool. He pauses and looks at her sideways, and she rolls her eyes. “Not here , obviously. Somewhere else, where you guys can be on the same side of the bar for once.”
“She’s not interested in dating anyone right now,” is his grumbled response. “Besides, isn’t it creepy for the bartender to hit on the regulars? Isn’t that what you’ve been drilling into my head for the last four years?”
“It’s only creepy when the regular isn’t into it, but she clearly is. Seriously, Jake,” her hand lands on his shoulder in a gentle squeeze, “if you don’t make a move soon, someone else will. And then you’ll be up shit creek.”
“Will I have a paddle?” Jake jokes weakly.
Gina sniffs. “With the way she lights up every time she sees you? Probably.”
Months later, when he looks back, he’ll pinpoint the beginning of it all on that moment. But for now, all he does is nod slowly and fight a losing battle against a small, hopeful smile.
In the days that follow, Jake begins a rigorous mental and emotional preparation. Charles turns out to be an excellent pep-talker (mostly because he seems to staunchly believe that Jake is the coolest person in the room at all times, but that’s beside the point), even if he lacks a bit in the planning department (like, no , Jake’s not gonna pay to rent the bar out one night on the off-chance that Amy might come in to the sight of a thousand candles littering every available surface and Jake waiting for her in a suit that he definitely doesn’t own).
He’s nervous at the concept of this morphing into something more, almost unreasonably so, and it’s made all the more ridiculous when he considers his last girlfriend was a law student on-track to become a raging success in the world of public defenders. Sophia was whip-smart and kind and beautiful to boot, but something about the way she interacted with Jake left him feeling like a half-done project she’d pick up when she was bored just to cast him aside the second anything else came up. He’d felt self-conscious constantly, up until the very end when she’d tutted and firmly straightened his collar before breaking up with him.
It’s right around the turn of the new year that Jake realizes it - that to Sophia, all he’d ever been was work. But to Amy -
He’s not sure, yet. But he’d rather like to find out.
So on the first day of the spring semester down at NYU, Jake wakes up cheerful. The sheets have long-since lost her scent but he still catches phantom whiffs of it, more memory than anything else; it makes him smile nonetheless. He gets up early and showers and spends the day doing laundry, idly wondering what Amy’s reaction would be to discovering that this is the first time he’s actually done his laundry in two weeks.
He can practically see her nose wrinkling in put-off disgust, the way it did that one Monday night when Rosa pounded three tequila shots back in practically one breath. And he chuckles, almost giddy with excitement, because it’s just a matter of hours now before he’ll get to see it in real life.
Laundry ends up taking up most of his day, and even though he hates pretty much every second of it, he has to admit, in the end, that it was worth it. Because the flannel shirt he’s wearing is clean for the first time in weeks, and his jeans are no longer stained on the knees from that time he accidentally knelt down in a puddle of spilled vodka cranberry reaching for a customer’s phone, and he actually can’t smell his socks when he walks.
It’s Tuesday again, and Jake’s shift starts at six. He’s there fifteen minutes early to the sight of Charles’ knowing, suggestive grin framed in the kitchen door porthole and two of the regulars seated together at the far end of the bar. They both grunt and nod at Jake in acknowledgement, and Jake nods back as he ties his apron back behind himself. His heart is already thumping in excitement, in anticipation, in pure nerves.
“You ready, Jakey?” Charles is suddenly there, bouncing on the balls of his feet at Jake’s right. Jake tries to play it cool but he’s pretty sure he’s got the world’s goofiest grin on his face if Charles’ little squeal is any indication. “Oh, I’m just - I’m so happy to witness the beginning of the most beautiful love story of all time !”
“Easy, buddy,” Jake chuckles. “I’m just asking her to get a drink with me some time. It’s not a marriage proposal.”
Charles does not appear to be deterred. “ Yet .” He says with an exaggerated wink.
Jake snorts. “Go back to the kitchen.” He says, because he can’t think of anything else to say.
A few more people come in, but in true Tuesday fashion, Shaw’s remains fairly quiet. Meaning that Jake has plenty of time to stare at the motionless door, practically choking on his own anticipation.
The hours drag on, and on, and then on some more. Charles emerges four separate times for four separate pep-talks, and then delivers a fifth when Jake ducks into the kitchen just to stretch his uncomfortably prickling legs. He’s just starting to consider finding the duster back in Holt’s office to dust off the old juke box (the one Holt has been telling him to clean for weeks now) when he hears the tinkling bell announcing the front door has just opened.
Amy’s wearing that same yellow dress from the first time she ever brought Rosa in beneath her lavender peacoat - that’s the first thing he really comprehends. The rest is that she looks light years healthier than she did the last time he saw her - all smooth, tanned skin, all long, intoxicating curls - and for one second, Jake is completely and utterly floored by the woman hanging her coat up next to the door.
He comes sharply crashing back to reality when a guy in a blue sportcoat steps between them, his back turned to Jake, standing way too close to Amy to just be a stranger. Jake clenches his jaw when he catches a glimpse of Amy’s face over the guy’s shoulder - or, more specifically, when he catches a glimpse of her dazzling smile and big sparkling eyes fixated on the guy’s face several inches above hers.
The jealousy unfurling in the pit of his stomach is almost nauseating, but he manages to force it down just as Amy and her date turn toward the bar. He answers her broad grin with a tight smile of his own, forcing himself to stare at her face even though he can see her grab her date’s sleeve in his peripheral vision.
“Hey!” She calls cheerfully, and in spite of everything his heart really does skip a beat at the sound of her voice. She turns back to her date, tugging on his sleeve. “This is him, this is the bartender I was telling you about before!”
(A bubble of warmth expands in his chest - she was thinking about him.)
Her date gently shakes her grip off of his sleeve and reaches across the bar to shake Jake’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Eric.”
Jake clenches his jaw, glancing briefly at Amy’s glowing smile. “Likewise. I’m Jake.”
(He may or may not squeeze Eric’s had harder than wholly necessary.)
“Jake makes the best cocktails in the city. Seriously.” Amy gushes as Eric retracts his hand.
Jake opens his mouth to protest, but Eric beats him to it. “Cool. Isn’t this the place with that really mean waitress?”
“Gina, yeah,” Jake nods. “She’s off tonight.”
Disappointment flashes across Eric’s face. “Aw, man, really?”
Amy shifts a little, brows furrowing for a split-second, her impatience exposed for all of a moment. “But, again, Jake makes the best drinks in New York.” She reminds Eric.
“Well, I’ll be the judge of that.” Eric says, a flirtatious smile suddenly replacing the disappointment from before. “Can I go ahead and order a rum and Coke, please? And a white wine for the gorgeous lady?”
Jake glances at Amy to confirm, and her gaze never leaves Eric’s face, even as her jaw tightens and she nods in confirmation. “You got it.” Jake says.
Eric says something about a bathroom and Jake grits his teeth when the guy leans forward and kisses Amy’s cheek before shedding the sport coat and hanging it over the back of a bar stool. Amy slides into the stool beside it, propping her head in her hand and sighing into her palm.
“So…”
“He means well.” She looks pretty convinced when Jake glances up at her, so he merely raises his eyebrows and says nothing. “He’s my lab partner from last semester, and...well, we’ve kind of had a...a thing since before fall break. I don’t really know him that well, but we seem to have chemistry and we’re pretty similar, and -” she stops suddenly, and Jake pauses mid-pour to look up at her. “Sorry, I - you didn’t ask.”
Her face has reddened and she looks fairly embarrassed, but Jake brushes it off with a shrug. “Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna listen,” he says, returning his focus to measuring out the rum. “Think of me as a very poorly-paid therapist.”
She snorts. “Therapist, huh?”
He keeps his gaze steadily fixated on the glasses before him. “Therapist. Friend. Potato, po-tah-to…”
This time, she outright laughs, and Jake can’t help it - he chuckles, too. “He’s been asking me out for the whole break,” she says once she’s hiccupped back to seriousness. “I kept turning him down, but then my best friend from high school, Kylie, kind of...broke into my phone and accepted for me. I told him I got to pick the bar, though.”
Another bubble of warmth. “So you picked here?”
He sees her shrug from his peripheral. “Seemed like the safest bet. I kind of...wanted it to be on home turf.”
He drops two blackberries into a whiskey glass, sets two coasters out on the bar, and then sets the glasses on top of the coasters. “Since he took the liberty of ordering for you, I took the liberty of changing the order.” He says, sliding her drink closer to her deliberately.
“You’re back there saving lives, Jake Peralta.” Amy tells him, eyes wide, grin grateful.
He smiles as the bathroom door squeaks open somewhere behind him. “It’s what I do.”
She’s still grinning at him when Eric comes back, wiping his hands on his pants, and then they’re moving off to a cozy booth in the back corner and Jake has to concentrate on keeping his vision from going completely green with envy.
He ducks back to the kitchen briefly and Charles is absolutely crestfallen to hear the news - that is, until he scurries up to the kitchen door porthole and peeks at Amy and Eric. “Oh, that guy’s not nearly as handsome as you are,” Charles mutters over his shoulder.
It’s weird - but that actually does make Jake feel a little better. “Thanks, buddy.”
“Ugh, look at his hair. There’s no natural shine! No youthful bounce! Don’t worry, Jake,” Charles glances back, determination written into the lines of his face. “There won’t even be a competition when the time comes for Amy to choose.”
“Whoa, choose? There’s - she’s not gonna have to choose .” Jake laughs, incredulity rising at the stricken look on Charles’ face. “She’s a free agent. She’s a human being. She can date whoever she wants. Just because - just because I was gonna ask her out doesn’t automatically give me some kind of claim over her, or whatever. Eric got there first, and...that’s that.”
“But she’s your -”
“If you call her my soulmate, I’m leaving right now.”
Charles clamps his lips together, and Jake rolls his eyes.
Amy and Eric are still there an hour later, long enough for the rest of the clientele to completely change over. By the time Jake has finally come around to accepting the idea that he’s too late - or, has gotten kind-of-sort-of close to accepting it - Eric, apparently, has to go to the bathroom again. Jake watches him go by, nodding politely when Eric flashes him a grin.
The door squeaks, and then the bar is full of the loud scrape of table legs against the floor from the back corner. Jake whips around, bewildered, just to see Amy rushing toward him, eyes wide and pleading. “ Save me. ” She gasps.
He springs into action immediately, waving her over to the side and lifting the bartop hinge for her to scurry beneath. “Kitchen, kitchen,” he hisses, pushing her toward the door when she veers to the left.
Charles jumps when Jake throws the kitchen door open, his expression flickering countless emotions as Jake quickly pushes Amy inside. “What do I do?” Amy whispers frantically.
“Stay right here, I’ll come get you when it’s clear.”
Jake doesn’t wait for her reply, mostly because he hears the bathroom door squeak again. He darts back to the bar and snatches his abandoned hand towel, and only spares Eric a brief glance before tucking his chin down to hide his grin.
Eric stops short just a few feet beyond the bar. He stares for three seconds, and then turns, looking confused and uncertain. “Amy?” He calls.
No one responds.
“Hey,” Eric says, approaching the bar slowly “Did you see where my date went?”
“Amy? No.” Jake shakes his head. “I went to the kitchen. She was gone when I came back.”
Eric furrows his brow, but nods. “She’s probably just in the bathroom.” He says, mostly to himself.
One of the older guys at the end of the bar starts laughing uproariously, drawing both Jake and Kevin’s gazes down toward him. Jake does his best to shoot him a warning look - it’s Hitchcock, one of the regulars, and also one of the dumbest people Jake knows.
Beside Hitchcock, another regular stirs, looking uncomfortable. “Saw her leave.” Scully grunts. “Sorry, man.”
Jake tries to keep the gloating to a minimum when he turns back to face Eric. “Yeah. Sorry, man.”
Eric narrows his eyes. “What a bitch,” he mutters.
It takes an enormous effort to remain rooted to the spot when every instinct in Jake’s body screams at him to reach across the bar and punch Eric right there in the mouth, but somehow, miraculously, he manages. Eric storms over to the door and snatches his coat off the hook, and the move knocks Amy’s coat loose, too. Eric stares at it for a brief moment before deliberately stomping on the sleeve, just before he throws the front door open and disappears into the night.
“Thanks, Scully,” Jake calls as he moves around the bar to retrieve Amy’s coat.
“No problem.” Scully says with a small, two-fingered salute.
“Guys, she didn’t leave,” Hitchcock interjects as Jake stoops and snatches the coat collar off the floor. “She’s in the kitchen. ”
“Can’t believe you retired from the force, Hitchcock.” Jake mutters once he’s behind the bar again.
Amy’s perched on an empty stretch of counter listening intently to Charles when Jake shoulders the kitchen door open. She snaps toward him, a hopeful, nervous smile on her face. “Is he gone?”
“Just left.” He holds her coat out to her. “He knocked this down, and...well, I couldn’t save it.”
Her gaze flicks down to the bootprint staining the left sleeve, and a tiny frown tugs at the corner of her mouth. “What a misogynistic dick ,” she mutters as she crosses the space between them and takes her coat from his hand.
She stays for another two hours, vibrant and bright as she regales him with stories about her brothers and sledding and her mother’s legendary Christmas Morning Feast (said with all the serious gusto that garners capitalization), and he listens intently, his grin broad and ever-present, his insides lit with the same soft glow as the Christmas lights across the street, distorted through the frosty windows.
She never brings a date in again, for the record, but it’s the lingering fear that she might that shakes his confidence right down to the core.
Other people (other guys, more specifically) seem to begin noticing her pretty quickly after that. Suddenly Jake finds himself spending a pretty large amount of time impatiently waiting for whatever frat boy has sidled into the stool next to hers to leave just to get a chance to say hi. The only thing that keeps him strung along, that keeps him from completely giving up and moving on, is the exasperated look Amy always shoots him over her suitors’ shoulders.
Like he’s in on some secret, like they’re sharing some grand joke.
“Why don’t you just tell ‘em to screw off?” Jake asks her one Thursday night. It’s busy - there are people on the other end of the bar trying to get his attention - but he ignores it all, because he’s been waiting three hours to talk to her and the latest frat boy only just left.
She shrugs, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Rosa likes hearing the stories the next morning. She does this weird laugh and then calls them all tontos . Dummies, basically.”
Jake snorts. “She’s not wrong.”
He won’t say it out loud, won’t even hardly allow himself to think it, but secretly, deep down, he fears the evening that someone slides into the stool next to her and steals her heart.
Because for a while, that’s the worst thing he can imagine watching unfold and being powerless to stop. Of course, he doesn’t realize until one cool evening at the end of March that there are much, much worse things he could witness happening across those two feet of heavy oak between where he stands and where she sits.
It’s a Friday night and they’re slammed, but somehow, some way, Amy’s managed to worm her way through the throng of half-drunk idiots swarming the bar to take up residence at her usual barstool. Jake only had time to nod to her in greeting before spending the next twenty minutes quickly filling orders. He worked his way methodically down the bar until finally, at last, he got to her.
“It’s busy tonight!” She calls over the bar. He has to strain to hear her over the din, flashing her a rueful smile when he leans closer. “How are you?”
“Busy!” He calls back. She laughs and nods in understanding. “The usual?”
She nods and he twists away to grab a clean glass out of the sink basin, and when he turns back toward her, he finds her attention diverted to her left. There’s a guy leaning into her space - tall and dark-haired, from what Jake can gather - and Jake is instantaneously irritated.
It helps when he realizes that Amy’s leaning as far away from him as she can.
“Here, Ames,” Jake says when he slides her drink across the bar to her.
The guy beside her leans toward Jake quickly. “Hey, man, can I get a -”
Jake turns away, forcing his gaze onto the woman behind Amy, and just catches Amy slapping her hand over her mouth to hide a broad grin.
His irritation stagnates at a fairly high level, but he keeps it under control for a surprising amount of time.
Of course, that only lasts so long. And when he finally snaps, he does so spectacularly.
It’s been an hour, and the rush is still cresting, and Jake hasn’t really been able to form a conscious thought in a very long time - his whole brain has converted to a drink menu - and when he looks up he’s met with the sight of thirty wasted college students trying to catch his eye. Terry’s off on the other end of the bar, near Amy (and the guy), and from the corner of his eye he absorbs the smoke puffing from Charles’ overworked grill, and somewhere beyond this mob of people he can hear Gina’s trilling, teasing laughter. He can’t smell anything beyond the sharp sting of tequila and grill smoke and the noise has risen even more than before and for one second, one brief second, Jake steps back and tries to inhale.
His gaze, as it happens, falls upon Amy.
Who is turned in her seat, straining to get a glimpse of the jukebox, perhaps, which is currently on the other side of the forest of bodies gathered behind her.
It’s a small movement that catches his eye - a quick slip of the hand, a forward pouring motion, right over the rim of her glass. The hand retracts, and then reappears to quickly stir the straw.
The hand that belongs to the guy who’s been chatting her up all night.
It’s strange, how quickly the overwhelming rage wipes everything else out. He hasn’t been able to think and that still stands now - he moves forward on instinct, his strides long and forceful, and when he seizes the guy by the collar and drags him over the bartop his elbow catches Amy’s glass and sends it falling to the floor beside him, where it shatters.
Jake’s not really sure what happens next. All he knows is that he’s yelling (though he has no idea what he’s yelling) and his knuckles burn and sting, and he’s still got a hold on this guy’s collar. The bar might have gone quiet, or he might just not be able to hear anything over the deafening sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, but it doesn’t matter because this kid is looking up at him with pure terror in his gaze.
Strong hands clamp down on his upper arms and the next thing he knows, his grip is broken and Terry’s shoving him away, toward the kitchen. Jake whirls around on his heel, positive that fire and brimstone are pouring out of his nostrils all at once for how infuriated he is, but Terry’s already yanking the kid up to his feet and shoving him forcefully against the edge of the bar. And it’s the sight of the kid’s face smushed against the surface that Jake’s senses finally catch up to the reality of the situation.
“He poured something in her drink!” Jake shouts hoarsely.
“ I know !” Terry practically screams, as if he’s been shouting it repeatedly. The bar has gone quiet; Jake can hear the abrasive gasps for air dragging through his heaving chest. Terry has the kid’s arms twisted back and up, immobilizing him. Jake hopes it’s as uncomfortable as it looks. “Jake,” Terry pants, “I need you to calm down. Go out back, get some air. Now.”
Charles practically leaps out of his way as Jake storms by, and Jake ignores his lingering stare as he shoves the back door open with as much force as he has.
The alley is dark and a little damp, the far-off flickering orange street light casting long shadows across him as he paces back and forth. He flexes his right hand and grits his teeth against the keen, sharp sting working all the way up his wrist, trying to recall how many times he actually hit the kid and coming up completely empty.
He hopes it was at least twice. Really, he should have just up and strangled him for trying to do what he was doing.
The back door squeaks open somewhere behind him and Jake closes his eyes briefly, steeling himself for what is sure to be an awkward conversation with Terry. “I’m sorry I made a scene,” Jake says, refusing to turn around. “But I’m not sorry for what I did. I should’ve killed him for trying to pull that shit, especially since he tried to pull it on Amy.”
He turns, ready for Terry’s exasperated but understanding argument, and then stops short. Because it’s not Terry standing at the backdoor - it’s Amy.
He’s reminded, briefly, of the night he took her back to his apartment. Her posture now is much the same as it was back then: slouching, folded-in, small. But there’s a new element now, a crumbling, terrified vulnerability in her eyes that makes his breath catch and solidify in his chest. Her arms are crossed tightly over her middle and the creases between her brows are miles deep and even in the scant light he can tell her lower lip is quivering.
He takes a quick step toward her, mouth open to speak, but freezes.
“Are you okay?” She whispers.
Jake blinks, and then deflates, because there’s not an ounce of humor in her eyes. There’s not an ounce of humor anywhere near them right now, as far as Jake is concerned, but something about it - about the sheer stress, the undeniable hurricane of dark emotions storming through both him and her, that makes him laugh. It’s a little bit hysterical, a little too harsh (he knows this, because she winces as it echoes sharply off the brick walls on either side of them), but he can’t stop himself.
“You’re asking me if I’m alright?” She swallows thickly as she nods, her gaze dropping down to his throbbing hand, and it’s that little move that sobers him. “I’m fine. I’m - I mean, I’m angry , but - are you okay?”
There’s a little flash of self-hatred on top of everything else - he should have asked her right away, he should have asked her the moment Terry yanked him off the guy - but it passes as quickly as it comes when he sees her hesitate. She’s not looking at him; rather, she’s staring determinedly, blindly, at the wall to her right. He can see her fingertips going bone-white where they press against her upper arms, and when she sucks down a quiet, stuttering inhale, he catches sight of unshed tears in her glassy eyes, glittering in the low light.
She dissolves, and this time he doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of her, stooping down to eradicate the four-inch height difference between them, which puts him right at her level. “Hey,” he says softly, reaching out to briefly touch her arms. Her skin is cold beneath his hands. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Maybe Amy hears that as permission - for a split-second later, she’s absolutely crumbling, forehead tilted forward to bump against his collarbone, quiet sobs muffled even further into his chest. He hugs her without a second thought, closing his eyes as the familiar scent of her shampoo fills his lungs. She’s warm against him despite the goosebumps raising along her arms, and in spite of everything there’s a little part of him documenting just how nice it feels to be near her. Even with the damp spot rapidly growing over his collarbone and the wrinkles in his shirt from where she’s clinging to him.
“You’re okay, Ames,” he whispers, and her back jerks beneath his arms a bit as she hiccups. “It’s all okay. I got you. I got you.”
The crying seems to taper after only a few minutes, until it’s just them, embracing quietly in the alley behind Shaw’s. And it’s a little absurd, how right it feels to be here - to be with her, supporting her - and perhaps that’s why he does what he does next.
Amy tilts her head back and her eyelids flutter open and when she looks at him, he feels his stomach bottom out, his heart stop, his breath catch and hold. There are still little tear droplets clinging to her lashes and her eyes are so soft and open and trusting - for him, because of him - and the breathtaking sight short-circuits his brain.
And it’s precisely because of this short-circuit that he slides his palm along her cheek, buries his fingers in her hair, and leans down and kisses her.
He pretty much regrets it immediately, and not just because he only just then remembers that he hadn’t actually brushed his teeth that morning. Rather, because Amy goes as stiff as a board almost instantly against him.
Their lips make a harsh smacking sound when Jake yanks away, and her eyes are wide and unreadable. She’s staring at him like he just beamed down from outer space and the entire English language has deserted him - he stands before her gaping, eyes bulging, completely at a loss for words.
She steps away from him - just a foot back - and rips his heart out as she goes.
“A-Amy,” he finally manages to force out, which is really quite a feat considering how wildly his mind is suddenly reeling. “I - I’m -”
The backdoor squeaks open and they both jump, Amy whirling around at the noise. It’s Charles, half-hidden behind the door, a reproachful look on his face. “Jake, there are some cops here who need to talk to you,” he says, sounding grim for all the wrong reasons.
Jake remains rooted to the spot, panic quickly mounting. Amy turns back to him slowly, her arms crossed over her middle again and her face suddenly an unreadable mask, and Jake wants to drop to his knees before her and beg for forgiveness right there in the alley. “Go,” she whispers, tilting her head toward Charles.
He doesn’t want to - in fact, he’s loathe to leave her here alone, especially after what he just did - but Charles is still waiting and he can’t really see another option. So he steps around her slowly, hoping his sore apology comes across as clearly as he feels it in his bones. Charles holds the door open for Jake but Jake stops just short of trudging inside to glance back one last time.
Amy’s back is still turned toward the door, her arms still bent and crossed to cling at her middle. That’s where he leaves her.
The bar has mostly cleared out in the time Jake spent outside, and the first thing he notices is that Amy’s purse is still hanging off the back of her usual barstool. Three uniformed cops are milling at the jukebox, one engaged in a conversation with Terry, but they all look around when Jake trudges out of the kitchen with his hands buried deep in his pockets.
They sit in the booth in the corner and ask so many questions that by the time they leave, the entire bar is empty aside from Terry, who’d stuck around to lock up for the night. He’s not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point Amy’s purse had disappeared from the back of her stool.
He rushes to his car with every intention of calling her to explain himself, to beg for forgiveness, but the moment he slams the door behind himself and unlocks his phone he realizes two things simultaneously: it’s nearly 3 o’clock in the morning, so she probably won’t answer.
And he doesn’t even have Amy’s number. Because he’s her bartender . Not her friend, her bartender . Her creepy bartender who kissed her in an alley five minutes after she almost got assaulted by some idiot frat boy.
It’s a miracle he makes it all the way home without crashing the car for how blurry his vision is.
Jake spends the next twenty-four hours buried beneath his comforter, face tucked between two pillows, trying to ignore the occasional buzz of his phone receiving a text. The keen sting of his split knuckles is the only thing he can really register while hidden beneath his sheets.
Afterwards, it’s only the slow, steady march of time that remains unchanged, unscathed, utterly unaffected by the events unfolding around him.
Every other structure around which Jake’s life is built is torched in a matter of weeks.
The first to go was, unsurprisingly (but incredibly painfully) Amy’s near-nightly presence across the bar. No one seems at all surprised by it; there’s a grim, quiet acceptance to the emptiness in that stool, to the absence of her laugh ringing through the air. Jake hadn’t noticed how much she’d brightened the place until she was gone and the shadows began creeping back in, reclaiming lost territory.
Still, Jake works every single one of his shifts and even volunteers to pick up extra shifts, all on the off chance that she might return one evening.
(No one else seems as affected as him, but smiles are a bit harder to come by these days.)
The second thing happens almost simultaneously to the first loss: their college crowd has up and disappeared. Jake finds it idly fascinating how quickly word travels on campus, regardless of the vast population. Shaw’s has become an empty husk, a name-drop in a conversation about heightened awareness in public places. Leaving Jake plenty of time to consider every mistake he’s ever made in his entire life, as one does in long stretches of isolation.
The third thing happens just three short weeks after The Jake Incident (which is what Terry has taken to calling it). Wuntch gave them no warning, no signal, nothing. She’d just appeared one evening an hour after they opened and disappeared into Holt’s office with Holt.
Twenty minutes later, Shaw’s was evicted. Apparently, she’d drawn up the lease agreement with some guy named Keith Pembroke weeks earlier.
“He’s seen your work,” Wuntch told Jake right after Holt left Shaw’s for the last time. “He’s impressed. He’d like to keep you on as bartender as soon as this place is ready to be reopened.
A year ago, Jake would have scoffed, would have shut Wuntch down immediately. His allegiance to Holt runs deep, as strained as their relationship sometimes is. But now - now that he’s suffocating beneath the weight of his own guilt, his own desperation - he readily agrees.
Renovations last two weeks, and when the bar reopens, it’s called The Vulture.
The Vulture is the dive bar to end all dive bars, drawing in crowds of greasy, pot-bellied old men - the kind you’d expect to see trying to kiss a girl in an alley without her consent.
Jake hates it almost as much as he hates himself.
Pembroke hires the entire Shaw’s staff back, actually, which Jake is pretty grateful for - it’s nice to know people are in his corner. But when Keith proves to be a slimy, creepy, egotistical jerk within hours of their first shift together - it’s not shocking that Terry’s the first to go, just one week in, after Pembroke makes a series of weird and vaguely threatening comments about Terry’s workout routine.
Gina’s the next to go, but not before she makes one last scene right there in the middle of the bar.
It happens on a Thursday, an hour after she was supposed to arrive for her shift. Jake’s out on the floor wiping down tables - partly because Gina’s supposed to do that, but mostly for something to do, considering Hitchcock and Scully are the only customers there - when the front door suddenly bangs open. Jake’s head snaps up at the same time as his heart leaps, but an instant later he’s ready to sink right into the scuffed up wooden floor beneath his feet. Because Gina looks ready to breathe fire, ready to level the entire bar, and it only intensifies the moment her sharpened gaze lands on him.
“ Jacob Pabst Peralta! ” She shrieks. He winces and scrambles backwards, eyes going wide as she storms toward him.
“That’s not my middle name,” is all he can think to say as she throws the lone chair standing in the path between them to the side.
“Like I care ?” She barks. “I wanna know what you did to Amy!”
His throat dries out, and he’s suddenly acutely aware of the fact that every other eye in the bar - including Charles, where he’s spying from the kitchen - is fixated on Jake. Heat floods his cheeks and forehead and splotches on his neck. “What’re you talking about?” He mumbles.
Gina makes an impatient sound. “Don’t start that with me, don’t you dare.” She snaps, digging through her purse for her phone. “Look.” She says once the screen is unlocked and her texts are pulled up.
From: Rosa Diaz
We’re done. Have to look out for Amy. Ur too close to Jake. Sorry.
There’s this horrible, sinking feeling in his gut, this swelling in his throat that feels something like what he imagines swallowing his tongue would feel like. “Gina,” he chokes, “I’m - I’m so sorry -”
Gina cuts him off with a long, loud sigh. “What did you do ?” She asks, suddenly looking utterly exhausted.
He blinks, his heart throbbing and raw in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispers helplessly.
Before, she probably would have told him to screw off. She probably would have ripped him a new one, made him jump through all manner of hoops to earn her forgiveness.
“I’ll never forgive you for as long as I work here.” She says quietly.
She quits the next day. He’s not sure what it means in terms of her forgiving him - he’s not sure it matters.
So by the end of the month, Jake and Charles are the only ones left. Jake’s sort of living in this unspeakable dread, this ever-lasting constant state of distress, because he hates his boss and he hates his job and he hates the fact that his only friend in the entire world is Charles, who’s clearly miserable, but only hanging on for Jake’s sake.
He makes it another week. Which, on paper, doesn’t seem like much. But it reality it’s the greatest show of strength Jake has ever made.
In addition to greasy low-lifes, the bar has also become notorious for allowing underage drinking. Jake’s not exactly sure when that started up again, considering he still staunchly refuses to serve anyone under the age of fifty without seeing an ID first, but kids start creeping back up pretty quickly. They all have that same disappointed look when Jake asks for ID’s, they all mutter the same obscene things under their breath when Jake turns them away. It doesn’t matter, not really.
He quits on a Tuesday evening.
Spontaneity has always been his friend, but on this particular night, Jake hates it with a burning passion. Because Pembroke randomly decided to show up on that night, and apparently watching Jake make drinks was his top priority. He’s been standing near the kitchen with his arms folded over his chest for over an hour, and Jake is studiously ignoring him.
(Tuesdays always gave way to a little bit of extra hope for Jake, and, inevitably, always lead to a bigger disappointment.)
Those three idiots show up around nine. They come in with all the poorly-concealed wide-eyed nervousness he’s seen in every other underage drinker trying out their fake ID for the first time, and Jake is already sighing before they’ve even struggled up into their stools. One of them, the one with the nose ring and the maroon beanie, slides into Amy’s stool. He resists the urge to snarl at her right then and there.
“Can we get three beers?” The one in the middle - the leader, Jake thinks - asks. There’s a brutish quality to this one’s voice, an empty robustness arching over what Jake is sure to be a massive pile of false confidence. He doesn’t hide it when he rolls his eyes.
“ID’s?” He asks, bored.
They exchange a look as they reach for their wallets, and Jake clenches his jaw impatiently. It’s almost like they’re sharing a joke at his expense, and it makes him want to scream.
They’re all fake. It’s pretty obvious. Each card puts them at 25; Jake arches a brow at them over the tops of the ID cards.
They’re maybe, barely 18.
“Sorry, guys. We don’t accept fake ID’s.” He says shortly, thrusting the cards back at them. They all deflate, adapting that familiar old disappointed look, but before they can slide of the stools in dejection Jake feels a presence appear at his elbow.
“Hold on,” Pembroke says. The three pause, gazes suddenly curious. “Do you kids have money?”
“Yeah,” he leader nods quickly.
Pembroke slaps Jake’s shoulder. “One beer won’t kill ‘em.”
“No, but it will get me arrested.” Jake snaps. Pembroke’s eyebrows shoot upward. “I’m not serving alcohol to minors.”
“C’mon, didn’t your old man ever let you take a sip of his beer when you were their age?”
Jake’s vision flashes red for a brief moment. “I’m not doing it.”
The easy-going light in Pembroke’s eyes wavers for a moment. “Either serve these kids a beer,” he starts, voice low and dangerous, “or walk that big white ass of yours out that front door, and never come back.”
Jake considers his options for a brief moment. He could leave, leave this god-awful hole and be free of it forever but seal his fate in never seeing Amy again, or he could compromise everything and serve the beers on the fumes of a chance that Amy might reappear.
He smirks, rips the hand towel from his shoulder, hurls it on the ground, and walks away.
And from his car, he dials 911 to report underage drinkers inside the bar.
The brief spike of pleasure he feels upon spotting the flashing red-and-blue lights in his rearview mirror lasts all of ten minutes, before the crushing weight of his latest reality comes crashing down on top of him. For the first time in a very long time, Jake is completely and totally alone.
Or at least, he’s alone for a while.
He wallows for a few days - he can’t help himself. He just never expected everything around him to fall apart all at once; that’s justification enough to garner two straight days only getting out of bed to find food and to use the bathroom. It’s not like anyone outside the four walls of his apartment is looking for him, anyways.
His phone dies sometime during the first day, worked to death with all the incessant and unanswered texts from Charles. If Jake were any less numb, he might feel bad for not answering. As it is, he just doesn’t care.
For two days, he allows it all to destroy him. But on the third day, he gets out of bed and stays there. Baby steps, he reasons. He does laundry. He takes a shower. He makes up his bed, and then cleans the dishes. He’s still numb, but suddenly the edges of his vision aren’t so fuzzy and dark anymore.
On the fifth day, he picks his phone up off the floor and plugs it into the charger. It takes a few minutes for the thing to come back to life, but once it does Jake perches on the edge of his bed and flicks through the fifty-seven new text messages - forty-nine of which are from Charles (the most important being the first one, the one sent two minutes after Jake called the cops, informing him that Charles had also just quit). Five are from his mother, and three are from Terry. He fires back a few quick responses assuring everyone that he is, in fact, still alive - feigning the loss of his phone as his excuse - before he notices the new voicemail icon at the top corner of the screen.
He almost doesn’t listen. It’s pure instinct that makes him dial in.
“Jacob, this is Ray Holt.” A familiar baritone voice echoes in his ear. “I wondered if I might have a word with you, in person, sometime in the next seven days. If you would, please, drop by one-seven-four-three, Maplewood Street. The building is under construction at the moment, but you’re welcome to come inside. I’m working out of the office in the very back for now. Again, please come by anytime during the day if you get this message in the next seven days.”
Jake checks the timestamp - the message is from three days ago.
Twenty minutes later, he steps out of the cab somewhere in Brooklyn and squints up through the bright morning sun at the building Holt sent him to. The being under construction part was a massive exaggeration - the whole place is practically gutted, torn apart down to the barest bones. It’s massive, though, almost to warehouse proportions. Jake can’t help but to feel a little dwarfed beside it.
Inside, construction workers are scurrying back and forth across a wide-open floor plan. Jake can see the beginnings of a wall rising up to his left - right now it’s nothing more than the steel beams that will probably later serve as studs in the wall - and there are random, open pipes that look a little bit like plumbing protruding from the ground in a few places. Jake can see a doorway far off along the back wall, tucked away from the chaos, door opened just enough to send a long line of fluorescent light stretching across the otherwise shadowy floor. Jake starts toward it carefully, pausing and ducking every now and then when a construction worker rushes across his path.
Holt is seated at a large wooden desk inside the spacious (but sparse) office, pouring over what appears to be blueprints. Jake knocks on the ajar door lightly, carefully pushing it open a bit wider, and when Holt glances up over the rims of his reading glasses, Jake has to choke down the sudden urge to cry. He hadn’t realized how much he missed Holt until that exact moment.
“Jake.” Holt leans backwards, pulling his readers off his nose and gesturing toward the empty guest chair closest to where Jake is standing. “Please, sit. I’d like to discuss something rather important with you.”
Jake sits, suddenly feeling like he’s been called to the principal’s office. He tries to think of something to say - something witty, something to lighten the mood - but when he opens his mouth he feels a dangerous lump rise up in his throat and a familiar sting behind his eyes. So he clamps his lips shut and waits.
“First of all, I heard about what happened at Shaw’s.” Holt says. Jake has half a mind to remind him that it’s no longer called Shaw’s, but something about the look in Holt’s eyes tells him to just keep his mouth firmly closed. “I wanted to commend you for standing by your morals. It’s only a matter of time before that man runs that bar into the ground, and I felt nothing but relief when I learned that no one from my old squad was going down with it.”
Jake clenches his jaw and nods, before he feels the corner of his mouth twitch. “Squad?” He asks quietly.
A faint sparkle of humor flashes in Holt’s eyes. “I like to think of us as a team,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Regardless, this brings me to my second issue: have you already found employment?”
Jake’s gut twists. He had not, in fact, even gotten to thinking about that. He still has enough money left over in his account from his last paycheck, and he’s pretty sure he’s got at least one more coming after that, but beyond that lies another bottomless abyss of uncertainty. “No, I haven’t.” He says, voice rasping.
“I was hoping that might be your answer.” Holt leans forward, sliding the blueprints across the desk toward Jake. “I’m currently in the process of building my own brewery.” He says as Jake tilts his head, trying to make sense of the mess of white lines before him. “My husband and I had more than enough saved up for our collective retirement, but Kevin graciously agreed that building a brewery would be a solid investment. He trusts that my passion will earn back our retirement two-fold, at the very least.”
Jake peers up at Holt, doing his best to make his smile as genuine as possible. “That’s great,” he says weakly. “I’m - I’m really happy for you guys.”
“Thank you. It’s not just going to be a brewery, though - I plan to have a fully functioning restaurant and bar put in here,” he points to one particular area on the bird’s-eye blueprint, around where Jake thinks he’d seen the beginnings of a wall just a few minutes before. “And we’re going to build on a large back patio here, so that customers can enjoy the night air while they dine.”
“Wow,” Jake says, honestly impressed.
“I’ve already hired Terry to oversee the brewery portion of the business. Charles has readily accepted my offer to be head chef. Gina’s agreed to be the head of my wait staff. All I need now is to find my chief bartender.” He pauses, his gaze pointedly fixated on Jake’s face.
Jake stares for a moment, before he starts. “Wha- me ?”
“I can triple the salary you were making at Shaw’s.”
“Wait, wait, you - you’re offering me a job? After what I did?”
“I’m not interested in the completely justified actions you took against a sexual predator.” Holt says shortly. “I am interested in how fiercely loyal you have been over the last four years, both as an employee and - as a friend.”
Jake stares, gaping, before that same lump from before comes rising up his throat. He clenches his jaw quickly, staring hard at the blueprints, waiting until his vision is no longer blurry before looking back up at Holt.
“Will you please be my chief bartender?” Holt asks plainly.
“ Hell yes.”
Holt tells him there are still several months of construction left before the scheduled grand opening of his brewery. But he’d officially added Jake to the payroll three days previously, and two weeks later Jake checks his bank account to see an impressive deposit from the Ninety-Ninth Brewery in his transaction history.
Three months later, Jake’s grin is blinding and genuine where he stands on the front steps behind Holt, applauding along with the rest of the staff as Holt proudly cuts the red ribbons at the grand opening celebration.
He doesn’t actually have to tend bar once they’re all inside for the formal celebration - his official first day is tomorrow - but there are dozens of barrels full of ice and beer and trays of champagne glasses and wine glasses littered across the tables and shelves, and before long Jake finds himself with a beer in hand, surrounded by the former Shaw’s staff, laughing along with Terry as they listen to Gina recount a run-in she’d had with one of their former regulars at the dry cleaner’s the week before.
“Hey, Gina,” he calls once the throng begins to dissolve. She pauses, half-turned away, brows raised behind the rim of her wine glass. “Listen, I - I wanted to apologize. I really am so, so sorry for what happened with you and Rosa. I did something really stupid, without thinking, and I feel awful that it affected you, too.”
“It’s fine.” She sniffs, gaze drifting over his head. “Rosa and I were doomed from the start, anyways. I’m way out of her league.”
Jake snorts, before he sobers. “So - so you forgive me?”
Her gaze suddenly flicks back to his face, annoyed. “I told you, I would never forgive you as long as I worked at Shaw’s.”
“Yeah?” He says after a brief pause.
Gina spins slowly, gesturing to their surroundings. “Does it look like I still work at Shaw’s?”
He grins. “Nope. Not one bit.”
She nods decisively, raising her glass to clink against the neck of his beer bottle. “You’re damn right about that.”
Somehow, the party becomes even more enjoyable after that.
The Ninety-Ninth Brewery is an overnight success. Within a week, the place is absolutely packed, and Jake quickly realizes that he is not going to be able to keep pace with the demands alone. Holt gives him full hiring power for behind the bar, so he pretty quickly has three college students working for him. His favorite - his second in-command - is a twenty-year-old named Daisy. She’s a natural at memorizing orders, which makes her perfect to rush out and grab orders from tables while Jake and the other two deal with the crowds at the bar. It’s far busier than Shaw’s ever was, but somehow Jake finds himself actually enjoying it. He doesn’t even mind that he’s working pretty much every single day throughout the week.
The place is such a smashing success that it gets a nickname from its’ hoards of regulars in just three days - within weeks, the Nine-Nine’s brunches are legendary (Jake catches Charles steadily crying in the kitchen as he pins positive food critic reviews to the wall next to the fridge), along with their mixed drinks, cocktails, and local beer selections. It even gets featured in a magazine, in an article that talks about all the coolest, most promising new places to visit in Brooklyn.
(Holt has that one framed and hanging in his office - it’s one of the only things on the wall.)
For the first time in a long time, Jake feels happy. Genuinely, down in his bones. It’s not perfect, but to be fair he doesn’t think anything will ever feel perfect again - not when he knows someone like Amy exists out there in the world. But he’s okay, for now. He’s steady.
Or at least, he thinks he’s steady, until Daisy brings him an order that throws everything back into chaos.
He’s in the kitchen with Charles, sometime between the lunch rush and the dinner rush. There’s not a whole lot going on - he can keep an eye on the bar through the service window, plus Daisy’s out there somewhere taking care of things, which is why he’s not feeling too guilty about goofing off on the job. He’s just about to ask if he can try putting the fries in the frier when the kitchen door swings open and Daisy edges slowly inside.
She looks bemused, uncertain, and it makes Jake pause. “What’s up?” He asks when the door swings shut behind her.
“I just got a drink order,” she says, and then she stops, like that’s the full answer.
“Okay...and?” Jake prompts.
“She - she said I had to repeat it word-for-word. To you , specifically, Jake.” He furrows his brow. “She says she wants...a Jim Beam on the rocks, and no, Jack is not okay instead.”
From the corner of his eye, he sees a little jerking movement from Charles, but suddenly his gaze has zeroed in on Daisy, rendering the rest of his surroundings to little more than a colorful blur. Daisy looks, if possible, even more confused than before at Jake’s reaction.
“D’you know her or something?”
Jake forces himself to swallow. “What table?” He asks quietly.
“Nineteen, out on the patio.”
He nods, jaw set, and walks past Daisy without a word. The drink preparation takes almost no time at all, despite the fact that he draws it out for as long as possible. So with a resigned sigh, he grips the glass tightly and starts the death march out toward the patio.
Rosa’s lounging in her chair, feet kicked up into the chair across the table from her. She’s wearing her cop uniform, and Jake realizes with a distant jolt that she must have finished at the academy at some point. She watches him approach evenly, looking completely unperturbed, and he has to force himself to walk all the way to her table without getting completely unnerved.
He stops two feet short, clutching the glass tightly. She eyes it, before looking back up at him expectantly. “S’that Jim?”
“Yeah.”
Her feet disappear just before the chair jerks backwards violently. “Sit.” She orders, nodding toward the chair as she straightens up.
He hesitates, and then sits. He slides the glass across the table and she takes it from him just to immediately tilt the glass back and drain half the contents in one go. Her head tilts forward again, and as she wipes the liquid pooled at her upper lip, Jake works very hard to resist the urge to speak.
“Amy doesn’t know I’m here.” Rosa says suddenly. And even though he’d been prepared for it, his entire heart practically bursts just at the sound of Amy’s name. Rosa doesn’t say anything else - she just looks at him, slowly twisting her glass between her hands.
“A-are - are you gonna tell her?” Jake finally asks.
“Depends.” Rosa shrugs.
“On what?”
“Is Gina working here?”
“Uh - yeah. Not right now. She’s got today off. But, yeah, she does work here.” He longs to pursue the conversation - he hasn’t felt quite brave enough to broach the subject with Gina yet - but he resists.
“Good.” Rosa grunts. “So like I said, whether or not I tell Amy that I came here is gonna depend on how you answer one question.”
Jake sucks down a deep, steadying breath. “Okay.”
“What did you do that night?”
“I saw some guy pour something in her drink -”
“ Not what you did to the shithead. I don’t wanna hear about the shithead anymore. I’ve heard about the shithead a thousand times, from her and from detectives and from other shitheads. I don’t wanna hear about the shithead ever again.” She pauses, eyes squeezed shut, and Jake waits. “I meant - what did you do after that?”
He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.
“It’s the one thing about that night that I can’t get her to talk about. She said you were there, and she said something happened, but she won’t tell me what it is. I haven’t lived with her for very long in the grand scheme of things but I know her well enough to know that whatever it was that happened in that alley really, really screwed her up. So tell me . I need to know how hard I have to kick your ass.”
Jake nods, staring down at the tabletop to avoid looking her in the eye. “I can already tell you that you’re gonna have to kick my ass hard. ” He mutters.
“I’ll be the judge of that. Talk.”
And he does.
She stays quiet the entire time, head tilted a degree, listening intently. He can see the way she’s absorbing details with each minute flicker in her dark eyes. He can’t look her in the eye when he gets to the kiss.
When he’s done, he keeps his head bowed. She stays quiet for a long while - save for the sounds of ice shifting in her drink when she lifts the glass - and just when he thinks he’s going to jump up to vault the railing at the far end of the patio and fling himself into oncoming traffic, Rosa leans forward. “So, you kissed her.”
“Yeah.”
“Right after she almost got assaulted.”
His face burns in shame. “Uh-huh.”
“To calm her down, because she was crying.”
“Yeah.”
“And not because you actually have feelings for her.”
He hesitates. “I - um -”
Rosa snorts, and then stands. She fishes her wallet out of her back pocket and produces a twenty dollar bill, which she tucks beneath the edge of her empty glass. “You’re a complete and total moron, you know that?”
He nods miserably as she tucks her wallet back into place.
“Give me three days.”
She’s already walking away when he absorbs what she’s just said, and by the time he whips around in his seat, she’s disappeared into the brewery.
Leaving him to wait.
Luckily, it’s Friday, which means that the next three days fly by in a blur of activity. He likes to pretend like he doesn’t think about what Rosa said much, but in reality the conversation sits like an everlasting flame in the back of his mind.
He wakes up on the morning of the fourth day absurdly nervous. It shouldn’t affect him this much, he reasons, especially considering he has nothing more to go on than Rosa Diaz’s word. He doesn’t even really know what she meant when she said what she said.
But something in him tells him to trust her. So he does, rather blindly.
He’s an hour early for his evening shift, no longer able to sit around at home watching the time tick by.
It’s pretty busy for a Tuesday, which he’s grateful for - he can only ever truly take his mind off of things when he’s making a drink. After a while, he forgets his nerves, forgets Rosa’s promise, forgets everything other than drink recipes. Daisy’s practically sprinting back and forth between tables on the patio and the bar, barking out orders the way she does when it’s too busy to use proper words. Jake fills each order mindlessly while the other two bartenders deal with the crowd. They have this whole thing down to a science, a well-crafted and well-oiled machine.
Daisy practically slams into the side of the bar, gasping for air, but Jake barely spares her a glance. The bottle of Jack in his hand is half-full, just light enough to be handled with one hand, so Jake’s in the middle of reaching for an orange peel with his left while keeping an eye on the whiskey level in the glass.
“I need a Jim Beam on the rocks and a blackberry whiskey lemonade for table twenty-three on the patio!” Daisy recites once she catches her breath.
The bottle of Jack slips from Jake’s hand and shatters on the floor at his feet. “A what ?” He shouts.
Daisy opens her mouth to repeat herself, but Jake doesn’t give her a chance. He’s already tearing out from behind the bar, bobbing and weaving between tables, racing toward the patio doors.
It’s more crowded out here than he realized, which brings him to a screeching halt once he’s actually outside. He scans the tables quickly, heart in his throat, until at last he spots two pairs of eyes fixated on him from the far corner.
Amy is even more breathtaking than he remembered. Her hair is down, hanging in soft cascading curls that pool just beneath the lines of her shoulders. She’s gotten in cut since that night, he realizes with an absurd hitch in his chest. Her expression is unreadable, but she’s staring at him, frozen in place, fists clenched against the table. Everything about her posture screams a tenseness he’d only ever seen in her in the days leading up to big tests. He swallows hard at the sudden realization that he was the one who put her there.
Rosa stands suddenly, ducking her head to murmur something to Amy before crossing behind Amy’s chair and starting toward Jake. His heart skips a beat before he realizes that she’s not actually heading toward him - rather, she’s headed inside. She knocks her shoulder into him harshly when she walks by, and the jolt is enough to shake him out of his sudden hypnosis.
The walk between where he stands and where she sits is the longest stretch of space he’s ever had to cross. She doesn’t look away once as he approaches, though he notes that she licks her lips nervously when he gets within earshot. He pauses when he reaches her table, hand hovering over the back of the one chair no one was sitting in - the one directly across from Amy.
The chair jerks backwards suddenly, and Amy winces. “Sorry,” she whispers. She’d kicked it out for him.
He grips the chair as hard as he can as he drags it backwards the rest of the way before he drops into it. He can feel himself openly marveling at Amy’s face, but he can’t help himself - it’s a little like thinking he’s never going to see the sun again before it suddenly reappears, as brilliant and blinding as it was before.
“Hi,” she offers after a long moment of silence.
Jake blinks a few times, and then snaps his jaw shut. “Hi,” he rasps.
She leans forward, drumming her fingertips against the table nervously. “Jake, I - I’m so sorry.”
He’s suddenly violently reunited with clarity. “Wait - what ? You’re sorry ?”
Amy looks completely taken aback by his incredulity. “Yeah?”
“Why - why are you apologizing to me ? I should be apologizing to you !”
“I - I’m apologizing because I just - I ghosted you!” She says, flabbergasted. “I just left that night, and I never came back - I never even thanked you for saving my life! I was a total jerk! Why are you apologizing to me ?”
Jake shakes his head quickly. “No, no, you weren’t a jerk, I was a jerk. I - I... kissed you, like, five minutes after that guy -” He stops suddenly, unable to even form the words. “I was a creepy jerk. I just acted on instinct and it was really creepy and I took advantage of you when you were in a vulnerable place. I never even apologized for that. I’m so sorry, Amy, god I’m so sorry.”
It’s Amy’s turn to shake her head. “You didn’t take advantage of me.” She mutters, dropping her gaze down to her tightly clasped hands. “That wasn’t what I thought at all. It was a little sudden , but...it was something I thought about doing for a really long time leading up to that night.”
Jake inhales sharply, hardly daring to believe her. “Really?” He asks quietly.
“Are you kidding me? Jake, you’re, like...you don’t even know how incredible you are, do you?” He shakes his head, moments away from choking on his own wonderment. “I’ve thought about doing exactly what you did for months before that night. In fact, if...if I hadn’t been dying, I totally would have done something like that the night I came in sick and you took me to your apartment and took care of me. The only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want you to get sick.”
He chokes out a laugh, before a sudden thought surfaces. “Wait - if you weren’t upset by that, why...why’d you leave?”
Her brows crease, and he supposes he can’t quite keep the echoes of those months that passed without her from affecting his voice. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I just - I was still so shaken up by what happened with the whole drink thing, and then my parents called because they saw my bank statement and they were so pissed - ”
“Why?” He interrupts before he can stop himself.
A rueful smile flashes across her face. “I was making purchases at a bar every single night for two weeks straight. The bank statement didn’t say anything about why I was in the bar so much, so they made a pretty understandable assumption that I was a raging alcoholic in the making.”
He laughs, breathless. “What was the real reason you were in so often?” He hears himself ask tentatively.
Her gaze is so soft it makes it hard for him to remember how to breathe. “To see you.” She says simply. She’s quiet for a moment while he absorbs it. “I convinced myself by the next day that the only reason you kissed me was just to calm me down. I thought it was instinct, something to get me to stop crying - so I made the decision that I needed some space, because...well, because I was heartbroken. So I stopped going. I was too embarrassed to tell Rosa what happened in the alley. I didn’t want her to think you were taking advantage of me.” She says the last four words slowly, pointedly, and his face heats up a bit. “I also didn’t want her to know I’d gotten my hopes up, and you’d shot me down. In my head, everything that happened in that alley was my fault. I was completely convinced that you’d never even thought of me in that way, and I was...humiliated. Plus, I was kind of afraid that Rosa would kick your ass if she found out. She’s, like, weirdly protective now.
“But anyways, I just kept making up excuses not to go. And then I couldn’t go because of a bunch of presentations and group projects that took up all of my free time. By the time I was finally free and brave enough to go back in, Shaw’s was gone. It was some awful dive bar - I think it was called the Falcon? - and when I asked the guy tending bar if you were still around, he said you’d quit the week before.”
Jake closes his eyes briefly, mentally cursing himself for only a moment.
“I stopped looking for you after a while. I had to focus on finals and on graduating. I told myself that if we were actually meant to be, fate would bring us back together on its’ own. Rosa told me I was stupid. I didn’t think she would actually find you without telling me, though.” Amy leans forward, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. “I’m...really glad she did.”
“So am I,” Jake says quickly. A bright smile illuminates her face, and he wants to cry at how much he’s missed this very sight. “God, I - this whole thing has been so stupid. I wanted to call you so badly that night but then I realized I didn’t have your number, and - and things just got really bad after that. I missed you.”
The last bit comes out before he can stop it. He’s only embarrassed before her hand lands against his forearm and squeezes gently; when he meets her gaze, he sees nothing but tenderness and affection. “I missed you, too. And I’m so sorry, Jake.” She says humbly. “I mean it. I had no idea - I figured you’d forgotten about me.”
He covers her hand with his own. “Impossible.” He whispers.
She stands then, leans across the table, and kisses him firmly. The endless months of haziness and depression begin to fade at the slow, deliberate slide of her lips against his, and when his free hand slips up around her neck to gently tangle in her soft tresses it feels like going home.
He’s not sure what he did in his life to earn this, but he’d gladly do it all over again if it leads him back to this moment every time.
It all ends far too quickly, even if it is right there in the middle of the workplace. Neither one of them seem to particularly care about their audience, though; in fact, the only reason Amy jumps away from him is because of the crash from somewhere inside the bar.
Jake whips around just in time to catch sight of Gina and Rosa clambering over Charles’ pizza tray display, which has fallen to the ground beneath them. For a wild moment, Jake thinks they might be physically fighting; but then Gina slams Rosa up against the wall and dives forward to engage in a messy, fervent kiss.
The whole patio erupts into shouts and cheers, and Jake can’t help it - he joins in, just for a second. “Rosa!” Amy cries over the din.
Rosa does not respond.
“Oh, god, I’m - I told her that if I had to come here and talk to you, she had to talk to Gina,” Amy says, clearly distressed. “I didn’t know that meant she was gonna damage private property!”
Jake leans forward to catch one of Amy’s hands, squeezing her fingers gently. “Relax, Ames,” he says, heart thudding solidly when she looks at him with those big brown eyes. “I’m sure Charles will be fi-”
“My pizza pans! ” Charles suddenly shrieks from somewhere inside the brewery.
They both wince. “Okay, maybe he won’t be fine,” Jake amends.
“I’ll buy him a new set,” she mutters as they both stand and rush inside. “I don’t know how - I don’t even have a job and I can barely afford groceries right now - but I’ll pay him back.”
“Don’t have a job?” A booming voice asks. They both freeze just inside the doorway - Holt’s walking toward them, a fond smile on his face. “How unlikely. You seem like such a capable worker, Ms. Santiago.”
Jake glances down at her - her eyes are wide as she swallows thickly. “I - I’d like to think so, sir,” she says. “I’ve only just graduated, so I still have a little time before it becomes a problem, but - I like to plan.”
Jake resists the urge to snort. “So I’ve gathered,” Holt says, clearly amused. “Well, it just so happens that I’m in the market to hire a handyman - or, handy woman - for the brewery. You know, someone who can do some basic plumbing.” His eyes sparkle with mirth. “If you’re interested, I’d be more than happy to bring you on-board.”
Amy exhales in a huff; clearly, it’s not what she was expecting. “I’d - I’d love to,” she says. “I was...kind of hoping to find something in my field of study, but...this wouldn’t be so bad in the meantime.”
“What’s your field of study?”
“Art history.”
“Hm. Well. I have been considering reaching out to local theaters and art studios to offer the open space back in the actual brewery for art shows and various performances, possibly even weddings...would you be more interested in a public liaison position instead? You’d coordinate the schedule and help book the brewery for events like that.”
Amy’s jaw has dropped when Jake glances down at her. “I - oh my god, are you serious ? Yes, yes , that - that’s literally my dream -”
“Welcome aboard, Amy.” Holt says with an even smile. “Would you be able to come in tomorrow morning to start the new hire paperwork?”
“Yes. Yes sir, absolutely. I’ll be here first thing in the morning.”
“Excellent. I look forward to doing business with you.” Holt finally tears his gaze away, landing on Rosa and Gina (who have not broken apart or slowed in any way throughout the entire conversation) with vague distaste. “Ladies.” He says loudly.
Gina finally yanks backwards, looking completely dazed. “What?” Rosa barks.
“Might I suggest continuing in your own private residence?” Holt says pointedly. “You have just destroyed Boyle’s pizza display.”
“Pizza pan display,” Charles corrects dejectedly.
“Sorry, Boyle,” Gina mutters, not sounding sorry at all.
“I will pay for a new set,” Amy says once Gina and Rosa have scurried off, hand-in-hand.
Charles glances up at her, then back down to the pans, and then he shrugs. “It’s alright,” he tells her. “Because you work here, now. You can just pay me back by dating Jake.”
“ Charles .” Jake snaps.
He shoots Jake an exaggerated wink. “You’ll thank me later!” He whisper-shouts before quickly backing into the kitchen.
“Unbelievable,” Jake mutters.
“Well,” Amy says beside him. “I gotta make this up to Charles. You heard the man.”
She’s smirking up at him, now, all teasing and soft. It’s a wonder Jake’s even still upright with that look. “Wouldn’t want you to owe him anything,” Jake mumbles before seizing her around her waist and dragging her closer. Her delighted laughter buzzes against his lips and her fingers slide up into his hair, and the missing chunk of his heart begins to regrow. Happy, healthy, whole.
ONE YEAR LATER
“Did the vendors drop off everything on the list?”
Jake resists the urge to roll his eyes - quite the feat, considering this is the fourth time Amy’s asked him that question in the last hour. “Yep, it’s all there.” He says calmly.
He watches her pace back and forth on the other side of the bar, her eyes hard and calculating as she scans her checklist. “You double checked against the list I gave you?”
“I triple-checked, babe.” He says truthfully. She seems to soften a little at the use of the petname - exactly the effect Jake was going for. “Trust me. Everything’s gonna go perfectly smoothly.”
Detached anguish ignites in the far corner of her gaze. “How do you know?”
“Because it always goes off without a hitch,” he shrugs. “What could possibly go wrong this time?”
“It’s a new theatre troupe, first of all, and secondly the leader sent me these really complicated diagrams of their prefered floor plan and I’m just - I’m not sure if I got it right or not.”
“You didn’t come home until three AM last night,” he reminds her, recalling briefly waking up to the mattress dipping violently beneath him when she’d thrown herself face-first into her pillow, still fully clothed. “If the guy complains - he can come talk to me. I’d be happy to field complaints from a guy who schedules Shakespeare in the Bar on a Tuesday night. But he won’t complain, because it looks absolutely incredible in there, as usual. It’s gonna be great, babe.”
She sighs and rolls her neck, leaning forward to rest her elbows against the bartop. He leans toward her on instinct, watching her eyes roll behind her eyelids as she tries to knead the stress out of her neck. He’ll have to remember to massage that area tomorrow morning. “You’re right,” she says, and he nods. “How d’you always know exactly what to say to calm me down?”
“Same way you always know what to say when I get too jittery,” he shrugs, going back to the task he’d been working on when she came out of the brewery room ten minutes earlier. “Magic.”
She scoffs, clearly ready to shoot some witty retort back at him, but then the front doors open and a rather portly blond man steps inside, gazing around the room with wide eyes. “Hi!” Amy calls brightly, sliding off her stool and starting toward the man. “Are you Chris?”
“I am,” he says, meeting her halfway and shaking her hand enthusiastically. “This place is awesome, even better than the pictures,” he says as Amy turns back toward the bar.
“Thank you! We like it a lot,” she laughs. “This is Jake, our chief bartender. He’ll be mixing drinks as people come in, and then we have two more bartenders who’ll hang out inside the actual performance space during the show.”
“Hey.” Jake reaches across the bar to shake Chris’ hand.
“Nice to meet you.” Chris says politely, before turning his attention back to Amy. “D’you mind if I take a look at the stage? I just wanna make sure everything looks good before the band starts hauling stuff inside.”
Amy nods, and to the untrained eye it’s just a simple nod. Jake, however, sees the little mental preparation - the acceptance of potential failure. He catches her eye just before she disappears into the brewery, winking in what he hopes is a supportive way.
She leaves the door open, and even though their voices are distorted in the cavernous room beyond, Chris’ awe is clearly audible. Jake grins to himself.
They reappear a few minutes later, Amy looking completely and utterly pleased with herself. “I’ll text the guys and let ‘em know they can start hauling instruments and props inside and everything,” Chris says as he slides onto a stool. “Is it too early to start drinking?” He asks Jake as he digs his phone out of his back pocket.
“Not at all, man,” Jake says, quickly tossing the hand towel in his hand over his shoulder and setting the stack of pint glasses he’d just finished drying to the side. “What’ll it be?”
Chris purses his lips, scanning over the drink menu hanging behind Jake. “Man, you guys have a lot of specials,” he says with a laugh. “I guess that’s what you’d expect from a brewery. Hm, I think...I think I’ll start with a Santiago Special.”
Jake grins broadly. From the corner of his eye, he can see Amy shaking her head, clearly highly amused. “One blackberry whiskey lemonade comin’ right up.” He says, careful to keep his voice even.
He sets about making the drink, hands moving over the appropriate bottles on instinct more than anything else. Chris is absorbed in his phone, but Amy’s watching Jake’s hands. He pauses deliberately, long enough for her gaze to flick up to his face. He smiles, small and secret, and her face flushes into a delicate shade of pink when she smiles a small secret smile of her own back at him.
Jake slides the glass across the bar to Chris, and Chris’ eyes widen the moment the liquid hits his taste buds. “Holy shit that’s good,” he says once he’s drained the glass. Amy snorts. “Can I go ahead and get a refill?”
Jake smiles. “‘Course.”
Twenty minutes later, the front doors are propped open, and Jake leans back against the back counter behind the bar as he watches Chris’ troupe hauling props and instruments inside. He can hear Amy’s voice echoing through the brewery room, getting closer all the time, and when she appears in the doorway looking just short of stressed he pushes off the back counter and leans toward her. “Everything alright?”
“Fine. Little stressful, but what else is new?” She asks as she perches on the edge of the nearest stool.
He laughs appreciatively. “Hey, what’s on the schedule for tomorrow night?”
She tips her planner open to spread it across the bar. “I’ve got an art show with the studio two blocks over,” she says, before looking up at him curiously. “Why?”
“D’you think you can pass that one off to your assistant?”
She frowns as she considers it. “John has been dying to coordinate something for a long time now,” she says thoughtfully. “I guess I could...I could hand him the reigns. Most of the planning is done, anyways, it’s just all the last-minute stuff that’ll come up tomorrow morning. But, yeah, this could be good for him. It’ll be like a test-run.” Her expression brightens, before she narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”
“I wanna take you out. On a date. We haven’t gone on a date in a while. I just wanna go to dinner and then maybe catch a movie, or something.”
“By ‘catch a movie’ do you mean ‘turn Die Hard on and make out on the couch?’” She teases.
His cheeks redden. “One time, I ask one time and you just can’t let it go, can you?” He mutters. She giggles and shakes her head. “ No , that’s not what I mean. It’s a surprise, actually, but - please?”
Amy’s interest is obviously piqued. “Okay,” she says slowly. “I’ll call John right now.” She slides off the bar stool, phone already in hand, but doesn’t make it more than three steps before stopping and whipping around. “Don’t forget to have the glasses of champagne ready for when this show starts. I poured my whole soul into this one, I wanna celebrate.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he salutes as she turns away. He watches her retreating back carefully, waiting until she’s disappeared into the bright sunlight outside, before turning away and quickly grabbing the two champagne glasses he’d hidden earlier. The one in his left hand rattles slightly upon moving - he lifts it up to eye-level and grins at the engagement ring sitting at the bottom of the glass.
“Jake?” He nearly drops the glass at the sound of Amy’s voice, loud and echoing from the doorway. He quickly shoves the glasses back onto the shelf, trying this best to look innocent beneath Amy’s curious stare. “What are you doing?”
“The, uh, the champagne flute - it had, like, weird water marks on it or something. I don’t think it got washed very well.”
She pulls a face. “Gross. Make sure we get clean ones later.”
He nods, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s already hurrying back into the brewery. “Hey, wait!” She stops short, looking expectant. “Did John agree?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, it was such a short conversation. But yeah, he’s totally down.” She smiles broadly. “Can’t wait!”
“Me either. Come see me when you can.”
She hurries toward him and hauls herself up on the lower foot rails near the bottom of the bar stool for the added height needed to lean all the way across the bar. He leans toward her, meeting her in the middle, and the kiss they share is soft and chaste. “I love you,” she murmurs a beat later, once they’ve broken apart.
He thinks of the engagement ring hidden three feet behind him, of the dinner reservations and the club that’s legendary for great dancing he’d scoped out three days previously. His heart stutters nervously upon realizing that it’s all just a matter of hours away, the future he’s always wanted so close to finally being in his grasp. “I love you, too.” He tells her, heart fluttering when she smiles up at him. “Hey, um...wear that yellow dress tomorrow night.”
Amy grins knowingly, cheekily, but Jake feels absolutely no shame whatsoever. “You got it,” she says with a wink.
She’s off like a rocket after that, rushing off into the chaos of the brewery, launching herself directly into the eye of the storm. Within just a few hours the front room is packed with people ordering cocktails and buying drink tickets from the little booth next to the brewery entrance, and even though Jake’s struggling to keep up with the crowd, he can’t stop smiling.
He’s always liked Tuesday nights behind the bar, anyways.