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It’s almost a half hour past ten, and the nine—ten, if Jake includes Rosa’s new love interest, Alicia (he isn’t entirely sure what to call the small but sweet brunette, as his friend has never been one to share much about her life), which he does—of them, his second family, are here with him and his wife (fuck, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over saying it), mostly drunk on champagne and rosé and the celebration of both the Santiago-Peralta’s (they’re still playing with the name) and the results of the race for commissioner.
(Holt won, of course.)
Even though Terry is regaling some anecdote from his bachelor party and they’re technically surrounded by their friends, Jake still feels like he and Amy are alone, in a sense. They’re still perched on their bar stools, and she’s leaning against his shoulder, cradling a glass flute in her right hand, and lightly tracing slow, languid patterns on his knee with her left, humming something quiet against the sleeve of his tux jacket. If he stops and thinks about this moment, this one still frame of time, he concludes that it is not real, because it’s too good—she’s too good. But she’s really here, and he’s here too, and he covers her animated hand with his, halting her ministrations, and brushes the smooth gold ring that rests on her fourth finger with his thumb.
He still can’t believe it.
When he glances down, she’s got her eyes closed (champagne makes her sleepy), and even though her eyeliner is smudged and the mauve of her lipstick has worn off, the way her eyelashes rest like black ink against her cheek makes her look soft, temperate. In a slow but fluid motion, he presses his lips to the top of her head, to her hairline, for a few beats, and she sighs, faint.
“Hey lovebirds, hope you didn’t forget about your first dance!” They both look up to see Gina smirking, Amy even lifting her cheek from his shoulder to furrow her brow. “My sitter gets off in an hour, so let’s get this show on the road. I need to properly make fun of you two tonight.”
“Our wedding band isn’t here,” Amy says.
“I can just play it on my phone,” Terry offers in return, smiling proudly. “Sharon and I decided to spring for Spotify last month, and we have two more free months.”
Amy shakes her head then. “It’s not on Spotify, or anywhere really.”
“I’m sure I could find it.”
So she glances at Jake, who just grins, rubbing light circles into the small of her back. “It’s an acoustic version of ‘Orinoco Flow.’”
A collective groan rings out through their little group, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Holt rolling his eyes affectionately. It’s then that Alicia, who wandered in fifteen minutes ago and has been glued to Rosa’s side for most of that time, offers to play something from the playlist of songs she thinks should be in a Nancy Meyers’ film and Rosa looks like she might be in love. Jake decides that it’s one of the most adorable things in the world (and to be fair, he thinks that the expression on her face likely reflects his whenever Amy is within ten feet of him).
Amy’s eyes widen. “Thank you, but you know, guys, we don’t have any way to play it. I highly doubt Shaw’s has—”
A man pops up from behind the bar, cutting her off. “Got an aux hook-up right here.” If Jake focuses, he can recall that same knowing, smirking face that night five years ago, in the same bar when he coerced the bartender into letting him play the “Steerage Jig” from Titantic.
“Guess we have no choice,” Amy says, sighing.
A grin creeping onto his face, Charles turns to the nearby crowd standing in the relatively wide space, sing-songs, “Make way, make way!”
Glancing back down at Amy, Jake smiles widely, despite himself, and takes her hand in his, lets their fingers intertwine in the natural, almost automatic way he often doesn’t quite register. “Ready to embarrass ourselves in front of our friends?”
“Wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”
“‘Wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else’: title of our sex-tape.”
Amy groans loudly, and he takes it as an opportunity to lean down since she’s still sitting on the little bar stool, kiss her, and she sinks into it, wrapping an arm around his neck like she likes to, her left hand moving to cup his face, and he can hear their friends rolling their eyes. But they don’t break apart until Terry shouts: “Peralta! Stop making out with your wife and come dance!”
When they do pull away, she’s still got one palm on his cheek and she pecks his lips again—once, twice—and then she’s pushing herself off her stool and dragging him onto the dance floor, wrapping her arms around his neck as the first strums of a guitar play over the speaker, and his hands snake around her waist while their friends let out over-the-top whoops and whistles.
It’s not a song he recognizes, but the lyrics are slow and sweet, falling over the gentle pluck of guitar strings like thick syrup. When he looks back to the squad, to his friends, it seems like Charles may pass out at any moment, or have a heart attack, and even Rosa is smiling bigger than he’s ever seen (although every few seconds or so she’s glancing down at Alicia, who is grinning softly).
But his gaze drifts back to Amy, who kicked off her heels at one point during the night—five drink Amy and added height do not mix well—and is leaning her head against his chest and when he presses his lips to the crown of her hair, he closes his eyes, settling into the sharp lemon of her shampoo and he wonders if he’s ever been this happy. They’re not even dancing really, just swaying back and forth slowly, which he thinks must be a blessing because, despite that one widows’ salsa class that they left halfway through, Amy has not improved in the slightest and a few nights ago, when they had practiced in their living room to an acoustic version of “Africa,” she stepped on his toes more times than he could count and it devolved into them giggling over her ineptitude.
Fuck, he loves her.
He thinks that they must make quite a picture—a newly married couple just barely swaying out of sync to the soft music playing over the crackling speakers in a rowdy bar on a Sunday night, while their friends and drunk patrons surround them with hollers and whoops, with flashing phones and wide smiles. Amy’s dress pooling at her feet, dragging just a little on the ground. Her hands combing through his cropped hair. His lips on the skin just about her eyebrow, on the blush of her cheek, on the very tip of her nose that often scrunches in a way that makes him want to kiss her every second of every day.
The song ends, as all songs do, and when it does he barely registers it until the rest of the bar cheers and guitar is replaced with heavy bass and the rest of their friends join in. She looks up at him again then, and when she kisses him for what seems like the hundredth time that night he can feel her smile against his lips, and he’s sure she can feel the same on his end.
I am thinking it's a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images
And when we kiss they're perfectly aligned