Chapter Text
You are cordially invited to the 15-year reunion for New York University’s Class of 2000. Please note that our dress code is business casual, and you are allowed to bring one guest.
“I’m not going unless I have a date,” Jake had insisted, so Amy’d pulled her navy blue dress out of the closet and put on the girlfriend persona once more. This was her lucky dress, after all. It’d succeeded in getting her two waltzes on overwaxed dance floors, and she thought the third time might be the charm.
“One hotel room?” she asked him, cell phone in hand and yellow legal pad in full display as she made the plans. Jake nodded ー it saved money, right? they’d shared a bed before, no big deal ー but his blood still thrummed against his veins at the thought of him and Amy and a hotel room. He knew what that meant.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jake groaned, looking at the five suitcases Gina had chosen to bring along. “The reunion is for, like, three days! Why do you and Rosa need this much stuff?”
“These are all for me. Rosa’s bringing her duffel bag,” Gina snapped. “And I need to bring my makeup.”
“Five suitcases’ worth?! There’s no way your dermatologist is even allowed to prescribe that much moisturizer and cream for one face. The FDA would come after him.”
“I have very sensitive skin,” Gina said, arms folded.
They drove out in two days’ time, booking hotel rooms near each other. One for Gina and Rosa, the actual couple. A cheaper bedroom for Jake and Amy, the fake one. Amy’d offered to put up another hundred dollars if it meant a queen-size bed and a decent breakfast (growing up, her parents hoarded those free granola bars and danishes), but Jake refused. This was his reunion, not hers. She could tell it wasn’t a good time to push him.
Amy’d heard bits and pieces of Jake’s college years. Stories about meeting Gina (doing improv on the street dressed in knockoff designer clothes) and Rosa (wielding a knife in Intro to Food Science), sure, but nothing really concrete. It seemed a little… shrouded in mystery, maybe? She loved him. She didn’t want to pry, yet some deeper part of her personality yearned to. So she considered herself lucky, given this free pass to go on a whirlwind trip with him.
She didn’t feel that lucky, though. Here she was again, playing a stupid role. She’d be pushed around dinner tables and campus hallways pretending to date a man who wasn’t even interested in her that way. She’d plaster on a fake smile. She’d shake hands with a bunch of strangers who’d gone to school with Jake, not her. She’d forget their names as soon as they left. It was all so artificial, running around a school she’d never attended with a man she’d never dated.
If only she weren’t the odd one out.
She slumped onto the floor of her bedroom, the plane ticket saved on her phone, and she clutched her arms tightly. No use crying over spilt milk. No use getting upset over fake boyfriends and lonesome vacations to a college she didn’t even attend.
“Amy! You coming?” Jake hollered. “The car’s downstairs, let’s go already! The elevator in this apartment takes ages. I swear, it’s like we’re on the set of Grey’s Anatomy.”
She nodded before realizing he couldn’t see her. She tried to keep her composure up. No use ruining their big trip.
“You get it? Because the elevator on that show’s really slow and everyone, like, makes out in there, or has medical emergencies, or has deep conversations about life and death-”
“I get it, Jake.”
She wanted to slam doors, but that was pretty typical before you rushed down to catch your cab in the first place. Amy walked past him and tried to stomp a little, make the downstairs neighbors really miserable for a good twenty or thirty seconds. Anything to be angry out loud.
“Geez, what’s wrong now?” Jake muttered.
Gina rolled her eyes from the kitchen counter, having seen part of this go down. “You’re the one that’s wrong, kiddo.” She said it softly so he wouldn’t hear.
Jake would figure this out on his own time.
“Rosa?” he asked, turning around from the passenger seat of the car so he could see her. Amy was gazing out the window, and Jake wanted to give her some space. But he didn’t know how to leave well enough alone, so… taunting Rosa was his hobby now.
“Yeah?”
“Am I allowed to tell the story about the time you wrote a paper on Nora Ephron for your film class and got a C because-”
“I deserved at least a B!”
He grinned. “Don’t get her started about that one.”
Amy wished they’d shut up so she could listen to punk rock and glare out the car window in peace, but no. They were her friends and they’d be as loud as they pleased. You didn’t become best friends with Jake Peralta without building up a serious tolerance for noise and 2 AM banter.
Gina noticed. She coughed softly. “D’you mind being a little quieter?”
She and Amy exchanged a little i got you, girl head-nod.
“It’s for my meditation tapes-” Gina explained. “Beyonce says they’re the only thing that helps her sleep at night.”
“Meditation’s kind of a rip-off. I don’t get it. There’s nothing more meditative than the Smashing Pumpkins, in my opinion.” Rosa shrugged.
Amy rolled her eyes. “You don’t even like the Smashing Pumpkins that much.” She smiled, though, and the car rolled smoothly on its way to NYU.
Smooth seemed like a miracle, Amy thought. Traffic was usually a nightmare in the afternoon. But this was a reunion, built for miracles to fall into place. Built to mend scraps and bits, missed connections and maybes, into something more.
She kept listening to Fall Out Boy, head against the glass, and turned the volume down as the chatter died off.
They did, in fact, have a deep conversation about life and death near the elevator. Stuck waiting for a life to their impossibly high-up hotel room, Jake took Amy aside briefly.
“Hey, between us, are you okay?”
Gina and Rosa were already upstairs; they’d caught the previous elevator to the tenth floor of the hotel, which only had room for one or two. They’d easily beaten Jake and Amy in that game of rock-paper-scissors; Gina always said the trick was ‘diversifying your hand gestures.’ Whatever that meant.
(“Diversifying your hand gestures, title of your sextape!”)
“I’m okay, I’m just-” Amy crossed her arms over her chest. “Tired. I get travel anxiety, and I dunno if Terry’s gonna okay my time off from the bookstore-” alright, it was a bit of a fake excuse, but she was stressed about that.
She was just lying about the rest of her problems.
He was her problem. She couldn’t tell him that.
“-y’know, so I just get nervous about how that’s all going to work out, and I don’t know if our hotel room’s gonna be big enough to fit all my - uh, my clothing on the clothing rack-”
What? Amy thought, even nitpicking her own train of thought.
“Plus, like, I dunno if I’m gonna get to explore the NYU the way that I want to, and I didn’t even go there so I’m not gonna know a lot of people, and - and-”
He held her shoulders. “Amy, breathe.” He hugged her, taking her in. Nice and easy now.
She was angry that she liked the hug, so she fought it.
“I get nervous,” she said. “It’s a big trip. I’m your… plus one. And it’s a lot to handle.”
“I’m really sorry I’m stressing you out,” Jake admitted, still holding her. He deliberately kept them close, his head on her shoulder, so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m making this so much harder than it needs to-” his voice fell softly. “To be.”
“I mean, it’s not like the fake relationship thing is a lot to manage, but I-”
A bell rang, the elevator arrived, and they broke apart. Their collective luggage was light (the physical luggage was, at least), and they hoisted it inside without a word.
“Are we okay?” Out of habit, Jake took Amy’s hand once they were on their way to the hotel room. He didn’t intertwine their fingers; that felt too intimate, too much. But he was sorry. He didn’t know to apologize except by being grown-up, mature, responsible. Good adults apologized, right? And good boyfriends held their girlfriends’ hands when they were halfway between crying and fine.
“We’re okay,” Amy replied, her voice tempered by… everything. By terrible stomping, by the Smashing Pumpkins, by the promise of expensive campus food to come, by waiting, by hotel rooms with one bed, by needing, by longing, by him, by her own expectations of how the trip would possibly go. “More than okay. You made a mistake. Happens to everyone.”
She was tired, so she didn’t say anything else. She didn’t draw her hand away, either.
She walked out of the elevator.
“How long until this gets old?” Gina asked.
“I was under the impression that this was already old,” Rosa deadpanned. “You know I’m not, like, a ten-year-old watching The Parent Trap and getting excited about tin-can telephones?” She was sitting in Jake and Amy’s room a few doors down, using the hotel phone to call Gina.
“It’s exciting!”
“You use your phone, like, sixteen hours a day. Your screentime app wants to murder you. But this is what excites you about telephones?”
“Everything is fun when you’re in a hotel, Rosa.”
“Even dumb stuff, like free loofahs?”
“How could anyone,” Gina gasped, “not find free loofahs exciting?”
Amy crawled into bed with Jake that night wearing her newest t-shirt and her oldest underwear. He would’ve asked “wanna watch Miss Congeniality with me?” but she was rubbing her eyes and it wasn’t even 10:30, so he turned it off. Once she caught a single frame of the second pageant scene, she’d insist on watching until the end.
“Are you doin’ okay?” he said instead.
“Eh, ‘m alright.” She turned to face him. “Been better. I’ve certainly been worse.”
“What do you want?”
Oh, that was a question of a hundred answers. World peace, for sure. Nutella crepes and mini blueberry muffins for breakfast, which were often found in their apartment but probably not too common at the Maple Leaf Inn. And, floating in the background like a song in a mall, him, him, him. His mouth on hers, his cheeks so close she could count the freckles and the acne marks. She loved his marks; she didn’t dare let that slip out.
“What I want doesn’t really matter,” Amy muttered. She picked lint and stray hairs off the front of her t-shirt so she wouldn’t have to answer the question more truthfully. “Sometimes dreams don’t make you feel better at all.”
“I’m sorry you feel bad.” He softened the words so they wouldn’t land brutally, the way that any sentence starting with ‘I’m sorry’ tended to. “Hope it eases soon.”
“Me too.”
rosa: are you sure ames is okay? based on what you’ve told me…yikes
jake: I did my best, I consoled her?? she’s sleeping now, I think she’s just exhausted and strung out :(
jake:i’m planning to just play this by ear. she’s gotten like this before
jake: usually takes a few days before she gets back to normal. I just wanna be patient but I wish she wasn’t going through… something rough, I guess
rosa: you’re a good boyfriend :’)
jake: rosa shut UP
jake: not her boyfriend
jake: she’s made that abundantly clear
rosa: the only reason you’re not her boyfriend - and this may come as a huge surprise - is because you refuse to ASK HER OUT
rosa: all caps for emphasis
jake: liar, you use all caps constantly
jake: …… do you really think I could ask
rosa: you can. And SHOULD. Please, for heaven’s sake, you two are killing us all with your stupid romantic tension
jake: i am ~nervous~
jake: i’m not her type! she likes nerdy guys with great GPAs and credit scores above 200
rosa: your credit score is lower than 200??
rosa: yikes, dude. mine’s like 690
rosa: no wonder you haven’t asked her out yet. Romantic partners should be able to support each other
jake: NOT HELPING
“You laugh a lot when you’re texting,” Amy muttered, half-awake and next to him in bed. Jake apologized, hiding the cell phone screen so she couldn’t see the texts.
He wanted to kiss her on the forehead ー something his mother always did when he was sick ー but he wasn’t… hers like that. Not even close, he thought guiltily.
“G’night, Ames.”
“Night.”
She was delightfully old-lady-ish. She was the picture of safety. She was pretty, a domestic scene, her hair pulled back and skin covered in night cream.
So he wished he could kiss her, and he stopped texting Rosa. Anything so Amy could get to sleep.
“Is this why we went to college? For the free food?”
“Honey, no, that’s not free-”
“Too late!”
Rosa sighed, watching Gina skip up to the waiter and pour his deviled eggs into her purse with a swipe of her hand. And no need to worry about stains; she’d lined it with plastic wrap in advance. This wasn’t her first rodeo.
Welcome, class of 2000! Enjoy some food warmed under our heating lamps, and compare your post-graduation stories while pretending you don’t have imposter syndrome! That seemed to be the theme of the night. Luckily for her, Rosa didn’t have anyone chattering up a storm. Not yet, anyhow. She hoped it’d stay that way.
Everyone had their own tactics. Rosa glared. Amy memorized fun facts about dolphins or chemistry or, on occasion, Pluto (rest in peace. Gone but never forgotten.) Gina, always the eccentric one, ate bacon-wrapped shrimp and candied strawberries so she’d have an excuse not to talk. She’d be lying if she said it wasn't fun, though. Bacon and chocolate are a better combination than you’d think.
The only person currently trying to figure out his ‘please don’t talk to me, I hate school reunions’ tactic was Jake.
And, in the moment between fumbled silence and casual ease, Jenny Gildenhorn walked right up to him and struck up a conversation. For old times’ sake, y’know. No hard feelings! None that she had, anyhow. Jake was harboring enough for the both of them.
Poor little sap, Rosa thought, watching the interaction go down in slow-motion. He should’ve gone with the shrimp and strawberries approach.
“Oh my gosh, Jake Peralta? It’s been so long!”
Jake gasps and turns around. “Jenny Rosencrantz, right?”
She frowns.
“Jenny Guildenstern.”
“You’re getting closer, Jake.”
“Jenny Gildenhorn!” Jake exclaims. With a look at Amy, he beckons her from across the room. “How’ve you been?”
“I’m good. I got married.” Jenny shifts her hand away from plain sight. “Then divorced. Then married again. But there was this issue with our marriage certificate so he ripped it up and decided not to go ahead with it after all-”
“Hi, nice to meet you,” Amy greets with a run-of-the-mill line, but her eyes widen as soon as Jenny reaches ripped it up. Talk about wedding jitters. Wouldn’t want to walk a mile in those shoes.
“Hi, and you are…?”
“Amy Santiago. I’m Jake’s plus one.” She puts on the role like a costume before a play. If she weren’t holding her clutch and Jake’s backup bag of gummy frogs, Amy would crack her fingers. She’s good at this masquerade by now. The best lie is an assumption, so she plays the role of girlfriend without ever saying ‘girlfriend.’
“We live together in Brooklyn,” Jake says, wrapping his arm around her. She tries not to like the way his warm hand feels on the skin that her dress hasn’t covered. “We actually met at work! I worked at this local bookstore, and Amy befriended one of my coworkers, and before you know it…”
“Meant to be!” Jenny claps her hands together. “That’s what Teddy and I had.”
Amy feels her heart race a little. He’s not here, is he? Ordering pilsners and boring women to sleep with stories of jazz brunch?
“Whoops, I meant Eddie,” Jenny corrects, leaning a few degrees to take another sip from her wine glass. “This stuff goes straight to your head, you know what I mean? I’ve, uh,” she winks at a tall guy in the corner, “had a few of these already. And, hey, the night’s still young.”
“Tell me about it, sister!” Amy pretends to clink an invisible glass against Jenny’s. She winces a little on the inside (sister? really? She’s one of those girls now?) but pretends like nothing’s wrong. She’s used to that.
“So, Jenny, what’ve you been up to?” Jake asks.
“I make my own jewelry!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you see these earrings?” Jenny tucks a lock of dark hair behind her ear to reveal sparkly black stones that jingle when she touches them. “One-hundred-percent Jewels by Jen. We even mix our own stones.”
Jake reaches out to touch the earrings, dangling in the careful space between Jenny’s cheek and neck. He feels like there’s practically a full chandelier of gems hanging off her earlobe. “Well, they’re real pretty. You must be so proud of your business.”
“I am! I, uh, did have to stop selling wedding rings for a while because I couldn’t stand to meet a happy bride,” she laughs, “but that was months ago. I’m over it.”
“Oh?”
“Absolutely,” Jenny says after a sip of wine. “It’s all in the past now.”
Amy feels a weight lodge into her stomach somewhere. She manages to arrange a halfhearted smile on her face. “How nice.”
“Rosa, you want coconut shrimp?” Gina asks, her eyes bright and wide like a casino-addicted grandmother with a fresh bag of quarters.
“I would, if there were any left.” She’s not bitter. Not at all.
Gina grins, devilish. She plucks a fresh kebab of shrimp from her plastic-lined purse, swaddled in an oily paper towel. “Aaaaand this is why you show up prepared, Rosie. Honestly, you’re such an amateur.”
“I am, aren’t I?”
Gina takes her own shish kebab (roasted cucumber, garlic chicken, red peppers) and toasts it with Rosa’s skewer. “We should do this more often.”
“If you want, we could crash reunions that aren’t even ours.” Rosa sighs at the taste of the fried food. “Yum.”
“Finally, you’ve seen the light! Social engagements are not boring. Social engagements are an opportunity to steal food. Fancy china dishes and real silverware, if you’re in the right company.” Gina smirks. There’s barbecue sauce on the side of her lip. “Wallets and diamonds once you’re an expert.”
It’s ruined.
He’s going to sleep with Jenny Matterhorn-
No, that isn’t right.
He’s going to sleep with Jenny Gliddenborn (Jenny Gladdenshorn? Gildernorn?) because she’s attractive and single and, of course, Amy had to be vague and introduce herself as Jake’s plus one, talking about how they live together ー are they roommates? are they lovers? ー so Jenny might think Jake is single and she might drunkenly ask him up to her stupid hotel room with her oversized bed and, and, and Jake can explain that he’s not really dating Amy anyways, and he can fall in love with Jenny, and they can order room service in the stupid morning-
Amy can’t do a thing about it.
It’s his life. She’s not his girlfriend, not outside the realms of their little white lies, and Jake can date whomever he pleases.
She tries not to be jealous.
Gina offers her a white-chocolate-covered strawberry and a flute of champagne (seriously, NYU went all out on the food this year, kudos to them.) “You okay, Ames?”
Great, just what she needs. Pity strawberries and ‘let’s get you drunk so you forget this ever happened’ champagne.
“Fine, I guess.” Amy wants to stomp around but her stick-thin heels are already threatening to snap under the weight of her feet, so she doesn’t risk it. She’d look out of place anyways. “Jenny stole my date.”
“A waiter with a platter of jamón ibérico ham stole mine,” Gina offers, casting a glance at Rosa across the room, fake-flirting with a college student holding a platter of gourmet meat. Gina’s purse is finally full so there’s not even room to steal. (No room to steal - the words sound wrong in her mouth. She should’ve brought the extra-large bag to the reunion. Rookie mistake!)
Amy tries not to enjoy herself, but her lips twitch into a smile watching Rosa charm the waiter. Looks like she’s not the only one who’s good at pretending to be in love.
“Jake doesn’t like her back,” Gina announces to an audience of one.
“Oh, really? I beg to differ.”
There’s a scoff. “Five years ago, Jake followed her on Facebook, Instagram, everything so he could learn about her. He basically became the fanclub president; he even sent her a friend request on Kwazy Cupcakes. This year he didn’t even try.”
“There are lots of reasons he-”
“He likes you. That’s reason enough.” Gina plucks a small, silver-dusted wedge of cake from her purse. She unwraps the paper around it and eats.
“You’re so funny! How come I don’t remember you being this funny in college?”
Jenny and Jake have been dancing for about ten minutes, and she’s probably complimented him five separate times. He wants to be polite and return the favor, but he’s already running out of things to say.
“I mean, I did do improv club-”
“I remember you guys! What were you called?”
“Sir Laughs-a-Lot.” He pastes on a weak smile. “Yeah, remember you threw actual rotten tomatoes at us? Didn’t work very well.”
“The rec room stunk for weeks. Maybe that was a bad call.”
You think? he wants to say, except he swallows the complaint. He’s just got to escape Jenny’s clutches and he can finally spend some time with Amy, his actual date. He keeps looking for her as he and Jenny spin. No such luck. She could be dancing with somebody else by now.
“You’re terrible at this!” Gina laughs, ignoring the way Amy keeps stepping on her feet. Amy shrugs and keeps dancing anyway until Rosa asks for her girlfriend back. Amy obliges, then dances for two whole songs with Rosa, who wore steel-toed knee-high boots anyways so she can’t feel a thing.
The second song is still playing when Amy catches the eye of a guy in the distance.
It’s Jake, his hands politely on Jenny’s waist and shoulder like he’s at a cotillion, and Amy doesn’t feel jealous at all. She tries to smile with her eyes (smize, Gina says, is all the rage on Insta these days) but a grin pulls at her lips nonetheless. Can’t help it when she’s near him.
“Do you mind if I-” Amy gestures away from Rosa.
“Not at all.”
Beneath a crystal chandelier and to the tune of Wannabe by the Spice Girls, Amy walks across the dance floor in her lucky blue dress, and fortune must be shining down upon her tonight because Jake asks for a dance. They move a bit ridiculously and Jake’s absolutely humming the song the whole time. Amy’s always followed his lead; for heaven’s sake, she took a job at Shelf Life after he told her about it. This is no different, so she hums too. Even if her voice isn’t great, she starts to sing, and they fall into peals of laughter every time they coincide with if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends!
Wannabe isn’t exactly a slow-dance song (understatement of the century) but they don’t dance quickly or slowly. Jake leads them in a pattern that falls in between, jerky and choppy like a tugboat during a storm. Amy apologizes and Jake accepts every time she steps on his feet. But he steps on hers too ー less often, but still ー so Amy gets apologies too. She can feel her ears burning from her blush. She can also see Rosa smirking across the room, but Rosa’s also bet Gina fifty bucks about how this night’ll go for Jake and Amy, so Rosa is biased and Amy tries not to think about what’ll happen if Rosa wins the bet.
Spoiler alert, Rosa wins the bet.
Of all the times and of all the places Jake could’ve made a move, Amy’s laughing and half-rapping in the middle of Smash Mouth's All Star when he leans in to kiss her. It’s clumsy at first. The music is so loud and his lips so sudden that she can’t process what’s going on until after the kiss itself.
He says “I-” and promptly gives up, staring at her, eyes like saucers. Words have never been his strong suit; people are.
“Please don’t tell me you were kissing me as your fake girlfriend,” Amy blurts. She wants this, she wants it so badly to be real. “Because I’m totally moving out if that’s the case. You’re a really good fake boyfriend but still, it’s not fair to play with my emotions, I’m prepared to fake-break-up with you and everything-”
“No need to move out,” Jake murmurs, his gaze drifting and falling on her. On the blue dress that makes her look like a woman from a magazine; on the lipstick that’s probably on his mouth too, and what the hell? Now or never.
A Beyonce song comes over the speakers and, from the corners of the room, Amy can see Gina gasp and pull Rosa onto the dance floor with frightening speed.
Then Jake’s kissing her, and she can’t see a thing after he leans in.
She doesn’t mind one bit.
“Charles, Charles, calm down-” Jake says over the phone.
“Calm down?! You and Amy had your first kiss and I wasn’t there?”
“It’s not my fault Gina texted you about it! She and Rosa are both at this college reunion, and we were all on the dance floor-”
“Rosa got to see you guys kiss too?!”
Amy laughs and snatches the phone from him. They’re sitting on the hotel bed, laptops and phone chargers tangled in a bit of a mess. “Charles, I’m sorry you weren’t there. I know you’re the biggest, uh, what do you call it? You’re the best Peraltiago shipper out there. You can be there for other milestones, I promise!”
“Like?”
“You can chaperone our first date!” Amy blurts, and Jake hisses what? he can’t come with us! from next to her. “Okay, no, you can’t actually do that. You can… pay for our first date?”
“Terrible idea. Gimme the phone, Ames.” Jake rolls his eyes. “Alright, hey, Boyle! We can work this out later. You can, I dunno, buy us presents for our anniversary or something. Or we’ll give you pictures of our Christmas card. Whatever! This is not our top priority. Now, Amy and I are going to spend the rest of our night together before heading home in the morning-”
“Ooh, have fun in the hotel room. Don’t forget to shampoo her hair! Women love that!”
Jake laughs, very glad Amy can’t hear a thing. “And we’ll see you back at the bookstore, buddy.”
After he hangs up the phone, Amy can’t stop blushing. She sits upright in their bed, legs crossed. “I can’t believe Gina told Charles about us. He’s gonna tell everyone at work.”
“It’s alright, I don’t mind people knowing I got to kiss you. For realz this time.” Jake leans in a little closer. “Now, where were we?” He kisses her easily, like he's been doing it for years.
Maya Peralta-Santiago has no earthly idea why All Star is her parents’ special song. It’s ridiculous and boppy and sounds like the musical equivalent of that thing people do when they buy red sports cars to seem ‘cool’ but they’re mostly empty inside. However, as her mom is the manager of Shelf Life, she makes the rules and insists on including it in every store playlist.
“Care to dance?” her dad asks. He’s standing in between the fantasy and sci-fi shelves. One of Mom’s pet peeves is that fantasy is not sci-fi, in the same way that sci-fi isn’t science fantasy and it’s a narrow divide but “the divide still matters, Jake!”
Mom always seems her happiest when Dad’s around, and he’s around a lot, so Maya watches them dance in the store after closing hours.
She wants a love like that someday.
Maybe she needs a lucky dress first.