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When the red ball had come in, it was Amy who was up for it, the one next in the rotation. The missing child from Greenpoint, taken from near the Williamsburg Charter School, was the kind of case that made or broke a career. She'd worked three days straight, her and Boyle combing through every interview transcript, every LUD, every traffic camera in a 10-block radius in the abduction window, monitoring phone calls and credit card activity. It had paid off; they'd managed to find the child in a car about to merge onto the BQE, the kidnapper a slightly deranged second cousin convinced that the child was actually his own, though he'd buried his infant daughter nearly a decade ago.
Santiago had returned to her apartment and slept for fourteen hours straight, barely waking long enough to assure her mother she was fine and to change her clothes when her empty holster kept jabbing her in the hip.
She was just getting coffee started when her phone began to buzz and someone knocked at her apartment door. Picking up the phone, she pushed her hair out of her face and answered with a brisk, "Santiago."
"Let me in, I brought you breakfast," Peralta said, without preamble. She rolled her eyes but smiled as she undid the locks of her door.
"What'd ya bring me?" she asked, pulling the door open. She froze when she saw him standing there, his too-big mouth in a wide, toothy grin. He wore a ripped pair of jeans and flat shoes he was already toeing off, a gray zip-up hoodie with a fading RUTGERS screen-printed on the front, messy hair, and an amazing pair of hipster glasses to rival her own.
"You wear glasses?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"You wear purple silk nightgowns?" he shot back, eyeing her up and down. In spite of herself, she pulled the fleece robe tight around her and blushed. Smirking, he held up the large plastic bag with the brown paper sack inside. "Migas, chilaquiles, chorizo, and maybe even some pancakes, assuming my Spanish is what it used to be."
"Nonexistent?"
"Hey, I took four years of high school Spanish."
"I've heard you order tacos." she stepped aside and let him into her Fort Greene apartment, the sun through the yellow curtains coloring the room.
He looked around her place. "Man you're so weird and old-lady-y." Her place was untidier than it had been at Thanksgiving, a blanket tossed across the couch, and her shelves stacked with books and movies, the figurines crowded out by media. She watched his eyes instinctively scan the room for exits, saw his gaze linger on her open bedroom door through which the rumpled bed with the blue and cream duvet in disarray was clearly visible. Then, he turned back to her and held up the bag. "Where should I put this?"
She pointed at the coffee table, which was covered in newspapers and magazines, a couple of paperbacks, and the remote controls for the TV and DVR. "Sit, I'll bring plates and stuff."
"Picnic style? Tsk, and you call me the child."
She filtered the French press (the only thing she could "cook" reliably well, apparently) and poured out two mugs, preparing his coffee the way she knew he took it. Grabbing plates and silver, she came back to a cross-legged Jake pulling out carton after carton of breakfast foods. She set down the plates first, then wordlessly handed him her Daily Show mug with his milk-and-three-sugars monstrosity.
They cheersed their coffees and he filled two plates, handing her the one with larger portions. Surprisingly, they ate in silence, the only real sound their silverware against porcelain. It wasn't until she was nursing her coffee that she realized her plate had never been empty.
"Did you bring us breakfast, or just me?" She raised an eyebrow at him over the lip of her mug.
"Busted," he said, but he grinned and stood, stacking plates on his arm like a waiter clearing tables. When she moved to stand, he shook his head and told her stay seated. Stretching, she reached over to the cartons and started stacking and sorting them into trash and recycle. She stood and followed him into her kitchen, watching as he filled the sink and then ran the water. She opened a lower cabinet and tossed the recycling into the right bins, then leaned against the counter, sipping her coffee and watching the way Jake's muscles shifted and bunched under his t-shirt.
He soaped up her scrubbing pad and rinsed off the first plate. "I was six months into this job when I caught my first red ball," he said suddenly, methodically cleaning the plates in deft strokes. "I figured, it's Park Slope, it'll never happen, but then one day there it was. The call came in, I was next up, it felt very normal at first. This was maybe eight years ago? Anyway. The murder looked like a hate crime, and well…"
He was quiet for a long moment, the water running and her cheap IKEA dishes clattering against one another suddenly very loud. He set the cleaned dishes to the side to dry and started on the silverware. "I think I worked five straight days? When it was over and command was satisfied I'd written enough reports, I slept for like a day and a half. When I woke up, my partner -- older guy, reminded me of a Briscoe to my Green, only he was an Asian guy -- showed up at my place in Long Island City with a massive breakfast and a literal gallon of coffee." He scrubbed down the sink with a surprising economy of motion, then rinsed it clear, shook the excess water from his hands, and shut the tap. She wordlessly tossed him a hand towel that he caught reflexively with a quick grin. "I'd bet money you don't remember your last meal that wasn't coffee. And I've seen you put away lumberjack breakfasts, Santiago."
She laughed, "You're right, you're right."
"Music to my ears." He pushed her gently back to her living room, then sat down heavily on the floor just in front of the couch, picking up his mug from her coffee table. "When the hell did you go to the Daily Show?"
She grinned and sat next to him, leaning her head back against the sofa cushions. "After I graduated from the academy, my brothers took me. They're huge fans. But the mug I got in a family game of white elephant. When did you get glasses?"
"College. The lecture halls brought out my near-sightedness. I usually don't need them." Before she could ask, he took them off and handed them to her.
Grinning, she tried them on. "And you told me I was blind." She blinked owlishly at him from behind the horn-rimmed lenses. "You realize you're one v-neck t-shirt away from full-on hipsterdom, right?" Pulling them off, she handed them back and stood. "More coffee?"
"Sure."
She took his mug and topped them both off, returning to find he'd stretched his legs out in front of him, his ankles on the other side of the coffee table. She handed him his coffee and then sat back down beside him, tucking her feet under her.
"Why did you let Boyle take my second?" She raised an eyebrow. "You're supposed to be my partner."
"Kidnapping cases require thoroughness, redball means attention to detail and keeping command informed. That's literally you and Charles." He shot her a look. "A case like that, you want a grinder, not a cowboy cop."
"Yeah, well. Don't do that again."
"What?" He looked genuinely surprised.
"You're my partner, Jake. I work best with you, even though you drive me up the wall. Charles is a great cop, but he's not the one bringing me migas."
"To be fair, Charles would bring you the best migas in the city, even if he had to take the train to Spanish Harlem to get them."
She laughed in spite of herself. "Do I want to know where these come from? They were still warm!"
"Well, I did keep them tucked inside my hoodie--"
"Jake…" She reached in front of her and set her empty mug on the coffee table.
He followed suit. "There's that South American place a couple blocks over. El Aguila. I called ahead and picked it up on the way."
"I like that place. The couple who own it are really nice."
"Are they? They made fun of my Spanish."
"That's because you sound like a drunk fourth-grader when you order tacos."
"No, please, tell me what you really think," he deadpanned.
She smiled and covered up a yawn.
"I should go," he said gently, moving to stand.
"What?" She rose, too, not caring as her robe loosened and fell open.
"You're still tired and I'm sure there's stuff you should be doing."
She nodded. "True. I could watch the greatest cop movie ever made."
"Die Hard is always the right choice."
"We've talked about this and the answer is still Training Day." She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
"Look, I'm not right about a lot of things--"
"Too true," she agreed.
":--but I know my cop movies. And Die Hard is the best."
She walked over to her bookcase and pulled out two cases. "That's it, we're settling this right now. Sit down, we're watching movies."
Five hours later, they were into a Netflix-fueled Law & Order marathon, both of them agreeing that while L.A. might have better cop movies, New York had way better cop shows.
"Man, Jill Hennessy was hot. Look at that hair."
"Hello, do you not see Chris Noth right there?"
She smacked him.
"Oww! Seriously, who picks Jill Hennessy over Chris Noth? That's like….like picking Crossing Jordan over Sex and the City."
Santiago had the grace to look guilty.
"Oh my god, I can't even look at you right now."
They were sprawled out on her sofa, the antimacassars cast to the ground by Jake -- "Seriously, did you raid a nursing home to decorate your place?" -- when they'd moved up from the floor halfway through Training Day. After bickering through both movies, they had turned on Law & Order and started watching from where she'd last left off, putting them somewhere in the fourth season.
When the boring courtroom stuff came up again, she poked him in the ribs. "How much of this show did you watch when you were a kid?"
He looked thoughtful. "Too much? My mom worked late so I'd watch it until she got back sometimes. Nana was rather fond of 'that handsome young fella' detective."
"Benjamin Bratt?"
"Jerry Orbach, actually."
She laughed. "it was the only show all eight of us could ever agree on, so my mom allowed it."
"Where are your brothers anyway? I thought they'd be taking care of you instead."
"They'd just trick me. When I moved in, they used my sense of competition against me. I ended up hauling everything up three flights of stairs myself while they ate pizza on the roof."
He sat up. "You have roof access?"
"Focus, Peralta, your boyfriend is on the stand."
"Roof access before bros. How do you have an open roof but we've never had a party at your place?"
"Because my fridge has half a block of cheddar, a jar of mayonnaise, half a carton of milk, and three-day-old wine in it."
"No bread? Sandwich stuff? Nada?"
"The last loaf turned into a blue-ribbon science project."
He made a face.
She smacked him in the shoulder. "You asked."
"And I definitely regret it."
When she rested her hands back in her lap, she brushed his leg with her fingers. Not that it mattered; at this point, late afternoon sun slanting into her home, they were pressed together, shoulders to hips. His legs were stretched out in front of him, one socked foot propped on a corner of her coffee table.
"What if we're in the wrong genre," he murmured.
"What?"
"Well, what if the best cop movie of all time isn't a drama? What if it's a comedy, like Hot Fuzz or something?"
"I always thought The Squad was rather slapstick," she deadpanned.
"To be fair, the bit with the photocopier is pretty funny," he returned in all seriousness.
She turned her head to look at him, both of them slumped low, half-sunken into her surprisingly beaten couch. "That was hilarious--"
"You've read it?!" He turned his head to face her.
"--and probably illegal," she continued blandly. Onscreen, Jill Hennessy's face took up a startling amount of the frame as she made a point about her role as the ADA.
Jake pouted. "Aw, you're no fun."
"Sorry I'm such a stick in the mud," she replied, but her voice was more bitter than she expected.
"Hey," he said, laying a hand on her knee and looking her in the eye. "You're one of the best cops, I know, ok?"
"You only know like five cops." But she was smiling as she said it.
He beamed back at her, thumb rubbing small circles on the inside of her leg. "No, see, you're slipping, Santiago. I've been on the force for twelve years. I've been around lots of cops, and you're definitely one of the best."
"That's what she said," she blurted out, before she could stop herself, grin threatening to crack her face in two.
Then he was kissing her, mouth warm and sweet and insistent, his fingers in her hair, their bodies half-turned towards each other and legs tangling. She ran her tongue against his bottom lip and he made a soft sound low in his throat, mouth opening, his own tongue sliding against hers.
She shifted and pulled him down on top of her, their mouths never breaking contact. She felt his hand splay across her abdomen, the satiny material of her nightgown so thin as to be nonexistent. She fumbled for the hem of his t-shirt and skimmed her nails up his back, pressing into his shoulders. Her legs fell open, one foot falling to the ground, the other knee bending, and she pulled him into her, running purely on instinct. She wanted his hands everywhere, and the way he was kissing her made her think maybe his own brain was in the same fuzzy place.
Blindly, she reached for the belt of his pants, fingers grasping the waistband and curling into it, tugging. She felt his hips knock into hers, felt the low sound he made all the way in the pit of her stomach, felt his lips break from hers and press into the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She gasped and arched and sighed.
Suddenly, the chung chung of the show's scene change cue sounded, over-loud in her apartment. Suddenly, there was the too-harsh sound of them breathing, and she saw the scene as it would have looked to someone else: his hair mussed, glasses askew, her hands on indecent places, the visible tent in his jeans, her robe bunched up underneath her, her legs spread wide open, the nightgown an inch away from an indecent exposure citation.
They pulled apart and stood at the same time, him clumsier and suddenly gawkier than she'd ever seen him before, mouth red from their kiss and color creeping up his neck. They both self-consciously adjusted their clothes. "I have to, uh. I gotta thing I, um, yeah." He grabbed his hoodie, ran a hand through his hair (making it stick up even more) and walked out before she could say anything, her front door slamming shut behind him. Through the door, she heard him swearing under his breath, then the sound of his feet descending the stairs.
She sat down on her sofa, the ending credits playing on the screen, and pressed her hands to her forehead.
"Oh, shit," she breathed, then fell over sideways as Netflix counted down the fifteen seconds to the next episode.
bonus: tomorrow is another one
Jake flinched as the door to her apartment slammed shut behind him of its own accord. There was an unbroken, buzzing silence in which he heard the faint sound of the television through the walls.
His body flushed hot and cold in waves, and he felt his hands shaking as he put on on the hoodie in rough tugs. He swore under his breath, tugging frustratedly at his hair, and cast a baleful look at the door, wanting nothing more than to walk back in and push her back into her blue-and-cream bedroom, to pull that nightgown off of her shoulders and keep going and never stop, and knowing that doing so would ruin the fragile little family he had finally found for himself.
He grit his teeth, grabbed his shoes, and went down stairs, sock-feet thumping all the way down. On a landing before the ground floor, he sat down heavily and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.
He felt out of control, blood still racing in his veins, and he could still taste her mouth, could still feel her skin, could still hear that gasping sigh she had made when he had kissed her neck, could remember the astonishment at knowing this was Amy letting him touch her like this.
Could still see the shocked expression on her face when they'd pulled apart. Could still see how wan and pale she'd been as she'd combed through cell phone records and witness statements, the dark shadows under her eyes making her whole face look gaunt. The redball had been draining and harrowing in turn.
Continuing to swear under his breath, he pulled on his shoes roughly, lacing and tying them in jerky movements. Wiping his smudged glasses on his shirt, he put them back on, zipped up the hoodie, and walked out of her building, taking the long route to the G train.