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It’s only three weeks till their wedding but Jake feels as if he hasn’t more than five minutes alone with his fiancée in months. An exaggeration, sure, but Amy’s been pulling a lot of double shifts and overtime since she became the sergeant - which is fair, Jake’s seen the stacks upon stacks of paper working sitting like a wall around her desk - but he’d knocked off a bit before six, and Amy had said she’d be home at seven, eight at the latest. There’d been a quick kiss, a flash of a smile, and then she’d hurried away to talk to some of her officers.
Jake looks at his phone, 9:07. He looks at the arrangement he’s made on the table: a candle, flowers, a stir fry (with organic chicken and four different kinds of veggies!) that he’d cooked himself. With a sigh he begins to eat.
9:31 and he blows out the candle and covers up Amy’s bowl, putting it in the fridge. He showers, changes into his pyjamas, and throws himself on the couch to watch Friends on Netflix.
9:56 and there’s the sound of a key being turned in the door. “Jake, I’m so sorry, I’m late, there was just so much more to do than I thought, it was crazy.” Amy says as she enters the apartment.
Jake shrugs, not turning around. “Dinner’s in the fridge.”
Amy pulls off her shoes and wanders over to the fridge, pulling out her bowl of stir fry. “You cooked,” she says softly, pulling back the glad-wrap.
“Mmm-hmm,” Jake confirms, still watching the tv.
She glances over at the table, spotting the flowers and the candle. “You cooked and you bought flowers.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
She puts the stir-fry down and walks over to the couch, sitting down next to him. “That’s why you wanted to know what time I’d be home.” She puts her hand on Jake’s knee. “Jake please look at me,” she says, “I’m sorry, I just caught up.”
Jake pauses the episode. “It’s okay, I should’ve expected it.”
“That’s unfair.” Amy says, retracting her hand. “You know how busy I am.”
“It’s not just that you’re busy, Amy, I feel like you’re avoiding me, even at work I never see you anymore.” He’s hurt, but it comes out a little more whiny than he means it to.
“I work on a different floor, Jake! Excuse me for not checking in with you every second of every day!” Amy’s voice rises indignantly.
“Jesus, Ames, I try to do something nice for you tonight because you’ve been working so hard recently, but you couldn’t even turn up for that! We use to have lunch together most days, and now we haven’t had lunch together once in about two weeks!”
“Well, if you’d told me you were doing something nice I would’ve been here, Jake, you know that.” She replies sincerely.
He looks at her and sighs. “I was trying to be romantic,” Jake says quietly.
“You don’t need to try,” Amy says smiling, reaching out for one of his hands, and squeezing it gently.
“I’m gonna go to bed, you coming?” Jake says standing up.
“I, uhh, I have some emails to do,” Amy says awkwardly, shifting in her seat.
Lie. Jake can tell. “Do them in bed,” he suggests, trying not to feel hurt.
“I don’t concentrate as well, plus I need to eat,” Amy protests lamely.
Jake looks at her, inhaling. “Okay, then.”
“What?” Amy asks him, a challenge in his tone.
“Nothing.”
“No, you said it like there’s something else you want to say,” she says, standing up.
“It just feels like you’re avoiding me at home as well as work,” Jake admits.
“What, because I have to do emails?!” Amy asks him, annoyed,
“Do you, though?” Jake asks her.
Amy looks away, stepping back and crossing her arms. “Do you know what happened about this time last year?” She looks up at him and Jake’s surprised to see tears in her eyes.
“Um, I was arrested,” Jake replies quietly.
“And then you went to jail.” Amy finishes for him. “And do you know what happened the year before that?”
Jake nods, getting it. “Florida.”
“I almost lost you, Jake, twice!” She says, her voice breaking; touching his chest. “And it’s like something went off in my head a couple of weeks ago, like ‘Jake’s gonna go! He’s gonna leave! He’s gonna be taken away!’ And I’ve just tried to stay busy ever since, to keep my mind off it.”
“Ames,” Jake whispers, pulling her in for a hug and pressing a kiss to the top of her head, “why didn’t you tell me this?”
She steps away from and wipes her eyes. “Because it’s silly. I know nothing is going to happen. We’d have to be pretty fucking unlucky for something like that to happen a third time. But, it’s just, they always happen when things are going really well with us. Like Florida we were going to move in, and jail, you’d just moved in, and we had this really good rhythm and then both times those were taken away, and now we’re getting married? It’s like alarm bells that won’t shut up.”
“It’s not silly,” he tells her, gently wiping away her tears, “I think about it too.”
“Yeah?” she murmurs looking up at him.
Jake sits back down on the couch, and Amy follows suit. “Yeah, and I think about other stuff happening to us, but, we’re getting married Ames, you gotta tell me this stuff, otherwise I just… I feel like shit.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and he wraps an arm around her and she rests her head on his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he assures her, rubbing her arm.
She takes his hand in hers, and traces it gently. “It’s just every time I think about you, about how much I love you, I just see you leaving for Florida and being taken to jail.”
“Well,” Jake says, sitting up straighter; Amy looking up at him, “next time you think about me, think about how we’re gonna get married at the prettiest rec centre in all of staten island.”
Amy laughs, wiping her eyes.
“And about how we’re gonna have the most kickass, fun marriage, and a million babies.
She laughs again. “We’re gonna have to discuss that number, Jake.”
He kisses her gently. “Okay, a thousand.”
She snorts. “Yeah, that’s so much better.”
“C’mon, let’s go to bed.”
“Wait, I gotta try this amazing stir fry you made,” Amy protests, hopping up to put it in the microwave.
“I’m not sure I’d call it amazing,” Jake says to her, pressing play on Friends, “I think I added too much-”
“Love?” Amy suggests.
“I was gonna say soy sauce, but yeah, let’s go with that.”