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It’s well after 11 by the time they make it back to the precinct and hand their perps off to processing, and Amy is that particular kind of late-night punchy that comes from lack of sleep, physical and mental fatigue and the rush of having just made two arrests that weren’t even on her radar a few hours ago.
So that’s why she turns to Jake and says, “You have 38 minutes left on your date. Where are we going next?”
Jake just stares at her all agog and says, dumbly, “What now?”
Amy glances at her watch and snickers, then shoves it up in Jake’s face. “Thirty-seven minutes now, loser. Look, I just want to make sure we finish this thing so you’re not holding it over my head forever that I bailed early.”
That’s not entirely true – in that, it’s not her reasoning, though now that she thinks about it, that would be such a Jake move. The thing is, she can’t deny, at least to herself, that she kind of wants to see where else this worst-date-ever will go. She’s not quite ready for the night to end.
Jake’s eyes go wide and he nods slowly. She can practically see the gears spinning in his head. She’s sure he’s running over his horrible schedule of events for the night, and his mouth curls up in a look that Amy can only identify as glee. The look gives her a moment of doubt and she takes a half-step back, but Jake’s hands are up, catching her by the elbows.
His eyes are sparkling, his whole face is glowing, and Amy takes in a shuddery breath.
“Come with me,” he says, and wrenches her toward the elevator.
+++
He doesn’t make her put on the dress again, which, thank God. He refuses to even entertain her questions on the 10-minute drive to their next – and final, she presumes – stop for the night: a brick-faced walkup in Bedford. Jake parks in a passenger drop-off zone right in front and rings up at the lobby door and gives his name when a man answers. They’re buzzed in right away. Amy shivers in the blast of heat when they walk inside.
Jake takes them up a flight of stairs and down a beige-painted hallway, and he knocks on a door at the end, three sharp raps with his knuckles. He gives her an exaggerated wink and the very definition of a beaming grin, so big and joyful Amy doesn’t even try to fight her own in response.
The door cracks open and bald man with more face piercings than Amy can count says, “Quick, inside.” He shoves the door closed behind them and turns about 18 locks.
“Jake-”
“I know, so cool, right?”
“This is so not cool,” Amy hisses at him.
The apartment is empty aside from a single beat-up couch pushed against the half wall beneath the kitchen counter. The walls are covered in disturbing scratches and gouges and what Amy’s pretty sure are patches of old dried blood. The bald man has disappeared.
“If you brought me to a murder apartment for a date, I will kill you.” Amy says, eyeing the majorly locked front door and wondering if there are any other exits. Jake turns and beams at her again and Amy adds, “I am serious, Peralta.”
Then a door back beyond the kitchen swings open and the bald man walks toward them, and in one hand he’s holding a leash. And at the end of the leash-
“Oh my God. Is that-” She cuts herself off, blinking fast as the room takes on a surreal, shimmery quality.
“Yes, Amy Santiago,” Jake says, going down on his knees to greet the approaching animal. “That is a tiger cub.”
+++
“This can’t be legal,” Amy says, for like the fifth time. The tiger cub is curled up in her lap and purring while Jake feeds it from a bottle. It’s seriously the most adorable thing she’s seen in her life, and she has a lot of pretty cute nieces and nephews.
“Yeah, I rented it on the darknet,” Jake says.
He coos at the cub and it blinks its eyes open lazily and rests one fuzzy paw on Jake’s hand holding the bottle. Amy melts.
She’s stroking the tiger’s back, scritching her fingers through its so-soft fur. After eating, the bald-headed handler says, watching them from the kitchen as he sips at a beer, the tiger will want to play for awhile.
They spend two hours with the cub, whom Jake names Goliath (Bald Man is weirdly secretive about the tiger’s real name). Amy rolls around with it on the carpet that smells like stale cigarettes, and Jake rocks it in his arms like a baby, and they both end up with shallow scratches all up and down their arms and tiger saliva in their hair. The tiger makes these grunting, labored crying sounds when it plays, something between a cat’s meow and a baby’s whimper, and Amy knows she’s going to be looking up tiger cub videos on YouTube the next day just to hear it again.
When the bald man finally says their time is up, and lifts the snoozing cub out of Amy’s hands by pinching it at the back of the neck like a mother would (Amy supposes – another thing she’s going to have to look up), it’s hours past the end of their date. Amy’s knees pop as she stands, and Jake stretches his arms up over his head and bends side to side, groaning at the pull of muscles.
He gives her a soft, guarded smile before leading the way out of the apartment and back to the car.
They don’t talk at first, and Jake weirdly doesn’t touch the radio, just lets it play whatever station he had it on before. Some pop song Amy doesn’t recognize crackles over the cheap speakers.
“That was amazing,” she says, as Jake merges into the late-night traffic on Myrtle. He’s looking in the rearview mirror, but she catches his gaze flirt over to her.
“Yeah, it kind of was,” Jake says, voice gone thoughtful, like he’s surprised even himself.
“And seriously illegal,” Amy adds.
“Oh, so illegal.”
They both laugh, and the silence that follows is gentle and easy.
Jake flicks the radio to something she still doesn’t recognize and Amy stares out the passenger window, at the red and orange lights bouncing off rain-slicked streets. She’s thinking that she’s glad she’s not allergic to cats. And that she hopes Bald Man takes good care of that tiger cub (and also that she should definitely report him to animal control in the morning).
And she’s also thinking that this worst-date-ever has been one of the better dates of her life.
“Why a tiger cub?” she says as Jake turns onto her street.
Jake doesn’t answer right away, just pulls next to a fire hydrant right in front of her building. Both his hands are on the steering wheel, thumbs tapping some rhythmless beat.
Finally he shrugs. “I guess I was just inspired.”
“Inspired,” Amy repeats, and he looks at her and nods.
The air in his car has gone charged, and Amy swallows hard.
“By me,” she says.
Jake’s face goes flushed with surprise and it takes her a moment to realize he’s flustered, and he says quickly, “No, what? No. By the bet. I was inspired by the bet, Santiago.”
“Okay,” Amy says, hands up. She thinks maybe she should feel offended but she’s not. “Well- thank you. I mean, for not making tonight too horrible.”
“Oh trust me, I had so much more terrible stuff planned, but-” He stops and lifts his hands in defeat. “Crime’s gotta come first.”
“I think you might want to reconsider that phrasing, but sure,” Amy says with a chuckle.
She reaches for the handle and pushes the door open with her shoulder, because it always gets stuck. She’s halfway out when she feels Jake’s hand on her upper arm and she turns back to him.
“Thanks for being a good sport,” he says. He’s leaning across the seats toward her, and his face is in shadow.
Amy shrugs. “You won.”
“I guess I did,” Jake says.
He lets go of her arm with a goodnight, and he stays idling at the curb until after Amy’s closed the lobby door behind her.