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Jake’s unnaturally quiet in the Lyft to One Police Plaza, and for a moment Rosa wonders if he injured himself when he jumped over the side of that building like a dumbass. But he’d been moving fine when he’d been hauled back over the edge of the roof by the three construction guys Rosa had talked into helping them. He hadn’t seemed loopy or disoriented and he’d jogged the four flights down without any complaints or obvious limps or, like, blood trails.
She figures it must be stress instead. She doesn’t know exactly what he and Amy talked about on the roof, but she’s smart, and she can guess. Amy was clearly feeling better when she ran off to take her test, but Rosa wonders if her nervous energy has been transferred, or siphoned off, and Jake’s carrying some of it now.
(Or else he’s hungry. Sometimes Jake just stops talking when he’s feeling snacky.)
Regardless, she leaves him be. If Jake’s got some stuff to work through, better he does it with his girlfriend than his sometimes-partner.
They don’t have to wait long for Amy to finish the test and join them, and when she does everyone is all smiles and hugs and congratulations, and Amy promises Jake something but Rosa has stopped paying attention. Then they all pile into another Lyft and head back to the precinct. Rosa hasn’t spent even a minute on her actual job today, but something that feels a lot like satisfaction sinks into her belly and makes her smile faintly to herself.
+++
Rosa spends what’s left of her day buried in paperwork and trying to ignore whatever insane drama Charles and Gina have drummed up. She basically doesn’t look up from her desk until her phone vibrates with a reminder to stop by a friend’s gallery opening later that night and she sees that it’s after quitting time.
The precinct has been quiet all afternoon and it’s quieter still now, and when she glances across the room she sees that Jake and Amy’s desks are both empty. But Amy’s purse is still lying right out in the open beside her computer, and Jake’s hoodie is draped over the back of his chair. Rosa leans back in her seat and stretches her arms over her head and wonders if they’ve gone back to the evidence lockup and if she should scare the crap out of them.
She figures she should probably find them, at least. She has time to grab a single celebratory beer before meeting her friend.
“Boyle,” Rosa says.
He sits up abruptly, shoulders gone stiff, and looks up at her. “Yes?”
“Where are Jake and Amy?”
A voice that does not belong to Charles says, “In the soft room,” and Rosa spots Gina. She’s stirring something thick and the color of phlegm in a mason jar. Rosa doesn’t ask.
+++
She can hear them from outside the kids’ room, where she’s paused just on the other side of the door. Their voices are muffled but she catches huffs of laughter and bright-sounding dialogue. The door is ajar and she can’t help herself, nudges it open with the toe of her boot to get a look inside.
They’re on opposite sides of a table that’s been taken over by model trains. Rosa is certain she’s never seen anything nerdier in her life, and she is fascinated. Amy holds a remote in both hands, one thumb on a dial that must control the speed of the trains. Jake’s crouched down to eye level with the table, near a miniature winter village with A-framed cabins and pastel Victorians and brick-faced Federal houses – none of them belong together, which bothers Rosa more than it should. A train whistles and a locomotive appears from a tunnel in what would appear to be a volcano, which also doesn’t make any sense; it can’t be safe to build a tunnel through a volcano.
“All aboard the J&A!” Jake calls out in what Rosa assumes is supposed to be a train conductor voice. It’s about an octave lower than his usual voice and he sounds ridiculous. Amy actually giggles.
“Next stop, Mount Peraltiago!” she announces cheerily.
Sure enough, the train curls around the tracks toward a snow-capped mountain, on top of which stand two miniature figures. Rosa can’t quite make out their features, but they’re side by side and holding hands, arms raised over their heads in victory.
Rosa backs away slowly and quietly closes the soft-room door.
As she heads back to the bullpen, she thinks, on the one hand: They both need this.
Amy’s been studying and stressing over the sergeants exam for weeks – maybe months, even. And Jake plays the supportive boyfriend role surprisingly well (impressively well, though Rosa will never say that out loud), but Rosa’s seen the careful, brittle frowns he directed at Amy when her head was bowed over her notecards or buried in a study binder. She’s noticed the dark circles under both of their eyes – Amy’s more pronounced, but Jake’s had them too – and the extra cups of coffee that Jake carries in late in the afternoon, long after caffeine would be advisable.
She’s also experienced enough at the relationship thing that she knows how success itself can bruise a couple – can reshape the dynamics in overt and subtle ways, unbalance even the most durable of partnerships. She suspects that was what they talked about on the roof, and that Amy probably has been worried about it for a very long time, maybe since they first started dating, and Jake is maybe only just realizing it.
Change is scary, and if playing with toys helps Jake and Amy restore some equilibrium, Rosa’s not going to hold it against them.
On the other hand: Model trains is a new level of dweeb.
And maybe, possibly it’s so adorable that she can’t even stand it.
Rosa can feel herself grinning when she gets back to her desk and plucks her leather jacket off the back of her chair. Charles says, “What’s going on?” and Gina says, “What’s wrong with your face, Rosa?” and Rosa says goodnight and jogs down the stairs and into the fading light, feeling lighter than she has in weeks.