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one
It’s Memorial Day weekend, but the swiftness with which Sonny’s eyes spring open reminds him of Christmas morning.
He turns his head slightly and finds himself nearly nose to nose with Amanda. She’s curled up close, head resting on his pillow and right hand fisted loosely around his sleep shirt.
He watches her stir, her body pressing into his side as she stretches before finally opening her eyes.
She smiles shyly. “Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi,” he says back, closing the short distance between them to give her a kiss.
Even after their lips separate, she leaves her hand on his cheek. “We’re really doing this, huh?”
He hums in the affirmative, reaching up to cover her hand with his. “M’afraid you’re stuck with me.”
“Guess it won’t be too bad,” she drawls, “if you’re making breakfast?”
“I see how it is,” he says, pretending to be put out even while humor dances in his eyes, “Ma said girls were always gonna be after one thing—my pancakes.”
She snorts, but can’t keep from smiling as she nudges him out of bed. “C’mon, Carisi. I’m starving.”
* * *
“So how do you want to play this?” he asks, keeping his voice low as he pulls flour from her kitchen cupboard.
She wrinkles her nose, squinting at the coffeemaker. “You mean, with the girls?”
“With the girls, people at work, everybody.”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t mind keeping this to ourselves first,” she says, resting her palms behind her on the countertop, “but maybe we can tell Jesse and Billie after breakfast?”
He nods, means to ask her what they’ll tell the girls, exactly, but she’s started pouring orange juice into glasses, her other hand reaching up to flip her hair back, and the sight causes his throat to dry.
She takes a swig, wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, and notices the look on his face. “What?”
“Just—” He waves a hand over his own head. “What you did with your hair. It reminded me of that night in my office, after—”
“The Toby Moore trial,” she fills in, flicking her gaze down. When she meets his eyes again, her expression is rueful. “I had high hopes for that night, you know. I thought maybe we could’ve started…this.”
He feels a painful squeeze in his heart. “I wish I had known that, back then,” he says quietly. “I was afraid it’d be this one night thing, and it wouldn’t have been enough for me.”
She reaches for his hand and laces their fingers together.
“We wasted so much time,” he says wistfully.
“No,” she says, tugging him closer, “we just have a lot to make up for.”
“D’you think I could take you up on that raincheck now?” he asks, backing her up against the counter.
She grins and tilts her head up for easier access.
“Uncle Sonny?”
He freezes, his lips inches away from hers. He reaches behind Amanda. “Here are the eggs!” he exclaims, holding the carton up high and whirling around to face Jesse.
“Are you making pancakes?” she asks, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“You bet,” he says brightly. “Wanna help?”
She nods eagerly, skipping over to him.
“I’m going to check on Billie,” Amanda says, making a hasty exit from the kitchen, her cheeks still tinged red.
Sonny sets Jesse up with a large bowl and proceeds to help her measure out the dry ingredients.
Midway through mixing the batter, she pipes up. “Uncle Sonny, were you gonna give Momma a kiss?”
He feels his own cheeks heat up and fiddles with the knob on the stove to lower the flame, even though he knows the two are unrelated. “If I was…would that be okay with you?”
“Yup,” she says nonchalantly, popping her ‘p’ as she continues to stir.
“Good,” he says, a smile spreading across his face. “I’m glad.”
She returns it, showing off the gap from her recent lost tooth. “Me, too.”
two
The incident with Jesse turns out to be the first of many.
They continue to give themselves away, because they get to kiss freely now and say the words they used to hold back—after years of relying on their hands to do the talking, the gestures soft and tentative even as their hearts beat loud and sure.
One weekend, Sonny takes her to an Italian specialty grocery store, the kind she would’ve walked right past and never even considered entering if he weren’t around to usher her inside, his hand on the small of her back.
While he gets into a very loud, very cheerful, very Italian conversation with the white-haired man behind the counter, she wanders the aisles, examining the jars of jam, packs of amaretti, and bottles of olive oil lining the shelves.
She’s in deep debate with herself about whether to pick up some chocolate hazelnut spread for the girls when someone calls her name.
“Dr. Hanover,” she says, wiping her suddenly sweaty palms on her pants. “Hi.”
“It’s good to see you,” her former therapist says. “How are you doing?”
“I’m—really great, actually.” Her candor surprises the both of them, and she speaks hurriedly to take advantage of it. “Listen, Doc, I’m sorry about not showing up again, after—” She clears her throat. “I hope you’re doing okay.”
She waves her hand. “You did what you had to to get through it, and so did I. I just started practicing again, so if you ever want to talk, I’m here.”
“You know, I might just take you up on that,” Amanda says, and she means it.
“‘Manda, I got it,” Sonny says excitedly, rounding the corner with a paper-wrapped package of what he swears is the best mortadella in all five boroughs. “I—oh, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re fine,” she says. “Carisi, this is my therapist, Dr. Hanover. Dr. Hanover, Dominick Carisi—” She looks up at him, slips her hand in his, and smiles at the doctor’s knowing glance. “He’s my partner.”
three
They’re together less than a month when they decide to turn in their disclosure paperwork to Liv and Ms. Hadid. They keep their relationship on the down-low with everyone else at work though, and for the most part, they’re successful—until today.
Amanda stops by his office just past noon, bringing sandwiches and sodas for two along with files for trial prep.
Other than the lingering brush of their fingers as they pass folders back and forth and the way Sonny loses his train of thought while watching her lick a dollop of mayo off her pinky, it is all completely professional. The blinds stay open, even though he longs to snap them shut to keep Crosby’s prying eyes out during his many unnecessary trips to the copier.
At the end of their working lunch, they walk to the elevators together. He’s due in arraignment court, and she's going to meet Kat uptown for some follow-up interviews.
“Hey, you two!”
Sonny makes a face at Amanda before turning around. “Crosby.”
“How’s it going, Amanda?” Crosby asks, grinning toothily at her.
“I’m—” Amanda pulls out her vibrating phone and frowns when she sees who’s calling. “Sorry, it’s— I gotta take this.” She steps away from them.
He’s pretty sure Crosby is asking him about a case they’re both assigned to, but he can’t bring himself to pay attention, not while Amanda is pacing up and down the short hallway, her forehead creased with worry.
She hangs up right as the elevator arrives. “That was Sienna,” she explains as they step inside. “Billie’s been running a fever all day, and she can’t bring her temperature down, so I’m meeting them at the hospital.”
“I’m coming with you,” he blurts out.
She stares at him. “What? No, you have court. I’m hoping—it’s probably just an ear infection or something.”
Sonny looks over at Crosby. “You got arraignment court, too, right?”
“Uh,” Crosby says, “yes?”
“Okay, I’m gonna need you take these.” He opens his briefcase, pulls out some files, and passes them off to him. “Got a family emergency.”
“You got it.” Crosby’s eyes flit across both their faces. “Hope your, uh—hope Billie’s okay.”
The elevator doors slide open, and they walk briskly towards the exit.
“Carisi, you didn’t have to,” she says, her voice low, as he pulls the door open and waits for her to pass.
“‘Manda,” he says firmly, slipping his hand into hers, right there on the steps for anyone to see, “you and the girls will always come first. Alright?”
She squeezes his hand gratefully. “Yeah, okay.”
“Come on,” he says, raising a hand to flag down a cab. “Let’s go see our girl.”
four
They make it to the end of the summer without her colleagues at the 16th suspecting a thing. Amanda is genuinely surprised; more than Fin and Kat being some of the finest detectives she’s ever worked with, she also knows them to be nosy as hell.
Liv’s idea to get together for a picnic at the park just before the crispness of fall sets in is a great one, Amanda acknowledges as she sips some of the Italian prosecco Stabler brought with him while watching Jesse, Billie, Noah, and Abby race Frannie across the grass.
She tears her eyes away long enough to do a quick check on everyone else. She’s glad to see the Deputy Chief looking more relaxed than he’s been in the last few months, his arm around his wife’s waist as they coo over Sergeant Bell’s newborn baby boy. Fin, Phoebe, and Freddie, the detective on the OC task force, are swapping Narcotics war stories. Meanwhile, Kat and Celine manage to draw Jet, Stabler’s hacker, away from the small drone she’s been flying and into an actual conversation.
(She pretends not to see Stabler pull a giggling Liv behind a tree.)
The person she’s really looking for finds her instead. Sonny lowers himself onto the blanket next to her, offering her a plate loaded with homemade meatballs, pasta salad, and deviled eggs.
“Thanks,” she says, popping a meatball into her mouth.
He leans back on his arms, and she tries not to stare at the lock of gray that curls over his forehead, or the way the short sleeves of his T-shirt show off his muscles. “She eat yet?” he asks, jutting his chin out at Billie as she runs past them with a shriek.
“Nope. Too busy having fun.”
He gets up, timing it well to intercept 30 pounds of squirming toddler with a barely audible oof. He presses a kiss to her red, sweaty cheek, and bounces her like he did Jesse all those years ago as he walks them back.
Amanda knows she’s looking at him like she did back then—eyes soft and heart full to bursting.
Billie clutches tightly at him. “Dada, play,” she insists stubbornly, pushing her lower lip out in a pout.
It isn’t the first time Billie’s called Sonny that, so neither of them bat an eye. In her periphery, though, she notices Fin choking on his slice of watermelon before he glances around wildly to see if anyone else caught that, too.
Sonny leans over and deposits her daughter into her lap. “You gotta eat something. C’mon, let Daddy fix you a plate,” she says, pushing her hair back from her face. “You can play after, Billie baby.”
Fin chokes again. She and Sonny both finally turn towards him. Amanda raises an eyebrow.
“It’s juicy, is all,” he smirks. He holds up his watermelon, toasts them with it. “‘Bout damn time.”
Amanda steals a kiss from Sonny, wraps her arms around his neck, and throws her head back to laugh.
“Wait ‘til Fin finds out about Stabler and Liv.”