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It's exactly nine o'clock when Rosa knocks on Jake's door. She's been standing outside for thirty minutes; listening, steeling herself. She can hear the TV inside and Amy's voice above it, and she really doesn't want to interrupt their evening. But still she knocks, because she's alone and scared and Adrian is gone and Jake is the person she trusts most. Jake understands.
He knows she's upset. Rosa sees the way his face changes when he opens the door. His soft eyes and weak smile almost feel like pity, but she knows Jake doesn't pity her. He steps to the side to let her in and she tries to hide her face from Amy; her puffy eyes, her reddened nose, the smudged black trails on her cheeks. She just sits wordlessly on Jake's couch and stares at her knees. Behind her, she hears Amy whisper a quick “see you tomorrow,” and the quiet scuffle as she kisses Jake and leaves the apartment makes Rosa's stomach twist with guilt.
“I'm sorry,” Rosa says to the floor. She closes her eyes, balls her fists, and breathes deep and shuddering. The couch dips as Jake sits beside her.
“Hey,” he says. “No apologizing. Here.”
Rosa opens her eyes and her hands, nodding in what she hopes is gratitude as she accepts the deep brown whisky bottle he's offering and takes a swig. Jake sips at his own bottle; beer, and not the good stuff either. The whisky stings Rosa's raw throat and burns hot and satisfying as it goes down.
“I'm just…” Rosa begins, and Jake just nods.
“I know.”
She lays her head against Jake's shoulder with a sigh and Jake responds by moving his arm to lay right around her, pulling her close. And then she's crying again; long, heavy sobs that come from somewhere inside her she can't quite understand. She's so tired. Her head is fuzzy and the alcohol is working fast and everything is too much, too urgent. Adrian is gone. Adrian is in danger. Adrian could be dead right now.
“It'll be okay,” Jake says, hugging her tighter. “We're going to catch this guy and get Adrian back safe.”
“How can you know that?”
“A thousand push ups. Two thousand. A million.”
Rosa laughs at that, a bubbling whimper of a laugh. “You'd die before you even got close.”
“That's how sure I am,” Jake says. Rosa takes a gulp from the whisky bottle and tries to steady her erratic lungs. She wipes at her wet eyes with the back of her hand, and as she begins to calm she notices for the first time that the TV is still on. And there is a dinosaur and Whoopi Goldberg and…
“Were you two seriously watching Theodore Rex?!”
Rosa laughs – really laughs – at the way Jake scrambles for the remote control to turn the TV off, and she grabs it from him before he has a chance to press the button.
“Amy likes it,” Jake says and Rosa sits upright, away from him, and raises an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to cave. “...And I guess I like it too. Can we just turn it off and forget you saw anything?”
“Nope,” Rosa says, taking another mouthful of whisky. “We're gonna watch it because I'm sad and kind of drunk and I ruined your night and I said so.”
“I'll get the popcorn,” Jake says, and downs the last of his beer.