Chapter 21: The Unfinished Business
The rooftop air, thick with exhaust and unresolved things, seemed to vibrate between them. Jake’s confession hung there, simple and terrifying. I’m more terrified of going back.
Amy stared at him, her dark eyes searching his face for a trap, for the punchline. She found only a startling openness, a vulnerability that made her chest ache. The city noise faded into a dull roar. Her own fear, a cold, tight knot in her stomach, began to unravel, replaced by a warmer, more dangerous impulse.
“Your place,” she said, the words leaving her lips before her internal review board could veto them.
Jake blinked. “What?”
“You said we should continue the debrief. Your place is the logical secondary location. More secure than the precinct, less… documented than the motel.” She was constructing the rationale as she spoke, building a shaky framework of procedure around a towering, illicit desire. “We can… assess the operational risk. In private.”
A slow, understanding grin broke across Jake’s face. It wasn’t his usual mocking smirk. It was something sharper, hungrier. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah. My place. For… assessment.”
They drove separately, a tacit agreement to maintain some shred of professional discretion. The short drive felt interminable. Amy’s hands were damp on the steering wheel. She kept glancing at her reflection in the rearview, trying to find Detective Santiago in the flushed, wide-eyed woman looking back. She saw only the woman who’d been bent over a motel dresser hours ago.
Jake’s apartment building was a brick fortress of Brooklyn neglect. The lobby smelled of cat and fried food. Amy’s organizational soul wept a little as she climbed the stained stairs behind him. He unlocked a door with a heavy clunk, shouldering it open against a pile of unopened mail.
“Welcome to Fort Peralta,” he said, flipping a light switch. A single bare bulb in the center of the ceiling buzzed to life, casting a jaundiced glow over the chaos.
It was worse than she’d imagined, and she’d imagined a lot. The main room was a monument to sustained bachelorhood. Pizza boxes formed a precarious ziggurat on the floor. DVDs and video games were scattered like fallen soldiers. A faded futon, its cover stained with mysterious continents, dominated the space. The walls were a gallery of absurdity: a poorly-drawn crayon portrait of a stick-figure Jake arresting a blob, a “World’s Best Roommate” mug hanging from a nail, a movie poster for Die Hard with a sticky note that read “BEST MOVIE FACTUAL” stuck to Bruce Willis’s forehead.
The heatwave had concentrated the apartment’s essence into a palpable funk—old socks, microwaved noodles, and a top note of boyish despair.
“It’s… a system,” Amy said, her voice tight.
“The system is ‘Don’t Move Stuff and You’ll Always Know Where It Is.’ It’s foolproof.” Jake tossed his keys onto a pile of laundry that might have once been a chair. He was watching her, nervous again. The bravado from the rooftop was fading, replaced by the acute awareness that Amy Santiago was in his disgusting apartment, and he had just admitted to being terrified of not being with her.
She took a deep breath, which was a mistake. The air was ripe. She walked further in, her heels clicking on the linoleum. She stopped by the crooked mug. “World’s Best Roommate?”
“Charles gave me that. I gave him one that said ‘World’s Most Okay Roommate.’ He cried. It was a whole thing.” Jake shoved his hands in his pockets. “Listen, Ames, maybe this was a bad—”
She turned. The predatory smile from the motel was back, but softer now, more certain. She unbuttoned the first button of her blouse. “The assessment, Peralta. We’re behind schedule.”
That was all the invitation he needed. The distance between them evaporated. He crossed the room in two strides, his hands cupping her face, his mouth crashing down on hers. This kiss wasn’t like the desperate, angry ones in the motel. It was deeper, a claiming of a different kind. It tasted like agreement. Like a terrible, wonderful decision being finalized.
He walked her backward, their mouths locked, until the backs of her knees hit the arm of the futon. She broke the kiss, gasping. “This is revolting,” she whispered, her fingers already working on his belt buckle.
“The futon or the idea of us?” he mumbled, yanking her blouse open, buttons pinging off into the darkness.
“Both,” she said, and then his mouth was on her breast, his tongue circling her nipple through the lace of her bra. She cried out, her head falling back. She scrabbled at his jeans, freeing him, her hand closing around his hard, hot length. He was already slick at the tip. The feel of him in her hand, the solid, urgent reality of him, banished all thought of binders and protocols.
He pushed her panties to the side, not even bothering to remove them. The lace tore a little. The sound was profoundly exciting. He guided himself to her entrance, finding her wet and ready. The weeks of tension, the hours of confession, all focused into this single, driving need.
“You’re sure?” he grunted, his forehead against hers, his cock poised at her opening.
Her answer was to hook one leg over the low arm of the futon, opening herself to him completely. “Fuck me, Jake. Stop talking and fuck me.”
He drove into her in one long, smooth stroke. The fit was perfect, familiar and shocking all at once. She was so tight, so hot, clamping around him like a velvet fist. He buried himself to the hilt, her gasp hot against his neck.
He set a punishing pace immediately, each thrust slamming her body against the unyielding arm of the couch. It was uncomfortable, awkward, the cheap frame digging into her hip. It was perfect. The grimy reality of his apartment, the sheer un-romance of it, made it feel more real than anything that had come before. This wasn’t a stakeout fantasy. This was them, in his mess.
“This is how you live?” she moaned, her nails digging into his shoulders as he pistoned into her.
“Yeah,” he gasped. “You hate it.”
“I do,” she cried out, her body arching. “I really, really do.” She was close already, the raw friction, the vulgarity of their position sending her hurtling toward the edge. “Harder. Don’t you dare hold back.”
He obeyed, his thrusts becoming shorter, harder, a brutal drumbeat of possession. The futon screeched in protest against the floor. He watched her face, watched as the controlled, meticulous Amy Santiago completely shattered. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth went slack, and a raw, ragged scream was torn from her throat as her climax seized her. Her inner muscles clenched around him in relentless, fluttering waves, and the sheer intensity of her orgasm pushed him over the edge. He came with a broken groan, pulsing deep inside her, his body shuddering against hers.
They collapsed together, a sweating, panting heap half-on, half-off the futon. Jake softened inside her. For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing and the hum of his sad refrigerator.
Slowly, he pulled out. Amy winced, her body敏感 and overspent. She looked around the dim, chaotic room as if seeing it for the first time. “We need to move to a… less toxic surface.”
His bedroom was only marginally better. The bed was unmade, sheets tangled. More laundry. A laptop glowed on the floor, paused on a zombie game. Jake swept a pile of clean-ish t-shirts onto the floor with his arm. “Your chariot, m’lady.”
They lay down on the mattress, skin sticking to the cotton sheets. The streetlight from the window painted stripes across their bodies. The frantic urgency was spent, replaced by a heavy, liquid warmth. Jake propped himself on an elbow, looking down at her. He traced a finger from the hollow of her throat, down between her breasts, over the gentle swell of her stomach.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he said, his voice quiet. “Just… look.”
“You’ve seen me naked for hours,” she said, but her breath hitched as his finger circled her navel.
“Not like this. Not when it’s allowed.” He bent his head and began to explore her with his mouth. Not with the goal of making her come again, not immediately. This was a survey. A slow, meticulous cataloging that was the exact opposite of his living space.
He kissed the inside of her wrist, where her pulse fluttered. He licked a slow path up her forearm, to the sensitive crook of her elbow, earning a soft gasp. He spent minutes on her breasts, worshipping each nipple until they were hard, pebbled peaks, then moving to the soft undersides, the pale skin there. He kissed every rib. He traced the line of her hip bones with his tongue.
Amy was dissolving. Her mind, usually a torrent of lists and plans, was blissfully silent. There was only sensation—the scrape of his stubble on her inner thigh, the hot, wet pressure of his mouth on the back of her knee, a place she never knew could be an erogenous zone. He turned her onto her stomach, his hands massaging the tension from her shoulders, his lips following the line of her spine.
When his mouth finally found her core again, from behind, she jolted as if electrocuted. He ate her with a focused, filthy dedication. No teasing. His tongue lashed her clit, broad and flat, then pointed and precise. He fucked her with his tongue, delving deep, tasting their combined release from before. He used his thumbs to spread her wider, to open her completely to him.
“Jake… oh, god…” She was babbling, her fingers twisted in the sheets. He brought her to a second orgasm like this, his face buried between her legs, her hips grinding back against his mouth as she cried out into his mattress.
He didn’t stop. He gentled his touch, letting her ride the gentle aftershocks, then built her up again with relentless, circling pressure. He slipped two fingers inside her, curling them, finding a spot that made her see stars. A third orgasm, weaker but no less intense, shuddered through her, leaving her trembling and boneless.
He moved up her body, kissing the sweat from the small of her back, the notches of her spine. He turned her onto her back again. Her eyes were glazed, her body pliant. He kissed her deeply, letting her taste herself on his lips.
“You’re unbelievable,” she whispered against his mouth.
“You have no idea,” he murmured. He was hard again, his erection pressing against her thigh. He settled between her legs, but didn’t enter her. He just rocked against her, the head of his cock slipping through her wet folds. He was looking into her eyes, and the intensity of his gaze was more intimate than anything they’d done.
Time lost meaning. The heat pressed down. The sticky air felt like another layer on their skin. He whispered things—filthy things, tender things, jokes that made her laugh breathlessly. He learned her body’s geography, finding the spot behind her ear that made her shiver, the place on her neck that made her gasp.
An hour passed. Maybe more. The city outside grew quieter. Amy felt raw, exposed, and more alive than she ever had. The final barrier, the last secret, beckoned.
She reached between them, her hand closing around him, guiding him away from her pussy. She looked up at him, her eyes dark and serious. “I want you,” she said, her voice husky with use, “in my ass. Again. Now. I need to feel you there while I’m clean. I need to remember the feeling without the motel stink on us.”
He swallowed, a knot of emotion tightening his throat. He nodded, unable to speak.
He positioned her on her hands and knees in the center of his bed. He knelt behind her. This time, there was no spit, no hurried preparation. She was dripping wet from his attentions. He used her own slickness, coating himself thoroughly, then pressing his thumb against her other opening, rubbing, pressing gently until the muscle yielded and his thumb slipped inside. She pushed back against it with a soft moan.
“Okay?” he asked, his voice strained.
“Yes. Now. Please, Jake.”
He replaced his thumb with the broad head of his cock. He pushed, infinitely slow. There was resistance, a burning stretch that made her hold her breath, but it was different from the motel. This was a conscious, chosen surrender. He watched himself disappear into her, an inch, then two, the sight so obscenely beautiful it hurt. He paused, letting her adjust, his hands soothing on her hips.
“All of you,” she whispered. “I want all of you.”
He sank the rest of the way in, a slow, inexorable slide until his hips were flush against her ass. He was buried to the root in that incredible, tight heat. He stayed there, not moving, both of them trembling with the intensity of the connection.
“Amy,” he breathed, a prayer and a curse.
Then he began to move. Deep, measured, rolling strokes. Each withdrawal was a sweet agony, each re-entry a homecoming. He set a rhythm that was less about frantic release and more about possession, about marking this moment into their muscle memory. The sounds were lewd and intimate: their ragged breathing, the wet slap of skin, her soft, continuous moans.
He reached around, his fingers finding her clit, already swollen and sensitive. He rubbed in time with his thrusts, and he felt the first flutters of her impending orgasm deep inside her ass. It triggered his own. His control snapped. His thrusts became harder, faster, losing their rhythm. He was chasing it, chasing the feeling of belonging he found only when he was buried inside her like this.
“Come with me,” he begged, his voice breaking. “Please, Amy, come with me.”
It was the use of her name, the raw plea in his voice, that sent her over. Her third—or was it fourth?—orgasm of the night tore through her, a deep, internal convulsion that gripped his cock like a vise. Her cry was muffled by the pillow. The sensation was too much. With a guttural groan, Jake followed, his own release pouring into her in hot, pulsing jets, flooding that secret, claimed space.
He collapsed forward, careful not to crush her, his body draped over her back. He was still inside her, softening but locked in place by the clenching aftermath of her climax. They stayed like that, joined, as their breathing slowly evened out. The sweat on their skin cooled.
He didn’t pull out. He shifted them gently, rolling onto their sides, spooning her, his cock still nestled within her. It was an intimacy that felt more profound than any act that had preceded it. He wrapped an arm around her waist, his hand splayed on her stomach, holding her close.
The exhaustion of the day, the night, the emotional earthquake, pulled them under. They drifted toward sleep tangled together, his final, softening connection to her body the only anchor in the quiet, dark room.
Just before sleep took her, Amy murmured, her voice slurred and thick, “We still need to file the Collins paperwork by end of shift tomorrow.”
Jake nuzzled the nape of her neck, a drowsy smile on his lips. “I’ll do it. I’ll use… bullet points.”
“Don’t you dare,” she sighed, and then she was asleep.
Jake lay awake a little longer, listening to her breathe, feeling the incredible, warm weight of her in his arms, the intimate connection of their bodies. The chaos of his apartment, his life, didn’t feel like a failure just then. It felt like a home she had somehow, impossibly, entered. The fear was still there, a cold kernel under the warmth. But for now, it was smothered by the profound, quiet certainty of her skin against his, and the knowledge that when the sun rose, they would have to face what they had done.
He slept.
He slept.
And then he was awake. The gray dawn light seeping through his filthy window wasn’t what pulled him from unconsciousness. It was a shift, a slight, unconscious tightening around him. A deep, internal pulse. He was still inside her. The realization was a warm, heavy stone in his gut. He hadn’t pulled out. He’d fallen asleep buried in the tight, hot clutch of her ass, and sometime in the deep, black reaches of the night, his body had responded to hers without his mind’s permission.
He was semi-hard, nestled in that incredible, familiar heat. Amy was still on her side, her back to his chest, her breathing deep and even. His arm was still around her waist. He didn’t move. He just lay there, listening to her breathe, feeling the slow, rhythmic contraction of her body around him as she dreamed. It was a peace so profound it felt like theft. He was stealing a moment that couldn’t possibly belong to him.
Her breathing changed. Hitched. She made a small, sleepy sound, a murmur that wasn’t a word. He felt her awareness return to her body, felt the exact second she realized their connection. She went very, very still.
“Hey,” he whispered, his voice rough with sleep.
“Hey.” Her voice was thick. She shifted slightly, a minute adjustment, and the movement sent a bolt of pure, undiluted sensation straight up his spine. He gasped, his hips jerking forward instinctively, sinking him a fraction deeper. She gasped too, her hand flying down to cover his where it rested on her stomach. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” he breathed into her hair.
“Did we…?” she started, then trailed off. She was fully awake now, her mind likely racing through catalogs and classifications. “I feel… bloated. Really full.” She paused, and he could almost hear the calculations behind her eyes. “You must have come. Several times. During the night.”
It wasn’t an accusation. It was a clinical observation, tinged with a bewildered awe. The idea of it—of his body taking hers in the dark, without audience or intent, a purely autonomic claiming—sent a fresh, shocking wave of arousal through him. He grew harder inside her, a slow, inevitable filling.
“I guess I did,” he murmured, nuzzling the soft skin behind her ear. “Sorry. Not sorry.”
“It’s… it’s a physiological response to sustained proximity and stimulation,” she said, but her voice was trembling. She pushed back against him, a deliberate, languid roll of her hips that made him see stars. “It’s inefficient. Wasteful. The cleanup is going to be a logistical nightmare.”
“We’ll file a report,” he said, and began to move. It was a shallow, rocking motion, not thrusting, just a slow, sensual glide within the tight, wet channel his own spent releases had created. The sensation was obscene, slippery and intimate beyond words. He was fucking her with his own cum.
“Jake,” she whispered, her hand clamping over his.
“Just gonna… check the facts of the case,” he mumbled, his mouth busy on her shoulder. He slid one hand down from her stomach, through the coarse hair between her legs, finding her clit. It was swollen, sensitive. He touched her there, a gentle, circling pressure in time with his lazy movements inside her.
She came quickly, silently, her whole body seizing up in a series of intense, internal flutters that milked him ruthlessly. He followed her over, his own orgasm a deep, almost painless pulse, adding another warm spill to the mess already inside her. He shook against her back, spent.
For a long time, they didn’t move. The room brightened. The sounds of Brooklyn waking up filtered through the window: a garbage truck groaning, a distant dog bark, the first sirens of the day.
“We have to get up,” Amy finally said, but made no effort to move.
“We have to shower. Again. Extensively.” Jake’s voice was muffled against her skin. Reluctantly, he withdrew. The separation was a cold, lonely shock. He felt the loss immediately. She did too, if her soft sigh was any indication.
They left the bed, sticky and coated in the evidence of the night. The walk to the bathroom was a study in tender awkwardness. In the harsh fluorescent light of the tiny bathroom, they looked wrecked. Jake’s hair was a wild brown cyclone. Amy’s was a dark tangle, her makeup smudged into shadows under her eyes. Love bites and faint bruises decorated her throat and breasts. They looked at each other in the mirror over the sink, these two rumpled, debauched strangers.
A laugh bubbled out of Amy, sudden and unexpected. It was a tired, genuine sound. “We look like we lost a fight with a motorcycle gang.”
“A really sexy motorcycle gang,” Jake corrected, grinning. He turned on the shower, waiting for the water to heat. It never really did. It became tepid at best. They squeezed in together under the weak spray.
The shower was functional, not sensual. They passed the soap, scrubbed each other’s backs, washed their hair. It was domestic. It was terrifying. Jake watched the water run in rivulets down the slope of her back, over the curve of her ass, and felt a possessiveness so sharp it bordered on violence. He wanted to build a wall around this bathroom, around this moment.
“What’s the plan, Santiago?” he asked, his voice carefully casual as he rinsed shampoo from her hair.
She was quiet for a moment, her face tilted up into the spray. “We go to work. We perform our duties. We file the Collins paperwork.”
“And?”
“And we observe a thirty-day review period of the… interpersonal development. We assess for conflicts of interest, impacts on team dynamics, and overall operational viability.”
He turned her around. Water dripped from her lashes. “A thirty-day review. You wrote a protocol in your head just now, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. It’s a sensible framework.”
“It’s a fucking binder. You put us in a binder.” He kissed her, hard, pushing her back against the cold tiles. The taste of toothpaste and stale sex was bizarre and perfect. “What’s the criteria for passing the review?”
Her hands came up to his face, her wet thumbs tracing his jaw. “Sustained compatibility. Discretion. No degradation of case closure rates.” She kissed him back, softly this time. “And this. This has to keep feeling… necessary.”
“It feels necessary,” he said, and meant it with every fiber of his being.
They dried off with his thin, scratchy towels. Dressing was surreal. Amy put on yesterday’s clothes, now wrinkled and carrying the faint, permanent scent of his apartment and their sex. Jake found a slightly cleaner pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The normalcy of the actions contrasted violently with the raw, peeled-back reality of the night.
In his main room, the chaos seemed louder, more accusing in the morning light. Amy surveyed the pizza box fortress, the sad futon, the general aura of neglect. She walked over to his fridge and opened it. A lone takeout container, a half-empty bottle of sriracha, and a six-pack of beer greeted her.
“You don’t have any food,” she stated.
“I have beer. Beer is liquid bread. That’s a food group.”
“It is not.” She closed the fridge. “We need coffee. And breakfast. Or my brain will not achieve optimal function.”
They went to a diner two blocks over, a place with sticky vinyl booths and coffee that tasted of burned ambition. The air conditioning was broken. The heat was already asserting itself, a physical weight. They sat across from each other, and the space between them felt charged, electric with everything unsaid.
A waitress with tired eyes took their order. Coffee.Eggs. Toast. The mundane ritual was a lifeline.
“So,” Jake said, stirring sugar into his mug. “The contained incident. It’s… uncontained.”
“Catastrophically,” Amy agreed, not meeting his eyes. She was meticulously arranging her cutlery on her paper napkin. “Holt will know. The moment he looks at us.”
“Holt thinks human emotions are a mysterious and slightly disappointing software glitch. He might not.”
“He will.” She looked up finally. “What do we tell people?”
“Nothing. We tell them nothing. It’s none of their business.” He leaned forward. “Charles will sniff it out. He’s a bloodhound for feelings. And Gina… Gina will just know. She knows everything before it happens. It’s creepy.”
“So we lie.”
“We obfuscate. We use misdirection. It’s a tactical operation.” He gave her a small, worried smile. “We’re good at those.”
The food came. They ate in a silence that was both comfortable and strained. Every brush of her foot against his under the table sent a jolt through him. Every time she looked at him, he saw the memory of her beneath him, her eyes dark and wild.
“I should go home first,” she said, pushing her eggs around her plate. “Change. My blouse is… compromised.”
Buttonless, he remembered. He’d popped the buttons off in his living room. He felt a surge of male pride, primitive and stupid. “I can give you a ride.”
“Separate cars is better. For the narrative.”
“Right. The narrative.” The word tasted bitter.
They walked back to his apartment building to retrieve her car. The morning sun was brutal. On the sidewalk outside his door, they faced each other. This was the threshold. The point where the night ended and the day, with all its consequences, began.
“Okay,” Amy said, shifting her weight. She looked suddenly young, uncertain. “So. I’ll see you at the precinct. We have the 10 a.m. debrief with Holt on the Collins arrest.”
“Right. I’ll be there. With… bullet points.”
“Jake.”
“Sorry. No bullet points.” He reached out, hooked a finger in one of hers. It was a small, childish gesture. “Hey. It’s just a day. We’ve survived worse.”
“Have we?” Her smile was fragile. “This feels like the worst. And the best. Simultaneously. It’s numerically confusing.”
He pulled her into a quick, hard hug, right there on the sidewalk. He breathed in the smell of his own soap on her skin. “We’ve got this, Santiago. We’re detectives. We solve things.”
She pulled back, nodded once, a sharp, decisive motion. Then she turned and walked to her car without looking back. He watched her drive away, a hollow opening up in his chest.
His apartment was a tomb when he re-entered. The silence was oppressive. The bed was a twisted ruin of sheets, the center darkly stained. The sight of it, the stark evidence of what they’d done, hit him with a sudden, nauseating force. It wasn’t regret. It was fear. The fear was a live animal in his ribs, gnawing. He’d handed her a weapon that could destroy them both. He trusted her with it. That was the terrifying part. He trusted her absolutely.
He got to the precinct early, desperate for the distraction of work. The bullpen was quiet, just the early shift uniforms and the cleaning staff. He went straight to his desk, pulled up the Collins file, and tried to lose himself in the dry language of an arrest report.
Subject was apprehended without incident. A lie. His incident with Amy had been seismic. Weapons were secured. He thought of her hands, securing him. The suspect offered no resistance. He had. He’d resisted this, the pull of her, for months. And then he’d surrendered completely.
One by one, the squad trickled in. Charles first, beelining for Jake’s desk with a container of what looked like multicolored gelatin.
“Jake! You’re in early! I made celebration jello! The layers represent the different tiers of justice!” He peered at Jake. “You look tired. But, like, a good tired. A relaxed tired. Did you finally upgrade your mattress? I have a guy who does artisanal futon stuffing.”
“I’m good, Charles. Just focused on the paperwork.” Jake kept his eyes on his screen.
“Right, right, the paperwork.” Charles leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “So. The stakeout. With Amy. In a single-room motel. During a heatwave. I ran the probability matrices. The statistical likelihood of a platonic outcome is hovering at a fascinating 2.3%. It’s a Bernoulli trial of romantic potential!”
“Boyle, if you don’t walk away right now, I will use your celebration jello as a ballistic projectile.”
Charles scurried off, chastened but visibly vibrating with unshared theories.
Then Amy arrived.
She walked in at 9:15, her hair damp from a second shower, wearing a fresh, crisp pantsuit in pale grey. She looked like a corporate lawyer, all severe lines and professional distance. She didn’t look at him. She went straight to her desk, opened her laptop, and began typing with ferocious intent. The message was clear: Business as usual.
It was the most excruciating performance Jake had ever witnessed. He could feel the energy radiating from her, a tightly-coiled spring of tension that mirrored his own. He could still smell her on his skin, he was sure of it. Every clack of her keyboard was a reproach.
Gina wafted past Amy’s desk, paused, and sniffed the air dramatically. “Mmm. Santiago. You smell different. Like… unsanctioned fraternization and poor life choices. It’s a bold new scent. Eau de Regretful Decisions. I like it.”
Amy’s typing didn’t falter. “I used a new soap, Gina. Mind your business.”
“My business is your business, honey. My business is the business of everybody.” Gina’s eyes flicked to Jake, then back to Amy. A slow, knowing smile spread across her face. She didn’t say another word. She just did a little pirouette and walked to her desk, pulling out her phone, undoubtedly to document the development for her social media audiences.
At 10 a.m. sharp, Holt’s door opened. “Peralta.Santiago. My office.”
They rose in unison, avoiding each other’s eyes. The walk the short distance to his door felt like a perp walk. They filed in, stood in front of his desk. Holt was reviewing a file, his expression its usual placid mask. He looked up.
“Close the door, Santiago.”
Amy did. The click of the latch was definitive.
Holt steepled his fingers. His gaze traveled from one to the other, slow and appraising. The silence stretched. Jake could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He was sure his guilt was painted on his face in glowing letters.
“The Collins paperwork is adequate,” Holt began, his tone flat. “Your field work was competent.”
“Thank you, sir,” they said in unison, their voices overlapping.
Holt’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “However.” The word hung in the air-conditioned chill of the office. “I am registering a discrepancy.”
Jake’s stomach dropped. Here it comes.
“The motel receipt submitted with your expense reports indicates a single room. With one bed.” Holt looked from Jake to Amy. “The precinct stakeout protocol, subsection 4-C, clearly states that detectives of opposite genders on overnight surveillance are to secure lodgings with separate sleeping arrangements to avoid the appearance of impropriety.”
Amy spoke first, her voice steady, a masterclass in control. “Sir, with all due respect, the only motel with a sightline to the location had a single vacancy. A room with two twin beds. We pushed them apart. The protocol was maintained in spirit, if not in the strictest literal interpretation. The surveillance was successful. The arrest was clean.”
Holt listened, his face unreadable. He turned his gaze to Jake. “Peralta. Your account.”
Jake’s mouth was dry. He saw it again: Amy, bent over the dresser, her plea in the dark. Fuck my ass one more time. He cleared his throat. “What she said, Captain. We pushed the beds apart. Miles apart. Like, a canyon. It was very professional. And hot. The room was hot. Because of the heatwave.”
Holt stared at him for a long, beat. “I see.” He looked down at the file again, tapping a line with his pen. “The expense is approved. This time. Do not make a habit of creative interpretation, detectives. Dismissed.”
They nearly stumbled over each other getting out of the office. The door shut behind them, sealing them back into the bullpen’s noise. They stood there for a second, the reprieve making them weak.
“He knows,” Amy whispered, her professional facade cracking for a second, showing the panic beneath.
“He doesn’t know,” Jake said, though he wasn’t sure. “He just knows we’re acting weird. We have to… stop acting weird.”
“Right.” She smoothed her jacket, a nervous gesture. “No more weird.”
The day became an exercise in exquisite torture. They worked a case, a simple B&E. They interviewed a witness together. They stood close, their arms brushing, and the simple contact was like a brand. Jake would make a stupid joke; Amy would roll her eyes, but the corner of her mouth would twitch. It was their old dance, but now every step was charged with a secret, humming knowledge.
During the witness interview, in a cramped living room that smelled of cat urine and fried onions, their knees touched under the small table. Jake was describing the probable timeline. Amy was taking notes. Her leg pressed firmly against his, a steady, warm pressure. He lost his train of thought. Completely. The witness, an elderly woman named Edna, stared at him, waiting.
“Detective?” Edna prompted.
“Right. The… the thing. With the… window.” Jake’s mind was blank. All he could feel was the line of heat from Amy’s thigh, the memory of that same leg hooked over the arm of his futon.
Amy smoothly interjected, picking up the thread without missing a beat, her pen flying across her notepad. Her leg did not move away. She was torturing him. He loved it.
Back in the car afterwards, the tension snapped.
“What was that?” he laughed, starting the engine. “You trying to break me in there, Santiago?”
“I was testing composure under non-standard conditions. You failed. Spectacularly.” She was looking out the window, but she was smiling.
“My composure is fine. My composure is great. You’re a non-standard condition. You’re a catastrophic, binder-breaking condition.”
She looked at him then