Author's note: Hello there, everyone! Yes, I realize it's June now, but I wrote this back in February and I just haven't gotten around to posting it. Anyways, I hope you like it!
Jake knocked three times on Amy's front door, thirty minutes before he'd told her he'd be there. He was usually late to things, but all he'd been doing at home was sitting around watching an old episode of SpongeBob, and he had decided that since he'd already seen it about a hundred times, he might as well go early to Amy's.
"It's unlocked!" He heard her yell through the other side of the door, and when he stepped in she added, "What are you doing here so early?"
Jake followed her voice to the bathroom, where Amy was standing in front of the sink, getting ready. "I was bored at home. I decided I'd rather just come hang out with you."
Amy looked pleased. "Well, that's sweet of you. By the way, you look very nice in that shirt. Is it new?"
"As a matter of fact, it is, thank you for noticing." Jake looked his girlfriend up and down. Her dress was red and very Valentines-y, and she had pearls around her neck. He smiled. "You look very nice, too. Like one of the models in perfume commercials, except not weird and creepy," he said, reaching out to poke her in the arm so she knew he meant it.
"Thanks," she said with a little smile. He knew her smiles pretty well, and that one was one of the good ones, the kind she smiled when she really was happy.
Jake was proud of himself. It seemed he was doing pretty well tonight so far. Not only that, he was really happy with the Valentine's Day gifts he'd gotten her. One of the gifts was a book, a real bookstore book. It really was a nice book. It was leather and the writing on it was gold, which he thought was extra fancy. It was called Pride and Prejudice, and Jake had always heard her talk about it a lot. It was a romance with some hot guy named Mr. Darcy in it, that much he knew.
The second was a silver necklace with a tiny little bird on it. He had gotten this because, number one, jewelry was something guys got their girlfriends on Valentine's Day, and number two, it reminded him of the first case they'd ever worked together. It seemed a really long time ago now, but whenever they first met they were assigned to a stakeout, and Jake had decided that while they worked, he was going to get to know this cute, strange Detective Amy Santiago. Only, while they sat there, things got awkward and neither of them spoke very much the entire time, and the only thing Jake could think of to say was, "Wow, I really wish those tiny little birds would shut up."
Even with the windows closed, the sharp little sounds of the birds peeping outside were leaking into the car. Amy hadn't looked up from the file she was reading when she commented, "House Sparrows."
"What?"
Her eyes rose up from her papers. "Those 'tiny little birds' are called House Sparrows. They're one of the most common kinds of sparrows."
"Really?" Jake had said, amused. "I guess I didn't know there were so many different types of sparrows. I guess I kind of just thought there was only one. A sparrow."
Amy had shaken her head. "There are dozens, just in North America. The Field Sparrow, the Fox Sparrow, the Savannah Sparrow, just to name a few…"
Around that time, Jake had looked at her and wondered if she were real. If she were real, she was very, very weird, but it really just made him want to get to know her more. Apparently she had taken his staring in a negative way. "I'm a birder, sue me," she said defensively, going back to her file.
"When you say 'birder,' you do mean a bird whisperer, right? 'Cause there's this bird that keeps stealing all of my Cocoa Puffs, and I think it would be really helpful if someone could explain to it that those are mine."
And that was when he'd done it—he'd made Amy smile for the first time. It was one of her smiles that happened whenever she was trying to look annoyed but failed. He learned to like those a lot.
A conversation had sparked from there, as she explained that no, she did not mean she was a bird whisperer, but once when she was a little girl she had quacked at a duck and it had quacked back, and still she swore it had understood her perfectly and replied. And then he had teased her. He couldn't remember what exactly he had said, but from then on they were friends.
Jake hoped she would get the reference when she saw the necklace. Well, even if she didn't, it would be a good thing because then he'd get to tell the story using his Amy voice to play her parts. His Amy voice drove her crazy, and it was great whenever he got to use it.
He wondered when she would be ready to leave so that he could give her her presents. Right now, she was curling her hair and looked about halfway done. Jake leaned against the wall facing the bathroom door as he watched her. She was picking up some weird kind of curling iron, wrapping a strand of hair around it three or four times, waiting, and then letting it go. When she was finished, her hair looked like a corkscrew.
"What's that?" He asked, realizing that the thing she was using to curl her hair didn't look like the curling iron his mom had always used when he was a kid.
"It's a curling wand," she replied.
"A wand. Is it magic? Please say yes."
"It's not, sorry."
"Is the magic wand hot?"
"Yes, it is."
"Like, really hot? Do you burn yourself? I'm just making conversation here."
"Well, I burn myself sometimes. I—"
"Does it hurt when you burn yourself?"
"What kind of a question is that? Of course it does."
"I don't know, it's a magic wand!"
Amy rolled her eyes, but continued, "It's hard because you have to get your fingers really close to it whenever you use a wand like this. It came with this weird black glove thing that you're supposed to put on whenever you use it, but it only covers three fingers, and it's really hard to grab my hair whenever I have it on."
"Because it's so slippery and shiny." Jake had noticed this before.
"Right." Amy paused. "You know, I wouldn't think talking to me about my curling wand is any more interesting than watching SpongeBob on your couch."
"How did you know I was watching SpongeBob?"
"Because that's what you always do on Sunday afternoons."
"Are you stalking me?"
Amy didn't answer, she just smiled. "Anyway," he continued. "I just like talking to you more than I do watching SpongeBob."
"Really?" She said, sounding genuinely surprised.
"Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, SpongeBob's the man. He is literally the single greatest cartoon character in the history of all mankind. And don't get me started on Patrick, I could go on all night." He paused. "But I dunno. I mean, you're cute…and stuff…stuff." Wow, he was bad at this. He needed to go back someplace safer. "And, I can't make fun of SpongeBob for being a total dork, can I?"
"Technically, you could, but it might make you seem crazy, and he wouldn't be able to tease you back. Like last week when you said 'flot dog' instead of hot dog…"
"How did I know you were saving that one? You know what, your face is a flot dog, Amy!"
She smiled, setting down the magic curling wand and unplugging it. After that she did something to her hair, he wasn't sure what it was, and then turned to face him. "How do I look?" Amy asked.
Jake smiled. "Great. Beautiful," he said. She did. Amy actually looked better than a perfume model, but he wasn't sure term would best describe looking better than a perfume model. "You look better than a perfume model."
"Thank you," she said happily, taking his hand. "Shall we go, sir?"
"We shall, my lady," he said as they headed towards the door. That gave him a thought. "We should pretend that we're secretly royalty, escaping to New York in search of freedom from our horrible families. Only, we fall in love with each other and have to deal with the fact that our countries are at war. I will be Edward James, a handsome but secretly rebellious prince, and you will be—"
"Anastasia Parrish, a princess who just wants to go to school and become a scholar instead of rule her kingdom," Amy added, grinning and putting on her coat. "It's from a story I wrote when I was in middle school."
"When I was in middle school, I chewed a piece of gum every day and then used it to spell my name under my desk in history class. It was the best. Eventually, I got caught and I had to scrape it all off. Totally worth it."
"I don't think we would have been friends back then," she remarked as they opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
"Oh, I know for sure we wouldn't have been friends back then. I would've been like, 'Amy? Who's that? Is that that nerdy teacher's pet that likes to—' Ow!" She had punched him in the arm yet again, this time, harder than usual. "Why are you so strong?"
Amy smiled, proud of herself. "I work out and eat salads."
"Yeah, well I do both of those things too! Except…I only go to the gym once a month if I'm lucky, and the only kind of salad I eat is the potato salad at that barbecue place down the street from here," Jake commented as they entered the elevator.
"Hmm. No wonder I'm faster on foot than you, too."
"Well, you may eat green stuff, but I'm better at giving gifts than you are. Like, a gazillion times better. So much better you're gonna cry. From both joy and sadness."
"Well…I suppose I have enough reason to believe you. I mean, what you got me for our sixth month anniversary was amazing. Beyond amazing, in fact—I'll probably never look at the library the same way again!"
"And you look at the library all the time," Jake added, remembering when he had planned the very interesting night they had both spent in the library.
"Exactly."
"Hey, we're listening to Taylor Swift in the car, right?"
"Well, it is Valentine's Day."
"And no one writes about love quite like Taylor does. She just gets it."
"…I was going to say that because it's Valentine's Day, I'll let you pick the music."
"You love Taylor and you know it. You're just too much of a nerd to—OW! Hey, no more punching! You're borderline abusive. One more blow and I'll have you arrested, madam."
As usual, not the slightest bit of regret registered on Amy's face. "Oh, I have no reason to be concerned about that. I have an in at the NYPD. It's me," she whispered. She carried a satisfied, paper thin smile all the way to the car, where Jake made her sing along to the music, especially to "Shake it Off," because he knew, through hearing her hum it at work constantly, that it was secretly one of her favorite songs.
"You're gonna love the place I'm taking you. It's super swanky. It's gonna cost a lot. More than a hundred bucks, probably," he told her.
"While I do appreciate the sentiment, do you really think it's appropriate to tell your girlfriend just how much you're planning on spending on her?"
"Totally. That way you'll know how far I'm willing to go into debt for you."
Amy didn't realize just how far until they got there. It was a tiny little place with dim lighting and well-dressed waiters, and one of the reasons Jake had chosen it was because it had a good view of the city. "Candles on the tables!" He had whispered to Amy whenever they stepped inside. "That's when you know the place is swanky."
The restaurant was busy, of course, but not loud, and they were seated next to one of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, just like he had asked for when he made the reservation. "This is beautiful, Jake," she said softly, looking out the glass to the sparkling city lights. "How did you find it?"
"Charles recommended it. He told me it was like 'eating at the same table as the French dolphin.' I thought that seemed like a pretty good review."
"French dolphin? That doesn't make much sense."
"I don't know. It sounded like he said dolphin, but he might have said something else. Honestly, I wasn't paying much attention."
"Did he say dauphin? The dauphin was the French heir to the throne in the Middle Ages. Charles really knows his history. We should start a club. I wonder if the captain would join it!"
"Could I join it?" He wanted to see how she reacted to this one.
Her face went blank. "Well…I suppose I could give you some reading materials…"
"Pass."
Amy smiled. "History really is a gratifying subject, Jake. You can see the patterns humanity has fallen into throughout the centuries—"
"Hey, it's time for your gift!" Jake interrupted. "All both of them," he added proudly.
"Ooh, both of them! I like the sound of that."
Jake realized as he handed the wrapped book to Amy that she'd know it was a book right away, and maybe he should have put it in a bag or something. "Nice Garfield wrapping paper," she commented, evaluating her present.
"Oh. Well…it was the only kind I had, so…you know. And you like cats."
Smiling softly, she unwrapped the paper carefully. "It's beautiful!" Amy exclaimed. "Leather binding, embossed cover, a ribbon bookmark…" She opened the book, flipping excitedly through the pages and gasping. "Color illustrations! I love it!" Her hand flew across the table to grab his. "Thank you so much!"
"You're welcome. I feel like I should warn you, though, the next one is better. It'll probably make your head explode with joy. Just sayin'."
"And you're not over hyping it at all."
"Absolutely not." Jake took the little necklace box out of his pocket and handed it to her. It too was wrapped in the Garfield paper, which he now realized kind of took a lot of the romance out of it.
But Amy didn't say anything this time. She took off the paper at a faster pace than she did the book and smiled prettily when she opened the little box. "See? It's a tiny little bird," said Jake.
"It's actually a House Sparrow," she replied, giving him a knowing grin.
"You get it!"
"Of course I do. It's the most romantic puzzle I've ever solved. And…" Her eyes shined when she looked at it. "I really love it, Jake. Really. It's amazing."
"Great. I'm really glad you like it so much." It made him very happy to see her get excited and smile, especially when something he did was the cause of it. "Now where's my gift?"
"Well…it's not really something I could wrap, so I decided to just tell you about it. Ready?"
"Oh, Amy, for such a smart detective you sure do ask stupid questions."
"Okay. So, I was thinking about a couple weeks ago, when you told me about how I was missing out on so much by not watching any of The Lord of the Rings movies, and I said I had always just read the books…"
"And then we had an hour long discussion about which was better, yeah, I was there…"
"Well, I still firmly believe that any book shall always surpass the film version by far, but that's beside the point. Anyway, you know that really fancy movie theater, the one where you can order pizza and they give you a pillow and a blanket and stuff?"
"Yes?"
"They're showing all three movies next Saturday, so I got us tickets to go. I know it's nothing compared to what you got me, but…"
"Are you kidding me? Me, you, Gandalf, pizza, fancy movie theater, I'm there. Best Valentine's Day gift ever."
"Really?"
"Totally! I mean…you were really thinking about me and stuff."
"Good." Amy took a deep breath and glanced out the window. Her dark eyes sparkled with the lights of the city as she looked towards all the brightly lit buildings. Being here with her was perfect. She was so…he didn't really know how to describe it. It was that feeling again, that feeling that made him want to get to know her better, that feeling that he had had whenever he first started spending time with her. And the great thing was that he already knew a lot about her, and yet he still wanted more.
"Hey, I love you," Jake told her. It felt nice to say it. The first time he had told her, it had been a little scary, but even then he had liked it.
"I love you too," she replied, and her hands found his again. "And…you're right. You are the best at giving gifts."
"YES!"