Amy's lost count of exactly how many drinks she's had, and anyway she never thought the Gina-invented distinctions between one- and two- and three- and four- and so on-drink Amy were all that accurate to begin with. Alcohol loosens inhibitions, that's all it does, and whether it makes her cry or talk extra-loud or come on to Rosa, it's just expressions of different parts of her subconscious, revealed by the lowering of boundaries.
But, anyway, she has no clue how many drinks she's had-though she figures she's still thinking clearly enough that she's not in any danger of blacking out. Unfortunately, she's also thinking unclearly enough that she's really, honestly thinking about volunteering to sing during karaoke night, which is something she usually only does in groups, and only after much persuading.
Tonight is different, though, because tonight, Jake Peralta's just gotten engaged.
Engaged to beautiful Sophia, whom Amy actually likes, annoyingly enough, because she's funny and smart and sexy and she challenges Jake, Amy can see that, she brings out interesting parts of him but she's also not afraid to stoop to his level. And Amy's trying to be happy for Jake, she really truly is, because it's such a huge step for him to propose, to have thought about marriage and talked about marriage and prepared for being engaged like an adult, like someone who actually believes that real adult love can work, like someone not still hung up on the failures of his parents.
She's really proud of him, but she also really, really wishes that it was her and not Sophia who got to reap the fruits of Jake's maturity.
You had your chance, says a voice in her head that's either reasonable or very, very cruel, and Amy's too drunk to tell which. He told you he liked you-twice, twice he told you, and you told him that nothing was going to happen because of Teddy, and of course he was going to back off and move on, when you didn't give him any encouragement, not one hint. It would have been creepy of him not to back off, you know that, you can't blame him for trying to make you more comfortable. It took you too long to realize that you lo-that you felt whatever you felt, anyway (even drunk, Amy realizes the utter inappropriateness of the word "love" here), took you too long, and Sophia showed up and by the time you could bring yourself to admit how you felt, he was over it.
As with most voices in her head, it's partly right and partly wrong, but Amy doesn't feel like arguing just now.
She feels, still, like singing, and singing something that might get this terrible hollow ache out of her chest, singing something that might be completely embarrassing but is also so suited to her situation that she kind of has to let it out.
(It's also a consideration that she knows this is one of Jake's favorite songs.)
"Me next!" she yells after Gina finishes "She Will Be Loved" and offers the mike out to the crowd.
Amy scrambles up to the stage and grabs it from Gina, breathing heavily.
"Are you so sure this is a good idea?" Gina asks under her breath, with uncharacteristic concern.
"Totally!" says Amy, at about three times her normal volume, and Gina shrugs and leaves the stage as the opening chords to Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" fill the room.
"You're on the phone with your girlfriend; she's upset. She's going off about something that you said," Amy starts off, managing to stay at least somewhat in tune, but realizing as she sings that Sophia's nothing like the girlfriend in the song, she's way funnier and cooler than Amy, and Amy's the annoying nag who brings Jake down.
But she's started it, and Amy Santiago is nothing if not determined, so she's damn well going to finish it.
"Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you? Been here all along-" that part, at least, is true- "so why can't you see, you belong with me…you belong with me."
She keeps her eyes fixed on the far side of the bar as she sings, focusing on a single point on the wall, a single speck in the wood paneling, so as to prevent herself from locking eyes with Jake and making the real subject of this song even more evident.
It works, she thinks, because when she finishes, the bar erupts into cheers, and Boyle comes up to take the microphone, and she permits herself one fleeting glance at Jake, who's smiling along with everyone else, his hand holding Sophia's, looking utterly oblivious to the fact that he's just been serenaded.
So, at least that embarrassment's been avoided. However, it soon becomes exceptionally clear that she very much has to get to the bathroom or avoid the equally humiliating situation of wetting her pants in front of everyone, so she run-walks to the ladies' room.
On her way back to the party, she runs into Jake-literally bumps into him, which knocks her off her feet a little bit (not that she was all that steady to begin with).
"Congratulations!" she says to him, in a voice even she can tell is far too loud. "Congratulations and I'm sorry for not looking where I'm going!"
"Don't worry about it," Jake says, smiling at her, and his voice is deeper than normal, it seems, and it's got this amused tone to it, like, silly Amy, bumping into people, and the suppressed laugh that she can hear behind his words is both frustrating and sexy.
"Hey, great job singing up there," he adds. "You know my secret and intense love for Taylor Swift."
"I know it," she says ("I'm the one who understands you," she thinks).
"You never sing on your own. Is this, what, five-drink Amy?"
"I don't know," she admits, "and those categories aren't that real anyway, you know that."
"I know it," he says back.
"Congratulations," she says again.
"For knowing how drunk you are?"
"On your engagement. Sophia's great. You two are great. I'm really happy for you, really, really I am."
"I believed you the first time."
"Good! It's true."
Jake's face changes, from amused to serious, as she says this, and she realizes too late, oh crap, oh crap, I've been too effusive, he can tell I'm lying.
If only he didn't know her so fucking well.
"Amy," he says carefully, "tell me if I'm out of line here, but you weren't-you weren't singing about me, were you?"
"I was," she blurts out, unable to restrain herself from confirming it now that he suspects.
His face is still serious, but there's also a look in his eyes, glad and hopeful and hungry, almost, and he says to her, "I had no idea."
"That I was singing to you?"
"That you still...that we still…" He trails off, and she has absolutely nothing to say in response.
He clears his throat. "I, uh, I'm officially about to become the biggest douche you know, okay?"
"How?" she starts to ask, but is stopped when he leans down to kiss her.
The first thing she thinks, when their lips touch, is, "Huh. So he must be pretty drunk himself."
The second thing is "Mmmmm."
And the third thing is "SOPHIA," and she rips her mouth away from his at the name ringing like a siren through her head.
"What the fuck, man?" she asks him, angry on Sophia's behalf and on her own and on Jake's honestly, that he could do this to himself.
"Oh my god. It's nothing, okay? It's nothing. Nothing. Just...I'm really sorry. God. Sorry!"
He turns away, goes into the men's room, and shuts the door, and Amy's left alone with the taste of Jake on her mouth and a Taylor Swift song playing in her mind.