#he’s just like yeah I usually do bachelorette parties but I’ll do some dudes birthday cause I’m an ally✊🏳️‍🌈 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

auggie-hunter · 3 years ago

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the insomnia diaries;

❛ surprise. send an unexpected nsfw image to my muse.

truthfully, auggie should've known this could’ve happened one day. not that he’d ever expect it from her, or even ask, but he should’ve known teddy graham would find new and exciting ways to make him fall out of his chair.

(literally; he’s in the middle of a stream when it happens. he’d seen the notification go off while waiting for his game to load and had the capital idea to fully lean over to check instead of just reaching for his phone with his arm.

he’s could not be more relieved that he falls to the ground because he isn’t sure he could’ve kept a poker face on camera. or that he’d make it to his 23rd birthday with the way his heart is racing)

and while his viewers are likely laughing up a storm at his faux pas, turning his chat to chaos, he manages enough mental capacity to mute his mic, eyes still glued to his phone.

because his girlfriend, bare from the chest up with an arm tucked behind her head and a knowing, bright red smirk on her lips, stares back at him on his phone.

vlauggie: sorry dudes, technical difficulties, we’re back tomorrow, 7pm. ps: you’re all banned for laughing at me :)

…even if technical difficulties were, quite literally, him dramatically unplugging the computer and running to his bedroom where she laughed loudly when he all but jumped her bones.

worth it. totally.

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❛ abrupt. kiss my muse out of the blue.

she’s in the middle of a phone call with her sisters, giggling from her place on the barstool at the kitchen island. about whatever it is they’re discussing. he isn’t sure; he genuinely hasn’t been listening. what he is sure about is how happy she looks to hear their voices and be laughing with them.

he hasn’t seen her smile in so long, he thinks, and his heart squeezes when he realizes just how long it’s actually been. eight months since they lost lip.

her eyes look so bright, and she looks so much like herself. like his teddy. like the heaviness of her heartbreak isn’t weighing her down.

like she might fly again.

he’s missed this for her.

she’s mid sentence when he cups both her cheeks and presses his lips to hers, soft and tender and warm. it catches her off guard; he can tell by the way she stares back at him, lips slightly parted, confusion on her brow. but instead of answering her or explaining, he drops a long, lingering kiss atop her head, thumbs swiping softly over her cheeks.

she mutters something about calling them back and her arms are sliding around his waist a second later, drawing him into her arms.

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❛ go down. go down on my muse.

he almost hates that she’s here like this. almost. that she could come back after all this time, after he finally figured out how to make himself stop missing her long enough to move on.

he almost hates that he’s so addicted to her that he’s willing to burn it all down for her.

almost. but auggie hunter could be selfish like that. teddy graham would always make him selfish when it came to her.

they were just supposed to talk. she just wanted to talk, or so she said. the way she’d fallen into his lap in the middle of it all told a different story.

the way he falls right into her makes him angry, because he knows she knew he would, and that he always would. she knows her choosing not to talk and just go straight into the familiar is her way of having her cake and eating it, too.

but two can play at that game. and he can’t say he’s doing much thinking when he lifts her onto the desk in front of him though. or when he’s pulling lace that he wants to pretend wasn’t strategic down her thighs and letting his mouth following the same trail back up them.

the ring on his left hand burns with the weight of what he’s doing, and the pressure of soft, firm skin underneath it. he desperately wonders in the back of his mind if there will ever be a day in his life where he isn’t weak for the woman in front of him.

(he also wonders how in the world they got here)

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❛ note. give my muse a note saying : [ content ].

he’s surprisingly nervous today. ironic, considering he’s technically already done this. but til the day he died, auggie hunter was certain teddy graham would, without much effort on her part, make his heart race.

they weren’t even going to have a wedding. they’d talked about it, sure, once they’d gotten back from paris, matching rings on their fingers. they’d said they could do it one more time for their parents’ sake.

except the world had been put on pause, she’d turned out to be pregnant, and they’d had more pressing matters to attend to in the form of two babies and more love and life than they knew what to do with.

but that was then. this was now. their daughters are eight months old, the world’s eased back in, and their families are waiting patiently in the terrace of the house in maine he and teddy had called home for the better part of the last eighteen months.

they’re getting married. again.

and he’s nervous.

the thing is, if he could see her, then maybe he wouldn’t feel so antsy about it. call it separation anxiety after all the time they’d spent together coupled with way too much excitement.

and he’d see her soon; one glance at his watch tells him they’re only twenty minutes out from when he’d be waiting for her at the top of the beautifully decorated aisle in the garden.

(the watch is a present from freddie when he’d come in to help with his tie, their father’s initials engraved in the back. “he’s here, too…” his brother had said, and they’d both held back tears)

but somehow, twenty minutes feels like an eternity.

he closes his eyes and takes a long deep breath, trying to get it together, before reaching for his suit jacket. he’s getting married. (again).

while running both hands over the front to smooth out the neatly pressed material that makes him look older somehow, wise beyond his years, a crinkling grabs his attention. he furrows his brow, wondering if the dry cleaners had forgotten some kind of tag in the pocket. he’s careful with the boutonniere, trying to make sure he didn’t ruin teddy’s favorite flower resting delicately over the pocket.

an envelope.

he furrows his brow as he pulls it out. that for sure hadn’t been in there before. or at least… he thought he’d have noticed when he pulled it out of the garment bag. the paper crinkles in his hand when he turns it to read it, and then, he smiles.

auggie.

written in a familiar cursive he’s seen a dozen times on post-its, in journals, in love letters. teddy.

he’s careful not to rip it when he opens it, chuckling to himself when he spots the blue paw print sticker on the back. an ode to their ongoing blue’s clues binge when rosie decides she’s over sleeping promptly at 4:07 in the morning.

loving you is my favorite part of waking up every morning. and knowing i’ll get to love you the next day is my favorite part about going to sleep. thank you for taking my hand, and wrecking all of my plans. i wouldn’t have it any other way.

can’t wait to marry you (again!!!)

- ted

yeah. he’s ready now. and would be forever.

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❛ mark. leave a mark on my muse’s body [ specify where ].

working out your history probably wouldn’t end with a purple bruise on your hip bone.

(or it could; it would maybe just lead to a more fun memory than the painful one you’re currently dwelling on)

had you sorted your shit out, you wouldn’t have shown up late at night, dressed (or undressed) in the way you were, to jump into the arms of a married man.

(or you would’ve, except you’d have been his wife, and he’d have been your husband and you would’ve giggled in each other’s arms in the aftermath)

but the purple bruise on your hip bone is angry, a symbol of wanting and taking what doesn’t belong to you, of him having his cake and eating it, too, (literally) even if you’re the one who let him in the first place.

you’re the one who showed up to his restaurant late at night; you’re the one who insisted you talk; you’re the one who found your way onto his lap.

(even if he’s the one whose deep frustration led him to push you onto the desk in his office and find home between your legs, hands gripping your thighs like a lifeline. the red scratches on the side of your right thigh should fade soon; at least the reminder of the band on his finger not having the strength to last as long as the tender skin low on your hip bone.

the secret, wordless brand on your skin is a longer reminder of how much he resents you for leaving him.

or maybe he resents you more for coming back.

then again, he’s the married one, you think selfishly. although, there’s a ring on your finger that makes you a hypocrite since you’d be there soon, too.

had you sorted your shit out, you wouldn’t be staring at a reminder on your bare skin through the mirror. you’d be with him. where you belong.

and he’d be with you, where he belongs.

(but maybe the bullshit ends with you. maybe you’re the one who sorts it by slipping the ring off your finger.)

(and you refuse to be anyone’s secret. and you refuse to have him of all people be yours)

(you just desperately hope he feels the same)

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❛ pin. push my muse against a [ wall, table, other ].

teddy wasn’t even going to have a bachelorette party. she was just planning on grabbing auggie and eloping at the courthouse, wanting nothing more than to just be married to him. but she should’ve known her sisters wouldn’t be able to help herself. even her little siblings bixby and belly, freshly twenty-one, wanted in on the planning.

it’s how she finds herself leading a singalong of four of her siblings, her future siblings in law, her best friends, and fellow patrons while belting “africa” by toto at a karaoke bar, drunk on too many sugary lime mojitos.

there’s a tilted crown on her head that looks too perfectly placed for how tacky it’s actually meant to be, and she’s clumsier than usual, so while the room goes wild, daily has to come to her rescue and help her off the stage when it’s over.

she’s one step down when she spots him, all the way at the back by the bar. her jaw drops and she gasps like she hasn’t seen him in ages though it’s only been a few hours.

her fiancé, her auggie, watching her with his smile like sunshine and cinnamon bun wrinkled forehead. (good lord, she’s drunk) she loves him so much.

(she’s really gonna be his wife. she could cry.)

daily’s calling after her when she clumsily runs away from her and toward his direction, narrowly missing a waitress on her way over. but teddy ignores her, a woman on a mission.

her lips are on his before she even says hi, arms wrapping around his neck and crossing at her forearms. she nudges him back, pinning him up against the corner of the bar, and when he chuckles against her mouth and pulls back to look at her, she grins just as wide.

“sorry to interrupt your big night, i just wanted to—“

she shakes her head and kisses him again. “never, i missed you sooooo much.” this time her smooch is loud, and he laughs wrapping an arm around her waist when he feels her kiss more of the space above this lips than his actual lips.

somewhere behind her, she can hear olive mutter something about it being a bachelorette party, but she doesn’t entirely care. auggie’s here!

“baby,” he mumbles against her mouth, pulling back. “go back to your party. i just wanted to bring you this,” he pulls out her engagement ring from inside his pocket. “i thought you might’ve forgotten it. though i think i should hold on to it for now.”

she pouts, ready to protest, but he grabs her left arm from where it rests at his shoulder, a huge, pink toy diamond ring on her finger. “just until you come home; you’re already covered.” he kisses her cheek three times.

“el—“ she hiccups. “it was eliza’s idea. she said she saw it on one tree hill and was scared i’d lose mine.”

he snorts. “thanks, one tree hill.”

“go ravens.” she giggles and stands on her toes to kiss him. “wanna make out?”

“i think you’ve got that part covered,” he says against her lips, still so very amused at her.

“okay but over there so i can take your pants off,” she slurs, closing the inch of space between them so he’s pinned against the bar counter.

“how about you go have fun, and i’ll wait for you later with no pants.” though he knows a puddle of drunk teddy would end her night in sleep, but he humors her.

she gasps. “can we go now?” and he has to catch her hand before she unbuttons his pants.

“no, olive and allie are already glaring at me for being here,” he tells her and kisses her forehead. “go; i’ll see you at home, okay?”

“…fine. i love you. a lot, a lot. like, to pluto a lot.”

there’s that smile again, big and bright and she all but melts into her boots: “i love you, too.”

as she’s walking away, she turns back to look at him. “i won’t even tell anybody about your whole fake pretest. pretet… pre…” she huffs, tongue tied again:

he laughs. “you caught me.” and with a final wink, she’s finally back with her party, and he’s walking out the door, both hands in his pockets, and his soft grin intact.

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❛ choke. intimately wrap your hands around my muse’s throat.

okay, so it isn’t shocking per se; all the time they spent surviving on stolen moments and making the most of them for so long (before deciding to just say screw it, secrets be damned) had turned into lessons and discoveries.

lessons and discoveries that led them both to understand they were all kinds of kinky.

like how auggie was easily putty in teddy’s hands at the sight of her in any kind of lace. or satin. or leather, and how much she loved how easy it was for her get him to bend at her whim. or teddy being really into being tied up (and tying him up). her affinity for being blindfolded (and blindfolding him)

“i like surprises.” she’d said it at her birthday dinner; herhad eyes met his across the dinner table, knowing he’d know what she meant despite being surrounded by all their friends, none of them any wiser.

there’s auggie’s obsession with going down on her, and the way her legs had a little too much power over him. he was convinced this was why she’d started wearing shorter dresses in his presence. though she’d never admit it.

(it’s how he put two and two together about how having him look, but not touch was a turn on for her, and how she’d put it into practice by having him sit at the edge of her bed while she showed him all the ways she touched herself without him)

marks that scream mine, a slight tug of hair (or two), a hand up her skirt hidden in plain sight was a bit of a power trip, only to be met with bare, wet skin. because two could play at that game.

teddy on her knees. auggie from behind. chasing orgasms in new and exciting ways…

the list went on and on.

so again, finding this out isn’t shocking. a little surprising, considering they thought they’d fully populated the mental list by now. but when she’s pressed into the mattress, and he stops moving in her for a second to help ease her head out of the uncomfortable position it had ended up in, another discovery is made.

she’d winced, and when she’d complained about her head, he’d cupped the back of her neck, and gripped gently to help her get more comfortable. except his thumb puts a little more pressure than intended against her throat in the effort to help her move, and the way her eyes flutter while lips part and she clenches tighter around him gives him pause.

teddy appears a little surprised herself, especially with how her eyes widen when he lets go and she realizes what had just happened. he’s a little blown away, but clearly not as much as she is. but then his brow raises, a silent “really?” appearing on his face with an upward quirk of his lip.

of course, before she can even put together an explanation, her cheeks rouge a deeper shade of red than just a moment earlier to match her averted eyes and bashful expression.

he bows his head to kiss her. a reminder that there’s no need to be embarrassed. not about this, and especially not with him.

(even if the way she usually blushed while turned on, all the way from her face down to her chest, easily made his head spin. the way he could tell the difference was pretty hot, too)

but then auggie slows it down, more deliberate and sensual, and yet a little dirty, his hand eases back onto her neck, fingers and thumb applying careful pressure. he pulls back to look at her. he needs to follow her lead on this one; he won’t do it otherwise. there’s a word for this, too.

teddy’s eyes meet his, a slow nod of consent and trust allow him to keep going. and when those same eyes flutter again, and her lips part, he knows he’s found it. her sweet spot. and then he moves inside her again, picking back up where they left off.

she comes faster than either of them anticipate after that.

lesson #350.

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missed connections… what if we just missed who we were in a past life?

“wait, so you really just told indy you wouldn’t come to her wedding if she didn’t invite me?” teddy laughed, smoothing out the skirt of her dress, soft pink and ending just at her mid-thigh. indigo graff wanted a wedding of whimsy, which meant seventies florals and springtime energy. “you’re her maid of honor! it’s a small wedding.”

olive shrugged, the blonde highlights in her recently cut hair appearing extra glossy while styled in soft beach waves. “she knows i hate our cousins, i absolutely wasn’t getting through this without someone normal. and eliza couldn’t fly back from bali, and you know drew is still stuck in davenport because he’s the worst--”

“he’s not; you love him, and there’s a random springtime blizzard.”

“teddy stop being rational please, i’m being bitter, let me be bitter.” olive straightened out her own dress, the navy color as close to black as indigo would let her go for the day. she wasn’t hating it, or the way it contrasted with her red lipstick. “who plans an entire wedding in two weeks?!”

“okay,” teddy watches her trying to find the fine line between rational and letting olive be olive, but she’s still quite amused about this. “but scarlett is here. and forest is here.”

“forest is taking his photog job way too seriously so after we’re done being bridesmaids he’s gonna go off in search of the perfect wedding candids,” olive rolls her eyes while wrestling with the spandex shorts she’s wearing underneath to get them straight. “and i adore my sister, but scarlett decided she wanted to bring patrick to the wedding, and she adores patrick and will inevitably dump me for him once she’s done bridesmaid-ing. clearly my siblings don’t care about me and my needs..”

“on this day of all days? what a betrayal,” teddy snorts deadpan. “and you told me to bring ivy!” she walks around to help olive finish freshening up.

“i did, i know. but i like ivy. i don’t like patrick.”

“you don’t like anyone.”

“i know that, too,” olive says simply exhaling heavily before taking a look in the mirror. “okay, this is gonna have to do.”

teddy smiles at her through the mirror. “you look beautiful,” she tells her, wrapping both arms around olive’s shoulders and squeezing her tight. “come on, grumpy.”

as they make their way out of the bathroom, her best friend’s sigh makes teddy turn around. “i just can’t believe my big sister’s getting married.” olive’s lip quirks, pride swelling in her chest.

teddy grins. “you’re so cute. let’s get you over to her before all this real emotion goes away,” she teases, leading her out the door, but not before she bumps chest first into someone’s back just beside the door.

“oh!” teddy exclaims, grabbing onto a set or arms to find her balance.

“shit, sorry!”

olive glares, stopping short just before she could bump into teddy. “who stands in front of a bathroom door?!”

“sorry!”

olive looks to teddy. “auggie. fredward’s lame brother. and best man.”

“hi olive,” he shakes his head, seeming more amused at her antics than annoyed. like they’d been through this before. “hi, nice to meet you…”

“teddy,” she motions to herself. “best friend.”

he smiles. “teddy. that’s cute.”

teddy grins. “thank you.”

“don’t flirt with her, she’s taken,” olive interjects and teddy giggles when auggie blushes.

he clears his throat, shooting teddy an apologetic look before turning to olive. “i was looking for you actually. scarlett sent me. indigo’s ready to go.”

“and why didn’t scarlett come get me herself?”

auggie shrugs, but before he can say another word, teddy’s whisking her best friend away.

“come on, oli; it’s showtime, you can yell at your new in-laws later.” teddy shoots auggie a look of amusement and a friendly wave before disappearing down the hall.

the chaos of it all.

#wherein we cope with depression with bad writing at 3 in the morning :)

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vernonfielding · 5 years ago

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Life Writes Its Own Stories

Chapter 4 (and on AO3).

AN: In case anyone's paying attention, I'll be screwing around with my posting schedule over the next few chapters, just to account for Real Life events. Chapter 5 will be up tomorrow, though.

Jake scrubbed a hand over his face and sat back in his chair with a sigh. He and Rosa had been stuck all week in the Terrible Case Trifecta: boring crime (vehicle break-ins), asshole victims (Williamsburg millennials), and no leads. The thefts hadn’t even been in their precinct, technically, but the Eight-Four had offloaded the case because the first report had come from a victim who worked nearby and had filed through the Nine-Nine.

But it wasn’t just the tedious case that was making Jake irritable. He propped his chin in his hand and glanced at his cell phone again – no new messages. He glanced covertly at the desk across from him, making sure Rosa was still in the bathroom, and picked up the phone. Maybe he’d somehow missed a text. He pulled up the app and nope – his last text from Santiago had been 10 days ago.

“Dude, stop it,” Rosa said, from way too close behind him. Jake jerked up in his chair and dropped the phone.

“But I don’t want to miss a text from your mom,” Jake said, snidely.

Rosa shot him a solid death glare as she sat back at her desk.

“What have I told you about bringing up my parents?”

“Don’t.”

“Exactly.”

Jake flipped the phone over so he wouldn’t be tempted to glance at the screen every few seconds.

The past week and a half had been, frankly and disturbingly, torture. After meeting Santiago, he’d left Prospect Park feeling euphoric – a word Rosa had thrown at him (as in “You look euphoric. What’s wrong with you?”) and that he’d denied but later admitted to himself was fitting. He couldn’t have said where the euphoria came from, exactly, or why he practically floated around the precinct the rest of that day. Clearly Santiago herself had something to do with it, but he’d also thought that maybe after so long under the Vulture, he just missed feeling like he was helping people – and Santiago had reminded him that was still his job. He was still one of the good guys.

But as the days wore on with no further contact from Santiago, and as his good mood hadn’t just faded but reversed itself, he’d had to admit that Santiago herself was the central theme. And it wasn’t just that she wasn’t texting him – he hadn’t seen her byline once in the Bulletin, and he’d been looking every day. Usually three or four times a day. He wondered if she’d quit, or moved. He’d even googled her name, to see if her byline appeared in some other publication, but nothing interesting came up (other than an “Amy Santiago” who was president of the Brooklyn Buttonholers, which was either a knitting club or something much more interesting/alarming and possibly naked).

He didn’t know what to make of her sudden absence, and he didn’t want to take it personally. But it was hard not to when she’d disappeared immediately after they met. Jake hadn’t expected them to become best friends or anything like that, but he’d thought maybe they could be friendly...somethings. He was interested in getting to know more about her, anyway.

“Stop sulking and look at the interview transcript I just sent,” Rosa said.

Jake glowered at her but obediently opened his email. “Which one is this?”

“Second- no, third interview,” Rosa said.

“Bully Mom or No-Sugar Dad?”

“Vegan Dad.”

“Oh!” Jake said, perking up. “He was actually kind of fun.”

“Right?” Rosa said.

By the end of the day, they’d figured out that Vegan Dad, though extremely affable in his witness statement, was also a meth addict and solely responsible for the car break-ins. The Vulture seemed disappointed that they’d cracked the case, probably because he’d bet against them with the captain of the Eight-Four. Jake and Rosa grabbed drinks after work to celebrate both solving the case and pissing off Pembroke.

“So,” Rosa said, after they’d each tossed back a shot and were nursing beers. “What gives with this Santiago thing? Do you like her or something?”

“What? No.” When Rosa just stared, he glared back at her. “Seriously, no.”

“Just seems like you’re pretty caught up in her,” Rosa said with a small shrug.

Jake shook his head and took a long swig of beer. He had to admit that Rosa had a point. And if she’d noticed that he was bothered by what was happening, or rather not happening, with Santiago – well, that wasn’t good.

“I guess I kind of liked texting with her, and now she’s gone MIA and-” He paused, a shiver of distaste racing across his shoulders at what his next words were going to be. Rosa just stared some more, not even blinking. “Fine, I miss her. It. The texts. I liked giving her a hard time.”

“Uh huh,” Rosa said.

Jake rolled his eyes.

“I swear, that’s all there is to it.”

“Look, I don’t care if you like her or don’t like her or just want to fuck her or honestly just like teasing her over text messages – just be careful. I know you trust her-” She held up a hand when Jake started to deny it, kneejerk. “Shut up. Even if she really is a good person, she’s got a job to do and it’s not necessarily compatible with the job we do.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t really matter if we’re not talking anymore anyway.” Jake drained the rest of his beer and stood up. “You want another?”

“Sure.”

Jake walked up to the bar and signaled the bartender for two more. While he waited, he took out his phone to check the time. On the locked screen was a new text: “Can you talk?”

Jake quickly looked back over his shoulder at Rosa. She was leaning back in her chair, watching a pair of women playing pool with a smirk on her face.

Jake wrote back: “Not now.”

The bartender set two bottles in front of him and Jake handed over a twenty.

His phone vibrated. “Tomorrow? Can we meet in person? I can buy coffee.”

Jake studied the message, thumbs poised over the keypad. He’d be busy with Rosa most of tomorrow wrapping up the break-in case – they may have solved it, but there were a lot of loose ends that needed tying up, and it would be hard for him to steal away from Rosa without her giving him shit about it.

“Can’t meet during the day,” he wrote. “Dinner?”

He paused before sending. He could suggest they grab a beer, or even that they just meet at the park again. Dinner was a lot. Dinner was date-adjacent.

He hit send.

Her reply was immediate: “7pm. Salty Dog.”

Jake sent her a thumbs up. He made sure to wipe the grin off his face before he brought Rosa her beer.

+++

The Salty Dog was a sports bar-slash-restaurant located in a converted firehouse, therefore, Jake hated it on principle. But he gave Santiago props for picking a spot that was a good 20-minute subway ride from the precinct. He managed to get there five minutes early, but he wasn’t surprised to find her already there, sequestered in a corner table at the back of the restaurant with papers spread all around her. Jake didn’t creep on her from a distance this time, but he still managed to startle her when he walked up and said hello.

“Shit!” She dropped the papers she’d been holding in each hand. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“You told me to meet you here.”

“No, I know, sorry.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face and began stacking her papers again, in some precise order that seemed to require a fair amount of concentration. She gave Jake a quick, apologetic smile. “Sit down. I just need a second.”

Jake took the seat adjacent to her, so they both had chairs with their backs to a wall. There were a few empty tables in the restaurant, but the place was fairly busy for a Wednesday night with no big sporting events scheduled, as far as Jake knew. He picked up one of the menus that had been left at the edge of the table and scanned through the entrees. On the one hand, the mac and cheese was $13. On the other, the place had a “build your own mac and cheese” bar.

“Okay,” Santiago said, and Jake turned back to her just as she was carefully slipping a thick folder into a messenger bag at her side. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry I asked to meet in person again, but I needed to show you something.”

“It’s fine,” Jake said. “I think I actually prefer it this way. Texting and phone calls make me nervous. Too much of an electronic trail, you know?”

“I totally get it,” Santiago said. “I actually have an alias for you in my contact list. Just in case.”

“Oh yeah? Me too.” Jake nodded toward her phone, which was sitting on the table next to her menu. “What’s my name?”

Santiago ducked her head, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. Instead of answering, she picked up her phone and opened her contacts, then handed it to him.

“Pineapples?” Jake said. “Wait, is my picture a pineapple wearing a thong?”

“Yes.” Santiago tilted her head to the side to look at the image with him. “I wasn’t wearing my glasses when I found it, but I feel like it works?”

“Somehow, I agree.” Jake handed the phone back to her and said, “Okay, you want to know your name?”

“Yeah I do!”

Jake pulled her up on his contact list and gave her his phone.

“Eldora Senegal,” Jake announced, as Santiago snorted with laughter and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Former prostitute-turned-madame-turned-cupecaketeur, who specializes in children’s birthdays and bachelorette parties. She’s from Latvia.”

“That is very specific,” Santiago said. “But there’s no photo.”

“Yeah, I was so focused on the backstory I guess I didn’t get around to it.”

A waiter came around then, and they both ordered mac and cheese – with bacon, buffalo sauce, and jalapenos for Jake, and shrimp and kale for Santiago – and drafts. After the waiter brought their beers, Jake turned to Santiago and debated whether he should ask what she’d been up to for the past 10 days when she wasn’t texting him or, alternately, not come across as a total loser and just ask why she wanted to meet. It was a tougher call than he cared to admit.

“So, what did you need to show me?”

“Right, yeah,” Santiago said. “First though, I’m sorry I just disappeared. Or, I mean, I’m sure you didn’t even notice that we haven’t communicated in like a week and a half. But if you did- you know what? Never mind.”

She tucked another lock of hair behind her ear. She had the rest of it pulled back into a loose ponytail, wisps breaking free here and there like she’d been messing with it throughout the day. It was endearing. Jake didn’t reply to her rambling, just smiled benignly at her even as he felt a pleasant warmth in his belly.

“I’ve been on a special assignment – the jail story you gave me, actually,” Santiago said. “My editor has me working on it full time, so I haven’t been doing any other cops stories lately.”

Jake felt a swell of relief. “Special assignment. That’s great. Very, um, special.”

“It really is great,” Santiago said, beaming at him. “I mean, it’s crazy stressful and I’m terrified of letting down Holt – he’s the editor in chief. You have no idea what a big deal this is to get to work on an investigation. But it’s amazing. Anyway, today I got a ton of documents from the corrections department in response to my public records request. At first I was surprised that they’d come through so fast – I guess sometimes those requests can take months – but then I realized that they’d purposely dumped, like, every single record on me. They’re trying to overwhelm me with information.”

“Okay,” Jake said slowly, watching as she took out the same folder full of papers she’d been looking at earlier. It was at least two inches thick. “I can see how that’d be a problem, but how can I help?”

“What I need,” Santiago said, “is a system for determining which records are important. This is a sample of the kinds of papers they gave me-”

“Wait, that’s just part of it?” Jake gaped at the massive file.

“Oh my god, yes,” Santiago said. “I have three cardboard boxes filled with papers back in the newsroom.”

“Dear lord.”

“Exactly,” Santiago said. “I was sort of hoping that you could take a look at these papers and help me figure out some key words or codes to focus on. The papers are full of legal jargon and criminal codes, and I can look them up one at a time, but you must know them already.”

“I think you are way overestimating my familiarity with the New York penal code,” Jake said, but he plucked a paper off the top of the stack anyway. “Okay, for starters, you probably want to stick with the felonies. I can help you ID those. And yeah, I can help you put together a list of offenses to look for. How far back do these go?”

“I asked for five years of data,” Santiago said. She’d pulled out a notebook and was already scribbling furiously in it.

“Whoa, right there, you can ditch everything older than a year,” Jake said. “The rumors have only been going around for about six months.”

“Yeah, but this could have been going on for ages before word got out, right?”

“No way,” Jake said. “Cops are huge gossips. I’d guess the longest this has been going on is a year, and that’s stretching it.”

“Okay, that makes the story slightly less compelling but much more manageable, so I guess I’ll take it,” Santiago said with a small frown.

The mac and cheese arrived, and they decided to start going through papers while they ate. Jake scanned them for familiar codes and called out the ones that were most interesting; they both figured that if he didn’t recognize a code then it probably wasn’t common or important.

Santiago explained her plan as they went. A source in the corrections department had told her that only some inmate-lawyer meetings were recorded, and that they tended to be for suspects who were not native English speakers. So after pulling out only the most interesting and potentially damaging cases, Santiago would go through the rest looking for inmates who had requested a translator or a lawyer who spoke another language to represent them.

Jake whistled under his breath as she walked him through the reporting. That sounded like an insane amount of work, made incredibly difficult because she only had access to physical papers, instead of electronic documents that she could quickly search and sort. Santiago scoffed when he said as much.

“Yeah, the cops don’t typically like to make our jobs easier,” she said. Then she looked up, aghast. “I mean, present company excluded, obviously.”

Jake laughed. “It’s okay, a lot of cops don’t like to make my job easier either.”

He turned back to the papers, but looked up again in surprise when Santiago reached out and placed her hand on his arm.

“Seriously, Peralta, thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Jake glanced at her hand on his arm, and she quickly withdrew it, picking up her fork instead to dig back into her mac and cheese.

“Jake,” he said.

“What?”

“Call me Jake,” he said. “The only people who call me Peralta are cops. And weirdly, sometimes my aunt.”

“Okay, Jake.”

CHAPTER 5

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