#no matter the reasons you can count on me Turkey is officially off the menu now

[diegusting]

Jose mutual... we have to go back in time to the first thanksgiving to get turkey off the menu. that's right. we are going BACK in time to the FIRST THANKSGIVING to get turkey OFF THE MENU

Oh woaw Andrewtual this sounds really serious! I don't know what the plan is but I'm following you- I even have meals to replace the Turkey so they don't suspect a thing, you can trust me I'm a real chef!

[staystrange]

heart is yours for the taking

Brooklyn Nine-Nine • Jake Peralta / Amy Santiago Rating: T • ~5.2k words • ao3 cw: slight mentions of drugs but no one uses them in the fic

It was officially the first day of summer. But it wasn’t just the first day of any summer, it was the first day of Jake’s first summer as Amy Santiago’s boyfriend, and Jake was determined to make it count.

-or-

Five times Jake's well-intentioned summer date plans end poorly and one time they don't.

This fic was written for @santiagoswagger as part of the @b99fandomevents summer 2020 fic exchange! I had such a blast writing this fic, and I hope that you enjoy it : )

Prompt: Snapshots of Jake and Amy’s first months as a couple through the summer.

I took this prompt and just ran with it and ended up with this! I've always wanted to write a 5+1 style fic but never had the right idea for one, so this was perfect.

Title from Summer Forever by Megan Nicole - one of my favorite summer bops!

011:58, 11:59, midnight.

It was officially the first day of summer. But it wasn’t just the first day of any summer, it was the first day of Jake’s first summer as Amy Santiago’s boyfriend, and Jake was determined to make it count.

He looked over at Amy, already asleep in the bed next to him. She’d come over to Jake’s apartment earlier that evening after a long day at the nine-nine (she was so busy that she hadn’t been able to get any extra paperwork done, which to her was an absolute disaster), and they’d eaten takeout pierogies for dinner before getting ready for bed early. Amy fell asleep almost immediately after giving Jake a tender kiss goodnight, but Jake was so excited for the date he’d planned for their upcoming Saturday night off that he couldn’t sleep.

Jake’s train of thought slowed in favor of focusing on Amy and how beautiful she looked, even asleep with drool moving steadily down her chin. No matter how many times he and Amy shared a bed, it never quite felt real to Jake, that he’d finally admitted his feelings for her and that she actually liked him back. Heck, Amy had broken rules for him, and he’d tried to follow some for her in return (though the whole “light and breezy” thing didn’t last long, but the effort still counted). But there she was, lying next to him as she had every night so far that week. It took all of Jake’s self control to not reach over and kiss her (he didn’t want to wake her); instead, he lay back down, facing Amy so that she was the last thing he saw before he fell asleep, a soft smile forming on his face as he drifted off.

1

“Ready to go, babe?” Jake asked, leaning his hip against Amy’s desk.

“Hold on, let me just finish signing this paperwork,” Amy muttered in reply, the pen in her hand moving at a snail’s pace along the dotted line on the bottom of the page.

“Ames, we’ve been over this. You need to do something about that speed. Not the drug,” Jake added quickly, “I mean how quickly you write your signature. You get what I mean, right?”

“Yes, Jake, I get what you mean.” Amy capped the pen and stood up. “I just have to turn this in to Captain Holt and then we’re good to go.” Jake followed her across the bullpen to Captain Holt’s office door, almost crashing into her when she turned around just in front of it. “You can’t come in with me, babe, I don’t want you ruining this moment between the Captain and me.”

“You mean ‘the Captain and I,’” Jake replied, a smug smile on his face, his determination to catch Amy in a grammar mistake overpowering his offense at her comment.

“No, but good try though.” She patted him on the shoulder before turning and walking through the door, closing it behind her to stop Jake from following her inside.

“Damn it, I thought I had her,” Jake said to himself, but he couldn’t help but smile proudly as he watched Amy hand her paperwork in, Captain Holt nodding with approval in response.

———

When Amy finally emerged from Captain Holt’s office fifteen minutes later, a pleased smile on her face, Jake reached for her hand, tugging her toward the door. “Come on, babe, our shift has been over for almost an hour already. We’re going to be late for our date.”

“Ooh, you’re taking me on a date tonight?” Amy squeezed Jake’s hand.

Jake grinned. “Yep! I actually managed to keep it a surprise for once.” He called the elevator, the doors opening with a ding a few moments later.

“And what are we doing on this spontaneous date that I didn’t get to prepare for?”

Jake winced internally, refusing to let Amy see the doubt that began to permeate his excitement. “You’ll see! The surprise isn’t over just yet.” He opened the passenger side door for Amy with a slightly comical bow before walking around to the driver’s side and sliding into the seat. He started the car and cranked up the radio to his favorite pop hits station, realizing in that moment he should have probably asked Amy to choose the station instead. At a red light, he turned to her to offer to change the station, but then the newest Carly Rae Jepsen single came on and he was too busy singing along, loud enough to drown out his own nerves.

When they pulled into the drive-in movie theater that had just opened right outside the New York City limits, Amy’s face fell when she saw that the night’s showing was of —

“Die Hard?!” Amy asked, incredulous. “Really? We haven’t even been dating for that long and we’ve already watched this movie way too many times. You pick this movie every single time it’s your turn to plan movie night. Why are we paying money to watch this movie again?”

“Because I thought it would be fun and maybe even a little romantic to watch it at a drive-in movie theater on a warm, clear summer night?” Amy raised her eyebrow, her arms crossing over the seatbelt. “I brought snacks, if that helps at all.”

“I’m listening.”

Jake reached into the backseat and handed Amy a plastic shopping bag filled with snacks: greasy potato chips and gummy bears for Jake, chocolate pretzels and salted popcorn for Amy. “Come on, Amy, you didn’t really think I wouldn’t bring snacks to entertain us, did you?”

“I mean yeah, the snacks help, but we could eat snacks and watch Die Hard at home, Jake. Remember when we talked about budgeting and saving your money?”

“Amy —” Jake was about to reply, but then the stadium lights shut off and the screen lit up with the opening shot of the movie. “We’re already here, I already paid for the tickets, and I already bought the snacks. Just try to enjoy this, okay?”

Amy opened the bag of popcorn, putting a couple pieces in her mouth and chewing contentedly. “Fine. But only because this popcorn is really good.”

2

“You took her to a drive-in showing of Die Hard and called it a romantic date?!”

The second Jake had arrived at the precinct first thing in the morning after his and Amy’s night off, Charles had marched right over to his desk and demanded details. Jake knew better than to deny him, so he told him everything, disagreement and all. Thankfully, Amy had the morning off, and Jake had let her sleep in.

Charles’s response didn’t surprise Jake, and he more than deserved the dig, but he still felt the need to defend himself. “It was romantic! Drive-in movies are totally perfect for early-summer dates, and I brought snacks and everything! And you should have seen the sunset behind the screen!”

“Okay, to be fair, that does sound nice. But still, come on Jakey, this is Amy we’re talking about! You’ve been in love with her for years! And then you get to go out with her, and you take her on a shitty date?”

“Okay, I know it wasn’t great, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a shitty date,” Jake pointed out.

“Well, whatever, you can do so much better than that, Jake.” Charles’s face lit up with an idea. “I know! You should take her to Bon Appe-tweet, this new restaurant that I just discovered the other night.”

“Bon Appe-tweet?” Jake asked, fighting back the laugh that bubbled up in his chest. “I don’t know, Charles, is this another one of your weird food restaurants?”

“No! Jake, you’ll like it. They only serve bird-based dishes. Chicken, turkey, duck, the works. And it’s pretty fancy, so Amy will swoon, and then you’ll go home and make babies and —”

“Alright, Charles, thank you for the recommendation,” Jake said, cutting him off before he got too far down that rabbit hole. Even though Jake knew from many prior experiences that if it was something Charles recommended, it probably couldn’t be trusted, for some reason he had a good feeling about this one and decided to go with his gut. “I’ll make a reservation for later this week.”

Jake just hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake.

———

It was absolutely a huge mistake.

Everything was totally fine at first, to Jake’s pleasant surprise. He and Amy had decided to reserve an outdoor table since the weather was supposed to be clear and warm, and to their delight, the outdoor patio was surrounded by colorful sweet-smelling flowers. Jake decided to splurge and order a bottle of rosé for them to share, and they sipped the wine slowly as they perused the menu.

“Ooh, this fancy chicken dish that I don’t know how to pronounce sounds really good. What are you thinking, Ames?” Jake asked, looking up from his menu at his girlfriend across from him. Jake had told her to dress up for this date, and she’d chosen a dark blue dress that she knew Jake liked, her hair pinned up in a classy bun. She was stunningly beautiful; there were simply no other words to describe her.

“I think I’m going to get the orange chicken,” Amy replied, closing the menu and setting it down on the table, her hands folding over her napkin in her lap. “I’m still not totally ready to trust a restaurant recommended by Charles, but you can’t really go wrong with orange chicken.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Jake said, raising his glass with a laugh.

They ordered their respective dishes when the waiter brought over a basket of bread, and they returned to their drinks, content smiles on their faces.

“This is better than the other night, right?” Jake asked

“Yes, definitely.” Amy took another sip of her rosé, her smile widening.

And then it happened.

The squawking coming from behind the restaurant building caught Jake and Amy off guard, and it was a miracle that neither of them sloshed their drinks onto the table or their clothes. Amy looked horrified, and Jake knew his face reflected a similar look back at her.

“Is there like a farm up the road or something?” Amy asked, her palms pressing into her ears.

“I have no idea!” Jake yelled back to be heard over the squawking.

When it finally stopped, Jake exhaled in relief, but there was something uneasy about the silence that followed. No one else dining out at the restaurant that night seemed to notice or care, though, so Jake chose to just shake it off and focus on Amy, whose initially anxious smile had softened as she drank.

Jake had managed to almost forget it until his and Amy’s food arrived and it hit him that the sounds they’d heard were chickens being murdered for their dinner. The thought made him sick.

“Here you go, sir, madam,” the waiter said, setting their dishes down in front of each of them. “Fresh from our in-house farm. Enjoy!”

“We can’t eat this, Jake!” Amy hissed once the waiter was out of earshot. “They murdered these chickens right in front of us.”

“I mean, they didn’t kill them right in front of us —” Jake stopped when the look on Amy’s face made it clear she was in no mood for joking. “Okay yeah, they might as well have. And normally I would support leaving right now and getting dinner somewhere else, but this food is expensive so if I have to pay for it anyway, we might as well eat it, right?”

Amy opened her mouth to argue, but sighed instead, knowing she couldn’t argue with Jake’s logic. “Fine. But please, promise me you will never trust Charles to plan anything for us ever again.”

“I swear on my original copy of Die Hard that I will never trust Charles Boyle’s food recommendations ever again.” Amy nodded her approval, gulping nervously before cutting into her food, Jake following her lead.

The chicken was actually really good when he didn’t think too hard about where it had come from.

———

“Charles, why didn’t you mention that they kill the chickens in front of you?!” Jake asked the next morning, marching up to Charles’s desk.

“Why wouldn’t they kill them in front of you? If your food isn’t being prepared in front of you at a restaurant, then what is the point of going to a restaurant?”

“Okay, Charles,” Jake said, giving up and turning to the pile of paperwork on his desk.

3

Jake had decided to stop testing his luck with dates for the rest of the week, choosing to plan nights in for him and Amy instead. The next week, though, Jake was feeling brave enough to try again, and this time he sought advice from someone older and wiser.

“Sarge?” Jake approached his desk during an afternoon lull in work. “You’re older and therefore wise and all-knowing. Where should I take Amy on a date this week?”

“You don’t know your girlfriend well enough to know where to take her on a date?!” Terry replied, looking up from his computer.

“No, I do, but I’m worried my ideas aren’t good enough for her. The dates I planned last week were both disasters, and I need a new plan. Where do you take Sharon for date night?”

“Well, we’ve been taking ballroom dancing classes recently and they’ve been pretty fun. They also really add to the romance level of the date, and they’re good exercise too. It’s a win-win-win! Terry loves romance.” Terry puffed up his chest in pride.

“Alright, I get it, you’re the king of dates. How do I sign up, and more importantly, how do I make sure I don’t embarrass myself in front of Amy?”

“I’ll text you the website link in a few, and you won’t embarrass yourself, Jake. It’s a class for beginners. Everyone’s in the same boat. Just let yourself have fun, and Amy will have fun too, okay?”

“If you say so, Sarge,” Jake said. “Thanks. I really appreciate your advice.”

“Anytime, Jake!”

———

“Jake, this is so cheesy,” Amy said a few nights later when they pulled into the parking lot of the dance studio.

“Is it, though? Or is it… romantic?” Jake paused for dramatic effect.

“It’s cheesy,” Amy deadpanned.

“Just trust me, okay? This is going to be fun. We’re going to have fun, I promise.”

“Alright, Jake, whatever you say,” Amy said, following Jake into the building.

After signing in at the front desk, Jake and Amy chose a spot in the back of the room, their eyes wandering around to scope out their classmates. Their instructor walked in a moment later, plugging his phone into the speakers and pressing play on a calming playlist. He led them in a series of stretches, and Jake pretended not to notice the popping sounds his joints made as he followed the instructor’s movements.

What he did notice during a particularly painful stretch, though, was a bag of cocaine peeking out of the pocket of the instructor’s leather jacket that he’d taken off and hung around the back of a chair before the class had begun.

“Ames,” Jake whispered when they’d returned to a standing position. “The teacher guy has cocaine in his jacket pocket.”

“Damn it,” she muttered. “We have to text the squad.”

“Or we could just let this go? For the sake of the date?” Jake asked, hope evident in his voice before he admitted defeat when he saw the look on Amy’s face. “Yeah, no, we have to call this in.” He stepped away from the group during a five minute water break and sent a quick text to Captain Holt.

Just as the instructor began to reorganize the group into lines of partners, the door banged open and Charles and Rosa ran in, Rosa yelling “NYPD, you’re under arrest!” and Charles running up to the guy and handcuffing his hands behind his back.

“What is this about? I didn’t do anything wrong, officers,” he protested.

“Then why do you have a bag of cocaine in your jacket pocket?” Charles asked, holding it up carefully in between two fingers.

“Damn it,” the instructor muttered. “I knew I forgot to do something before I taught this class.”

“Thanks for the tip, Jake!” Rosa said. “Sorry we ruined your date.”

“It’s fine, Rosa,” Jake replied.

Rosa and Charles led him out of the room in handcuffs as the woman working at the front desk ran in to assure everyone that they’d receive a full refund and a discount code for a future class at the studio.

“Why do our jobs have to interfere with our lives so much?” Jake said to himself as he and Amy followed the group out the door.

———

“You arrested the dance instructor?!” Terry asked in shock the next morning. “What the hell, man? I put in a good word for you! You’re going to ruin my reputation over there.”

“You think I wanted to ruin my date, Terry?!” Jake replied, arms flailing. “Now that’s three dates that have been ruined.”

Terry patted Jake’s shoulder gently, or at least what Terry thought was gently. “ There, there. And hey, look on the bright side - at least you didn’t embarrass yourself in front of Amy!”

4

“Alright, Rosa, you and Boyle interrupted my date last night, and I don’t trust Boyle to recommend dates for Amy and me anymore, so where do you think I should take Amy on a date next?”

“I don’t know, Jake, take her to a binder store or something,” Rosa replied calmly as she sharpened her favorite knife at her desk.

“I can’t take her to a binder store, Rosa, you know that she’s going to want to buy like everything and that’s going to get out of control way too quickly. Something else.” Jake crossed his arms, chewing his lip to use up some of his nervous energy.

“Fine, Jake. Take her to one of those paint your own pottery places. Those are always fun.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or making fun of me.”

Rosa paused, glancing up at Jake for a moment before returning her gaze to her knife. “I’m serious. I take myself out to those places all the time. I like painting the little puppy figurines, they’re so cute,” she replied in a deadpan.

“Rosa, oh my God, who are you? How did I never know that about you?”

She shrugged. “You never asked.”

———

Jake had butterflies in his stomach as they walked up to the doors of Color Me Mine, the late summer afternoon sun warming the pavement. He almost was too afraid to look over at Amy, but since his eyes were almost magnetically drawn to her, not looking at her was not an option. When he finally did turn toward her, she was smiling softly, and Jake’s pre-date nerves gradually eased until he was grinning, too.

“I love Color Me Mine!” Amy said. “I used to come here all the time when I was younger.” She reached for the door handle and opened it, the air conditioning cooling them instantly as they walked inside. “We should paint something for each other, babe.”

“Like what? Dog figurines?”

“No!” Amy said, her eyebrows furrowed. “Something practical that we both use at work every day, like…” She paused, eyes wandering around the room in search of the perfect item. “Like a mug!”

Before Jake could protest that hey, maybe he wanted to paint a dog figurine for his desk, Amy had crossed the room and picked up the display mug. “This is perfect, Jake! This was such a good date idea.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Rosa — I mean, thank me, it was all my idea.” Jake tried to cover up his mistake, but Amy’s smirk told him she saw right through it.

She set the mug back down before standing on her tiptoes and giving Jake a kiss on the cheek. “Come on, let’s go pick out our paints.”

“Okay,” Jake said softly, following her to the paint display.

———

Once Jake and Amy chose paints for each other (purple and blue for Jake; orange, yellow, and pink for Amy), they sat down at a small round table in the back of the room. Amy, ever the perfectionist, insisted they paint in silence for a while to ensure that the mug she painted for Jake turned out exactly the way she wanted it to. Jake was touched, and as he worked just as diligently on his mug for Amy, he found that the silence was a comfortable one, and he was content to just be in Amy’s presence.

Jake was just putting the finishing touches on the mug, trying not to let his hand shake too much as he painted Amy’s name on it in thin dark magenta lettering, when the sound of pottery shattering startled him, completely breaking his concentration. When he looked away from a crying child and his profusely apologetic mother, he noticed that not only had he completely ruined the lettering, he’d also bumped into the table, knocking over the water bowl which had spilled all over Amy’s lap.

Jake’s heart sank, knowing he’d managed to ruin yet another date. “I’m so sorry, Ames, I didn’t mean to ruin… all of this,” he said quietly, afraid to look at her face.

“Jake, it’s fine. These jeans are old anyway, and it didn’t really didn’t do that much to your mug,” Amy said, lifting the mug off of the brown paper tablecloth.

“No, it’s not fine. I had one job, and it was to not to screw up yet another date.” He could feel the volume of his voice rising so he took a deep breath, determined not to make the entire room of painters stare at him and Amy. “I’ll go get you some paper towels.”

Amy insisted that they stay to finish up their mugs, and even though she didn’t stop smiling for the rest of the night, Jake couldn’t help but blame himself.

5

“Hey, Captain,” Jake began, closing Captain Holt’s office door behind him as he walked in. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course. Is this about the paperwork that was due on my desk yesterday that you did not finish before leaving to take Amy on another romantic escapade?” Holt asked, folding his hands with his pen still clasped between them.

“Uhhhhh, no?” He smiled sheepishly. “Anyway, since Amy looks up to you more than anyone else and you know her better than anyone else except for me, because, yaknow, we boink, and stuff —” Jake winced at his own awkwardness, but forced himself to continue. “—do you have a good recommendation for somewhere I can take Amy on a date? Preferably something that I can’t possibly screw up somehow.”

“Hm. There’s the new stationery exhibit at the MOMA that she would definitely like. Make sure you budget a lot of time; Kevin and I spent five hours there last week and we still did not manage to see everything.”

“Yikes,” Jake muttered to himself.

“Did you say something, Peralta?” Holt asked.

“Oh, uh, um, why didn’t you and Kevin stay longer?” Jake asked quickly.

“Oh, the security guards kicked us out. Apparently we’d completely missed the announcements and had managed to avoid security for a whole half an hour after the museum closed for the night.”

“Of course you did,” Jake said. “Anyways, thank you so much for your help, sir, I really appreciate it.”

“If you really appreciated it, you would have your paperwork on my desk on time,” Holt replied.

“You know what, fair.”

———

After finishing his overdue paperwork and all of his new paperwork for the day, Jake took Amy to the Museum of Modern Art and led her to the exhibit Captain Holt had told him about. The grin on her face rivaled the brightness of the lights in the building, and Jake was in… well, he had a heck of a lot of mushy feelings about it.

“How did you know I’ve wanted to come here ever since they announced this exhibit a few months ago? I never mentioned it to you,” Amy asked.

“I just know you that well, babe,” Jake replied, only feeling a smidge of guilt for taking credit for Captain Holt’s recommendation.

“Captain Holt told you about it, didn’t he?” Amy said, crossing her arms and turning to Jake.

“Okay, yeah, but still! I know you well enough to ask Captain Holt for recommendations!” Amy’s eyes narrowed, but her smile remained, letting Jake know she was joking. “Come on, let’s look at the fancy paper!”

“Stationery, babe,” Amy corrected.

“Fancy paper!” Amy rolled her eyes as they entered the exhibit.

———

Jake managed to feign enthusiasm for the first hour or so (he even felt it genuinely for a little while because Amy bled excitement as she explained each and every piece of stationery to him), but once he realized how much longer they had to go before finishing the exhibit, he felt his carefully controlled expression start to slip a little bit. He liked Amy a lot, and he wanted to enjoy this for her, but he just couldn’t. Still, he planned on enduring Amy’s long explanations for as long as she wanted to stay, because this date was for her and he was determined not to somehow mess it up.

“You’re bored, aren’t you,” Amy said after a while.

“What? No.”

“You keep staring out into space and saying ‘uh huh’ every three seconds.”

“I was contemplating the beauty of this piece of fancy paper!” Jake insisted, gesturing at the piece that Amy was explaining. Or at least, the one he thought she had been explaining.

“Well, I was talking about this piece,” Amy said, tilting her head toward the one adjacent to the one Jake had been referring to, “so clearly you weren’t listening.”

Jake looked down at the floor, unable to look Amy in the eye. “I’m happy to see that you’re so interested, and I love… listening to you talk for hours on end about whatever you want, I’m just really not that interested in stationery. But really, we can stay as long as you want, I don’t mind. Keep talking to me.”

“No, Jake, I can’t do that to you. You’ve already stuck this out with me long enough. I can just come back another time on my own; you know I have a membership.”

“Ames —”

“Really, Jake, it’s okay,” Amy said, linking her arm with Jake’s. “Let’s go home and watch a movie or something and go to bed early.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “But only if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

Jake had never felt this much guilt in his life.

+1

“Hey, Jake?” Amy said as she slid under the covers of her bed later that night. “I really appreciate what you’ve been trying to do for me by taking me on all of these sweet dates and making our first summer together extra special. But really, babe, I’m just happy being with you. You don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself.”

“But Ames, I managed to ruin every single one of those dates. You deserve better than five disaster dates in a row,” Jake replied, eyes turning down toward his lap in humiliation.

“Jake, I’m serious. Stop doing this to yourself.” Jake looked up at Amy and they locked eyes in silent communication of mutual adoration for a moment before Amy reached over and took Jake’s hand in hers. “You don’t have to prove that you deserve me or anything. I just want to spend time with you and enjoy our first summer as more than coworkers. Can we do that?”

“Yes, Amy, we can do that.” He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.

“But hypothetically,” he continued, their hands still intertwined, “if I were to take you on another date to really make up for all of the other ones this time, what would you want to do together?”

Amy smiled. “Thank you for asking, Jake. I was thinking we could plan a beach getaway for next weekend. I already have an itinerary all ready to go in this binder.” She reached into the drawer in the bedside table next to her and pulled out a thick binder titled Jake and Amy’s Beach Getaway, handing it to Jake, who opened it carefully.

“Ames, why didn’t you tell me about this?” He flipped through the pages, smiling at Amy’s thoughtfulness. She’d really thought of everything - boardwalk rides and arcade games for Jake, relaxing and reading on the beach for Amy, and massages for the both of them. Jake’s heart was full.

Amy shrugged. “I was waiting for the right time, I guess. I didn’t want to interfere with the dates you’d already planned.”

“We could have done this ages ago! I’ve been asking the squad for date ideas for weeks because everything that I thought of was along the same lines as the Die Hard drive-in idea.” Amy laughed. “I wish you’d mentioned this earlier, but I’m excited for us to make it happen now.”

“Me too, Jake.”

———

Thankfully, Captain Holt granted Jake and Amy’s request to take the next weekend off, and together they drove to the beach house they’d rented for the weekend. They’d made a playlist before they left, and they’d spent the drive singing along terribly to Carly Rae Jepsen and Sara Bareilles and a bunch of random 80s songs that Jake had added.

After what felt like ages but was really just a few hours, Jake and Amy lay next to each other on the beach, enjoying the warm sun and the clear blue sky. It was surprisingly less crowded than Jake expected it would be on a Friday afternoon, but it gave them plenty of space on the beach, so Jake wasn’t complaining. Later, they planned to walk the boardwalk together and waste some money on the fun but endlessly stupid arcade games, and Jake couldn’t wait to win some giant stuffed animals for Amy.

She’d been right, of course. This was the perfect date, the perfect way to celebrate their first summer together as a couple. Jake should have asked her what she was thinking from the very beginning instead of trying to be romantic and plan everything himself. There were many benefits to dating an extreme planner like Amy, and this was definitely one of them.

Jake leaned over and nudged Amy awake from the half-asleep state she’d fallen into, kissing her softly. “Thank you for planning all of this for us. I’m so happy to be here with you.”

Amy smiled, lowering her sunglasses for a moment. “I’m so happy to be here with you, too.” She reached for the water bottle next to her and handed Jake the bottle of orange soda he’d bought at the vending machine earlier. “Here’s to our first summer together.” She gently tapped Jake’s bottle with her own.

Jake returned the gesture. “Here’s to hopefully the first of many.”

They each took a sip.