CHAPTER TWO
—
Amy walked into the break room to find her partner smiling satisfiedly, staring at nowhere in particular. She didn't want to know what he was thinking about, but she could make a decent guess, as Jake was absentmindedly thumbing at his wedding ring. She would have groaned to herself if she hadn't known about it for months. And she'd seen him like that before, distracted by whatever he'd done the night before instead of working.
She liked the guy, she really did, but she thought he was very, very annoying. However, she'd known him for a long time, so she was used to it. Amy dealed with a lot of annoying people in her life. There were her parents, who were always pushing her. There were her other coworkers. And there was her ex-husband, Josh.
Amy was still kind of young, being only thirty-five. But she felt like her life couldn't take a turn anymore, since she'd been married, had two kids now, and then she'd gotten divorced. She'd made mistakes too young, obvious mistakes. And unlike Jake, she didn't use her wedding ring to be an asshole.
"You look happy," she told him flatly, sitting down next to him with a cup of coffee. Having two kids, her body was accustomed to sleepless nights, but she was exhausted from work too. Jake didn't notice, and it didn't surprise her.
"I am happy," he said, sighing contentedly almost in an exaggerated way. "Last week was great and I think this one will be too."
"Oh, today you have that party at Gina's, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah. You're not coming?"
"Why would I want to?"
Jake squinted at her, analyzing her features, and the hummed. "You weren't invited, were you?"
"Ugh, I hate that you can tell when I'm lying."
"Well," Jake said proudly, "being a professional liar myself, it's easy."
Amy rolled her eyes with a smile. Their relationship was pretty much that, he would make a dumb joke or say something stupid and she automatically reacted like that. He was probably the only person who got a smile or a playful eyeroll out of her whenever he said dumb things, because Amy wasn't really annoyed at him. It was something about Jake that didn't let her be mad at him.
"Anyway," Jake said, standing up and stretching. "I gotta go get some work done if I don't want to make Holt angry. I might have another great night and probably will arrive late."
Amy snorted. "So you plan to arrive late sometimes? I thought you just overslept every day."
"Come on, every single day? No, I know my limits. But Holt loves me too much."
He patted her shoulder before walking out, and Amy smiled to herself, following him with her eyes and then going back to drinking her coffee.
——
Jake gave his reflection a smile, winking and clicking his tongue. He felt very confident about that night, especially because he'd seen Gina's friends before, and most of them were really pretty.
He combed his hair, showered himself with cologne, and then, finally, put on the wedding ring. There was less and less guilt in the action every time he did it. He used to think he was turning into his father, but what really bothered him about Roger was that the man broke their family apart. Jake didn't have a family, so he was alright.
Gina welcomed him to the party loudly, clearly drunk already, and he just chuckled, looking around. The house was huge, and crowded. He spotted Rosa in a corner, not talking to anybody like she did at every party. They nodded to each other and she handed him a beer, rolling her eyes at the ring on his finger.
