#weasley-fireworks

Gina and Charles are the worst, Jake decides, when he realizes that he and Santiago have been chatting under a sprig of mistletoe for the last ten minutes. 

"Kiss!" Gina says, and starts the chant, "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" Charles and the other officers gleefully join in with Gina. Terry is giving Jake this look that makes Jake regret ever saying anything to anyone at all, and Amy looks equal parts terrified and embarrassed. 

"I hate everyone we work with," Jake says cheerfully, setting his half-empty beer bottle aside. 

"Your best friends are goblins," she replies, that terrified expression replaced with humor. 

"So, tongue or no tongue? No tongue, this is in public." 

"it’s like a kiss at a wedding," Amy agreed, but it’s the wrong thing to say because Jake can just imagine her, wide smile behind a veil, and it takes him a second to snap back to the reality of December in Brooklyn. 

"Right," he says, picking the conversational rhythm again. "Should I dip you, for effect?"

"Only if you want to smell like whiskey for the rest of the night," she retorts, indicating the old-fashioned glass in her hand with a slight flick of her wrist. 

"You could set it down." 

"You could not dip me."

"Stop talking and kiss!" Gina yells, and the crowd rumbles with agreement. 

He barely stops from rolling his eyes, a compunction she does not share given that he sees her knock back the rest of her drink when Gina continues catcalling. He steps forward, into her space, once she sets the glass on a nearby table and he tips her head up slightly and gives her a chaste kiss, no tongue as promised, fingers on her neck and brushing her pulse. She’s soft. 

The crowd catcalls and they pull apart, her eyes large and lips slightly parted. Then she grins. “I give it a seven,” she says loudly, and the crowd laughs.

They move away from the mistletoe and Jake grabs his beer, draining half of the bottle’s contents in one long pull. When he tips his head back down, she is watching him intently, eyes large and dark with something that he cannot quite identify. “What?” 

She shrugs. “Nothing. Want another round?”