Chapter Text
Danny stood outside of St. Paul’s after Saturday evening mass as the other parishioners poured out onto the sidewalk around him. He held an unlit cigarette between his fingers, fidgeting with the lighter.
He didn’t want to light it. But he wanted someone to tell him not to light it—to just swoop in and casually toss it to the side because she cared whether he was going to live to an old age, or at least whether his breath was going to stink when she leaned in close.
Not that she was ever going to do that again. He’d pretty well taken care of that.
The late April air was heavy with a rain that wouldn’t quite come, and it seemed to match the heaviness in his chest. He breathed it in deeply, reluctant to go home, where no one was waiting for him, and everything seemed marked by her absence.
As he lingered in the overcast twilight, a pair of pigeons caught his eye. The smaller one, the female, he guessed, was pecking around looking for crumbs or whatnot under a streetlamp, and her apparent suitor was hovering nearby, strutting and puffing out his feathers like he was trying to get her attention, as she persistently ignored him.
Danny laughed humorlessly, finally lighting the cigarette in his hand. “Don’t get your hopes up, little bird. She’ll just hurt you in the end,” he muttered.
“Oh, I think she’ll come around,” a voice said nearby. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of long dark hair on a female figure, and for a split second, he thought it was her, against all odds, but of course it wasn’t. It was just some woman, someone he vaguely recognized from seeing at church.
“Huh?”
“She’ll come around, and then she’ll be in it for—well, for life, really.”
Danny stared at the woman blankly, trying to figure out why this random person was suddenly trying to give him love advice, even as his heart quickened at the hopefulness of her words. But how could she even—?
“The pigeons,” the woman said, nodding toward the ground, and Danny felt sheepish. “Once they mate, they mate for life.” She smiled fondly at the birds, barely seeming to notice Danny anymore, and started to move away. “Loyal little creatures. Not like other birds.”
“Hey, I’ve said that!” he called out belatedly even though she was gone, and a few passersby shot him wary looks for his outburst. “I defend pigeons all the time,” he said, feeling an urgent need to explain his behavior to some guy who just happened to be within range. “I’m their biggest supporter. I’m just going through … I’m going through a thing right now.”
“Um … okay, man,” the guy said, backing away from him as quickly as possible.
Yeah, just going through something. Just losing his mind, Danny thought, wondering how he must look right now, hungover, unshaven, waving his cigarette around as he gestured at strangers in the gathering storm.
Maybe he was crazy. He had just thrown it all away, at the moment when he finally had everything he wanted. He should have been the happiest guy alive after Mindy ended things for good with Cliff and chose him, leaping into his arms and into his bed and into his life like this was what she’d been wanting all along too. Instead he’d gotten annoyed over things that didn’t matter, picked little fights instead of enjoying her, pushed her away when he should have been holding on for dear life. Why had he done that?
He knew why. He just didn’t know how to be any different.
Lightning crackled across the sky, and the pair of birds he’d been watching shot away, one flying close after the other. They landed on a ledge under an overhang, huddling close to each other, so he guessed that was a done deal.
“Idiot,” he muttered, berating himself for the ridiculous pang of envy he felt in his gut as he watched them, but the word had a familiar feel in his mouth that made his stomach twist. It was the word he was always throwing at guys who threw away Mindy. He always thought he’d be better than that. He thought that if he ever had the chance, he’d …
That he’d—
Danny stilled as an idea started to form in his head. He couldn’t tell if it was the best or the worst idea he’d ever had. Probably the worst, but in his current state of mind it seemed like the only solution.
He didn’t want to go on like this—that was for sure. He’d gotten so used to Mindy just being there, never more than an arm’s reach or a phone call away, and now she would barely look at him when they couldn’t avoid each other at work. It felt like more than losing a few-weeks-old relationship. It felt like losing a limb.
And they obviously weren’t going to be able to go back to being friends again. She was too angry at him, and why wouldn’t she be? With one impulsive move, he’d wrecked her chance to be with someone who she could actually see a future with. Someone who she didn’t have to sneak around with while she figured out whether what they had was “real.” Even if she’d take him back at this point, he definitely wasn’t going back to that uncertain purgatory.
And that only left—
It was crazy, and he didn't know if he could even talk her into it. But he didn't know if he could live with himself if he didn't try.
A rumble of thunder filled the street, and suddenly the sky broke open, unleashing the torrential downpour it had been holding back for so long. In seconds it was pouring, drenching him and ensuring the cigarette in his hand was never going to light again.
Laughing, he tossed it into a bin.
He knew what he had to do.
--
“Go. Away!”
Mindy’s voice blared through the intercom, and Danny punched the buzzer again, shouting over the steady downpour behind him. It hadn’t stopped raining in the hour and a half since he’d run home from church and then to her place.
“Mindy, will you let me up? I just—” The speaker crackled, but no response. “It’s important.”
A moment passed before the intercom crackled to life again. “Oh, now you’re talking to me? Now it’s important?”
“Yes.” He glanced at his watch. He had so little time to talk her into this if it was going to happen tonight, and if it didn’t happen tonight—somehow he knew that he’d think better of it by tomorrow.
He didn’t want to think better of it.
Lightning lit up the sky behind him, and he quickly pressed the intercom button so she’d hear the crack of thunder that followed amplified in her apartment. He felt a little low using the weather to manipulate her like that, but this was hardly going to work if she wouldn’t even hear him out.
“It’s a raging storm out here, Mindy! Would you let me in already?”
Finally he heard the click of the door lock releasing and reached for the handle. Skipping the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time up to her apartment. At her door, he quickly combed his fingers through his wet hair and took a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself.
Before he knocked, Mindy opened the door, wrapped in a short robe. She had it pulled tightly around her, one hand clasping it together at her neck, which struck him as unnecessary. As if he didn’t know every curve and contour of her by memory already, and it didn’t stop him from taking in her bare legs.
Seeing them made him feel like an addict—an out-of-control addict who would do anything for his next fix.
“Eyes up here!” she snapped, blocking his way into her apartment. “Danny, you cannot just show up here like this.”
He put his hand on the doorframe so that she couldn’t close it without breaking his fingers. “Just … don’t slam the door in my face, okay? I have something for you.”
Before he could second-guess himself, he pulled the envelope out of his inner coat pocket and held it out to her. She just stared at it for a few seconds.
“Take it,” he said, his heart pounding against his rib cage.
Mindy narrowed her eyes at the envelope suspiciously, and he knew from the tense set of her jaw that she wanted to tell him to go to hell and never come back, but he also knew she wouldn’t be able to do that without knowing what was in the envelope first.
Rolling her eyes in submission, she snatched it out of his hand and peeked inside.
He suddenly wished he’d had something more substantial to show her, like real boarding passes, the sturdy waxboard kind airlines used to use, the kind that felt like they could really take you somewhere and change your life. But he’d been in a hurry, and this was all he’d had time for, so the slightly damp printouts would have to do.
She squinted at them, her forehead crinkling in confusion. “Tickets to Vegas?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her expectantly, unable to form any further words of explanation. His mouth felt dry. “There’s um, there’s a hotel I booked too …”
“What, you didn’t have enough vices already, you felt the need to add gambling to the list?”
If by gambling she meant taking big, foolish chances— “You could say that,” he said under his breath.
He glanced past her into the apartment, at the mess of strewn takeout containers and ice cream cartons, and felt both stricken and encouraged that maybe she’d been as miserable as he had these past weeks since they’d stopped—
“Okay, whatever, Danny. I don’t want to be a part of your midlife meltdown or whatever this is. We’re not together, we’re not even friends anymore as far as I can tell, and you really can’t keep asking me to drop everything whenever you—”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
Danny stared at her, realizing he maybe should have thought this part through more. He’d been so focused on the idea, he hadn’t given any thought as to what he’d actually say when he got here.
He’d thought it would be obvious. It had become so obvious to him what they needed to do, and he wanted it to be obvious to her too.
“Why does anyone ever fly off to Vegas on a moment’s notice, Mindy?”
“I don’t know. To blow a better-than-expected tax return. To see Mamma Mia in drag. To get married by Elvis.”
“Yes.”
He stepped forward, something like hope swelling in his chest, and she took a step backward, keeping some distance between them. The door swung shut behind him, with a loud crack that made her jump.
“You want to see Mamma Mia in drag?” Her voice faltered uncertainly, and her hand slipped from the top of her robe to reveal her collarbone.
Danny shook his head, and she looked away from him.
“You … you just got a check from the federal government?”
“No.” He took her hands in his and waited until she looked at him. “Min,” he said her name like a plea. “Come with me. Let’s just do it. Tonight, before we have a chance to think it through.”
Her eyes filled with emotion, before she dropped her hands from his and took another step back. “Right. Yeah. Because thinking this through—that would be crazy.” She waved the envelope in the air, accusingly. “Why are you doing this?”
“Do I really have to explain to you why someone would want to get married? It’s all you ever talk about.”
“Yeah, I want to get married, Danny, someday, to someone, preferably with the face of Tom Hiddleston and the personality of Brian Williams. But that doesn’t mean you can just walk in here after everything, wave some tickets in my face, and expect—”
“Because I don’t want to lose you, okay?” It was hard for him to admit, but harder would be walking out of here empty-handed. This was it, he was going all in, and if it didn’t work, he was probably going to quit the practice on Monday and never see her again.
“You didn’t have to lose me. You broke up with me. You did that. If you didn’t want to lose me, then why—”
“Because I didn’t want to lose you,” he said again, and clawed his hands through his hair in frustration. “Later. Down the line.”
“Danny … ”
“Look … you know what my dad did to me. You know about Christina. What she … when she … it took me years to even … I can’t go through that again. I couldn’t keep dating you or sleeping with you or anything else if it’s not going to work out, because I know I couldn’t do it again. Not for you.”
“Then don’t,” she snapped, and he realized how the last thing he said sounded—how it might have sounded like she was less to him, when what she really was was more. “Just take your tickets and go—I don’t know, just be by yourself forever, I guess, if that’s what you really want.”
“That’s not what I want. I wouldn’t be here if that’s what I wanted.”
“Well, if you want me, you have a really strange way of showing it.”
“Hey, I panicked, okay? And I pushed you away. Maybe I broke up with you so that you could never break up with me.”
“Well, that’s dumb,” she muttered, swiping at her eyes.
“I know it is. But then I just realized—I realized there’s another way.”
Mindy folded her arms across her chest, more protectively than angrily. “Another way … meaning … Elvis?”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe. I don’t think Elvis will actually be involved, but … look, I already told Betsy to reschedule our patients for Monday and Tuesday. I made all the arrangements. All you have to do is throw some things in a bag—a dress, or whatever you want—and everything is set.”
Almost everything, he thought, watching her anxiously.
“Everything is set,” she echoed. “Yeah, everything is set. Are you out of your mind? That’s crazy, Danny, you’re crazy. We hooked up for a few weeks without ever even talking about it, you broke it off with no explanation, you’ve barely talked to me or even looked at me since, and now you just expect me to—I don’t know, just fly away with you?”
He pictured the pigeons, cuddling on the ledge together last he saw, and felt how ridiculous it was. “Yeah.”
“Then you’re crazy.”
“You moved to Haiti with Casey when you barely knew the guy. How is this crazier than that?”
“Casey and I had been together for three months when I went to Haiti. And he—”
“That’s bullshit. Okay, maybe we haven’t dated in the traditional sense. Maybe … whatever. But we know each other. You know me. You know how you feel about me. You don’t need three months of dinner-and-movie dates to figure that out. You either want me, or you don’t.”
He tried to ignore the fact that what they knew about each other might not necessarily be an argument in favor of this, and he hoped she would too, even as a pressure built in the back of his throat over the possibility she wouldn’t.
“That’s not fair.”
“That’s not fair,” he echoed her, disbelievingly. “You would have married Casey. You would have married Tom.” Or Cliff, he added silently, his stomach clenching.
“I lived with Tom. And anyway, he never asked, and you know that.”
“Well, I am. I’m asking. And I know I’m not perfect, but I am a hell of a lot better than that manchild buffoon, you have to at least give me that.”
Part of him knew he shouldn’t want it this way, that he shouldn’t be asking her to settle for him just because she’d been willing to settle for someone else, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d seen her be stupid so many times in the past for guys who weren’t worth it. Why not him?
“Even if you were … so, then, what, I’m supposed to marry you because you’re better than Tom?” She huffed in disbelief. “This is the worst marriage proposal in the history of the world!”
He flinched at that, because it was true. On the way over here, he’d pictured this as romantic … he’d pictured sweeping her off her feet, like a scene from one of those movies she liked so much, but here she was standing her ground, and he couldn’t even begrudge her for it.
“I suppose you’ve had better,” he said, and it didn’t even come out sarcastically.
“Casey made me climb a tree,” she admitted, looking at the space between their feet, her voice smaller. “And he may have implied things about my body type.”
She deserved so much more.
“I would never make you climb a tree,” Danny said, feeling like there wasn’t a lot he could promise her, but he could sure promise that. “And I wouldn’t—”
She put her hand up. “I know. Stop.”
“Okay.”
They stared at each other for a long, suspenseful moment as the rain beat against the window. He felt drawn into her eyes, and he felt like he saw remnants of the warmth he was used to seeing there. She knew him. She knew that he could be better than the person he’d been lately—or at least he hoped she did.
“What if I said yes to this?” she asked finally. “Some proposal story. What would I even tell our children?”
“Our children?” he echoed, not really processing the concept as he zeroed in on the word yes.
“Yes, Danny, the children we would have together if we were married. Have you not thought this through at all?”
The fact that he hadn’t probably should have given him pause, but the fact that she evidently had thought ahead that far—about him, about a future, a future for them, however it looked in her mind—he grabbed onto the idea and rushed forward.
“I don’t know. Tell them … tell them I whisked you away. Tell them I couldn’t live another minute without you, that I needed to know you’d be mine, forever, no matter what. Tell them whatever you want … who cares. If they exist, that means we made it, right?”
She lifted her eyes to his, wide and vulnerable and surprised, and searched his face. “Is that true?”
He didn’t even know which part she was referring to but it didn’t matter. It was all true. “Yeah.”
“You love me?”
“Yeah.” It felt strange and potentially catastrophic to admit, even to himself, but he forced himself further out onto the precarious limb, the one he’d been avoiding for weeks. Months, maybe. “Yeah.”
After a stunned moment, she sprang forward and shoved him hard in the chest. “You idiot!” But her hands stayed where they landed, balling themselves in his shirt. “You could have said so.”
His breath shuddering, Danny let his hands fall on her upper arms, stroking them tentatively, checking to make sure she was really there. “Yeah … ” His voice came out hoarse and seemed stuck on the one word. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I guess I could have led with that.”
“How would this even work?” Her voice was quiet now, emotional, as she squinted at him from closer range. “We’d fight all the time. We’d probably try to kill each other every other day.”
“Probably,” he said quietly, daring to hold her a little tighter. “But … every other day we’d make up.”
“How do you know that?” Her voice was small and open now, like she wanted to believe it as much as he did.
And he didn’t, really. They were so different. She wasn’t who he ever pictured falling for, and he knew pretty well he wasn’t her idea of a soulmate. She’d been making that clear for years. It was part of the perfect storm of panic he’d felt when they were finally giving it a try.
“Because we’d have to. That’s the idea.”
The whites of her dark eyes inflated, like a light was coming on. She turned her face into his chest, and he held her there, stroking her hair, grateful to have her back, wondering if this was his answer. But he could practically hear her thinking, feel the whir of her cranium against his heart, and he didn’t know.
Suddenly her head jerked back and she shoved him away again, taking off across the room.
“Where are you—”
“I have to pack!” she called back to him, halfway to her bedroom.
In a daze, unsure if what had just happened had really happened, he followed her. On his way to her bedroom, he stepped over a random pile of laundry in the middle of the floor and automatically flipped off an unused light as he passed her bathroom.
He found her in her enormous closet and watched as she threw a bunch of random, unnecessary-looking things across an oversized suitcase.
She was packing. To go with him. To a wedding chapel in Vegas. Suddenly things that had seemed like treacherous obstacles in the throes of uncertainty seemed minor and inconsequential.
After a moment, Danny looked around at the colorful mess and wondered fleetingly where they’d live when they got back. There were so many big unanswered questions, but he didn’t ask any of them out loud, or even dwell on them more than a few seconds. Did it matter? He and Christina had done two months of Catholic marriage prep courses, and where had that gotten them?
“Do you like this one?” Mindy was holding up something silver and sparkly that looked like a variation of all the other sparkly dresses she liked to wear.
In his mind’s eye he saw Mindy in that dress, walking toward him. “I do,” he said.
Mindy’s eyes flew up to his at the words, which he realized belatedly had some significance. She dropped the dress into the suitcase, her eyes shining, and then crossed the floor until she was standing in front of him. Just as he was going to pull her into him and kiss her, kiss her like he’d been aching to kiss her lately, she put her hand on his shoulder and pressed down.
“Get down on your knee,” she said.
“Oh.” He did it because she asked, even though it felt ridiculous. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. Come on, Danny, if we’re going to do this, you have to at least ask the question.”
He took her hand in his and almost laughed at the absurdity of it. It was so un-them, and he felt abruptly self-conscious of the gaping difference between what they were and what she wanted.
“I looked up chapels, you’re already packing … we’re doing everything backwards.” It was almost like giving her an out, only he wasn’t planning on letting her go.
“Backwards and inside out and sideways—it sounds like a new dance craze. You couldn’t ever just ask me out like a normal person.” But she was smiling down at him, and she looked happy, and that look was all he’d ever wanted.
Unable to resist a second longer, he reached for her waist, pulling her down and against him. Her face was inches away from his now, her body flush against his, and it was so much better this way, with her close to him. He’d been in agony these past few weeks without having this. And Mindy’s eyes were looking into his so full of emotion that suddenly this moment didn’t seem like a silly formality. It seemed more important than anything he’d ever done, and it took his breath away.
Maybe he was better than better-than-Tom. Maybe she actually loved him back. Maybe this was the best idea of his life, or maybe they were going to be a disaster, but he didn’t even care.
“Would you marry me, Danny?” she asked, before he had the chance to form the words.
And suddenly he knew why women made such a big deal out of being proposed to. His heart grew three sizes in half a second. “Yeah.” His voice broke on the simple syllable. “Yeah.”
He kissed her then, crushing her to him, pushing her robe off her body in a frantic need to be as close to her as possible.
If they spent fifteen minutes rolling around on her closet floor instead of packing, he figured, they could still make their flight.
He didn’t care what she wore anyway, as long as she was going with him.