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Dan drummed his fingers against his desk, sizing up Casey’s left profile. Today’s Casey forecast had called for a sunny afternoon, buoyed by basketball playoff games, deli sandwiches, and the lingering glow of morning sex, but sometime after Dan had left to pick up those sandwiches, storm clouds had gathered. Casey glared at his computer like it had served him a court summons and kicked him in the shin for good measure.
In the faint hope that Casey’s temper tempest might dissipate with food, Dan ate half of his roast beef on rye in silence before chancing another glance at him. But Casey hadn’t even unwrapped his turkey and provolone, so Dan readied himself for thirty-mile-per-hour gusts of fury.
“I can’t help noticing that you look a little steamed,” he said, and Casey gave a curt nod.
“‘Steamed’ is putting it mildly. I would prefer the term ‘righteously indignant.’”
“‘Righteously indignant’?” Dan asked, and Casey nodded again, his eyes still glued to the offending computer screen.
“‘Righteously indignant,’” he said, as if willing the screen to spontaneously combust.
“And what has gotten you so righteously indignant?” asked Dan. “I mean, when I left, the Knicks weren’t playing that badly.”
“Nor are they now,” said Casey, “but if they were, you would typically expect that the dregs of the roster would be cut, and that they would struggle to be picked up by another team, and that if they were picked up by another team, it would be for less money. You would expect that this would be the natural consequence of poor performance in a high-profile position. You would expect this to be the natural order of things.”
“So someone did a job badly and got a better job?” said Dan. “That’s what’s got you all steamed?”
“Righteously indignant,” said Casey. “I am righteously indignant on behalf of all honest, hard-working professionals fighting for scraps in a tough industry, while a drunken scourge fails upward.” He paused, and then asked, “Wait, is it ‘upward’ or ‘upwards’?”
“I like ‘upwards,’” said Dan. On a day free of causes for righteous indignation, “upward” versus “upwards” could divide the whole Sports Night crew into good-natured fault lines, but Casey appeared, to Dan’s well-practiced eyes, insufficiently interested in his own digression.
“And I think it’s ‘upward,’” he said, before rearranging his expression back to its righteous indignation. “I am further righteously indignant on behalf of everyone with a working brain who is forced to share a planet with Fox News and its ilk.”
“So someone did their job badly and now works at Fox News?” Dan asked. “That seems like a logical career progression. Can you be righteously indignant on behalf of your loving partner who went out in the cold to pick up your sandwich, which you haven’t touched, and stop talking in riddles?”
“You say that like you didn’t also pick up your own sandwich,” Casey grumbled, “but fine. Look at this.” He tilted his computer monitor in Dan’s direction and started, with a pointed dramatic flair, to unwrap his hard-fought lunch. Dan shook his head and crossed over to Casey’s desk, and then he blinked in confusion.
“Why, in the name of all that is holy, are you watching CPAC coverage?”
Casey tried to answer and failed, his mouth encumbered by an overdue and overly large bite. Watching him hastily attempt to swallow almost made the frigid journey worth it. Casey grabbed a bottle of water, took a long drink, and said, “If you must know, it was a typo.”
“A typo?” said Dan, incredulous. “A typo so powerful it dragged you from everyday sports coverage into this wretched hive of scum and villainy?”
“In a moment of human frailty, yes, I made such a typo,” said Casey. “I had intended to look into acquiring a CPAP machine, to quell my loving partner’s constant complaints about my sleep apnea. Never let it be said that my capacity for righteous indignation does not extend to you, Dan.”
“I would think your primary concern would be your own ability to breathe,” said Dan, and Casey glared at him.
“Anyway, I intended to look up CPAP machines, but I accidentally typed CPAC, and now I am haunted by the knowledge that not only do thousands of people pay to attend this orgy of lies and hate, those bigots who can’t afford the time or the fare can watch round the clock coverage by the former CSC’s very own Chuck ‘Cut Man’ Kimmel.”
Dan choked on his own water. “Chuck Kimmel is working at Fox News.”
“Chuck Kimmel is working at Fox News,” Casey confirmed, in tones of ice and sleet.
“So what’s the problem?” Dan asked, honestly confused.
“What’s the problem?” Casey thundered. “Chuck Kimmel is working at Fox News, and you are asking me what the problem is.”
“I don’t see it,” said Dan. “It’s the perfect job for him. He can be loudly and confidently wrong without consequence, and the good name of sports reporting will never be sullied by his presence again.”
“The problem is that he is getting paid six figures to do it,” said Casey. “I looked that up as well. Chuck Kimmel is making six figures.”
“And worse people than him can and do make more,” said Dan. “Just think of it as a big win for Atlantic City.”
“Ah, but that’s where the plot thickens,” said Casey. “He’s not going to Atlantic City. He’s got a personal website now, which is all about his newfound Christian values.”
Dan snorted. “Which means he’s going to Atlantic City twice as often, probably. Do you think I’ll get in trouble for opening Grindr on Quo Vadimus Wi-Fi? Fifty-fifty chance he’s on it.”
“I don’t think you’re taking this entirely seriously. I am righteously indignant here.”
“I think you’re just steamed,” said Dan. “You don’t like the guy, so seeing him achieve any kind of success, even of the most fittingly demeaning variety, has got you steamed to the gills.”
“You don’t think I’m just steamed because this whole million-dollar industry of bigotry exists?” said Casey. “Seriously, you do not want to know the kind of stuff they’re saying.”
“You’re right,” said Dan, “I don’t. Which is why I put all right-wing media on my ignore list. I’m paying enough for therapy as it is.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be Mr. Social Justice Guy?” said Casey. “I’m really not getting how you, of all people, are not steamed about this.”
Dan suppressed a sigh. With his and Casey’s present lives so wholly and perfectly entwined, sometimes he forgot how different their early lives had truly been. All-American boy Casey McCall had always had the luxury to be steamed only on and off, on behalf of others, when the news came home to a neighbor. He hadn’t spent his life being called the other f-word by other boys, much less his own father. Not that Casey’s dad was so much as a quarterfinalist for any Father of the Year award, but there was over-emphasis on achievement and under-emphasis on bonding, and then there was Jay Rydell.
“Because if I got steamed every time someone who’d fit right in at CPAC opened their mouth, Casey, I would never stop screaming,” said Dan, with all the patience he could muster. “And because Chuck Kimmel pretending to have found Jesus is objectively funny. I wonder if he met him in the state of Rochester.”
“You didn’t watch their speeches,” said Casey, his righteous indignation fading into a resigned malaise. “They demonize us and make millions off of it. That doesn’t infuriate you?”
“That’s my point. It does, and it always has. I’ve never lived in a world where that kind of thing wasn’t personal. I learned my lesson about not feeding trolls before Internet trolls even existed. Just take comfort in the fact that they are all assholes and are surely having a miserable time together.”
“It’s not like my orientation changed, Danny,” said Casey. “In retrospect, I can point to several subconscious crushes. You were just the only one who mattered enough to drag it out of the subconscious realm.”
Dan sighed. “And as touching as that is, it’s also my point. You know now, but there was a time when you didn’t know, and it wasn’t personal, beyond the fact that you just hate stupidity. Which is one of your attractive qualities, I should add, but not the same as knowing from day one, and having it reinforced by your own dear ol’ dad, that you’re different, and not in a good way.”
“I think you’re different in a very good way,” said Casey softly. The storm clouds on his face floated off into the distance, and he twined his fingers through Dan’s. “I also think you’ve rubbed off on me.”
Dan relaxed, his tension vanishing at Casey’s touch, but as smitten as he would freely admit that he was, he also couldn’t let that pass without laughing. “You think? I remember it like it was yesterday. Oh wait, that’s because it was yesterday.”
“I’m serious, Danny,” said Casey, “and I need you to listen, because I think…I think I’m ready now.”
“You’re ready?” Dan asked, because that sounded like Casey had out of nowhere decided to do something that even yesterday, glorious all-day-in-bed yesterday, had been thoroughly out of the question, and Dan’s heartbeat took off faster than an Olympic sprinter. Could Casey really be ready, and could Dan really have Chuck Kimmel, of all people, to thank for it—
“I think so,” said Casey. “Let’s…let’s tell Dana to schedule a meeting with Calvin Trager. I don’t want to blindside anybody, but yes, I’m ready.”
“You’re ready to come out on television,” Dan breathed, his pulse still at lightspeed. Casey sounded as though he had thoroughly blindsided himself, but he wasn’t backing down.
“I’m ready to come out on television,” Casey affirmed, and Dan could contain himself no longer. He disentangled his hand from Casey’s and straddled his lap instead, staring into Casey’s eyes. Fear and trepidation lingered there, but they were overwhelmed by determination and love.
“You’re ready to come out on television,” Dan repeated, and he kissed Casey, kissing him with far more intensity and intent than he would ordinarily have dared in the office, because from Casey, this was as good as a marriage proposal, and Dan’s answer was yes, yes, yes—
“I’m ready to come out on television,” Casey echoed, in a voice of distant wonder.
“Well, well, well,” said Dan. “Thank you, Cut Man.”
Casey scowled. “If you ever say that again, I will come out as your ex-partner.”
“Rot in hell, Cut Man,” said Dan, and Casey grinned.
“I have it on good authority he’s already there,” he said, and he kissed Dan, a kiss like the sun coming out.