September 5th

[beyoncepadthai]

It's a year today since Danny turned up in Darrow and subsequently turned Mindy's newfound life in the city upside down.

It's a date that she intends to find some way to celebrate. Or, at least, make a little more positive than a reminder of the moment he left everything he knew behind, maybe forever. 

He'd done the same for her, after all, bringing her New York. Which had been incredibly sweet, of course, until she'd tried to kiss him and then her hair had caught on fire and everything had been absolutely awkward and the worst.

This? This she plans to go a little better. Or hopes. Was hoping until she settled on making him a homecooked meal that is not going well at all. She'd watched at least two tutorials on YouTube for making the perfect pasta, but she's pretty sure she's got the quantities wrong and it's pure mush. 

Mindy can already picture Danny aggressively praying for Jesus or Mary or the Pope's forgiveness the moment he catches sight of her Italian atrocity, if it is even worthy of that title at all. She's had better frozen meals, better hospital cafeteria meals, and she's starting to think that she should have made her famous saag paneer with mac and cheese powder instead.

But Danny's due over any minute and she's got to serve something, she'd zeroed out her fridge last night after an especially exhausting day at work. She's starting to consider faking it with takeout when she remembers that there's garlic bread in the oven – storebought, who can tell the difference? – only as she opens it to a face full of smoke and the blaring of her smoke alarm.

"Oh, hell no."

Comments

[beyoncepadthai]

"Well, maybe I wanted to do something unexpected," Mindy answers, dropping her gaze. Instead, she's pretty sure this is classic her, an apartment filled with smoke and inedible food.

She should be thrilled to hear what Danny's saying, that he's with her in spite of her apparent failure at all aspects of domesticity, but she can't help but feel a little disappointed. She sees he brought her flowers, she made him glue for dinner.

[so_catholic]

Danny can't stop the amusement from flitting across his features but when Mindy's eyes drop from his, he's quick to regain his composure.

He clears his throat, starting carefully, feeling out whether flippancy will be welcome or not.

"And you thought setting something on fire was unexpected...?"

If he was given ten chances to answer the question 'Guess What Mindy Lahiri Has Just Done?', that would always be in his top five.

[beyoncepadthai]

"It was unexpected to me!" Mindy says, although she knows now that was pretty naive. No amount of online tutorials could mitigate the years of experience she has in, well, nonexperience. She sighs. "Can we just forget it and order takeout and never talk about this again?"

[so_catholic]

"This is just a teething problem, okay," Danny reassures her, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead before moving away to fetch the bouquet of roses. "You'll get better with practise. You look beautiful," he offers seamlessly as a distraction, trying to ignore the remnants of guilt that rise up at the view of Mindy in a red dress.

[beyoncepadthai]

Mindy is not so easily distracted. She knows she looks hot, it's the one aspect of tonight she's managed not to screw up — though she's sure there's remnants of the flour catastrophe in her hair.

"Practice?" she echoes with a shake of her head. "Oh, no. This was a one time thing, babe, and it failed."

Not that he needs to be reminded. She makes grabby hands at the flowers, because the gesture really is so sweet, and while candy is the preferred gift, they do lift her mood a little bit. With another gentle sigh, she looks at them. "Thank you."

[so_catholic]

Danny doesn't think this should officially count as a thing at all if he doesn't actually get to taste test anything at the end. Convincing Mindy to cook for him again, however, is a battle for another day.

"You're welcome," he replies softly, looking between the top of the flowers and her face. "I couldn't turn up to have my mind blown empty handed," he adds with a half smile.

[beyoncepadthai]

"Ugh," Mindy sighs again a little, setting the flowers down and slipping her arms around Danny's shoulders to meet around the back of his neck, entwining her fingers. "You just like making me look bad."

[so_catholic]

Even if the meal turned out a disaster, Danny has to admit that there's something appealing about seeing Mindy with bits of flour in her hair. A domesticity that pulls him in as much as it scares the life out of him.

"I think that's impossible in this dress," he counters, bringing his hands to rest on her waist. It's got that retro Jessica Rabbit-esque look about it, and despite the sheer number of dresses to choose from in her closet, it's hands down one of the sexiest Danny's seen her in. "Is there a plan B?"

[beyoncepadthai]

"This is, like, plan E," Mindy confides in Danny, a little less insecure with his hands on her and the way that they're looking at each other.

She'd had such grand plans of how she'd impress him, how she'd make up for occasions uncelebrated along the way and just plain forgotten.

And the sheer fact that he's around, that they have each other in spite of all they've left behind.

The road to burned garlic bread and glue pasta is very much paved with good intentions. "Takeout and makeouts," she says, smiling at him. "All good plans rhyme, Danny."

[so_catholic]

"Of course it is." Danny should have known. Mindy's plans are never simple or straight-forward. At least her new one only has two steps to follow, both of which he is absolutely on board with.

"Takeout and makeouts, I like that," he replies quietly, not even pretending to consider it for a moment. "You might have to show me how that plan goes though. Is it like," he leans in to give her a chaste kiss on the lips, "makeouts like that?"

[beyoncepadthai]

Mindy grins, a little in disbelief that she's managed to get Danny to use the plural of makeout, but certainly not going to question it. "Are you kidding me?" she says, though, expression turning serious again at the practically platonic nature of his kiss. "What the hell was that? That's not how you kiss your girlfriend. Your bear claw guy, maybe."

[so_catholic]

"You kiss your bear claw guy on the lips?" Danny asks with dampened incredulity, feeling like he should be more outraged by that but too caught up in pressing another kiss to Mindy's lips to give the comment proper attention. This kiss is only slightly less chaste than the previous one.

"How'm I doing?" He tilts his head the other way to deliver another. "Better? A grade? B+?"

[beyoncepadthai]

Mindy starts to say that she only does so on occasion and that it's hardly worse than him kissing his butcher, baker, candlestick maker or whatever, but then he's kissing her again and she's smiling against his mouth. She's not sure what happened to make this a reality for them, what she's supposed to have said to make all of the difference, but she's grateful for it. "Somebody's ambitious," she muses. "B minus."

[so_catholic]

"B minus?" Danny echoes dramatically, pulling away just as his lips brush Mindy's for another kiss. "Well, what do you expect, I'm a man workin' on an empty stomach here," he exclaims, touching both hands to his midriff to emphasize the point.

Takeout is exactly what they had ordered the night he'd turned up in Darrow and she'd let him come back to her apartment, so in a way it's fitting. He decides against pointing that out though, lest Mindy start claiming she sabotaged her meal just to be romantic.

"Put the flowers in a vase," he adds with a flash of a smile. "I'll grab the phone."

[beyoncepadthai]

That sounds more like an order than Mindy prefers (unless she's being told to, like, get her ass into the bedroom) but she obliges, pulling a bright pink vase from beneath her sink and filling it up with water.

The flowers really are so pretty, inedible as they may be. She's peeling back their plastic wrapper when it occurs to her that she's not sure she's actually voiced the sentiment she's been feeling all day, or over the past couple of weeks of planning this. "I'm really glad you're here," she calls out, a rare stab at sentimentality. "I mean, I know it's super weird, but it's better with you."

[so_catholic]

"Marking my one year anniversary here by yourself would be kind of weird," Danny agrees, amused, glancing up from the phone in his hand as he dials his preferred pizza place. He knows what she means though. He also knows that without Mindy here too he'd probably be sat in a corner with a bottle of whisky and a zillion packs of cigarettes. "Toppings?"

[beyoncepadthai]

It's not exactly the most romantic nor meaningful response, but it is very Danny and so Mindy can't help but smile and nod, finishing up with the vase. It, at least, she hasn't managed to fuck up tonight. She sets it proudly on her dining table before turning to answer Danny's question. "Just, like, double meat, double cheese, nothing green."

[so_catholic]

"Hi, can I--" Danny slides his eyes to the side, phone pressed to his ear for all of four seconds before a dead tone starts ringing. "Okay... They recognized your number," he explains with a shrug, jabbing at a button and setting the phone down on the counter top. "Usual order's on its way."

Bracing an arm beside the vase, he hooks one foot over the other, hand coming to settle on his hip, managing to look both incongruous and at home in her kitchen. "Run that B minus by me again...?"

[beyoncepadthai]

Other, lesser women might be put off by their takeaway order being memorized – but not Mindy. She's totally flattered, beaming brightly at the fact. She can only hope that they also remember her tendency to take it out on their tip if the food takes longer than she does to realize just how hungry she is.

"A B minus isn't terrible," Mindy reminds him, and she can't help but think of how she'd recounted her sex dream about him. God, that must have been a million years ago. She inches a little closer, much more comfortable in her kitchen now that she's not actually cooking. "It's better than average. It's just, not, like, knocking my socks off. Or stockings, technically."