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."

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[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."