Author's Note: With sincerest apologies to Romance Between the Lines, because I'm 100% certain this is NOT at all what they had in mind with their article "100 Ways You Can Love Your Wife HER Way" found here: .com/site/476224/page/222704. I loved doing all the (mostly) unrelated short stories in my "100 Ways You Can Love Your Husband HIS Way" and "Why Navy SEALs are Men's Sexual Heroes," so I needed to do some more! Enjoy the new ride!

Summary: This is the companion to my story "100 Ways You Can Love Your Husband His Way," only this time one of 'em is always going to be the girl…at least, in theory. Yes, there's cursing. Steve and Danny, heavy bromance, no slash.

100 Ways You Can Love Your Wife HER Way

Way 1
Communicate with her; never close her out.

"Well how was I supposed to know that, Steven, huh? You with the…all the damn…military bullshit hand signals and everything, like I'm somehow supposed to know what that means?"

"I would've thought for someone like you, hand signals would've been the most effective way of communication."

"Someone like me, he says. Someone like—what the hell does that even mean? Like me what?"

"Nothing, you just talk with your hands a lot."

"No, no, I don't talk with my hands, I talk with my mouth. My lips. My voice. Like normal people, Steven, which I just have to stop and point out here that you, my friend, are not. If I communicated with my hands I'd be doing sign language, and this, this is not sign language. What you did back there is not sign language, it's something fucked up that only Navy SEALs understand, and I am not a Navy goddamn SEAL!"

"You said Navy!"

"This is what he chooses to latch onto. It's just one more line in the massive chalking up I am doing on an invisible wall inside my head that proves you are certifiably insane."

"We still caught the guy."

"Yes, we did catch the guy. We also wound up in the hospital, and I want to know how is this my life that the new governor thought us sharing a room would be conducive to a rapid recovery on my part! Hand signals, Steven, you need to use your words, not hand signals!"

"Yes, dear."

"I hate you so much."

"Yes, dear."

"Stop with the yes, dears!"

"Danny, you just used a hand signal."

"I—"

"And it was not American Sign Language."

"No, Steven, it wasn't. That was the universal sign for, 'as soon as I can haul my broken shin bone out of this bed I am going to demonstrate for you that your latest quest for increasing the levels of what-the-fuckery in Detective Danny Williams' life is going to result in an extremely painful recovery period for you, courtesy of said detective.'"

"I thought that particular hand gesture meant 'fuck you.'"

"Steven?"

"Yes, Danny?"

"Fuck you."

"Yes, dear."

Way 2
Regard her as important.

Steve knows Danny and Gabby have been growing closer and closer. And of course, he's okay with that. He really is. After all, cop partners have wives, families, and they always find time for their partners anyway. Sometimes to the detriment of their families, which is maybe sometimes why – okay, maybe a lot of times why – they wind up divorced or at the very least, hating their spouses.

But that won't happen in this case, Steve knows, because Five-0 is a different animal altogether. They're HPD but they're not, and they may not have full immunity and means anymore, but they still pretty much can do whatever, as long as it's not over the top.

Hell, Denning hadn't even blinked an eye when that building had blown up, or when he'd had to pay for that helicopter use or the horses they confiscated. It's all good, Steve knows this. But it's hard to keep 'it's all good' in mind when you approach the doors to your own lanai, knowing that your partner – who has yet to find his own apartment, for the love of all things unholy, and therefore is still camping out on your couch – was going to bring his girlfriend over for a barbecue…hold on, what's the point again?

Oh, yes…when you overhear your partner, the guy who has your back, covers your ass and just generally puts everything on the line to keep you alive every day is saying, "You are the most important thing in my life. I never knew what love really meant until I met you."

Steve's eyes widen as he comically and literally skids to a halt just inside the lanai doors.

"The first time I laid eyes on you, I was tongue-tied like I'd never been my whole life."

Okay, yes, Steve remembers Danny's tongue being very well-tied indeed, possibly into several knots all at once, the first time he saw Dr. Asano at the museum.

"I thought, I have never seen anyone more beautiful, more perfect."

Wow. Danny's got it worse than Steve ever suspected. Holy shit.

"And the one thing I've wanted since the day I met you was to hold you and kiss you all over and never let you go."

Steve frowns. He wonders if buttoned-up by-the-book Danny is thinking about trying sex in Steve's back yard. In public. No. Couldn't be. Um…could it?

"But you know that as much as I want to be with you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, sweetheart, I can't because Steve needs me, too."

Wait…what?

He hears a female voice say something unintelligible.

"That's right, of course I love him, not quite as much as I love you, but you know, guys like me and Steve don't hug and squeeze and tickle and kiss like you and I do."

Wait…what?

"You're very important to me, and Steve is, too. And that means sometimes we'll be doing things together, not just the two of us anymore. All right?"

Steve isn't sure he wants to be a third wheel on trips to wherever it is Danny thinks is worthy of Jersey-like dates. He can well imagine winding up at a bowling alley or watching some cheesy chick flick on a Friday night, and groans at the thought of having to endure—

"Okay, now why don't you go in and ask Steve if you can use his bed?"

Wait…what?

"Uncle Steve!" a little girl's voice shrills, and suddenly Steve finds himself tackled to the floor by an overly enthusiastic ten-year old Grace Williams.

Oh.

Oh.

Danny appears in the doorway, takes in the scene, and starts laughing his ass off.

As Steve is getting the stuffing hugged out of him, he replays what he overheard of Danny's side of the conversation in the proper context of the fact that he was saying those things to his daughter and not his girlfriend.

Grace has managed to extract his approval for her to use his bed as a Barbie play area, and is soon off and pounding up the stairs like the herd of elephants only a young child can be.

Suddenly, Steve feels very much like the guy with few mammal-to-mammal interaction skills that Danny's always accusing him of being. Yeah. This is one of those funny little moments of misunderstanding in life that Steve is never ever going to tell Danny about.

But Steve's pretty sure it's not only in his head that the way Danny's looking at him means his partner knows exactly what Steve had thought while eavesdropping. The last word Danny has on the subject, as he offers Steve his hand to help him off the floor, pretty much confirms that.

"Goof."