Steve looked down at the tableau on his sofa with some trepidation, and not a small amount of confusion. Because really, what the actual fuck had happened? One minute, he'd been happily making out with Catherine – okay, his mind wasn't entirely on the task, because yeah, he really did want to see the end of the movie, but still, he was holding a warm, soft body in his arms, and the prospect of getting laid was near 100%. Now? Not so much.
Cath was curled up in the corner, Gracie cuddled tight against her body. Danny sat beside them both, leaving only a small space at the end of the sofa where he could sit. Next to Danny. Not Cath. Danny. And yeah, sure he'd sat on this very sofa beside Danny more times than he could count, but not like this. Not pressed together tighter than sardines in a can. Not when his body was already thrumming from a heightened state of arousal. And certainly not when there was more than one person on the sofa who had the ability to land him in the middle of a hormonal storm.
He loved Cath, truly, he did, but he knew it wasn't the real thing. It wasn't for all time. What they had was definitely a "friends-with-benefits" deal, in the truest possible sense of the term. He could say goodbye to her tomorrow – after a long, satisfying night in the sack, of course – and feel nothing more than missing his good friend. Well, that, and maybe missing the very good sex, too. What he felt towards Danny, however – well, that was different.
He didn't know if it was love. Not yet. Maybe not ever. It sure as hell felt a whole lot different from Catherine, though. He knew he couldn't say goodbye to Danny – not now, not tomorrow, not next week, and definitely not next year – without his heart drying up. So yeah, maybe it was love. Was he in love, though? He couldn't say. He'd never been in love, had nothing to compare it to. Danny made him sweat, made him curse, made him laugh, made him angry – in short, Danny made him happy.
Danny also made him hot. As in hot and bothered. Like Catherine, only without actually having to touch him. Catherine could get his heart racing, and his blood pounding, but it was always hands on. Yeah, she was beautiful – drop dead gorgeous, actually – but his heart didn't stutter in his chest when she walked in the room, like it did for Danny, and his skin didn't break out in goose bumps because she casually touched him on the shoulder, as it did for Danny. She was talented in bed, and she knew exactly what to do to bring him the most pleasure – just as he knew how to bring pleasure to her – but since meeting Danny, it was like there was just a little something missing. A spark, maybe. The tinder was dry, just waiting for the flame to land, but it kept missing the mark. He had a feeling that Danny was the match that would set the blaze alight.
As turned on as Steve was from his interrupted make-out session with Cath, the idea of sitting next to Danny just wasn't that appealing. No, that wasn't right. It was too appealing. It was about the most amazingly appealing thing ever. And it was definitely more appealing that watching that bloody Notebook movie. Chick flicks might make girls all mushy, but they did nothing for him. And he knew Danny well enough to know that it wasn't going to go over particularly well with him, either, especially in light of how his marriage imploded.
But he was tough. A SEAL. Trained to withstand all forms of torture. Well, nearly all forms. Pretty sure sexual frustration hadn't been part of the training regimen. He'd probably pass with flying colours these days, what with the continued interruptions to his sex life. Because this was what, twice now, that Danny had barged in on him and Cath? If he didn't know better – and he did, Danny didn't think of him in any other capacity than friend, he was sure of that – he'd wonder if the man wasn't waging some surreptitious war to sink his chances of ever having sex with Cath again. Or any woman, for that matter. Not that he was out trawling the bars and clubs of Hawaii looking to get laid, because he wasn't. He didn't have time for that shit, and that was where Cathy came in handy anyway. If he had an itch that needed scratching, she was more than happy to use her nails. And vice versa. He wasn't some chauvinistic pig, only looking out for himself. Catherine knew it was a two-way deal, a you-do-me and I'll-do-you type of thing.
Sitting next to Danny, though, would test all his skills. The man was always calling him a robot, telling him he was cursed with a stunted emotional outlook, or a complete inability to function with any type of human capacity. And that was wrong, just so wrong on all levels. He did feel, sometimes more than he thought was humanly possible. He'd just learned from one bad experience after another to keep it close to the vest, to not let it show. To not let it get the best of him. And yeah, maybe that's what Danny was referring to, that keeping it all bottled inside thing. Danny didn't do that. He showed everything. Every hurt, every joy, every speck of frustration that passed through his body showed on his face, in his stance, in the eloquent wave of his hands.
Right now, for instance, he looked content. Content, and happy, and curious. Content because yeah, that sofa was comfortable, and he was holding a very large bowl of popcorn. Happy, because Gracie had made up for her mistake on Halloween, had filled the hole she'd made in her Dad's heart, by dressing up and giving him just one more piece of her childhood to hold onto. Curious, because Steve was still staring at the sofa in consternation.
Well, nothing for it, really. Man up, and sit down. Next to Danny. Yeah. In that tight little space. Uh huh. And so what if that meant he had to press a little closer than propriety would normally allow. Four bodies on one sofa, three of them adult, meant for tight quarters. And Danny was smaller than him, so it was natural to put his arm around his shoulders, and pull Danny's head down. He had to do that to be comfortable. It was perfectly reasonable. It allowed him to speak quietly into Danny's ear. So what if it also gave him the chance to breathe in the clean scent of Danny's hair, or to feel his hard body. A man had to take his opportunities when they were presented.
Yeah, if this was all he was going to get – because really, realistically, what else could he expect – then he was going to enjoy this time as much as possible. Make the most of every second. He could do this.
And he was never, never, going to question his luck again. He might not be getting off this fine evening, but he was more content than he'd been in many a long year. And for that, he knew he had Danny to thank. And somehow, he would, and he'd do it for the rest of his life.