Three ways her story didn't end. AUs spinning off from before the Pilot, Think like a Peter, and Girl Next Door respectively.
I.
On her first day of work, Mindy walked into the office in her brand-new scrubs, clutching at her favorite purse. Two male doctors walked towards her, and for a second, they were moving in slow motion, their hair blowing in the wind, to the opening strains of a Rihanna song. "Oh my god," she whispered, "I'm Meredith Grey."
She came back to reality with a jerk like a record scratch as she realized they were both glaring at her.
"Is there something wrong with her?" asked the shorter one, impatiently. "Hello, can you hear us? Who are you?"
"Hi! I'm Mindy? Dr. Shulman just hired me as a birth, baby doctor, a gynecologist," she babbled.
The taller one smiled at her, almost laughing, but the other one shook his head and stomped off in direction of Dr. Shulman's office, muttering, "nope, no, nope. No. Nope."
"I'm sorry, I'm Jeremy. That's Danny – he can be kind of rude. He's going through a terrible divorce. I wouldn't take it personally."
"I'm sure he would react that way to anybody," said Mindy, trying not to get distracted by how perfect his voice was. A British Mcdreamy seemed like almost too much to hope for.
"Actually I've never seen him do that before."
"Oh, I'll wear him down," she said cheerfully. "Do you know where my office is?"
She didn't wear him down, precisely, but she had a sharp tongue and she was good at winding him up. When he flung her radio onto the balcony, after a particularly loud office dance party, she said, I can see why your wife left. When he brought the new secretary to tears on her first day, Mindy patted her shoulder and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, there, there, don't worry, nobody listens to Danny the grouch.
She could tell that he was more careful around her. It was almost as much fun to get under his skin as it was to flirt with Jeremy.
"Danny, Danny, Danny" she said, the volume rising in her voice as she poked him in the shoulder." "You're a guy, allegedly. Should I text that blind-date I went out to dinner with last week?"
He groaned. "Is there nowhere left in this hospital where a doctor can enjoy his roast beef sandwich and a medical journal in peace?"
"So, is that a yes?"
"Yes, text him back. I'm sure he's your soul-mate and he's just been too scared of his own feelings to reach out to you."
"Just because you –" but the end of her comeback was muffled by Danny, lunging at her from the other side of the couch.
For one wild second she was convinced he was trying to murder her, and she thought, with great satisfaction, that Dr. Schulman would definitely have to fire him now. Instead he shoved her back into the couch cushions and gave her a long, bruising kiss. His fingertips were pressed into her arms, like a vise. He deepened the kiss, grinding her hips into the couch.
She wanted to be offended that he hadn't asked, that he hadn't even paused to see how this attack on her mouth was being received, but her body had already responded. She felt drunk, buzzed on the heat of his skin. He was struggling with the knot of her scrubs waistband, pulling at the tie in every direction. "What did you do, tie this in a sailor knot?" he demanded. He gave it another hard, unsuccessful yank.
She could feel every muscle in his legs and hips through the thin scrubs material. She could feel - vibrating?
"Danny, is your penis vibrating?"
"What? Oh shit," he said, looking down at his beeper. "Mrs. O'Boyle." Then, he was gone. She sat there, on the dingy couch, slightly out of breath, feeling as undone as if he had fucked her.
For a week her cheeks burned every time she was in the same room as him, and she was thankful, yet again, that her skin color covered it so well. He didn't mention it or even seem uncomfortable. She thought maybe it was just one of those grown-up things that she was still discovering, like hand washing delicates or owning a whisk. Maybe sometimes adults dry humped their weird, sweaty co-workers like teenagers in the middle of the day in the break room and never spoke of it again.
Until one night, she opened her door expecting to see the Chinese food guy, and instead it was Danny, tasting like whiskey, his tongue sliding across her teeth.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded, and he just pulled away long enough to growl at her to shut up.
This thing between them, whatever it was, ebbed and waned, but never completely came to an end. She couldn't find a pattern to when she would open the door and find him there, leaning on the doorjamb, looking grumpy and horny. Some days she felt his eyes on her, and it would make her whole body flush, and she would think, tonight. But she was almost always wrong.
There were moments when she was convinced that maybe their affair was a very vivid, X-rated hallucination brought on by too much time near the MRI machine. He was careful to never leave anything at her apartment. Not a razor, not a sock. Once, she even saw him pick up spare change that had fallen out of his pocket onto the floor.
The only evidence he left behind were the finger-shaped bruises seared into her ass and back, or occasionally a bright hickey, under her collarbone. Her thighs ached and her face smarted from his stubble, which seemed to reappear like magic on his face every night.
When she heard his knock at the door, she would recite to herself her reasons to break this off: first, he was a jerk; two, she was pretty sure she didn't like him, as a human being, let alone a boyfriend-type figure; three, he cuddled like a monkey who was learning to use his limbs for the first time; four, if Dr. Schulman found out, he would fire them, or worse, give them a really awkward lecture on professionalism; five, he was kind of selfish in bed; six, he was so sweaty that she had to buy a second set of sheets for the first time in her life.
But then she would open the door, and think, just this last time, before letting him inside her inevitably messy apartment. She sometimes purposefully left out dishes, just to get a rise out of him.
"God, you're a slob," he would say.
"Well, you're kind of a dick," she would snap back, before he would cut her off by kissing her, or carrying her into the bedroom. She loved how salty his skin was. "You're like a potato chip," she told him once. He had been offended, but she meant it as a compliment. She liked to dip her tongue into the nook of his neck, to suck the salt off his shoulders.
And his lips were so soft, she would wonder occasionally if this was what she had missed out on when she skipped her college lesbian phase. The guys in college had not been so interested in the pre-med, chubby Indian girl with a predilection for blurting out completely random facts about TV sitcoms, but the lesbians had been into it. She could have avoided so much heartache.
He showed up one Wednesday, and seemed restless, just kissing her, once, before wandering into the kitchen, complaining that she never had any actual food.
"I'm sorry, Danny, I'm a Doctor, I'm not some 1950s housewife here just to fulfill your kinky whims."
He kept pawing through the cabinets, sighing. On the table, his phone was buzzing. "Your phone is blowing up," she said, nodding at it, as it vibrated again. He frowned.
"Family stuff, you know how it is."
"What did your mom like burn her meatballs or something?"
His eyebrows knit together. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know, I always pictured your family being like Leave it to Beaver; you know, mom in the kitchen, while you and your dad played catch in the backyard."
He exhaled and let out a short barking laugh. "Yeah Mindy, that's it. My mom burnt the meatballs."
Mindy almost asked him what was actually happening, but then his hand was cupping her ass, and she didn't think he really wanted her to know anyway. Every time he told her something about himself, she ended up paying a price for it. Let Danny be a closed book if he wanted to be. At least he was a good-looking book.
She couldn't even justify this whatever-it-was to herself, so she avoided telling her friends about it, until Alex took one look at her, and said, with utter confidence, you are totally getting laid.
Conveniently, Alex was by far the loosest of her friends, and she shrugged when Mindy explained.
"Do you like him?" she asked
"No, he's a jerk. And he makes weird dad jokes. And I'm pretty sure he was lying when he told me knew who Jay-Z is."
"Okay, so you're fine then. As long as everybody knows what everybody else wants, you're just two adults using each other like vibrators. Nothing wrong with that."
"Gross," Mindy said, although she didn't really think it was gross at all.
"The key is, never let them get the upper hand. You're still dating right?"
"Um, obviously. I actually just met this kind of cute guy today on the subway and we're getting dinner tomorrow."
Alex grinned at her. "I've never been prouder of you."
She opened the door and there he was, leaning against the wall. "Not a good time," she hissed at him. "Casey's here."
His lips pursed together and he frowned. ""So? Tell him you need to go to the hospital or your friend is having a girl emergency, I don't care." He snaked his hand under the fabric of her t-shirt, pulling her closer.
"Um sorry, Danny, almost-boyfriend trumps fuck buddy. Plus we're halfway through an awesome movie."
"Seriously?"
"Keep your voice down!"
"Okay, okay, I get it," he said, toeing the ground, reminding her of a kid whose toy has been taken away. "See you tomorrow."
She closed the door and exhaled, trying to look casual. Casey was giving her a questioning look, but when she sat down next to him, he curled his arm around her and smiled. "So girl, are you ready to get your mind blown by the end of this movie?"
"You know it."
She had made a mental note to apologize to Danny, or yell at him, she wasn't sure which, but the next morning when she got to work, he was already sitting in her extra chair, looking surlier than usual.
"So this thing with Casey, this is getting serious?"
"I mean, he hasn't proposed or anything, but he's seen me naked if that's what you mean."
"Why would that be what I mean?" he asked, his voice getting high.
"Okay, yeah I guess it's getting more serious," she said, throwing her hands up in the air.
"You know, Mindy, I may have thought a lot of things – but I never took you for that kind of girl. Casey's a good guy, you should be treating him with some respect."
"Are you kidding me, right now?" She glared at him, and he glared back, defiantly. "Danny are you mad that I'm sleeping with you, or are you mad that I didn't? Make up your mind." She wished that they were in his office, so she storm out, but she settled for opening the office door and demanding that he leave.
She thought maybe he would show up at her door that night, but as usual she was wrong. He never showed up again. And she realized, like a kick to the gut, that she didn't even know where he lived.
But she decided it was for the best. Casey was categorically a non-jerk, he had never been divorced or tried to make her eat arugula, and he seemed ready to move their relationship forward, so maybe it was time to abandon the ghosts and fuck buddies of the past, and try a true, adult relationship.
Happily ever after turned out to be kind of a let down. Not in a terrible way. Just in a Casey secretly has horrible dental hygiene, a habit of erasing her favorite shows from the DVR every week and a restless, insatiable need to keep moving kind of way.
But there were a lot of things about her life in California that she was pretty sure she wouldn't give up for anything. Casey. Her daughter. Her closet the size of old her New York apartment. Her ever-changing rotation of top five Mexican restaurants. Getting to wear her summer clothing all year round.
She was learning to accept the reality that growing older inevitably meant that more possibilities would fall away from her, that there would be more happy endings that didn't belong to her.
II.
Ever since Sally disappeared, out of the blue, he has had a string of indistinguishable girlfriends. He never mentioned them to her directly, but she overheard the snickers and jokes. "Your stamina must be amazing," Jeremy had teased him in the break room the day before, and Mindy had briefly considered jumping out of the window.
She knew that in his own incompetent way, Danny was trying to be sensitive. He never explained exactly where he was going, just stammered excuses, and sweated profusely before suddenly disappearing. The past Friday, he had tried to sneak an overnight bag out of the office, but every single one of their horrible, prying co-workers had called him on it. "Drrrrr. C is getting laiiid," sing-songed Tamara. Mindy stuck her fingers in her ears and blasted Rihanna.
She must have looked pathetic, because Peter paused mid-walk, and came in, shutting the door behind him.
"Don't stress about him. Sally told me he was basically just using her for sex. I don't think he gives a crap about any of these girls."
"Thanks, Peter, that makes me feel terrific," she said, knocking her forehead against the desk.
"Ok, c'mon, please don't be sad. I'm having some of my frat brothers over tonight, and we're going to tear up the town. You should come. You can be an honorary bro."
"That's sweet, but I'm not up for it." Mindy tried to imagine a apartment full of Peters, and it made her feel tired and old and heart-broken. But then that's how everything made her feel these days. Stupid Danny.
"C'mon, it'll be fun. I'll make you sangria. Pubes is bringing jello shots. I know you love jello."
She smiled, involuntarily, and was surprised to hear herself say, "Fine. But I'm not sleeping with any of your friends."
She was even more surprised by how, well, normal Peter's apartment was. She'd been expecting a filthy frat couch, a sticky beer floor and weird sex smells. But it looked just like the apartment of every guy she had ever gone home with; the same functional but generic mix of IKEA and West Elm furniture, expensive TV and a lovingly curated bar.
"Peter, this isn't gross!"
He looked somewhat offended. "Um, I am a grown ass man and a doctor. I can afford furniture. And a maid."
By the time his friends started to arrive, she was already pleasantly buzzed. By the time she had eaten several people's share of the jello shots, she was really, really drunk. Peter's friends were fun, in a pleasantly familiar terrible kind of way.
"Why didn't you bring jello with no booze in it?" she demanded of Pubes, who it turned out was not completely unattractive.
"Your work friend is nuts, Peter," Pubes said.
"Ehh, she grows on you. Like mold," said Peter.
She twisted her face in outrage. "I'm not like mold. India doesn't even have any mold. I am adorable and charming."
"Shhh," he said. "Come have picklebacks with me." She'd never had a pickleback before, but she decided to forgive Peter when she discovered that it involved eating pickles.
At some point, pizza arrived from somewhere, and Pubes stayed solicitously at her side, refilling her glass, and only looking slightly bewildered by the number of pickles she had consumed. The party kept getting louder, and blurrier.
"So you and Pubes? You going to let him PTV?" asked Peter, looking pleased with himself.
"You know I only understand like half of the things that you say," she said, then waved her hand in his face, "but please don't tell me what that means." Although really, Peter wasn't so bad. Maybe he was even a pretty good guy after all.
She woke up slowly, easing her way back into the world of sober consciousness. The first thing she was aware of was that her head was throbbing. The second thing she noticed was that her tongue was so parched it was actually stuck to the roof of her mouth. The third thing she realized was that there was a naked body touching hers.
She screamed at the same time he did. Her lips were so dry she was amazed she could speak at all. The picklebacks had pickled her mouth.
"Oh my god, oh my god. What are you doing here?"
"Your voice just got so high. Please stop. Please," said Peter in a weak voice.
She rolled away from him, suddenly very aware that she was completely naked. She snatched her blouse off the ground and slipped it on.
"This isn't happening. You just escorted me home, right? And then violated my privacy by getting into bed with me like a perv."
He made a weird face and said, "No we definitely had sex."
"Do I want to know why you know that?"
"Probably not."
"Oh my god, Peter what the hell. You were supposed to be my wingman, not the creepy stalker who followed me home." She took a deep breath. "Peter, I'm going to close my eyes, and when I open them again, I want you to be gone, and I never want to speak of this ever again."
"Okay, this really isn't that big a deal."
"Are you kidding me? Sleeping with a coworker is exactly what got me into trouble to begin with."
"Yeah, but you and Danny had been friends for years. You guys were dropping the L bomb. There were feelings involved. You're not even my type."
"Okay, don't be ridiculous, you know that hot ethnic girls are everybody's type. But you're not my type either."
"See? No big deal. We can be Bros and FWBS – friends who bang sometimes," he said, preempting her.
"Yeah, that didn't go so well with Jeremy."
"Well I'm much more mature than Jeremy." She creased her eyebrows and stuck her lip out skeptically.
"Okay, I'm much less mature than Jeremy. But I'm nicer."
As if to prove his point, he rolled out of bed, and pulled on clothing. She closed her eyes and waited for the door to close behind him, or for death, whichever came first.
But as unnerved as she was, he turned out to be right. It was fine. He treated her with the same offensive yet asexual charm he always had. The next day he was in her office talking about panda pornography, and some former Knicks city dancer that had just moved into his apartment building.
Life settled into a routine, like a puzzle falling back in place, except for a few lost pieces. She and Danny were almost friends again, although she never asked about his dating life, and he never asked about hers. They were cautious around each other, holding eye contact for too long, and then not long enough, laughing too loudly at mediocre jokes.
So she wasn't over Danny yet, but she knew it was getting closer. One day, in the not-too-distant future she would wake up and she would know, truly know, deep in her bones, that she and Danny were a terrible fit. That they never could've made it the distance, unless the distance involved a murder-suicide pact.
But she couldn't shake the feeling that there was another life out there, like a shadow just out of reach, where everything fit together more perfectly.
In some ways Peter turned out to be a much better work wife than Danny ever was. First of all, he knew what a work wife was. Second, there was much more overlap in their T.V. shows. Third, he was an excellent wingman. Fourth, it drove Danny insane. Every time she left Peter's office, she could see Danny straining his neck, trying to peer in.
"I'm pretty sure Danny thinks we're sleeping together," she told Peter, hoping steadfastly that he would continue their streak of not acknowledging that they had, in fact, slept together.
"Oh, he definitely thinks we're doing it. If I look at your ass one more time he's going to poison my coffee."
"Peter!"
"What? You should be thanking me. He's just getting a taste of his own medicine. He's the idiot who broke up with you when he clearly still had feelings for you."
"Okay," she skeptically.
"Min, c'mon, you don't really think he's over you yet, do you?"
"Okay, so say you're right, and Danny is the first guy to ever use the friend excuse and really mean it, what am I supposed to do with that?"
"Honestly?" he asked and she nodded.
"Get over him – " before she could interrupt him, he shoved his index finger against her mouth. "Not because he hurt you or doesn't want you, but because he doesn't deserve you. There are plenty of reasons not to date you – I could write a long list, believe me, but you're not a coward. And I think Danny might be."
She stared at Peter for a long beat. "C'mon," he said. "Let's go get drunk."
Over a short period of time, she and Peter had developed a surprisingly well-honed dating rhythm. She told a blonde eight that he had just gotten back from Afghanistan, while Peter told a tall, dark and handsome stranger that she once had a secret affair with George Clooney. He knew her tastes, and would text her a thumbs up when things were going well, or, like tonight, a stop-sign emojii if it was time to get out of dodge.
"What was wrong with that guy?" she asked, after she made excuses to the accountant she had been talking to. "He was cute! And he had a boat! Do you know how adorable I would look in a giant floppy hat on a boat?
"Mindy, I'm pretty sure that guy was a serial killer who wanted to add you to his collection of dead bodies."
"Okay, Peter, let's not get dramatic."
"Excuse me, you're the one who told me last week that the seven I was talking to was probably a member of cult."
"And I stand by that assessment."
"Well, then we're even," he paused. "I've had no luck tonight. What about you?"
"I gave my number to a guy who will definitely never call me; I got the number of somebody I will absolutely never call; and you wouldn't let me go home with the serial killer. So, not our best."
"Wanna come over?" he asked.
"Are you hitting on me, Peter?"
"Definitely," he said, but he seemed earnest, rather than leering.
She considered getting offended, and then shrugged. "Okay."
At his now familiar apartment – where she noted that he had bought that coffee table she recommended – he offered her tequila shots and she downed them, one after another. She looked at him, trying to gauge him with a stranger's eye.
He was handsome, she decided, in a baby-faced kind of way. And he was fit, but not so fit that it felt like a constant rebuke of her life choices. She liked that he could've afforded to maybe lose a pound or two. And she loved the freckles scattered across his arms like a constellation; how pale he looked next to her dark skin.
"I'm kind of starting to think maybe we're MFEO…made –"
She cut him off. "I know what that one means."
And then she leaned up to kiss him, and he met her halfway.
III:
On the Tuesday after Andy failed to appear at the Empire State Building, Mindy decided that it was time to break up with New York.
It was the first really hot, sticky morning of the summer. Warm gusts of weird-smelling air assaulted her as she walked down the street. As she stepped down off the curb, she felt something crunch, and looked down to see road kill under her heels. A homeless man grabbed her ass and then spit on her face. And she briefly thought she was being rained on, until she looked up and realized it was actually a small waterfall of dirty air conditioner water.
And that was all before she reached the subway.
She walked into the office, damp from the humidity and the spit and the air conditioner grease and the sweat of the overweight, hairy man who had been pressed against her for the entire commute, and announced that she had decided it was time to leave New York. "So if anybody knows of any practices looking for a beautiful and talented doctor please let me know."
Beverly gave her thumbs up, Betsy looked terrified, Morgan started to panic, Jeremy rolled his eyes, and Danny didn't glance up from his paperwork, but she saw him frowning slightly. Morgan moved towards her, and she placed her hand between them. "No, Morgan. I can't deal with your pain right now. I need to change my clothes and possibly burn everything I'm wearing."
She strode past everyone, sat down at her desk and lay her face down into the keyboard. There was a knock at the door and Danny stuck his head in.
"So what happened?" he asked, in a light tone that almost managed to strike the right balance between teasing and sympathy, but didn't stop her from wanting to slap him.
"You mean besides the fifteen diseases I probably contracted today? Nothing. I just realized that Gwen has been right all these years, and there's nothing magical about Manhattan. It's just seven million people pressed into a very small amount of space, paying too much money to live there."
"Is this about Andy?" he asked.
"No! I'm just…over New York. I'm sick of how the air always smells like urine, and I'm sick of ceding parts of my apartment to the cockroaches."
"It's normal to have a little ennui. Even I feel that way sometimes."
"You, Mr. City guy- Mr. why would you live anywhere else, where there's no bagels -" he cut her off before she could launch into the familiar full-blown impression.
"Yeah, sometimes. And then I go visit my favorite places, and I usually feel better. I'll make you a deal - I have a light afternoon Friday, I'll go with you anywhere you want. You give all those losers a second chance, you should give one to the greatest city in the world." When she didn't immediately respond, he added, "We can get food too."
"Fine, you don't need to beg me Danny." She resisted pointing out that he had been one of those losers, because they had come so far. She almost never fantasized about murdering him with forceps anymore.
On Friday, she took him to Lincoln Center, and she resisted teasing him about the suit he was wearing. She liked how he always fidgeted like a little kid when he wore suits, pulling at the collar, yanking his tie askew.
For all his bluster, Danny had more endearing habits than she liked to admit. And one of his most endearing traits was how much he loved this terrible, stupid city. She had heard him wax poetic about the express bus service on more than one occasion. For a man who hated everything she would never understand how he was so forgiving of all of New York's sins: its smells and tourists and kale salads. With a pang, she wondered what it had felt like for Christina, to be loved by this man who felt everything just a little too much.
Lincoln Center was crowded with Asian tourists and bankers in suits, eating salads and soaking up the stray rays of sun that managed to sneak past the tall buildings. Nothing there thawed her feelings of resentment, but she had to smile at Danny's transparent efforts to make her laugh at him.
The following Friday he talked her into going to Washington Square Park and the week after that, they walked the High Line. He steered her past the tour groups, occasionally stopping to point out certain architectural features or share boring bits of trivia.
"I remember coming here with my ma when I was kid, and being terrified. That was before Guiliani cleaned up the City," he said, as they stood on the narrow streets, surrounded by aspiring-models carefully maneuvering the cobblestones in their heels.
Everybody always says New York is always changing, she thought and she was sick of it. She wanted something to stand still, something that she knew she could hold onto.
In Central Park, he bought them both pretzels. "Now this is classic New York; none of that food truck nonsense."
She rolled her eyes at him. He took a bite, and she grabbed a piece from his hand.
"Hey, hey, you have your own," he said, swatting at her.
They walked in silence past a horde of moms in yoga pants pushing strollers; in the distance she could hear drumbeats and a clapping crowd.
"Are you sure this isn't about Andy?" he asked. "Because that guy – you know he didn't know you. If he had, he never would've done what he did."
She snorted. "Okay, so unlike the millions of other guys I've dated who've done the same things? Or worse? What about you? Are you saying you don't know me?"
He looked so pained that she immediately wished she could take it back.
"It wasn't Andy, not really. I just feel like my life is exactly the same as it was three years ago. I used to think that if I lived somewhere special, my life would be special. But I'm still just Mindy Lahiri. New York is never going to change that," she paused. "I mean, don't get me wrong, being me is pretty fantastic. I just think I might be the same level of fantastic anywhere."
He looked at her, fleetingly, and nudged her shoulder. "Maybe it's the other way around."
"Danny, why are you being so nice to me? Am I dying, and I don't know it? Are you conducting tests on me in my sleep?"
"What? I'm always nice."
"Hmmph." She bit into her pretzel, tasting salt and wished she had something sweet. "Can we get ice cream before we head back?"
"No! You just ate your pretzel and most of mine. I'm starting to think this whole leaving New York threat is just a twisted way of getting me fund all your terrible food habits."
The following Thursday, he promised her pizza in the village and cannoli in Little Italy. It was, she had to admit, a beautiful day. The buildings had taken on a yellow glow, and a perfect slice of bright blue sky peeked out at the end of each block.
In the past, she had always felt pressured to return to the office to make their afternoon appointments, but today for some reason, neither of them mentioned their patients or the practice they were playing hooky from. There was a delicate hesitance to their conversations, as if they were afraid of breaking their trance. Danny glanced at a brand-new juice bar, offering $3 shots of wheat grass, but he resisted his juice-isn't-a-food rant; Mindy heard his Staten accent thicken as they moved closer to Little Italy, but she chose not to comment on it.
They wandered through Nolita, waiting on line with the tourists to get cups of over-priced gelato, and down past the pungent Chinatown grocery stores, and past the old-fashioned courthouses, where Danny kept trying to get her to look at a cornice, whatever that was, and across the Brooklyn Bridge. When they finally reached Brooklyn Heights, foot-sore and sleepy, the sun was starting to set over lower Manhattan.
"It is pretty nice down here," she said, hoping he wouldn't make her admit she had been wrong outright.
"I know living here can be tough," he said, as the sunset flared into his eyes, lighting his stupid, beautiful face. "It's not for the weak. It's not easy. It's not perfect. You have to work for it. But I think, I think it's worth it. There's nowhere else like it."
"You know I'm not really going to leave," she said, realizing as she said it that it was true.
"I don't think I could have let you leave," he said and then frowned. "I mean, not that I had any right to stop you, but Morgan's been talking about locking you in your office."
She looked at him, right at him in the way she had been avoiding for months. She didn't know how he could look so nervous, and so sure at the same time.
In the movies, they get a speech, where the guy says all the right things, but Danny never knew how to say the right things. Even if somebody had handed him a script, she was pretty sure he would have managed to make the words come out wrong. Anyway, she wasn't even sure she'd believe him, if he did somehow find a way.
But the last time around, for better or for worse, he made all the choices. Maybe it was her turn. She was tough; she could be broken again. She already had her Beyonce break-up mix. She had given all the losers second chances, and he was her favorite loser of them all.
So it was nothing like the first time. She kissed him gently, hesitantly, like a sixteen year old at the end of their first date. He barely responded, keeping his eyes on her face. She tasted the mint ice cream on his lips.
"I might be willing to give this place a second chance," she said. And his mouth crooked back into a full smile, and he looked happy, but most of all he looked sure, and she still thought, he will walk away someday.
She kissed him again anyway.