Inappropriate Thoughts.

Chapter One

Mindy could not believe her luck. One month after moving to New York, she has not only landed her dream job, but she's also met the most captivating man. She was certain all this good fortune would soon disappear but for the time being she was revelling in her luck.

On her way to work, in a subway car that was far too packed, surrounded by people who were way too glum considering they lived in the greatest city ever, she decides to text her new found love to arrange dinner plans for the evening.

"Hey babe. Wanna check out that new Thai place around the corner from my apartment."

She waited for a reply from Casey for what seemed like an eternity. She was certain he would be awake by now. Mindy had left him asleep in her apartment this morning because she had to catch up on paper work after having been late for work and leaving early since she met Casey. She was starting to feel guilty about being such a crappy employee. Not only that but she was positive the partners were starting to give her angry stares. Maybe just one in particular.

Casey finally replied just as Mindy was stepping into her office.

"That sounds good. Around 7pm."

Mindy smiled to herself as she tapped out her reply

"Great! I miss you already."

She set her phone on her desk and placed her new purse she had bought herself as a 'being an adult' gift in her coat closet. Mindy felt especially good considering it wasn't even 9 am but how could her life possibly get any better.

As she sat to tackle the mountain of paper work she had to complete, Danny, a partner at the practice pop his head into her office.

"I'm surprised to see you here so early. What happened? Boyfriend dumped you already?"

Mindy furrowed her brows. "Excuse me. First of all, I'm almost always early. Secondly, no he did not dump me! We are very happy actually."

Danny made a confused noise. Too quite to be interpreted as anything. Mindy was certain he had been sent by some sort of Nazi to trample on her high spirits. Things weren't always easy between her and Danny. Ever since she started working with him, he seemed to be indifferent towards her. That did not sit well with Mindy because she is so used to being liked by everyone. She had chucked it off as him being threatened by her strong feminine role in the office but as the weeks passed, nothing seemed to be changing.

"You know Danny" she started, "you don't always have to be so grumpy. It's like you don't even know how to smile. Is that genetics or are you just a sad person?" She finished with a smirk on her face. She was not trying to rile him up, but sometimes he did get her annoyed.

Danny turned to walk out her office, not wanting to start a fight with her so early in the morning. Before he turned down the hallway though, he spun on his heels and told her "some of us just have a better understanding of life. It's not always rainbows and sunshine." With that he stormed away not giving her a chance to reply.

Mindy sat staring at her empty doorway for a while. She had not meant to offend Danny at all. She just wanted to get him a bit heated. Just like he did her. The look on his face as he walked away though, told her she had hit a sore spot with him. At that point she made a pact with herself that she was going to be more considerate of Danny, even when he made her want to tie a noose around his neck.

By lunch Mindy was feeling very accomplished. She had made her way through more than half of her back log of paper work and was certain she would be finished by the end of the day. She patted herself on the back 'way to go Mindy', she told herself. 'You are such a sophisticated career woman'.

Getting up to go get lunch in the break room with her co-workers, she heard shouting coming from Danny's office. His door wasn't closed shut, just pulled up enough to let people know he didn't want to be bothered unless it was Important. She always kept her door open. She knew it was wrong for her to stop and listen but the curious cat in her made her do it. Or at least that's what she told herself. It sounded like Danny was on the phone, she couldn't hear whoever he was talking to. He must have thought everyone went to lunch already.

"No Christina! For the last time I do not want to talk about it! You have proven to me just the type of person you are!"

Mindy could not believe what she was hearing. She had heard from Tamra, one of the nurses, that Danny and his wife were having problems but she did not know how serious.

"You slept with my best friend! How could you?! I trusted both of you and now you want to talk about it! You got to be kidding!"

She must have been saying something on the other end of the line because Danny stopped his shouting for a while. Finally she heard him say "I hope both of you are vey happy. I don't wanna see you, I don't wanna hear from you and you can expect divorce papers in the mail!"

Mindy stood with her mouth opened in shocked. She knew very little about Daniel Castelano, but she had not pegged him to be the sort of guy to get cheated on. Sure he annoyed her and yes he seemed to always be grumpy but he was not bad-looking. She thought he was a masculine man who any woman would devote themselves to if they were into that particular type of brooding male.

Mindy was so caught up in her thoughts, she did not hear Danny get up from his desk and walk over to his door. She was so surprised when he pulled the door opened that she just stood there staring at him staring at her. No words.

"Get an earful, did you?" Danny was not impressed to see her there. She looked so shocked that he caught her that she still stood there like an idiot with her mouth opened.

He made a move to go past her when she finally came to her senses. "Danny, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I was just on my way to lunch when I heard shouting."

He interrupted her, "And what? You couldn't help yourself from listening? You found joy in my marital problems?"

"Oh gosh no!" she replied. "I would never laugh at your pain. I really am sorry. Especially after what I said this morning. I feel terrible."

"Save it. Everyone's bound to find out what a failure I am as a husband anyway." He was about to walk away when Mindy caught his arm. He looked down at where her tiny olive toned hand held his forearm.

"Don't you dare blame yourself for something she did to you! This is in no way your fault. If you ask me she is just a huge slut. Maybe she should be on that show Jersey Shore. She definitely acted like a Snooki."

Danny just stared at her confused. He had no idea what she was talking about but somehow he started feeling a little less angry with her.

"It's fine. Things haven't been going so great for the past year with her and I. I'm just so pissed I'm going to have to find an apartment and all that crap now." That made her smile.

"You know Danny, there is an apartment opening in my building. If you want I can put in a good word for you."

Danny gave her a peculiar looked. He didn't understand why she was being so nice to him after he had been treating her so badly since she started working there.

"What?" She asked, looking confused herself.

"I'm just surprised is all. I didn't think you would want me living In your building".

She just smiled and said "yeah well, I figure you didn't need the extra stress. I know how hard it is to find nice apartments in this city. Besides, it'll give us a chance to start over, maybe as friends. Consider it my olive branch to end this antagonistic behaviour towards each other."

Danny smiled at her, "Thank you Mindy. I don't know. Maybe you're not so bad. I've just been annoyed at the world and I guess you were easy target."

"Hey, forget it. I'll let you know what the landlord says, okay? How about we head to lunch? She started towards the break room but Danny still stood there. He was seriously considering living in her building. Maybe she wasn't so bad, he thought. Of course she made stupid pop culture references he didn't get and of course she was always talking about something or the other but all in all, not so bad.

He walked after her, heading to get his lunch. He was still quite ruffled by his conversation with his soon to be ex-wife but somewhere along the line he started to feel just a little hopeful.

Chapter Two

It had been three months since Mindy had overheard Danny in his office. Since then he was living in the apartment across from her and they had developed a friendship of some sort. He was not her usual type of friend though. She always did all the talking and they only saw each other at work and sometimes in the hallway or on the subway to work. Mindy knew this was a difficult time for Danny so she kept her distance as much as possible.

She had meant what she said when she promised to be more considerate towards him and so far he had not rejected any of her efforts. She slowly began to realize after the short amount of time they spent together than Danny can be funny when he wanted to. That is, when he wasn't on a rampage about how smelly the city was and how he missed Jersey. Or whenever some baseball team, the Yankees or Knicks or whatever lost a game. She had come to know that that was just who Danny was, a passionate man who likes what he likes.

She was surprised though when one Saturday morning Danny rang her doorbell. This had never happened before. She tried giving him his privacy when he was at home so the last thing she expected was his face looking back at her. She was barely awake and only had her night gown on...okay one of Casey's t-shirts. She felt a little overexposed so she hid behind the door when she opened it to see what Danny wanted.

"Mindy it's 11 o clock. Were you still sleeping? He said, eyeing her hair. She quickly patted it down thinking of what she must look like after the night she had with Casey.

"Well Good Morning to you too Daniel." He smiled. Some where along the line he noticed Mindy called him by his full name whenever she wasn't too impressed with him. He didn't mind it though. He looked past her into her apartment and then back at her. Taking in all parts of her he could see that the door didn't block. He hadn't intended on doing that but she looked a bit flustered and he couldn't help himself. He's a guy. That's what guys did.

"Umm, did you need something Danny?". She brought his attention back to her face.

"Oh yeah, I wanted to see if you wanted these tickets I had to go see John Legend tonight. I got them a while back to surprised Christina but obviously I won't need them anymore." He looked down the hallway as he said the last part. Clearly, he still had some pain from his divorce and wasn't fully able to look straight at her the few times he mentioned it.

"Danny, that's so thoughtful of you. I didn't even know he was in town tonight. I mean I know that one song he made for his wife. It's so good Danny. She's a model you know. The video was so hot...ugh I wish I was her..." Mindy caught herself rambling. She pursed her lips and just took the tickets from his outstretched hand. "Thank you so much Danny. I'll take you to dinner sometime, maybe, to repay you."

"That's alright. Just enjoy the show."

As he walked back to his apartment Mindy called out "Do you like Mexican food? I know the best place." Danny just shook his head and smiled. It's like she didn't even hear him. He just gave her a wave and went into his apartment.

Mindy stared at his closed door for awhile. She was certainly gonna have to set Danny up with someone soon. He is way too lonely. His divorce is still fresh but that doesn't mean he can't have fun, right? As she was coming up with her 'Get Danny on the Market' plan, Casey came up behind her and hugged her around the waist.

"Who was that babe?" He kissed her at the curve of her neck. She smiled as she turned and closed the door.

"That was Danny. He gave us tickets to go see John Legend tonight. Isn't that cool?"

"Oh sweet. I didn't peg you for a John Legend fan though." He said as they made their way to the kitchen to make breakfast together, as they did most Saturdays.

"Um of course I am! I don't just listen to Katy Perry and Beyoncé you know. I like soulful music too. I can be classy". As an after thought she said, "never mind that I'm shacking up with my boyfriend, I have class!"

He walked up to her, arms in the air in a 'I give up' way. "Of course. You are the classiest, most sexiest, intelligent, hot babe I know".

Mindy smiled. She was certain she had the best boyfriend in the world. So what he didn't have a steady job and of course she would love it if he had his life more together, but when he said things like that it just melted her heart.

When she had first met Casey, she was just so happy he was a good guy who didn't seem to be a cheating bastard and so far, he was. It did get to her a bit though that he didn't seem too ambitious. She would sometimes drop hints for him to maybe try doing something other than deejaying but so far he hasn't taken heed. She thought she loved him, or maybe really liked him. Neither of them had said it to each other yet, but she just had a feeling she could make him into a decent man. A man worth marrying. Ugh! She still had work to do. That much she knew, but that was just one little bump to get over. A piece of cake. She could get him into shape. This could be her forever.

Sitting down to have breakfast she broached the subject once more. "You know Casey, I saw a job ad in the newspaper yesterday for a entry level accountant at a firm in Manhattan. It's a good company. I googled them. Maybe you should apply." She looked up at him and he just stared at her for a minute before finally saying "why do you always do that?" She looked at him perplexed.

"You're always trying to get me to find a different job. I told you this is what I love. This is my passion. I'm not gonna be one of those guys working a 9-5 being miserable everyday. Just get off it already!"

Mindy was taken aback by his response. She did not expect that amount of animosity. "Casey, I'm just trying to help. I know you haven't had a gig in over a month so I wanted to show you that you have options. You have a degree, Casey. You're not using it. Why can't you just see that I'm trying to be a good girlfriend?"

"A good girlfriend?!" He got up and started to clear away his plate. "A good girlfriend would see that I'm happy making music and support me and what I do! You haven't even been to my last 3 shows!"

She was now standing up. In utter shock and bewilderment as to what he was saying. She felt like he just slapped her. "Are you kidding me?! I pay all the bills here. I make sure you feel loved at all times. I care about you, that's why I'm trying to help you get your life together!"

"My life is together Mindy. That's what you don't get. You're trying to make me into something I'm not. When are you gonna get it. This is it. I'm not gonna sell out and be some phony pretending to be happy!" He was already on his way to the bedroom and pulled down a gym bag suturing clothes into it.

She followed behind him. "What are you doing? Where are you going?". She stood there with her hands on her hips. Was this really happening.

"Well obviously I'm leaving. I can't deal with you always making it seem as if I'm some no good, untalented fool trying to make good music. This is what I love and no amount of annoyance from you will change it. I'll get the rest of my stuff later. This is over."

"What? Casey, no! I'm not trying to change you or anything." As she was saying this, she was asking herself why she was really trying to stop him. "I love that you're passionate, it's just that sometimes I think you would be more successful doing something else. I promise I won't bring it up again. You don't have to leave."

"What's done is done Mindy. You are never going to be 100% ok with what I do. It's best we save each other the trouble."

She just stood there as he left. How could such a perfect morning go to shit so easily. They were supposed to go to a John Legend concert later tonight! This is not how she planned this day to play out. What the fuck just happened!

The slamming of the door broke her from her thoughts and full realization hit her. He was gone. He was gone. They broke up! She fell to the floor in a rather unladylike fashion and just cried.