Author's Note: This is the first piece of fanfiction I've ever written, and I'm not entirely sure if I'm using this site correctly. Oh well, I suppose I'll find out. Please leave whatever comments and criticisms you want, it's all greatly appreciated.
This was the way Danny Castellano liked to run. In the cool morning of early fall when the leaves were still on the few trees happened to be lining the street. The light from the rising sun just lightening the deep blue of night into the pale blue of faded denim jeans.
There were always other runners this time of morning. Young hip urbanites running before work in their designer track suits tapping out a rhythm on the pavement to the beat of the hip hop music flowing from their iPods. Danny preferred to go without music. He liked hearing his breath whooshing in and out as his feet pounded the pavement to the tattoo of his own beating heart. He liked to hear the other runners coming up behind him as their sneakers slapped the side walk. That faint sound slowly getting louder and louder as they inevitably outflanked him. His normally competitive nature was dormant on these morning runs. It was the only time when he could drop his Staten Island bravado. No one knew him out here. It was easy. So much easier than the hours and hours he spent with Mindy and Reed at the practice. Which is why he was so irritated right now.
There was Mindy. She was in her bright pink and orange track suit with a matching beanie and her hello kitty ear buds popped in her ears. The volume turned up so loud that he could hear the base line to whatever teen dream song she was listening to. He took a moment to glance back at her and rolled his eyes. She had shut hers and was bobbing her head to the beat doing some Rocky Balboa dance-jog. "Hey! You're going to run into something if you don't open your eyes!" No response. "Mindy!"
Her eyes popped open. "WHAT?!" She pulled the buds out her ears and opened her eyes wide in inquiry. "You say something, Danny?"
He slowed his pace a bit so she could catch up. "I said you're going to run into something if you don't start watching where you're going. You've already disabled one of your senses with those things. I don't think you have a fair shot at surviving our run with two down."
"For your information, Dr. Castellano, when I deprive myself of one sense it only heightens the others. So you can just apply that logic doubly and I'll be fine." She smirked at him.
"Mindy, that doesn't…" He saw her smirk widen into a smile and he realized he was hooked.
She always did this. She would apply her backwards Mindy-logic to something just so he would try to argue with it. She loved arguing with him and she usually won, even when she was totally wrong. He decided to take a different tack.
"Well I suppose that could be the case. Mindy, why don't you just put those teddy bear things back in your ears and shut your eyes and let your nose lead us to our destination?" He felt the corners of his eyes crinkle a bit and knew he was smiling. It was so much easier not to argue with her sometimes. He even felt he had the upper hand.
"Of course, Danny!" She popped her ear buds back in, closed her eyes and shot ahead of him yelling behind her. "And I know you know what Hello Kitty is." She veered around the corner.
He felt a little bit alarmed when she disappeared from sight. It was just like her to run full tilt somewhere deaf and blind. He picked up the pace and rounded the corner and saw her standing at a pretzel cart with a big soft cinnamon pretzel in one hand and a coffee in the other. "See Danny, my heightened sense of smell led me straight to this wonderful pretzel cart." She walked up to him and stopped directly in front of him to take a very large bite and said with her mouth full, "You should get one too, Dr. Castellano, to reward yourself for a brisk morning run."
He looked down at her and watched as she captured sugar crystals perched on her upper lip with her tongue. He should never had agreed to let her come jogging with him in the mornings before work. This was the third time this week, and they hadn't even completed the circuit once. "Mindy, it completely defeats the purpose of a morning jog if you stop for pastries, and I don't think your discovery of this pretzel cart speaks to your heightened senses since you've stopped here the past three mornings."
"Agree to disagree?" She sipped her coffee and held out the uneaten half of her pretzel to him as a peace offering. He looked down at it with annoyance. He liked soft pretzels. He really liked cinnamon soft pretzels. It wasn't exactly genetics that created the tubby kid that was once Danny Castellano.
He took a deep breath before giving in to the temptation in front of him. He snatched the pretzel from her hands and took a large bite of it. "Does this mean I get some of that coffee too?" The words muffled from the food rolling around in his mouth. "Come on Min, I'm dying here." He cringed inwardly at his use of the diminutive. He hated how easy it was so slip into this easy camaraderie with her, it brought on an uneasiness he wasn't prepared to analyze.
She smiled him. "Sure Dan, have at it. I've gotten my caffeine intake for the morning." She handed him the coffee, her hand brushing up against his fingers. Suddenly he was grateful it was such a cold morning and they were both wearing gloves. "Besides, I'm ready to finish our run now." She hopped up and down started jogging in place. "Last one to arrive at the office buys lunch." And she took off.
Danny stood there for a full minute before he kicked into gear and tossed the pretzel and coffee in the trash and tore after Mindy. "You totally cheated, Lahiri! Even if you get to your apartment before I get home, I'll still beat you because you take hours to get ready!" She had put those hello kitty things back in her ears and didn't hear a word he said. Danny decided for once to just relax. There was quite a nice view from here.