Did You Mean It?
Mindy looked up at the television screen. She'd been staring at it for the past twenty minutes not paying any attention to the images flashing across the screen. Something was bothering her and she'd thought she could just forget about it, but not being able to get into Love and Hip Hop was a sure sign that she'd been lying to herself.
She sighed and turned off the TV, stretching out across the stained couch in the doctor's lounge. She closed her eyes and attempted to take a much needed nap. She couldn't get comfortable. She twisted around to her side and let out a disgusted huff when the smell of stale cheetos wafted up to her nose. This place was disgusting sometimes.
"When you're through fighting with the couch can you scoot over?"
Her eyes popped open and searched for the voice's source. Danny was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, wearing wrinkled scrubs. It wasn't the first time she'd seen him tonight. They'd crossed paths in the hospital several times, but they'd both been too busy to stop and chat. She'd kind of been reluctant to talk to him anyway.
She drew herself up and put her feet back on the floor. "I couldn't get comfortable anyway. What is it with this place? It's like an odd combination of antiseptically sterile and disgustingly filthy at the same time."
Danny ambled over to the couch and dropped down beside her. "You do realize that most of the stains on this couch are from you drooling all over it." He pointed to the arm rest under his elbow as he leaned back, fishing the remote from between the cushions.
He flicked the TV on and a barrage of screamed insults echoed from the speakers. Danny frowned and muted it. "Why do you watch this crap?" He gestured toward people yelling on the screen. "All they do is yell at each other and call each other the worst names, and over what? A guy that looks like a chipmunk?"
She raised her hand in protest. "Ok, no. His name is Stevie, and he does not look like a chipmunk." She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and peered at him, inviting him to argue. She sighed and turned back to the TV, tilting her head to the side. "Maybe he does look a little bit rodent-like." She frowned and turned back to him. "I wouldn't expect you to understand the intricacies of Hip Hop culture." She mumbled something to herself.
Danny looked at her. "What?"
She bit the inside of her cheek and cast him a sideways glance. "I said, you should know about calling people awful names." She moved her gaze forward again stared intently ahead. She hadn't meant to bring it up, but she hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since it happened.
Danny was quiet for a moment. Mindy could hear his breath as he let out a long sigh. "Mindy, I…" He trailed off.
She regretted bringing it up. She glanced back at him, ready to tell him to forget about it, but the expression on his face stopped her. He looked contrite. She'd honestly expected him to defend his moment of almost-name-calling, but he just sat there looking down at his fidgeting hands.
"Do you really think of me that way?"
He looked up. "I didn't mean it." He flexed his fingers and wiped his palms on his thighs. "Or, rather, I wouldn't have meant it."
Mindy turned her entire body towards him and pulled her legs up on the couch. "Just to be clear, we are talking about the fact that you: A) called me 'loose,' and B) almost called me a slut, right?" She tucked her legs underneath her, and propped her elbows on her knees, leaning toward him.
He frowned. "I thought we were past this." The pleading note in his voice did not go unnoticed by Mindy. She knew how uncomfortable this situation was making him, but she chose to ignore it.
She continued to stare at him, not giving an inch. "Well, I guess we're not." She wasn't really mad anymore. She was honestly a little hurt that he thought of her that way. "Why did you get so upset when you thought Paul and I... made love?"
He inhaled deeply and blew the breath out hard. "I just, well, you know, it wasn't that really. It's just…" He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "God, Mindy, I'd always thought of you as a loyal person, and you have Casey. I didn't think you could do that to him. It hurts when someone you love does that."
There was a moment, before Mindy realized Danny was referring to Christina, that she felt her heart skip a little. She quickly felt silly, thinking he was talking about her, but continued on. "Why do you care if I cheat on my fiancée? It's really no concern of yours." She crossed her arms and leaned back against the arm rest.
Danny pursed his lips and stared at her, not saying anything. Mindy wasn't going to let it go. She wasn't going to break the silence to make this easier for him. She really wanted an answer. He looked away from her, staring at a silent TV. "I don't like it when my friends are disloyal." The words crawled out of his mouth grudgingly.
Mindy felt a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. They were friends. She reached across the space between them and put a hand on his shoulder. "And you don't think I'm loose?"
He tilted his head in her direction, giving her a hesitant look. He wanted this conversation to be over so badly. "No. You're an adult. You have sex with people you like and care about. I have no opinion on the matter. It's just that I never pictured you as someone who would cheat, and I was annoyed with you." He looked down at the hand on his shoulder. "Then I was mad at myself for getting so upset about it."
Mindy had driven this conversation, but now she was the one who felt slightly uncomfortable. She became acutely conscious of the heat resting under her hand and felt a catch in her breathing. She slipped her hand off his shoulder and turned back to the TV. She cleared her throat. "Apology accepted. Are you going to change the channel or what?"
Danny released a sigh of relief and lifted the remote, flipping over to the Discovery Channel. "Now this is TV worth watching."
Mindy glanced up at the screen with a perplexed look on her face. "What is this? That guy with the mustache looks like a villain in a movie about the circus. Why is he wearing a beret? Is that explosives they're strapping to that mannequin?"
Without looking away from the TV Danny said, "Mindy, please be quiet and let me watch stuff get blown up." He smiled leaned back into the couch cushions.
The annoyance Mindy had felt since the argument in the office finally lifted off her shoulders, although it was quickly replaced by an uneasy feeling as she looked across at Danny, his broad smile of enjoyment causing her heart to stutter. She swallowed. Surely it was just because she knew he felt close to her now, that he needed her to be the kind of person he could be friends with. Right?
She leaned back and tried to focus her attention on the two goofy men running around on the screen, but her thoughts kept turning back to the one sitting beside her.