It was mid-afternoon a few days later when Danny got a call from Mona asking if he wanted to meet up for coffee. It was random as hell, but then, he's kind of figured out that his best friend just has times when she needs a break from the 'stay at home' part of 'stay at home mom' so that she doesn't go crazy.
…Crazier.
But what the hell, he thought. It was his lunch break, and he could have used the caffeine.
So, he met up with her at the café, they grabbed some coffee, and now they're walking down the street, breathing in the "fresh" air, and talking about—
"—what childbirth does to your bladder."
On a list of things Danny should never, ever know about, he's 110% sure that's pretty high up there. But he's still a detective at heart, and he knows he's going to regret it, but damn it, he just can't help himself. "What does it do to your bladder?"
Yep, he was right. He regrets it as soon as it leaves his mouth. Unfortunately, there's nothing he can do but bite his tongue, weather another analogy like the empty tube sock one from a few minutes before, and cry a little inside.
Or a lot. Cry a lot inside.
He actually feels a glimmer of hope when all Mona does is laugh at him, but it flickers out when she stops and her eyes go wide.
"Oh," she says, "I think—I just peed a little bit."
And that's a sign that it's time to change the subject.
"It may not even matter right now, anyway," he tells her. "The lawyer says it could take a few appeals, something about single fathers being 'inadequate' for child-rearing." Which he thinks is a crock of shit, but will wisely keep to himself.
"Hey." Mona's voice snaps him out of his head and back to reality. "Come with me for a second. I have to make some muffins for some bullshit teacher appreciation day."
He tries not to snort. He really tries. "You're gonna make muffins?" If he sounds skeptical, it's because he is. Mona is only ever in the kitchen if take-out isn't an option – for damn good reason; she tried to bake a cake a few years ago and nearly started The Great Manhattan Fire of '09 – and he kind of doubts she's doing it for some school function.
"Oh, hell no."
Score one for Danny.
"There's a place here that sells them. I pick out the worst ones, and I pretend I made 'em."
"That's…actually kind of genius."
Mona smiles. "I have my moments."
She does, indeed. Not only is she excellent at finding her way out of unnecessary baking, but she's also crazy good at finding her way in through the crowds of people filling the markets at lunch time. With ease only a life in the city could bring, they navigate through the booths until they get to the muffin stand.
The muffin stand?
The muffin stand.
Do you know the—
Danny stops just short of actually physically slapping himself, and instead tries to focus on watching a master at work.
Mona's browsing the selection for the few ugly ducklings she's going to call her own, and he looks just in time to see her pick a winner. Some strawberry thing that looks like it blew its brains out.
"Ooh," she says, plucking it from the display and adding it to her growing collection. They've been here about ten minutes, and she's amassed almost a full dozen.
"Seems like a lot of trouble for something so trivial," he mutters.
Mona cuts her eyes at him. "You better get used to it. This is what you have to look forward to."
"Yeah, well, if it means getting Grace, it'll be worth it."
Mona actually makes a gagging noise in the back of her throat. "Oh, please. You're going to give me diabetes."
"Says the woman with a dozen muffins."
"Ten, actually. I need two more of these babies for a perfect set."
"Good luck with that." In the meantime, Danny occupies himself with looking around the market. He's always liked to people watch. Observing the greater population in their natural habitat. He's pretty sure that old woman has been inspecting that same grapefruit since they got here, and he'd bet money that the man in the "Erotic Therapy" booth next to this one hasn't gotten any in four…five years? Maybe more.
Probably more.
When he sees the guy going for his fanny pack, he decides it's time to change the channel, and he turns around.
And promptly chokes on the muffin sample he – stupidly, in hindsight – crammed into his mouth a second earlier.
There, across the way and standing behind what Danny thinks is a cheese stand, is none other than the cab-jacking Sasquatch himself, in all his cargo-pants-and-t-shirt glory. He's talking to an elderly woman, and wow, he really is tall, Danny thinks, and his smile as he helps the woman with her order is just unfair.
"That son of a bitch," Danny mutters without thinking.
"What son of a bitch?" Mona asks. Of course, her interest is piqued. Anytime expletives start a conversation, chances are it'll have her attention.
Which means there's pretty much nothing he can do but tell her. "That guy selling cheese," he says. "The freakishly tall one in the cargo pants. I know him."
"He's hot."
Danny can't bring himself to argue with that, but he does frown. "He sells cheese." It's less pathetic an argument than 'he's straight,' so Danny mentally shakes hands with himself.
"You sell hamsters," Mona reminds him. So much for his moment of triumph.
"Can I help you two?" Danny doesn't need to look to know the dark-haired muffin-vendor is smiling at them.
So, he doesn't. Look, that is. He's much more interested in watching Tall, Dark, and Obviously Heterosexual – because although Danny doesn't think all gay men are fashion conscious, only a straight guy would dress like that – over there at the cheese booth smooth-talking his way to another sale.
"Like what you see?"
This time, Danny does turn around.
The vendor smiles brightly. "The muffins, I mean," she says, and then her eyes wander off to the side, and she smiles even brighter. "Hey, you."
Danny follows her gaze, and this time, it's his coffee he nearly sputters on when he sees the aforementioned Tall, Dark, and Out Of His League making his way over. He hadn't even heard him approach, but he's barely a yard away, and Danny thinks that it's really unfair that someone that tall and muscular should be able to be stealthy, too. Damn man's a ninja in cargo pants.
So, maybe he's a little hung up on the cargo pants. But in his defense, it goes against his every belief that a man his age – he pegs him in his early thirties, maybe a couple years younger than himself – should be wearing the things. And what's more, he sure as hell shouldn't look that good in them.
Danny snaps out of it when he sees the stranger's eyes lock on him and widen.
"Hi," the guy says. His voice is kind of quieter than Danny remembers, and it doesn't take a detective to see the bags under his eyes. The hard life of a cab-stealing cheesemaker, he guesses. But he's smiling, and he seems genuinely happy to see him, so that seems to give a little more life to his face. "What a nice surprise. How did you know I worked here?"
"I…didn't."
The guy's eyes widen, and his mouth forms an 'o' before settling into a grin that's even wider than before. It shows of dimples that fucking Brad Pitt would kill for and crinkles the corners of his eyes just so that Danny almost misses the mischief dancing in them. "Oh, so you followed me here?"
Danny snorts. "Me? Follow you here?" He presses his hands together and points to the ground. "To the farmer's market?" He can only hope he sounds as incredulous as he feels, because really? As if he doesn't have better things to do than follow some stranger around, regardless of how attractive he is. "That's—that's actually funny. But no, we came to buy muffins." Which, he realizes as he says it, sounded like a much better explanation in his head.
"You better buy something," the muffin girl says. "You've been here for half an hour."
Glancing down at his watch, Danny discovers that it has, in fact, been twenty-six minutes since they got here, and holy shit that's a long time to look for muffins. He's pretty sure he could have made them that fast.
"Well, it's—it's really nice to see you," Cargo Pants says, wringing his hands a little. It would be funny to see the guy a little flustered, Danny thinks, if he wasn't kind of off-kilter himself. It might be weird, but he's kind of starting to get the impression that Steve might…well, not to be fourth-grade about it, but like like him. Following him on the subway could be chalked up to happenstance, but this, the way he's smiling like a nervous high-schooler is kind of pointing towards something a little different. Maybe Tall, Dark, and Heterosexual is playing in his league, after all.
But then Steve's brows furrow, and he frowns. "I never did get your name. I'm Steve." He offers his hand, which Danny takes automatically.
Of course, he has a firm hand shake.
"I'm Danny," Danny says.
Steve smiles. "Danny."
"And I'm Mona," chimes a voice behind him, and Danny steps to the side a little as Mona slides up to the forefront. "So, how do you two not know each other?"
"He stole my cab," they say in unison.
Mona looks between them for a second. "Oh…okay."
This whole thing is suddenly very awkward, Danny realizes, and as Mona turns around to finish paying for her dozen ugly ducklings, he does too. "We should go," he says. Preferably soon, before this can get any weirder.
But instead of going along with him like a good friend, Mona turns back to look between him and Steve, and she arches an eyebrow. "We should?"
"Yeah. We had that important thing, remember?" He tries to force as much meaning into the words as he can without being too obvious, because he gets the sneaking suspicion Steve isn't exactly slow on the uptake.
He sure as hell isn't slow on the return. "Well, can your important thing wait just a few minutes?" he asks, his eyes suddenly bright, and Danny's kind of reminded of when Grace brings home a school art project she's dying to show off. "I'll give you a taste of my cheese."
Danny's really glad he hasn't taken another drink of his coffee, because he's pretty sure that right there is spit-take material. As it is, he just kind of stares at the guy, wondering just how long it'll take him to realize the words that came out of his mouth.
Not long, it seems.
Steve's smile falls, and his face is suddenly very severe. "I can rephrase that," he says seriously, nodding.
Against Danny's better judgment, he lets Mona drag him over to the cheese stand after Steve. There's another man standing behind the table – an Asian-looking guy, with almost unnaturally sharp cheekbones and a visually assaulting Hawaiian shirt – but before he can exchange pleasantries, Steve's talking again.
"Okay, this is our basic chevre. Probably our best seller." He looks to the guy behind the table, and they exchange nods. "It's the cheese that started it all, as they say."
Except Danny's pretty sure nobody says that. Ever.
He keeps that to himself, though. Partly because it would be rude, but mostly because Steve seems really interested in what he's saying, and even though Danny couldn't care less about what kind of cheese is what, he thinks it's kind of fun hearing how excited Steve is about it. Passion is passion, he guesses, whatever the object.
Steve continues, telling them, "These are our surface-ripened cheeses. These are fantastic. And these," he gestures to the last plate, "are the aged raw milk cheeses."
Which means absolutely nothing to Danny, no matter how charming Steve is when he's talking about them – and no, no he did not just think that – and he glances over to see if Mona's catching about as much as he is.
"Now—" He pauses, and when Danny looks back at him, he's watching them intently. "This is really boring, isn't it?"
"Uh, no," Danny lies, because he finds he actually doesn't want to hurt the guy's feelings.
Unfortunately, at the same time, Mona says, "Eh, yes."
And it probably doesn't help that Cheekbones behind the table is nodding knowingly.
Steve glances over at him, and seems to think that's an excellent time to change the subject, because he gestures to Cheekbones with the piece of 'aged raw milk cheese' he just speared on a toothpick. "This is Chin," he says. "He works for me."
Chin smiles at Danny and Mona. "Aloha."
Either it's affected, or Chin is as Hawaiian as his boat-and-palm-tree-patterned shirt.
"Hi," Danny says, shaking the hand Chin offers quickly. "Danny."
"Mona."
Steve politely waits until they finish their introductions, even though Danny can tell just from looking at him that he's practically bouncing on the inside. He wonders if it's just because he's anxious and excited, or if he might've tried to counter those bags under his eyes with a little too much caffeine.
"Can I give you a sample box?" he asks.
"Oh yeah!" Mona says eagerly, but Danny shakes his head no, and she catches on. "No, we're okay."
But Steve apparently isn't the type to take 'no' for the answer, and somehow, Danny's really not surprised. "You're not lactose intolerant, are you?" he asks. As if that is the sole reason anyone would turn down a sample box. "I hate that."
And speaking of things to hate, the muffin girl from the booth before chooses that time to make a reappearance, bouncing over to lean on Steve's arm. "Hey, you're still coming over tonight, right?"
Steve couldn't look more alarmed if he was being held at gunpoint. "I…um…yeah," he says, but even as the muffin girl moves around behind him, his eyes are locked on Danny's.
After that little display, Danny thinks it's perfectly clear what league Steve's playing in.
"We should go," he tells Mona. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Steve make a miserable sort of face and let out a sigh, but he ignores him. "Ready?"
"I want a sample box," Mona protests. He should've known better than to try to pull his friend away from food. Especially something dairy and potentially fattening.
"Okay, well I gotta go." Technically, it's not a lie. His lunch will be over soon, and he needs to get back to the store so that Clive can go get some food, or else he'll never hear the end of it. "Bye."
With that, he starts of down through the market. He thinks he might hear Steve tell him bye, but he brushes it off as wishful thinking and keeps on going.
He doesn't stop until he reaches the store, and he makes it back with about ten minutes of his break to spare. The bell rings as he opens the door, and he's barely set foot inside it when Daphne's voice greets him.
"Okay, spill it," she says. "Who is he, what does he do, how do you know him?"
She fired it all off in such rapid succession that Danny can barely manage a confused 'who?'
Daphne rolls her eyes and huffs. "Steve. From the farmer's market. He's called twice already."
Which is impressive, Danny thinks, because it only took him about fifteen minutes to get here from the farmer's market. He guesses patience is not Steve's virtue.
Tenacity, on the other hand….
"I'm going kill Mona." Because how else would Steve have gotten the number? "And I was a cop, so I know how to make it look like an accident."
"Is he a farmer?" Clive asks from the fish tank. And speaking of accidents, he takes a pretty graceless tumble off the step stool.
Danny tries not to laugh for his sake. "He makes cheese," he says.
"He's a pilgrim?"
"Oh, Mona called, too," Daphne chimes in. "She said his feta was incredible. That makes so much more sense, now."
He shudders to think what it sounded like, then.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who is this guy?"
"He's nobody," Danny says. "He's just…some guy." Smooth, Danny. That'll definitely throw them off the scent. On the not-so-off chance that it doesn't, though, he starts to excuse himself to the office. He's got to make the final arrangements for the Cesar Millan signing that night.
"Are you blushing?" Daphne asks as he passes her.
Clive's is more of an accusation. "You're totally blushing!"
Danny resists the urge to groan. "Can we just calm down and get ready for the book signing?"
"No, this is exciting," Daphne says. "I'm not calming down."
Of course she isn't. She's like a dog with a bone. A really hyper, really fashionable dog. Like a pomeranian. Or a pekingese.
"Look, he's nobody, and even if he is somebody, it doesn't matter, because I don't want to be with anybody, okay? So let's just get back to work. Can we do that, please? Can we do that?" He's not snapping. Actually, he thinks he's being pretty calm about this whole thing, all things considered.
And for the record, he doesn't get why everyone's making such a big deal about him applying for custody of Grace, because sometimes, it feels like he already takes care of two kids as it is.
"Finding a relationship is work," Daphne calls after him.
"I don't want a relationship." He punctuates the announcement with the slam of the office door behind him.
