2. The Street Where You Live.

It was not as simple as it had sounded to him, in his head, on the way over.

Danny came to an abrupt halt in front of her building, panting and drenched in sweat. He saw the sun brushing the upper left corner of the roof of her building and he was suddenly aware of the sounds of morning in the city slowly gaining momentum around him- the honking of cars from the expressway, the street sweeper three blocks over, and even a few birds happily chirping in a tree across the street (in the city, who knew?). All of which added up to the quiet sound of Danny Castellano chickening out.

He stood there for a long minute, staring up from the stoop of her building. As he watched one of Mindy's neighbors emerge from the front door to walk a little fluff-ball they probably refer to as a dog- it dawned on him that he had forgotten what came next in this carpe diem scheme of his. And judging by the accusatory glance as she passed by him onto the sidewalk, he realized that he maybe looked a little agitated because of it. He turned away from the building and lifted up a sweaty hand to drag down the length of his face. He cringed, then wiped it on the tail of his shirt and tried again- okay, how did that make it worse? He looked down at his sweat-soaked clothes and remembered that this was why he wasn't good at these impulsive things.

Whatever brilliant idea had been in his head when he pointed himself in this direction had not included the fact that he would still be a sweaty, sleep-deprived mess when he got here. And kinda nauseous, now. The thing that Danny Castellano was best at was doing the right thing, and... discipline, and maintaining a routine (like the one he should be following right now where he goes home and showers and goes to work like normal), and also doing things that aren't any fun and have no reward, but- you do them anyway because-

"DANNY?!"

His eyes snap open wide and a wave of goose-bumps shiver down his arms as he whips back around to face the building, knocking one sneaker into the other and nearly toppling.

There stood Dr. Mindy Lahiri, looking at him from the open doorway like he was some deranged cat lurking outside her home. He'd been caught. He had a similar instinct to bolt.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" she calls down to him in a stage whisper. "You look like you just ran a marathon while being chased by a mugger!" Her confused and almost angry expression keeps him from doing more than a kind of turtle-like opening and closing of his mouth for a second, stalling.

"Ahhh, hey Mindy! Nice, nice to see you out... here. How... how ya doin'?" he replies, yeah- standing there on her street like a jerk. He puts one hand on his hip while the other begins to scratch the back of his head, very casually.

"How am I doin'?" she mocks in her creaky, early-morning voice, "What is wrong with you? It's 5:30 in the morning! What, have you joined some kind of psycho pre-dawn boot camp meet-up, and didn't want to give out your own address?"

At this- he smiles, and the feeling of it renews his purpose. She looks more confused now than angry and he takes a few cocky-looking strides up the steps and closes the space between them. She shrinks back behind the door a little as he does this, wary of his presence or his smell, he can't tell. She has on that crazy-looking bathrobe with all the colors on it, but her legs are bare and she's not wearing any shoes and her toes are a shiny kind of pink. Her hair swirls around the back of her head in a way that makes him picture her a few minutes before this, hair spread out across her pillow as she slept. His expression darkens as he stands there, staring intently.

"Oh, my god- Mrs. Wallace." Mindy mumbles in a tired voice and glares up at him, pulling her cell-phone out of the pocket of her robe and dialing a number. "Mrs. Wallace? Hey, yeah- it's okay- you can come back inside... No, no- we don't need to call the police, it's fine, it's not a crazy person, just bring Sabrina back around the corner, I'll wait for you." Crossing her arms in front of her and leaning back against the door now, she says, accusingly- "I got a call from my 80-year-old neighbor at dawn telling me that there was a stalker lurking outside our building who looked like he was going to attack her dog and could I please come downstairs to the lobby and keep an eye on him while she calls the police?"

Danny grimaces at that and mumbles "What kind of busy-body old woman calls the cops on a jogger?"

"What? I'm sorry, I can't hear you when you use that creepy-stalker voice," she snaps. He sees her almost smile at that, but she quickly pushes her face back into a frown.

He cracks a bigger, goofier smile and for a beat just watches her self-righteous expression. Yesterday's eye make-up is smeared across her face on one side and he reaches up slowly and wipes it off, onto his thumb, as she cringes and tries to pull away. "Ucch! What are you doing, your hands are all sweaty-" Mindy protests.

A voice calls up to them from the street- "Mindy? Dear! Are... are you sure everything's okay?!" Mrs. Wallace is back, clutching both her Pomeranian and her phone to her chest, looking more suspicious and terrified than the first time Danny saw her.

"Oh! Hey, Mrs. Wallace- yes, everything's okay, come on back inside!" says Mindy as she slides past him onto the steps and tip-toes down, still barefoot, to guide her back up. "This is just my friend Danny from work, who I can't honestly promise you is not crazy, but who I can assure you is generally harmless to you and little Sabrina. You know, this is really early for you to be out anyway, though- and-" she stops and waits for Danny to take the hint and move himself out of the doorway so they can pass, for which he receives another glare from the frail-looking woman.

"Oh, well yes, dear- I usually wait until daylight, but she's getting older and has such a hard time holding it and she just won't use the little grass potty-mat I've put out in the kitchen for her-" they reach her door on the first level of the apartments and Mindy waits there as she unlocks it.

"Well, there might be a drug that your vet could prescribe to her, I'll look it up when I get back to my office-" "Darifenacin!" Danny calls out from the hallway behind her. Mindy turns slightly and looks at him like he has two heads, then turns back to her neighbor and says- "and we are SO sorry for all the trouble this morning. Right, Danny?" she shoots over her shoulder.

"Oh- right. But, I mean, it's not like I was standin' out there waving a gun around or anything," he chuckles uneasily, and at this Mrs. Wallace startles and reaches to close the door. Mindy shoots him a warrior-woman look and he quickly calls out- "Sorry! Mrs. Wallace! Sorry again... about the stuff..." His words echo once in the foyer as her door clicks shut next to Mindy, who stands in the middle of the hall seeming to take up more space than he would think is possible by someone of her diminutive size and- are her nostrils flaring?

"Are. You. Mental?" she whispers, tilting her head to the right at the last word, eyes burning into his.

A half-smile shifts slowly down and off his face as he realizes- she's pissed.

He clears his throat and tries a new tact- "You got anything for breakfast? I'm kinda hungry."

Mindy looks back at him for a long moment, then blinks once, tiredly. "I think I have some Tostitos."

"For breakfast?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Get out."

"Okay, sorry! Tostitos for breakfast-" he says in a rush as she marches past him, shoving a hand into the middle of his chest to move him out of the way, and turns to go back upstairs. He follows her and tries hard not to look up at her swaying hips and the bare legs pushing her up the steps. But he does, and he smiles up at the whirl of colors leading him towards her apartment. This felt right- this was the messy, weird, nervousness he is apparently addicted to.

And the sun wasn't even up yet.