"How about Aruba? It's both beautiful and fun to say!" Mindy was sitting at Danny's desk, googling interesting vacation spots. Danny had finally relented and agreed to take a week off, though Mindy suspected his hesitancy was because it felt like a rather big leap in their relationship. Now that they were "out" at the office, she felt like they might as well take advantage of being able to take off together.
They just had to agree on where. Mindy had ruled out anywhere cold, and Danny was afraid of anywhere the water was "funky."
"I don't want to have to get a passport." Danny sat at his keyboard, quietly tapping out a nondescript tune.
"You don't have a passport? Seriously?" Of course Mindy hadn't had one until her trip to Haiti. She could still feel superior.
"I like the United States, so sue me." Danny replied.
"Ugh, you can like a place and still travel away from it on occasion, Danny." Mindy frowned and mentally crossed off the entire world from her to-do list.
"If you want to go somewhere kind of exotic, we could do Puerto Rico." Danny gave her a crooked smile, his eyes twinkling. Mindy was immediately incensed.
"Um, no, you've done enough Puerto Rico, thank you very much. I'm not taking you to a beach full of toasty brown hotties." Not that she wouldn't mind if the eye candy was male, but she wasn't taking that chance.
Danny laughed. "I'm pretty sure any beach we go to will have some shade of hottie."
"Yeah, but you have a history, mister." Mindy got up and joined Danny on the tiny bench, bumping him with her hip to scoot him over.
"You're right, I am wildly attracted to toasty brown." He slipped his arm around her waist and buried his face in her hair, nuzzling the warm skin on her neck.
"While I appreciate that very much, we need to pick a spot. It shouldn't be this hard to figure out, Danny! When was the last time you took a real vacation? And LA doesn't count."
"You know, I hadn't thought of it before, but that's not a bad idea. We could do a west coast trip, maybe hit some vineyards, I know you'd like that. Maybe go up the coast to San Francisco."
"That sounds pretty romantic, Danny. I like." She curled into his body and gazed up at him. He swallowed nervously.
"We could maybe even swing by my Dad's place, visit with my sister."
"What?! Who is this?" Mindy took Danny's face in her hands and mimed a pulling motion. "Take off this lifelike rubber face mask and tell me what have you done with the real Danny Castellano?!"
Danny batted her hands away. "Hey, knock it off. You should be happy that I'm becoming more... emotionally... mature."
"God it makes me hot when you quote Dr. Phil." She grabbed his thigh and squeezed. "Seriously though, it's great. I take full credit."
"You can take a little credit, sure." He gave her a gentle nudge with his shoulder.
Mindy was not amused. "Excuse me? Which one of your previous girlfriends was able to crack your hardened exterior and get to your gooey sweet insides?"
"I really don't like it when you compare me to a Cadbury egg, Min."
"Not the point. Did you develop emotional maturity with Eyepatch? With Amy? Hmmm?" Mindy fixed him with her best steely glare, which was barely a glare at all. Danny was still uncomfortable.
"Okay, stop reciting my exes. It's just going to lead to you bringing up your exes, and then I'm going to have those... stomach issues again." Danny wasn't kidding. There wasn't enough Febreze in the world to freshen up the bathroom that week.
"Oh no. We can't have that again. I've been banned from using the liquor store bathroom."
"So, then, we should do this." Danny looked at her thoughtfully. "Two days in LA, three tops. That should leave you little time for getting in Bradley Cooper's hair."
"Uh, it's not his hair I want to get into!" Mindy grinned and gave a exaggerated wink.
"Gross. Okay, we rent a car..."
"His pants, Danny. I want to get into his pants."
"Would you stop? We rent a car..."
"Oh come on. Have you heard him speak French?"
"As I was saying, we rent a car in LA, spend a few days in Napa Valley..."
Mindy interrupted again. "Oh God, yes! Days of drinking wine and humping, now that's a vacation. Let's go tomorrow!"
"We're going next month like we planned. But you can come over tonight and practice." Mindy giggled in response. "Then after Napa we go up to San Francisco, and we can fly out from there."
"For this being a brand new idea out of absolutely nowhere, you sure seem to have given this a lot of thought." Mindy said suspiciously. Danny turned red and shrugged.
"Okay, okay, just go do your Mindy magic and get this all planned out."
"And by Mindy magic, you mean get Betsy to do it, right?" Danny just nodded. "Okay, but you need to practice some appropriate theme music on the piano."
Danny rolled his eyes. He started to play a slow and slightly off tune version of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."
"Ugh, Danny that's a breakup song! So not appropriate." She pouted. Danny chuckled and changed to a more uptempo song - "I Love LA."
"Do you seriously not know any song written after I was born? Here, I will show you my expertise." Mindy pushed his hands off the keyboards and attempted to play "Born This Way" but having no musical experience, she resorted to "Chopsticks" before flinging her hands in the air.
"Okay so I should stick to singing and not playing music. You don't have to say it." She stood up haughtily and smoothed out her skirt.
"Okay. Hey, Min." Danny was just smiling at her wistfully.
"Whaaaat, Danny? I have a lot of planning to do!"
Danny took a deep breath, then exhaled and swallowed hard.
"I love you."
"I know." Mindy smiled at him sweetly and turned to walk away.
"Mindy." Danny spoke with an annoyed tone. "Seriously?"
Mindy turned back to him. "Oh, sorry, does little Mr. Emotional Maturity need to hear it back?" She put her hands on his broad shoulders and leaned over to whisper in his ear. "I love you, Danny. I am truly, madly, deeply in love with you. I choo-choo-choose you."
"You are such a brat." Danny was grinning from ear to ear.
Mindy swung around to sit on his lap, or at least half on his lap, half on the tiny bench. "Isn't that why you love me?"
"It actually is not." Danny corrected her with a kiss.
"I know, it's my sparkling personality and rockin bod. And probably that thing I do with my tongue..."
"Mindy..."
"Shhhh... You're getting better at saying it, Danny. I'm very proud of you. You barely looked like you had to stress barf at all this time."
"I don't stress barf, Mindy."
"Okay, whatever." She laid her hand on Danny's and ran her thumb across his lips. "Have I ever told you how much I appreciate whatever genetic lottery you won when it comes to these?" She leaned in and kissed him softly. "Oh, the things they can do..."
Danny grinned. "Hey, like I told you, I work with what I've got."