It was a sporty bar, full of athletes and people who worshiped them, and Casey was feeling good, nice and loose and warm after a couple of beers he hadn't had to buy. The best thing about sports bars was that people knew who he and Dan were.
"Sports Night, right? Hey, can you say the thing?"
"I'm Casey McCall alongside Dan Rydell," Casey would comply with a grin, shoulder to shoulder with Danny.
"And you're not watching Sports Night," Dan would finish smoothly. After that they pretty much always got a manly pat on the shoulder or a woman's lipsticked grin and a new cold round of beers. But for now Danny was off buying their beers to prove they didn't need handouts, and Casey was just looking around the room, enjoying life. There was a surprising population of apparently single, pretty women, and Casey made private bets with himself about which ones would sidle up later and smile at him. He wouldn't do anything about it. He never did. None of them ever struck a spark in them the way that Dana had, though that was a whole other story, or the way Lisa had, and that was a story that didn't need retelling. He tipped his glass to his lips and drained it, licking away foam. He burped quietly and looked around for Danny.
Danny was across the bar, standing with two bottles in one hand and the other elbow on the bar. He was lounging, his face turned up and the first couple of buttons of his overshirt undone, talking to someone. One of the soccer players, Casey thought, and that would end badly. The guy was famous enough to be a familiar face, but not famous enough that Casey immediately knew his name. Minor league in the major league, Casey thought, and grinned to himself, but that could be trouble. The disdain Dan held for soccer was legendary, and though they tried hard to keep it within the office, a comment slipped out once in a while. Danny was a professional, but he was also a professional who'd been drinking. Casey sauntered over, schooling his expression into a careful cool nonchalance, keeping an eye on Danny and the soccer player. There was a piece of paper and a pen coming out, and Casey smiled broadly, expecting Danny to put the beers down and scribble his famous name across the slip, but it was the soccer player writing something. Writing something and grinning at Danny and putting the paper into the pocket of Dan's shirt and patting Dan's chest.
Casey slowed his steps, puzzled, but he was almost there. The soccer player nearly ran into him as he shambled away and Casey approached, throwing a smile at Danny over his shoulder so that his arm brushed Casey's.
"Hey, sorry, man."
"'S fine," Casey said, dazed.
"Hey, Case," said Danny. "How's it going?"
"Yeah," said Casey, twisting to look over his shoulder after the soccer player, who was swaggering. "Who was that?"
"Greg Chapman," said Danny slowly. "Of the Kansas City Wizards. Who are apparently having a good season."
"He seemed friendly," Casey hazarded. Danny's mouth was twisted up at the corners in a secret little smile that Casey wasn't familiar with. He wasn't sure he liked it.
"So was he giving you his autograph?"
"No," Danny said slowly. "He was giving me his number."
"Ah." Casey nodded. "Trying to get an interview? Make his big break?"
"Not exactly." Danny looked away.
"Ah," said Casey. Danny handed him a beer and Casey took it and took a swallow. "Wait, what?"
"Forget it, Case. I'm gonna go play darts. You wanna play darts?"
Casey trailed after Danny as he pushed his way through the crowd in the bar. "Wait, Danny. Are you saying that Greg Chapman was trying to pick you up in a bar?"
"You wanna say that a little louder, Casey? Because you know this is really the best place to have this discussion."
Casey leaned in and lowered his voice. "I didn't know this was a discussion."
Danny sighed, beery breath against Casey's cheek. "I know. We'll talk about it later."
"I want to talk about it now," Casey insisted. "He just...you...you got picked up by a guy."
"Not quite," Danny said. "I almost got picked up. And I wonder whose fault that was."
"By a guy, Danny, and you don't think this is something we should discuss?"
"No, Case, I don't," said Danny, rounding on him without venom. "So I almost got picked up in a bar. That's what people do in bars. This is a perfectly ordinary, completely normal occurence and nothing to remark on."
"This has happened before?" Casey couldn't stop his voice from rising. His grip tightened on the bottle of beer until his fingers ached. The crowd in the bar eddied around them. Casey wanted to grab somebody's arm, just to have something else to hold on to. He wanted to be in an open space where no one would touch him. The bar floor was shakier under his feet than the couple of beers accounted for. He focused on Danny's mouth in the dim smoky light. Danny's lips were tight. "What the fuck, Danny? What the fuck?"
Danny sighed again. "Casey. Not here. Not now."
"Danny..."
Danny bit his lip and looked at the ceiling. "Not here. Let's go."
"Go where?"
"Casey, is this gonna be a thing?" Danny was standing like he was about to bolt, the muscles of his neck tense so that the tendons were visible.
"No," said Casey immediately. "I just...no. It's not gonna be a thing. Let's go."
Danny turned on his heel and pushed his way toward the doors, setting his beer on a table as they passed. Casey left his as well. He didn't have a taste for it anymore. He found Danny outside, hands shoved into his pockets, standing in the shadows. At least it wasn't winter, he thought, though he wasn't sure what kind of comfort that was supposed to be when the world was dropping away.
"What do you want from me, Casey?" Danny said, rocking a little on the balls of his feet like a boxer. You don't have to fight me, Casey wanted to say, but it wouldn't come out.
"You didn't think maybe you should have told me you were getting picked up by guys in bars?" Casey said, grasping helplessly for words.
"No," Danny said. "No, Casey, I didn't. Because I knew you'd make it into a thing, just like you're doing right now, and I don't need that kind of stress in my life on top of all the rest of the stress. You made some faulty assumptions about my degree of heterosexuality and I didn't feel the the need to correct you. I didn't want you getting all paranoid and suspicious if I looked at you from across the room, or if I patted your shoulder, or if I went to the locker rooms to get an interview. I want to do my job. Whatever I do after work is my business."
"Danny, I..." said Casey. His face felt hot, and his head was so light he thought it might float away, like the heat from his face was turning his brains into helium.
"You know what, Casey, let's not even do this." Danny pushed his hands even deeper into his pockets and started to walk away. Casey caught at his sleeve.
"I'm not a homophobe, Danny, I'm not gonna judge you, I just thought I knew you. I thought...I thought I knew you."
Danny's smile was bitter, more of a grimace, and looking at it was like touching broken glass. "Guess not." His face was like a steel vault door, an unbroachable blankness slammed down over something precious. He pulled his sleeve from between Casey's fingers and stalked off down the road. You're going to lose him, said a voice in Casey's head, do something, McCall, he never knows how much he matters.
"Danny, wait," Casey said in desperation, but Danny waved one hand dismissively by his ear and kept walking. "Danny, goddammit, wait!"
Danny wasn't waiting. Danny was walking away and Casey had really fucked up this time. He swore under his breath, cursing his block head and his Midwestern lack of sophistication, and then he started running. He caught up with Danny halfway down the block and pushed him against the closest wall, which was a window if it really mattered, and it didn't, but it was a detail the same as the way Danny's shirt was blue cotton and soft in Casey's fists. Casey grabbed Danny's head and crushed his mouth against Danny's. It wasn't at all like kissing a woman. Danny tasted like beer and his lips were a little chapped and dry, and the evening stubble was coming in around his mouth and grated against Casey's. Danny didn't yield when Casey kissed him, and his body was a different kind of landscape against Casey's. Danny-shape. Familiar and strange. Casey leaned in hard.
And then Danny punched him. Not effectively; the range was too close, and there wasn't any good way to get his fist up around Casey's arm the way Casey was holding him, but Casey was going to have a bruise anyway. He reeled back, clutching his aching cheekbone, the form of Danny's head still between his palms.
"Fuck off, McCall," said Danny roughly, dragging the back of his hand over his mouth. His face was like a stormcloud under the orange glow of the streetlight and the sickly ambient glow of the city. "I'm not going to be your experiment."
"That's not what I meant," Casey got out, but Danny was already climbing into a cab. "Fuck," said Casey to no one, and rammed his fist into the nearest non-window portion of building. His face hurt and his chest ached and his knuckles were scraped bloody by the brick. He was breathing hard, looking like a maniac in the middle of the sidewalk, as alone as anyone could be in New York, and it was probably fucking raining at Indian Wells.
"Fuck," he said again, flexing his fingers and feeling the tenderness of Danny's lobes under his thumbs. He fished for his phone and hit the button for Danny's number, pressing it hard against his ear as if that would make Danny pick up, but there was only the tinny electronic ring and then Danny's genial voicemail greeting. "Danny, that's not what I meant," Casey said into the phone, "pick up, pick up. It matters."
Danny didn't pick up. Casey swore again and hailed a cab with his bloody hand. He would go home to his empty apartment. He would drink himself stupid and watch old broadcasts of the show. And then he would fall into bed and see if he woke up the next morning with a headache and the taste of Danny's mouth still on his lips, and then he would see what was next. Casey McCall would make good. He would make it right. Or maybe he had really broken it this time, whatever it was, and lost the finest thing in his limited life.
"Fuck," he said miserably, his face pressed to the cab window, his breath making a brief cloud against the glass and his forehead smearing across it. His cheek throbbed. Outside, the night city slid by with its secrets.