Mindy tucked her hands in the pockets of her coat and levered herself up off the curb. She couldn't help but look one last time in the direction Danny had walked off. She was confused. There was a feeling bubbling up inside of her that shouldn't have been there. She wanted to pull out the leggy brunette's hair.

She reached up and touched her cheek where Danny's lips had been moments before. Where had that come from? He'd invaded her space and laid it on her unexpectedly, before getting up and awkwardly patting her one the shoulder. There had been a moment, before he'd made that move, when she thought he would brush off the brunette's advances. She'd felt herself hoping he would tell the woman to buzz off and just stay with her. That unexpected longing freaked her out, so she'd urged him to go.

She tried to shake off the feeling and strode resolutely down the sidewalk in the direction of her place. She pulled her phone out and popped her earbuds in. She thought listening to something would take her mind off of it. She intentionally chose Katy Perry. Screw everyone who didn't like her taste in music. She scrolled through the tracks to find one from her debut album. Ur So Gay popped up. She listened for a minute before frowning and turning the music off. So not every song was a gem. Whatever.

She shoved her phone back in her pocket. It's not like it would have worked anyway. She couldn't stop thinking about those damn photographs. When she'd seen the tamer versions in his apartment months before, she'd been surprised, but not shocked. Mostly because she couldn't believe Danny had actually agreed to hang them. Now, though, she was shocked, and it wasn't because of the nudity. Not really anyway.

He looked so vulnerable in them. He was naked in more ways than one, and it was hard for her to reconcile the fact that Christina was the one who had engendered that openness. Stupid Christina. She didn't even realize what it took for Danny to be that free with himself. When the lights had gone down and the ridiculous demon overlay had popped up, Danny had looked so hurt. There wasn't even outrage in him. This was just another betrayal.

He'd looked around him at everyone gaping at the images. He'd looked so lost. She'd felt that hurt and embarrassment for him, and hadn't been able to stop herself from jumping up in front of everyone and causing a scene.

She understood why he never opened up to people. It seemed like every time he did, something like this happened. His openness was often betrayed. She actually felt a bit blameworthy herself, if she could be honest. She'd seen that look of betrayal before, if only briefly.

The night she'd cut her hair for Casey he'd looked at her without any guards up. Stared at her really. It had stolen her breath and caused a brief moment of panic. She'd quickly shoved the image of Casey between them to stop whatever he was thinking. Now she was playing the what-if game in her head. What if she hadn't said anything? Would he have leaned closer?

She would never know. A fleeting wave of pain flashed across his face when the words had left her mouth. The shutters quickly slammed down to hide it.

She shivered as a gust of wind blew across her legs and picked up her pace. Their relationship was different now for sure, but it was also beginning to be weird. She found herself sitting at home some nights, ok almost every night, rifling through the letters he'd sent her in Haiti while she marathonned reality TV.

Reading his letters was oddly soothing for Mindy. They were like a glass of wine at the end of a hard day, and it didn't hurt that it made her feel like the heroine in a Jane Austen novel. They sat in a neat pile on her night stand. She felt herself smile and relax as she read them. The letters were the major catalyst for change in their relationship.

He'd told her he liked her letters because she didn't ramble on in them. Well, she liked his for the opposite reason. He told her all kinds of things in his letters. He told her about the mundane day to day stuff at the office. He told her about his brother and his mother. She'd even gotten some glimpses into his past.

The well-stocked book shelf in his bedroom should have been a clue to the articulate and verbose writer she found in his letters. She'd been so worried that the night in the lounge would destroy all the work she'd done trying to get Danny to be her friend, but the letters had built the bridge again. She felt like she knew him better after the months spent apart.

She'd been so tempted to keep writing him, even after she'd gotten back, but it seemed a little weird. She hadn't known how she would explain it to Danny, and she'd really had no clue how to explain it to Casey without seeming duplicitous. How do you tell your fiancé that you want to write private letters to another man?

Mindy's growing stomach pulled her from her reverie. She was starving. She'd skipped dinner before the show so she'd have more time to get ready, but now it felt like her stomach was devouring itself. There was absolutely no food in her apartment. She cast about for the nearest place to eat and her eyes fell on a corndog cart. Greasy and wonderfully unhealthy.

She dashed over to it, for a moment forgetting the thoughts she'd been preoccupied with.

In spite of the cool night air whipping around him, Danny felt the flush of alcohol still on his skin. He was uncomfortably warm. The woman walking next to him had threaded her arm though his and was leaning against him suggestively as they walked.

She placed her face next to his and whispered in his ear. "So, Danny, I hardly think it's fair that I've seen all there is to see of you, and you stand here in complete ignorance of what's going on under this." She plucked at the collar of her blouse in an obvious attempt to be flirty.

He smiled. It didn't quite reach his eyes. He had to tilt his head up to look into her face. She was pretty in a way. What was her name? Dawn? Donna? Something with a D. He couldn't recall. "That's easily remedied."

She let out a tinkling laugh. It sounded hollow and contrived as it fell on his ears. It was a laugh she'd probably given a thousand times to a dozen different people. She wasn't really amused. It was one of those laughs. She arched her brow and looked back at him. "My place is just around the corner here."

He felt her take charge of where they were walking. It was so easy. He needed this, didn't he? He was done pining after someone who had no interest in him. He had to stop wasting his time and just live. Waiting on Mindy to view him as more than a friend wasn't going anywhere. He'd given her one last chance, to say something to make him stay, and she'd basically thrown him at this Daisy woman. Daisy? No, that wasn't it either.

Her behavior had made sense when she was engaged to Casey. He understood that she'd made a commitment and wanted to stick it out, but she'd been single again now for a while, and now she was going after every guy who flirted with her and not even glancing at him.

He felt so ridiculous around her sometimes. His carefully placed armor would just fall at his feet, and he'd be standing there with his stupid heart on his sleeve, and yet she was totally oblivious. He had an entire catalogue of "incidents" in his head that made him cringe every time he thought about them. He could tick them off, one by one, using only a word or two in description. Valentine's Day. Santa Fe. The Lounge. Voodoo Princess.

He cared about her, and it pissed him off. He didn't want to care. It bothered him when the guys she dated treated her badly. It worried him when she made rash decisions that put her in danger. He just wanted it to be the way it was before she'd started playing this friendship game. Her determination to make him her friend had actually done something else.

"Right here." Diane's voice cut through his thoughts. Diane? That really sounded right. She directed him to the steps in front of a nice building.

He felt led in his feet. There was something stopping him from following her up. He slipped out of her grasp and turned to face her. "Look, Diane, I'm really not feeling this right now. That show kind of screwed me up. I can't stop thinking about… my ex. I just think I'm going to head home."

She stepped back with a disgusted expression on her face. Danny was surprised she was so incensed over him not coming up. It actually boosted his ego a bit. She continued to glare at him. "Excuse me, but my name is Rebecca, first of all." She flipped her hair. "And I was doing you a favor. You looked like such a sad sack sitting on the sidewalk with that tubby little Indian girl."

She whirled away from him and stomped up the steps. His brows furrowed and an angry expression settled across his features. "Hey, don't talk about her like that, you don't know her. She was the only person in that entire place on my side."

She stopped at the door and looked down at him. "Maybe your ex-wife is so pissed at you because you're in love with little miss defend-you-honor. Maybe you should go hunt her down tonight instead of being rude to me." She twisted her key in the lock and swung the door open, quickly disappearing into the building.

Danny stood on the sidewalk, frozen in place. His mind turning in lazy circles. Go find Mindy? Well, maybe he would. Maybe he would just go over to her place and tell her what he'd been thinking for the past six months. Maybe telling her everything would make it all go away.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and marched back down the sidewalk in the direction of her apartment.

Mindy wrapped the pink bathrobe around her and cinched the belt tightly. She had to do this before she lost the courage. She grabbed the envelope off the table and hurried out the door. There was a mail box directly in front of her building. If she dropped it in now, it would be done and over with. She'd be left to face the consequences in a day or so.

She strode to the elevator in the hall and mashed down the call button. To her surprise, the elevator opened almost instantly. The breath caught in her throat when she saw Danny standing in front of her. Her palms were uncharacteristically sweaty. She quickly hid the one holding the envelope behind her back.

Danny glanced down at the giant fuzzy slippers on her feet, his gaze travelling up to the puffy pink bathrobe. "Mindy, what are you doing?"

Her eyes were still wide with disbelief. Was it possible to physically conjure someone by simply thinking his name a thousand times? "What am I doing? I live here. That's what. What are you doing?" She kicked herself. She really had no good excuse for why she was wandering around in her bathrobe at this hour.

Luckily, Danny seemed to be a bit unsure of what he himself was doing. He reached up and placed his hand on the back of his neck, looking away from her. Ah-ha. That was a sure sign. Whatever it was, he wasn't entirely comfortable with it. "I, uh, well… I just wanted to make sure you got home alright… yeah, because I walked you to the gallery, and then that writer guy, well, he just left. So you were alone…"

He was still standing and the elevator, and Mindy was still gaping at him from across the threshold. The doors started to slide shut again. He swung his arm out and stopped it, stepping out into the hall beside her. "Wait, you still haven't said what you're doing, going down in the elevator, not even dressed. It's cold outside, Mindy. Where are you going?"

She angled herself so he couldn't see the hand behind her back. A slow smile spread across her face when she heard his words. If he were telling the truth, which it didn't seem likely, but if he were, then it meant that he was worried about her. It meant that he cared enough to blow off a sure thing. If he were lying to cover something else up, then she could only speculate what he was hiding, but even then, she grew warm at the thought.

She smiled at him. "Would you believe me if I said I was sleepwalking?" She plastered a hopeful expression across her face, but he only returned an incredulous frown. "No? Well, you'll have to just accept that I'm not going to tell you what I was doing, because it's something I'd rather keep to myself."

She leaned forward and pressed the call button with her free hand again, quickly slipping into the elevator when it opened. Danny followed closely.

Mindy slipped the letter into the front pocket of her robe when Danny reached forward to press the button for the lobby. He looked back down at her. "You're really not going to say? You're so weird sometimes."

They rode down in silence. Danny followed her curiously when the elevator stopped. Once they were out in the street, she strode purposefully to the blue mail box. Her hand darted quickly into the pocket of her robe. Danny saw a quick flash of white before she thrust it into the box. "You're mailing a letter? At this time of night?"

She turned back to him. "Wow, Danny, you're so observant. You figured out I was mailing a letter when I put a letter into a mailbox, and you also know what time it is. You're a regular Dr. Sherlock." She strode past him back to her building.

He called after her. "Sherlock wasn't the doctor, Watson was."

She turned back at him, "Goodnight, Danny." Smiling brightly, she slipped back into her building. Waiting until she was safely confined in the elevator before she let the reality of what she'd just done sink in. Her eyes widened and she felt panic rise in her chest. "Oh god, what have I done?"