Casey divided Dan's girlfriends into two categories. The first category included women like Stacey Kerr, women who seemed to fall into Danny's lap from the trees. These women were casual about their relationships with him. They would sleep with him on the first date, spend weekends with him in bed, and then not call him for months, nor apparently, care if he called them. They were always friendly and always willing; willing up to the moment they acquired brand-new fiances, or rediscovered love with their long-lost college boyfriends. When this happened, Dan would listen to them bubble about their new-found happiness with sincere interest. When invited, he would go to their weddings and chat up the bridesmaids, and never flinch at being introduced as "an old friend" by a woman who six months earlier had tended to show up at his apartment wearing nothing but a raincoat and a pair of fuck-me pumps. This drove Casey crazy in some indefinable way; since his own recent excursion into casual sex had included Sally and what felt like most of the torments of Hell, it seemed like Danny, by comparison, was getting off easy.
But then a woman from the second category would appear, and Casey would remember he didn't envy Dan, not really. For all that he was good at casual, Dan was abysmal at serious. He picked the wrong women at the wrong time, and pursued them with all the fatalism of a courtly knight--knowing he was doomed, but determined to die in the service of love. Casey shuddered inwardly, remembering some of these relationships. There had been Lynn, who had ensnared Dan at Dartmouth. Casey had only met her once, but he had heard the Saga of Lynn in great detail. From Danny's stories, Casey had privately judged Lynn to be borderline psychotic long before that one meeting, a judgement that was indeed confirmed. Dan, still gunshy from being dumped by Lynn a year after the fact, had in a moment of weakness agreed to have dinner with her for some reason that was never clear to Casey. In a panic, he begged Casey to come along for moral support. Lynn had called Danny "Daniello", and himself "Kaseem", had interrogated the restaurant staff about the number of fat grams in every item on the menu and then finished up with a lecture on the hazards of reckless gluten consumption--and all this was before they ordered. Their waiter wore an expression of frozen despair every time he approached the table, and Dan looked like a deer in the path of an oncoming semi. Lynn had spent half the meal cooing into her cell phone at her current boyfriend, and the other half screeching at the hapless waiter. They hadn't stayed for dessert.
Rebecca had been another of these second category women, but Casey had liked Rebecca. He felt that her motives had been good, even if her actions had been muddled, and he knew from bitter experience how confusing separation and divorce could be; how being unhappy could make a well-intentioned person behave badly. The only unifying theme in Dan's great loves was their effect on Dan. The end result was the same; Danny, his heart broken and his confidence eviscerated, usually drunk and knocking on Casey's door at two am. For a smart guy, he sure has terrible instincts, Casey thought. He knew that coming from a man who spent ten years married to Lisa, that might be a case of the pot and the kettle, but he felt--he hoped--he had learned something in those ten years. Thank god these second category types didn't come along often, thought Casey dismally as he stared across one of Anthony's tables, stared at Danny staring at a woman of surpassing beauty and wit, a woman who was coolly smiling at Dan and flipping her sleek dark hair off her smooth cheek. Her name was Paige; Dan was looking at her like a Boy Scout about to make the big try for the next merit badge. Or like he was going to break into the chorus of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" and offer to bring her the riches of Tutenkamen's tomb on a platter.
Paige, though--beautiful Paige, the product of Swiss private schools and old family money and probably a lifetime of unquestioned admiration from everyone who crossed her path--Paige behaved as if King Tut's knickknacks were offered up to her every day, with the Golden Fleece on the side to use as a dustrag. She had all of Dan's considerable focus, and still her gaze wandered, ever so slightly. Nothing blatant, Casey thought. She isn't checking out the ass on that guy at the bar. She's just not...all here. Paige listened, and laughed in the right places. She was interesting on any number of topics, and charming to Dan as he leaned towards her like a needle pointing north. It should have been a sight to warm a best friend's heart, but to Casey it all looked a little too effortless, too practiced. This was, what? their fourth date? She ought to be a little more nervous, Casey thought critically. Particularly since they hadn't slept together yet. Earlier in the day, Dan had been very clear on that topic. This has potential, he said. It is Too Important To Be Rushed, he had proclaimed solemnly. Then he had asked Casey to have a drink with them after the show.
Casey had been unsurprised to find that their party included Alice, a friend of Paige's. In Alice's presence he detected one of Danny's endearingly earnest attempts to set him up, and if she wasn't quite as pretty or as polished as Paige, Casey found her far more approachable. She was a sharp and funny Manhattan girl and he was actually enjoying talking to her, and if it didn't go much beyond that, well...Dan would be disappointed, but it would be short lived disappointment. These days, his own enthusiasm for dating was tepid--after Dana had prescribed dating like a six month course of antibiotics, some of the fun had gone out of it. Even though that strange interlude with Dana was over, the fun had not yet returned. But where Casey noncommittal, Dan was determined. A Girlfriend For Casey! was his rallying cry, and to this end, he had canvassed everyone he knew for potential single women. He didn't quite buttonhole strangers on the subway and interrogate them about their unmarried daughters (although Casey had accused him of doing so), but he came close.
Casey loathed blind dates, but he had learned to take Danny's attempts to match him up in stride. There were days when these dates felt like a project he and Dan had concocted; or a sort of elaborate game, where the analysis of the strategy was much more interesting than what happened on the playing field. In the course of Danny's interrogations to help define Casey's heretofore untested dating preferences, his insistence on pre-date pep talks and as many post-date details as he could pry out of Casey the next day, Casey had discovered something about himself, something that worried him a little. He found that these days, he prized Dan's undivided attention at least as much as he accused Dan of wanting his. At work, he was sometimes overtaken by ridiculous waves of jealousy when Dan exchanged bar mitzvah horror stories with Jeremy, or teased Natalie over the mike during a break. This made him feel about six years old; as if he was in danger of loudly declaring, "Dan's my best friend, not yours!"
Right now, Dan's attention was on Paige as he bent his head to listen to whatever she was softly saying. He leaned back to laugh. A joke, then. Casey turned to catch Alice looking at him with a slightly quizzical expression. He smiled tentatively at her, and said, "Can I get you another?"
Her face cleared and she returned his smile. "Yes, thanks, that would be nice."
Casey got up to head for the bar, knowing Danny would come with him, ostensibly to help carry the drinks, but actually to ask his opinion of Paige. It was their version of a shared trip to the ladies' room. They ended up squeezed in together at the far end of the bar, which was packed. Danny struggled to get Jack the bartender's attention, then gave up and turned to Casey.
"So."
"Yes, indeed."
"Well, come on. Isn't she great?"
"She's one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen," Casey said truthfully, hoping that in the distraction of the noise around them, Danny would miss the evasion. Casey was going to withhold judgement on Paige, as he felt she was withholding some essential part of herself. He was afraid he had been caught out when Danny frowned, but it was simply the accompaniment to a particularly energetic wave in Jack's direction. Jack came over to them with a "whatcha need?" Drink orders given, Dan turned back to Casey with a determined face.
Uh-oh, thought Casey. But what Dan said was, "How are you doing with Alice?"
"She's nice." Dan rolled his eyes. "C'mon Danny, don't do this. We've had a twenty minute conversation in a noisy bar. We've barely gotten past East Side, West Side, Village or Chelsea? yet."
"Case, I know you hate all that first date stuff. But you've got to go through it, my friend."
"Am I on a first date? And why do I have to go through it?"
"To get to the good stuff. Like the second date. And the third. And maybe, eventually, nudity."
"Ah, yes, I have vague memories of nudity. No wait, that was you with your shirt off in wardrobe."
"See? See what I'm saying? You have been out of the game too long. You've got to play through the pain--that first date pain."
"I promise I'll try if you promise you won't use anymore sports cliches."
"Quitters never win and winners never quit," Dan said with a perfectly straight face.
"Stop it."
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
"I'm begging you, Dan."
"Let's win just one for the Gipper." As he said it, Dan lost control of his mouth, and they both ended up leaning against the bar, gasping as they laughed.
"Hey," Dan said, suddenly serious. "I have date anxiety too. As a matter of fact, I am so nervous about Paige that I have to hit the head. Again. Wait for me, okay?"
Casey was overtaken by a fiercely protective wave of affection. "You can call it nerves if you want, but I call it beer. Yeah, don't worry, I got it. Go powder your nose."
"Fuck you," Dan said cheerfully, and left.
In the time it took for their drinks to be assembled, the crowd around the bar deepened. Casey looked over at the bathrooms, where it was even more crowded, and decided not to wait for Dan. Clutching the tray borrowed from Jack, he began working his way back to their table. As he approached, he saw Paige and Alice, with their heads together, talking. Paige had her back to him, and Alice was too intent to notice his approach. Girl talk, he thought. Maybe she's saying, "so what do you think?" to Alice, all excited to hear Danny praised. He softened at the thought. At that moment, a clutch of people pushed past him to the door. Mindful of his loaded tray, he stopped dead and waited. There was a sudden drop in the local background noise, and momentarily he could clearly hear what Paige and Alice were saying.
"I don't know." That was Paige.
"Dan's cute." That was Alice, the inflection on the last word slightly...protesting? Cyuuu-ute. He strained to hear Paige's response, her cool, soft, perfectly pitched voice.
An undistinguishable murmur, then--"...play my funny Valentine every time I see him..." and then the bar noise swelled up again. Casey edged forward shamelessly, until Alice looked up and saw him. He covered well, swinging casually up to the table and unloading the drinks with a flourish, but Alice's cheeks had a distinct flush, and Casey knew he had heard something he wasn't supposed to. He just wasn't quite sure what it was. Paige was demure and collected under her seal sleek hair. She sipped her drink and made an intelligent comment about the Knicks' chances in this year's playoffs.
Danny made it back from the bathroom and the conversation picked up. Casey struggled to keep his mind on what was being said, but he kept mulling over the fruits of his eavesdropping. "Play my funny Valentine." The song, maybe?--I guess that's what she meant, he thought. He racked his brain for the lyrics, but couldn't remember a word beyond the first line, and not even all of that. "My funny Valentine, sweet (something?) Valentine?" Well, that was actually kind of nice, he supposed. He looked at Dan. Dan was certainly funny (when he didn't try too hard) and often sweet (though he would hate to be so-described by Casey). But there was Alice's blush, which looked more like guilt the more he thought about it. Although she might just be shy, he tried to rationalize. Or very proper. Hates to be caught giggling and whispering. But she didn't strike him as either particularly shy or exceptionally proper, and the two of them hadn't been giggling. I'm making something out of nothing, he thought. I should just shut up now and pay attention to this nice woman that my best friend has introduced me to out of his concern for me, in my divorced state.
It didn't work. Whatever joy the evening had held was abruptly gone, and he made his excuses and left, feeling vaguely guilty at the look on Danny's face when he didn't get Alice's phone number. Alice seemed much less disappointed than Dan; Casey had long since come to the conclusion that it was better to be straightforward about such things. He went home and went to bed, where he remembered the lyrics to many songs, including "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider", "Heartbreak Hotel", and the collected oeuvre of the Starland Vocal Band--but not "My Funny Valentine".
The next day, after careful consideration, he sought out Isaac in his office. Isaac would be the most likely person to have the information he needed, and furthermore, wouldn't subject him to the third degree about why he needed it.
"Isaac. Do you know the lyrics to 'My Funny Valentine' "?
This question was met with a glare. "I already proved I remembered 'Glocca Morra', alright? My memory is fine."
"Swear to God, this isn't a test, Isaac. I just can't remember the lyrics." Casey spread his hands beseechingly. Isaac was touchy about some things in the aftermath of his stroke. Casey hoped he didn't have to try and explain his request further, because he couldn't, even to himself--it was just a remark, for God's sakes. An overheard remark. Oh, be honest, he thought--I was eavesdropping and now I'm being paranoid. And I should tell Isaac "never mind" and leave and...to hell with that. I wanna know.
With another suspicious glance, Isaac cleared his throat and began reciting "My funny Valentine...". By the time he got to the line, "your looks are laughable, unphotographable", Casey knew why Alice had blushed. ("...figure less than Greek"?? "...mouth a little weak.."?!!!) Even the line about "you're my favorite work of art" didn't redeem it. Paige didn't think Danny was funny ha-ha, she thought he was funny looking. But she must like him. She was going out with him, right? But something in Casey said "aha!!" and felt both vindicated and angry. It sucks, thought Casey. I don't like it.
Or perhaps he didn't just think it, because Isaac was now looking at him quizzically. "I'm sure Rodgers and Hart will be sorry to hear you don't like their song. If only they weren't both dead, they could polish it up for you. Now is there anything else you need?"
Casey backed out of the office. "Uh no...no...thanks, Isaac." Three steps down the hall, he encountered Dan, who circled him as neatly as a border collie circles a recalcitrant sheep, and began herding him towards their office.
"Okay, Case. What's up?"
"Well, the Bronx is up. But the Battery's down. And I hear the NASDAQ's doing better."
"Ha ha. What did you do, go home last night and listen to Henny Youngman records? C'mon, man, you know what I mean. Last night, there was an attractive, intelligent woman in our midst, and she liked you, for some unaccountable reason. And you dropped the ball, my friend. Now before she comes to her senses, you should call her."
"Didn't get her number."
"Aha, but you see, because I am not a ball-dropper, because I am on top of the situation, I have procured it from Paige. I'll give it to you."
"How are things with Paige?"
"Uh, uh. No changing of the subject. The subject is still you and your bizarre behavior."
They reached the office--Dan shut the door, snagged a desk chair and rolled over to face Casey as he flopped on the couch, effectively pinning him in place. Casey felt that slightly worrisome feeling once more, that Danny's-my-best-friend-and-no-one-else's feeling, but this time it was accompanied by a distinct ache in his chest. He rolled his head back on the couch, miming exasperation, but really, he couldn't look Dan in the eye. Not while he was feeling like a possessive six year old. She doesn't deserve you, he thought fiercely. You deserve someone who thinks you are wonderful in every way.
What he said was, "Danny, I don't think Alice liked me that much."
Dan got very still. When he spoke, his voice was deadly quiet. "Is this some more of Lisa's shit? Jesus, Casey, why won't you believe me when I tell you that you--"
Casey lifted his head quickly. "No! no, that's not what I meant. I just meant that it was pleasant and all, but there just wasn't any spark between us, you know? Not for me, either. And that's okay, Danny. It's okay."
"So you don't feel like dating her just to keep in practice, huh?"
"Naah. I did it, you know? I'm over that starting-to-date-after-divorce hurdle. Now I feel like being selective, I guess."
Dan was quiet again, looking at the floor. When he raised his eyes to Casey's they were enormous, and his face was expressionless, the way it sometimes got when he was very moved or upset.
"Aren't you lonely?" he said.
Casey could never see Dan this way and not reach to touch him. It was awkward, with him sunk in the couch and Danny practically hovering over him on the chair, but he stretched his arm up and cupped his hand on the back of Danny's neck, giving him a little shake to emphasize his words. "I have Charlie. I have you, and everyone here. You told me that, remember? Believe me when I say that right now, that's enough for me, ok?"
Dan sighed, closed his eyes, and turned his face slightly towards Casey's outstretched arm. For one odd moment, Casey thought Danny was going to kiss his wrist. Which would be terribly...papal, or something, Casey thought. His heart was pounding. Danny could probably almost feel Casey's pulse, there against his cheek.
The moment dissolved. Casey dropped his hand; Dan opened his eyes and grinned at him, an unrepentant Danny grin, and said, "Don't think this means I'm going to stop setting you up."
"It never occurred to me," Casey said dryly. "But for now, I think we'd better get to work. Maybe you can have the next candidate lined up by dinner?"
"You laugh all you want to. I'm a man on a mission."
"You're a yenta."
"Casey, my goyische friend, getting you laid is a noble calling."
It was much later that Casey realized that they never had talked about Paige.
Casey approached Kim as she toasted a bagel.
"Kim, tell me, do you think Dan is good looking?"
"Did he put you up to this? Honestly, Casey, I would have expected better from--"
"No, I'm asking strictly on my own behalf, here. I'm doing research."
"Research on whether Dan is good looking?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"Tell him he's a big wuss and it won't work."
"Okay. Never mind."
"Tell him to ask me himself, the wuss." She paused. "And then tell him I'll shoot his ass down."
Casey snagged Natalie as she charged through the studio, pulling her into the empty edit bay.
"Natalie, what is your opinion of Dan's looks?"
"Oh god, not another poll! Casey, I swear to you, you are the cute one, okay?"
"I'm not asking...wait. Do you mean that?"
"I mean whatever answer is going to make you let me go so that I can get to my meeting with Dana and Isaac, for which I am late, late, late."
"I'm sorry to see this element of dishonesty enter our relationship, Natalie."
"I'll work on that," she shot back as she charged down the hall.
Dana stuck her head in the door when Casey was sitting alone in the office, staring out the window.
"Casey--"
"Dana, do you think Dan is attractive? No, not just attractive--um, handsome? Easy on the eye?"
"What? Casey, have you seen the footage for fifteen and sixteen? Because we may have changes."
"Not yet."
"Well go take a look at it now, would you? Gotta go."
"Wait, wait, you didn't answer my question!"
"Your question?"
"About Dan. About Dan's looks. I answered your question about fifteen and sixteen."
"What, we're doing question parity now? Okay, here's my answer. Who cares?--I need you to look at that footage."
"Jeremy, I have a question for you."
"Is this about Dan? the is-he-handsome thing?"
"Natalie."
"No, actually, it was Dana. She asked me if it was a weird thing, or a usual thing, for a guy to ask about another guy's looks."
"What did you say?"
"I told her that on the surface, guys act like we never notice one another's looks. But in reality, we wonder about that stuff all the time."
"We do?"
"We do. But I'm pretty sure I broke the guy code by telling Dana that. I never quite feel like I have a handle on it, you know?"
"The code?"
"The guy code. I'm also kind of fuzzy on the handsome thing, too, since Natalie recently told me that free throw percentages and RBIs don't necessarily figure in whether an athlete is attractive or not."
"That's blasphemy."
"Exactly what I said."
Thrown back on his own resources, Casey spent some time observing Dan covertly. He noted the wings of his eyebrows and the sculptural cut of his nostrils. Nice little details, but how did they fit into the whole? He studied Dan's eyes in the monitor during the broadcast. Danny had eyes that Casey decided he could picture in the face of Oberon--wild eyes, forest eyes. Okay, he thought. Now I sound like a bad romance novel. And he nearly missed his cue, causing Dan to shoot him a look, and Natalie to hiss in his earphone at the next break.
Casey watched Dan's mouth faintly mirror the interior parade of his thoughts as he typed, and then had to look back at the blinking cursor on his own computer, because suddenly it was hard to draw a breath.
"How's it going over there, Case? I'm almost done with hockey."
"Uh, fine, I'm...good. It's good. Over here."
"Ready to grab a bite?"
"You go. I've still got to finish this."
He's wearing that sweater again, Casey observed. He looks good in that sweater. I think that's my favorite sweater--no, maybe the white one. They were in a rundown meeting. Casey was suddenly aware that Dave was speaking to him, and he hadn't heard a word. I have got to get a grip, he told himself.
It was because Dan was exotic to him, Casey decided. Casey had grown up in a small town where every other boy was a variation on the same theme--Casey's theme. Fair skin, hair somewhere between brown and blond, sturdy corn-fed good looks that in Casey avoided blandness by a hairsbreadth. Next to him, Dan was an orchid from some urban rainforest. Having arrived at this conclusion, he mentally dusted off his hands and said "Next!" to his subconscious. But like eating potato chips or shooting heroin, looking at Dan--really looking--had become a hard habit to break.
They were standing shirtless in wardrobe after coming off the air. Skin smooth and pale and fine-grained as ivory, Dan had almost no hair on his chest. A few days in the sun would turn him a light biscuity shade, but in New York in the dead of winter, he was the color of newly risen cream. The sun would probably gild the few fine dark hairs curled around his nipples, too. A narrow silky shadow descended from the valley of his navel into the open fly of his jeans. Casey felt his mouth dry up, and when Dan glanced over at him, he had to thrust his head into the locker where he kept his street clothes and pretend to look for his watch, unable to stop the blush that seemed to rise from his crotch. Thank god I had my back turned when he took off his pants, he thought.
Paige came to the studio. She was supposed to watch the show and go out with Dan afterwards, but she ended up leaving early, pleading weariness. Paige had some sort of glamorous job for an exclusive auction house that specialized in fine arts, and was often summoned to fly to exotic locations on short notice. This fact had ostensibly kept their romance from progressing, since neither of them had much free time. Dan was positively glowing with saintly patience. Casey only saw someone who was...keeping her options open? toying with a suitor's heart? Actually, Paige's motives were completely opaque to Casey. Weary or not, he couldn't imagine any woman of intelligence and sincerity not wanting to spend every minute not actually under anesthesia with Dan, if Dan looked at her the way he looked at Paige.
"Paige," Dan later explained to Casey, "is a martyr to jet lag." Dan had shown her around, a gentle hand in the small of her back. Casey hid himself in editing, watching NBA highlights with a desperate concentration, and managed to avoid them until the last moment. Then he stood transfixed in the door of the office, observing while Dan hovered solicitously at Paige's side by the elevator doors as she was about to leave. As Casey watched, he lifted the shiny fall of her hair and brushed his lips against her neck. The elevator came and she got on. When Dan turned back in Casey's direction, his face looked grave and distracted. Casey withdrew into the office and fought down the desire to swear and break something.
Before the show, Casey sought out Natalie. He knew she had talked to Paige during the visit. Making a gargantuan effort to be casual, he said, "So, what did you think of Paige?"
Natalie was making notes on her pre-show checklist. In a slightly abstracted way, she replied, "Hmm, Paige. Yes. Very pretty, very smart. It's a good thing you're not dating her, or Dana would be dropping things and yelling right about now."
"Ha. Funny," Casey responded glumly. "You know that's over."
Natalie looked up at Casey's subdued response to her Dana-teasing. Usually she got him much more wound up than that. "Actually, Paige isn't really Danny's usual type, is she? She's got that whole linen-dress-with-no-wrinkles thing going, too."
Casey thought back to what Paige was wearing. It was pale green, he remembered. It made a dramatic background for her shoulder-length dark hair. He frowned. "Is that significant?"
"Well, it's certainly intimidating. It might even indicate an alliance with the forces of darkness."
Casey sat on the couch in his apartment at three am, feeling the two horns of his dilemma poking him in the ass. The first horn was that Dan was still seeing Paige, and Casey was mortally sure that she was going to screw him over. But since this bone-deep certainty was based on the flimsiest of overheard evidence and the observations he had made on only two brief occasions, he couldn't bring himself to tell anyone. Certainly not Dan. Casey wanted to think that this antipathy to Paige sprang only from a selfless desire for Dan's happiness, but he had an awful feeling that altruism was not in the cards here.
For the second horn, the really painful and confusing horn, the horn that prodded his sleep and embarrassed him at work and positively skewered him in the shower was this--Paige's careless remark had made him perpetually aware of his best friend in a new and disturbing way. Casey was used to objectively evaluating people's looks, beginning with his own. He was in television, after all, and he never kidded himself that he had gotten an anchor position on the strength of his journalistic abilities alone. Before all this started, he would have said he had long ago learned everything there was to know about the way Dan Rydell looked. He knew which was Dan's good profile, for instance, and that Dan photographed well in dark shirts. And now he was realizing that he didn't know anything at all. He didn't know shit. Dan wasn't attractive, or telegenic, or nice-looking, or even easy on the eye. Danny was fucking beautiful, and it was astonishing that it had taken him ten years to notice that fact. And goddammit, that wasn't all.
Okay, Danny was beautiful. But Casey had seen beautiful men before, and he was pretty sure he had never wanted to put his tongue in their mouths or his hand down their pants, and he wanted to do both those things to Danny. His libido, which had quietly rolled over and taken a nap after the whole Sally and Dana fiasco, was now wide awake and roaring like a hungry lion at the bars of its cage, and the tasty meal it was contemplating was Danny. When he had said he was feeling selective about women, he had been more honest than he knew. Casey rolled onto his side and buried his face in the couch cushions, trying with little success to stifle his insistant hard-on. He was elated and terrified. He had never felt desire like this in his life.
Days passed. In spite of his proclamations, Dan had produced no more eligible women for Casey to reject. "I'm biding my time," he finally said. "I'll slip the next one in when your guard is down."
"Not if I'm bobbing and weaving, you won't."
This exchange led them to play a few rounds of a boxing trivia game they had invented, whose rules no one else ever seemed to be able to master. ("Because it's boring and pointless," Natalie muttered. "I heard that," Dan yelled.) Now Casey was tapping at his computer, apparently hard at work, and Dan was lost in contemplation of his calendar. He was supposed to see Paige next Saturday, after she returned from Cuba. Hopefully, jet lag would not be a factor in the evening, in whose uncharted expanse Dan was trying to discern seduction.
His relationship with Paige was at something of an impasse; namely, that they had not yet had sex. It was true that their schedules had been a bit of impediment to the long lazy hours that Dan knew sex with Paige would deserve. Dan felt like their most recent dates might as well have taken place in the departure terminal at JFK, between Paige's flights to London and Prague and Beijing. It was hard to create a romantic atmosphere when there were suitcases on the bed and a taxi circling the block. But he also wanted to believe that they were approaching this relationship as adults, and not galloping into bed like hormone addled teenagers. He said as much to Abby and to Casey. Abby had said "Hmmm" and Casey had looked stricken. In either case, not quite the ringing endorsement of his theory that Dan was hoping for. He was used to Abby being noncommittal, however, and if he was being honest with himself, he knew that Casey had reservations about Paige.
Recently, he had caught Casey looking strangely at him on a number of occasions, and he put it down to Casey's not terribly well disguised fear that Paige was going to be one of the bad love affairs, the ones that sent him--there was no dignified way to put it--to cry on Casey's shoulder. He couldn't quite put it into words that would convince Casey, but Paige's self-sufficiency and containment were some of the qualities that he found most compelling about her. Dan wanted to learn them by example, to acquire them by osmosis, if necessary. He felt that in general, they were qualities he was lacking in. Specifically, he was afraid he was going to need them--need them to cope with the inevitable day when Casey was no longer available to him in that way he'd come to count on, especially since Casey's divorce. On that day, Casey would have someone else counting on him, and if Dan needed comfort at two a.m., for instance, he'd better have acquired a little self-sufficiency. Or else have Paige--or somebody--waiting up for him.
Sometimes Dan looked at Casey and thought "He was born to be married." One of these days, he'd marry again--and because Casey was a smart guy who learned from his mistakes--he'd do it right. He would marry a woman who loved him and appreciated him for who he was. Dan could picture her. Pretty, but not stunning, because she would be too busy, too interested in other things to put the effort into "stunning". She'd have a sense of humor. She would probably work at a job that contributed to the greater good--fund raising for AIDS research, or eradicating child poverty. She and Casey would joyfully produce a baby and give Charlie a little sister or brother. And together they would be the perfect twenty-first century blended family. Contemplating this happy picture made Dan feel like Oliver Twist. Dan realized that this dream wife was pretty much the Anti-Lisa, but the picture still looked likely. He was dismayed that he could conjure up such a glowing future for his best friend, and then not feel particularly good about the prospect. He knew that his quest to find Casey dates was in some way a guilty response to this sorry fact.
Dan felt he was finally getting the hang of therapy; he was learning to tell Abby the thoughts that came to him in the moment, without ferocious internal debate. He just opened up his head and let fly. This new skill had a disconcerting side effect; he couldn't turn it off. These days, he could be musing or daydreaming about mundane topics, and suddenly, his mind would present him with these astonishing little revelations, like presents that exploded when you opened them up. Mulling over Casey's future of wedded bliss, today's little pyrotechnical gift was this:
"But he's mine. He's not any one else's, he's mine." Accompanying this, like a little Coming Attraction from his psyche, was the picture of Casey standing at an altar next to his Perfect Bride, and Dan up above the congregation, banging on the window and shouting Casey's name, dressed just like Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate".
Dan sat frozen at his desk, contemplating that picture. It seemed to lay before him on his open calendar, for all the world to see, and it was violently unsettling. He knew he could be possessive about Casey, but this was something else, something he hadn't anticipated. Or perhaps just something he had kept too well-hidden. He stood up, his calendar and his Saturday rendez-vous with Paige forgotten. He had to go someplace else and think about this. Right now. He felt like he was carrying something enormously unwieldy in his outstretched arms, and if he could just set it down safely somewhere, it would shrink to a manageable size.
Casey heard Dan get up from his desk, and determinedly kept his eyes on his laptop, where he was typing the St. Crispin's Day speech from memory. He found that if he just sat there and typed--typed anything--eventually his humming awareness of Dan's presence would fade into the background enough for him to actually work. He would no longer listen for every separate breath that Danny drew, or sit dumbstruck watching Danny's hands shuffle papers, or stare at the sweet nape of his bent neck. Concentrating on the writing these days was hard, but oddly enough, actually doing the show was a breeze. Casey felt like he could anticipate Dan's every move, and Dan seemed to be able to do the same. Their on-air repartee felt like dancing.
He figured Dan was about to start pacing--a not infrequent occurrence when Dan was working on his script--but he just stood there.
"Going someplace?" Casey finally asked, congratulating himself on striking exactly the right note of abstraction. Such as would be felt by a sports anchor who was actually writing his script.
"Yeah" came the muffled mutter, and Dan was out the door and gone. Casey looked up then, and got up and went to Dan's desk. His day planner lay there, open to the week's entries. It is a measure of how far gone I am, thought Casey, that I'm going to look at this without thinking twice about invading Dan's privacy. Today was Thursday. "Abby" was noted at six on Friday. Saturday bore nothing but the inscription "Paige's, bring wine".
"Shit," Casey said out loud. Now Dan was going to graduate from dating anxiety to fucking anxiety. I'm not going to want to hear this. He went back to his desk, and stared at the words "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" until they ran together and he couldn't read them anymore.
Dan's enormous burden had not gotten anymore manageable. Instead it had coalesced in form, until it was recognizable, and somewhat familiar. Dan huddled in the last stall in the men's room, with selected painful scenes from his life playing behind his eyes. There was Dartmouth Tom, and there was Tom kissing Dan, fucking Dan, and there was Tom telling Dan that it was just a sex thing, nothing serious, and could he chill, please? And there was Dan vowing that he would Never Do Another Guy Again. Men were pigs, as he could attest. That wasn't fair. Casey wasn't a pig; if told about this development, he would be shocked, but ultimately sympathetic to Dan's plight. Then everything between them would change, and not for the better. He thought of their physical ease with one another now, the way Casey would touch his arm or his shoulder to get his attention, and imagined it degenerating into manly awkwardness, as Casey worried about hurting his feelings or misleading him. This made him want to throw back his head and howl like a dog.
He rested his forehead on the toilet paper roll. It was comfortingly cushy, and smelled vaguely like perfume. Do I tell Abby, he thought. Huh. Who am I kidding. I'll be lucky if I manage not to blurt it out in the waiting room. Boy, self-awareness sucks.
Monday found Casey sitting at his desk in the office, trying to remain calm while drinking a cup of coffee. It was a struggle. He had not heard from Dan all weekend. Since Saturday was the day it seemed Dan was going to achieve his devoutly wished consummation with Paige, Casey could only assume that it must have been so stellar that they had decided to run off to Atlantic City and get married. Or that Paige had dumped him, and Dan had been so heartbroken he had bypassed Casey's comfort in favor of entering a monastery. Casey tried not to let his mind linger on the image of heartbroken Danny, clinging to him while Casey wrapped his arms around him and stroked his hair, and pressed comforting kisses on his forehead. When those stroking hands moved down to Danny's ass, Casey jerked himself upright.
Alright, that's enough! he told his stiffening cock. I'm not going to sexually molest him when he's distraught, even in my imagination. He was so distracted, he didn't see Dan get off the elevator, didn't notice him until he was standing in the middle of the office, wrapped in a strange dead-eyed calm.
"Morning, Dan," Casey said cautiously. "How was your weekend?"
"My weekend was fine," Dan said after a pause. He unwrapped his scarf and hung it and his coat on the coat tree. He walked to his desk, sat down and turned on his computer, and started to go through his mail. All the things he usually did, but never with this air of being a puppet moved by unseen strings. Casey stared at him. Something terrible had happened, it was perfectly clear.
"Danny," Casey said tensely. "What's wrong? Did something happen with Paige?"
Dan stopped those awful automaton movements and considered Casey's question. "Well, yes. She broke up with me."
All considerations of seduction obliterated, Casey got up quickly and went to stand next to Dan, who blinked up at him owlishly. "Danny, why didn't you call me? Why didn't you come over?"
For a moment the awful calm lifted, and Dan looked infernally weary. "It's alright, Casey. I'm okay. It was for the best. We were never going to work out, anyway."
Hearing Dan voice his own inner convictions in that tired way was like being stabbed. Casey completely forgot his past days of torture and said, "oh, Danny. I wish it had been right, that she'd been right for you."
In a weirdly distant voice, Dan said, "Yes, I know you do" and then started to cry a little. He stopped quickly though, and then seemed disinclined to talk anymore. Casey couldn't bring himself to press him. They got to work.
Eventually, other people in the office figured out that Dan and Paige were no more. Isaac was gruffly sympathetic and Natalie hovered over Danny like a hen with a single chick. Casey was paralyzed with the guilt felt by those whose worst predictions come true, and Dan still seemed like a zombie after several days.
On Thursday, Dan had to go to New Jersey to do a feature on women's soccer, accompanied by Elliot. Casey was sitting alone in the office, trying to decide if it was better or worse with Dan gone. There was no denying that the sight of Danny was painful right now. On the other hand, Casey felt he wouldn't be able to draw a deep breath until he saw Danny get off the elevator intact. Dan hadn't once complained about the torture of doing a soccer assignment. In the state he was in, he seemed in danger of accidentally walking into a bus, so Casey had warned Elliot to watch out for him. He was just about to comfort himself by sitting in Dan's chair when the phone rang.
He picked it up. A semi-familiar voice said, "Casey? This is Paige."
Later that afternoon, he was sitting in a greasy spoon on Seventh Avenue, waiting for Paige to appear. She had specified the place, and assured him that she would only need a few minutes of his time. He tried, and failed, to imagine what she wanted. All the usual soap opera reasons for clandestine meetings--she realized that breaking up with Dan was a huge mistake, and wanted to enlist Casey's aid in getting him back?--she wanted to declare her secret passion for Casey?--seemed so remote as to be laughable, but he couldn't think of any more mundane ones. Maybe she wanted to sell him a painting. For his part, he wanted to grab her and shake her until she undid whatever spell she had cast over Danny. He stirred his cup of surprisingly tasty coffee, and looked up to see her coming through the door.
He had thought that Paige would look incredibly out of place in this joint, which was full of harried local retail clerks and truckers, but she actually seemed quite at home. The counter man tossed her a greeting as she sauntered by him. However, on a day when everyone, Casey included, was wrapped in down parkas and sporting hair sculpted into odd configurations by knitted hats, Paige looked both chic and warm in her black cashmere swirl of an overcoat and with nothing but a few snowflakes in her hair.
Natalie's right, thought Casey. She's the Antichrist. She slid into the booth across from him and said, "The coffee's quite good, isn't it?"
Casey was dumbfounded. This was an unexpected opening salvo. He made an assenting noise.
Paige said briskly, "Well, let me get right to the point. There's something I think you ought to know."
"What's that?" Casey said hoarsely. He cleared his throat and suddenly had the remembered sensation of being marched around the floor in dance class when he was twelve years old. All the girls had been taller than he was, and they all seemed to know what they were doing. Casey's natural athletic ability had completely deserted him in the face of these Amazons. He felt similarly ill-equipped now.
"I'm a very pragmatic person, and I stopped seeing Dan for some very practical reasons. Some of them had to do with me. But one of them had to do with you."
"Now wait a minute, if you're saying..."
"Let me say this, alright? Then you can tell me I'm wrong." Casey winced and nodded. She continued. "I don't mean you plotted against me. I mean that Dan is in love with you."
If Casey had felt he wasn't in control of this encounter before, now he felt like a fish hauled flopping onto the deck of a boat and trying to breathe in a strange new world. He opened his mouth, and was distantly aware that he produced no sound.
"He talks about you constantly, you know. He is simultaneously obsessed with your finding a girlfriend and terrified that you might actually do it. When I told him I wanted to stop seeing him, he didn't argue with me, or try to talk me out of it."
Casey said, "I don't believe it."
She looked at him shrewdly. "It's not usually the response I get in such situations. But all he did was sit there for a minute, and then get up and leave like he'd remembered an appointment. I thought he went to see you. No? The rest is true though. Trust me, I work in the arts. I know what unrequited love between men looks like. Well, there, I've said my piece." She made a motion to stand.
"Wait. What--why are you bothering to tell me this?"
She didn't seem insulted, although his tone could easily be read as accusing. "Because I hate to leave loose ends. It's messy. And I suspected that it was news you'd be happy to hear."
Casey shied away from that statement. It was too soon to think about that. Something nagged at him. "What were the other reasons? The ones that had to do with you?"
"Well, our schedules were impossible. I didn't think we had enough in common. And he's really rather odd looking." She shrugged, seemingly assigning all these things--their schedules, Dan's looks, and oh yeah, the fact that he loved Casey--equal weight in her well considered decision.
Casey was aware that he felt a peculiar combination of incendiary rage and grudging admiration at her honesty. She really didn't care if he thought she was superficial. It wasn't a nice quality, but it was rare. Then he felt compelled to ask, "What if you're wrong about this?"
"Don't be ridiculous, I'm never wrong." She graced him with her enigmatic smile and added, "Am I?" and left.
Jesus, Casey thought. He looked dazedly at his watch. It had taken Paige less than five minutes to knock him completely on his ass. She really is efficient.
Back at the office, the minutes crawled over Casey like bugs. It was ridiculous to expect Dan and Elliot before five o'clock, but he looked up every time the elevator dinged anyway. And what, he asked himself, do you think you're going to do when he gets here, you idiot? Go down on one knee? Whether Paige was right or not, Danny was clearly in some sort of terrible state because she broke up with him. Making a pass at him right now would not be the most productive or supportive thing Casey could do. I just want to see him, he thought desperately. Look at his face and try to figure out if it's true. And then...well, just...I don't know. Although Casey had spent days entertaining escalating sexual fantasies about Dan, he hadn't allowed himself to think about love. It had been difficult enough to imagine Dan responding to his kisses. It was actually easier to picture him enjoying a blowjob. Casey felt he knew his own gender, and a mouth on your cock was generally a welcome thing. But he also knew if he couldn't kiss Danny, he'd die. Because it was Danny, but Danny was a guy, and even if he were to submit to Casey's amateur fellatio, Danny was really into women. Yes, thought Casey. All things I would have said were true of myself only very recently.
I won't do a thing, Casey thought. If there's a first move to be made here, I'll let him make it.
In the van driving through the Lincoln Tunnel, Dan leaned his forehead against the window and closed his eyes. Elliot was in the front seat driving, with Bobby the cameraman riding shotgun. They talked softly, thinking he was asleep.
Shit, what have I gotten myself into now, Dan thought. It made him feel slightly better to phrase it that way, as if this storm of feeling and desire for his best friend were something he had brought on himself consciously, with intent. When in reality, it was more like a tornado that had picked him and dropped him in a frighteningly new landscape. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto, Dan thought. He felt something between a sob and a laugh rise in his throat. After months of not doing so, he had spent the last two sessions with Abby--she had insisted on seeing him for a second session on Tuesday--crying like a fountain. What do I do, he had asked her. What do you want to do, she had responded. Like a bad duet from some failed off-Broadway musical about psychoanalysis.
He must have made some sound, because Elliot said, "Dan? You okay back there?"
"Fine," Dan muttered. "Just dozed off."
"We're almost home," Elliot said. Dan felt profoundly grateful for the casual comfort of those words. Whatever else Casey was, he was home. I won't let anything change that. That's what I want, Abby. I want Casey to always be my home.
As it turned out, there wasn't time for searching looks or introspective talk. Dan had to polish the script that Casey had roughed out for him, and Casey had to work in editing almost right up to show time.
They were standing in the newsroom, and Casey felt the weight of a million unspoken questions pressing against his teeth, but all he said was, "Everything okay?"
Dan looked at him and didn't look like a cast member of "Night of the Living Dead" for the first time since Monday morning. He opened his mouth.
"First team to the studio, please. Three minutes to air," came Kim's disembodied voice.
"Good show, Case," was all Danny said, but Casey's heart was pounding.
It was late; some of the lights in the newsroom had been turned off, and everyone was gone. Except me, Casey thought. And Danny. Dan was in the edit bay, reviewing the footage they had shot that afternoon with the soccer team. Casey was sitting in their dark office, waiting for him.
I just want to make sure he's okay before I go, Casey thought. And he stared out at the skyline.
I'm lucky, he thought. This is a beautiful thing to look at every day while you work. Most people in this town don't have a window like this, if they have a window at all.
"It's a great view, isn't it?" Dan's voice came softly from behind him. He wasn't even startled. Why shouldn't Danny walk up and read his thoughts? Who knew him better?
"Are we the last ones here?" Dan said.
"Well, Sally and the gang--they're in the studio already, I think."
"Ah. Well, you want get out of here? Have a beer, maybe?"
Casey took a deep breath. I have no self-control, he thought. "Danny," Casey said clearly, aware that he was about to put all his hard-earned capital down on a single roll of the dice, and hoping he wouldn't regret it, "I saw Paige today."
Dan held very still, and said carefully, "What did she say?"
"It was just for a few minutes. She wanted to tell me something. About why she broke it off."
"Why." Dan's voice was absolutely flat.
"It was about me. About you and me. She thought that you--might. You know. Have feelings." Yeah, you silver-tongued devil, you, slay him with your eloquence.
Dan was so quiet for a moment, Casey thought oh shit, he didn't understand. I have to say it again. Then he began to make a choked sound, which Casey finally and incredulously identified as laughter? "Danny?"
Dan choked a bit, and gasped, "See, I can never lie to you, never lie to you." He calmed down and said in a voice that broke, "I'm sorry I can't lie to you, Casey."
Casey didn't remember getting up. Suddenly, he was just there, across the room, saying again, "Danny" and putting his hand out to touch Danny's face. And then they were kissing, and Casey knew that even if he had been able to imagine Danny's response to his kiss, his imaginings would have paled before the reality of Danny making needy sounds into his mouth, shuddering and clutching his hand in the loose material at the back of Casey's shirt. Casey pulled his mouth fractionally off Danny's and breathed, "you okay?"
"Don't..."--Casey experienced momentary panic--"don't stop...don't...stop..."--Casey felt such terrible relief it made him kiss Dan roughly, sucking his lower lip. Danny was moving against him, their open mouths clinging and sliding. Casey tilted his pelvis up involuntarily. Could he have formed a rational thought he would have thought this was all going a little too fast, but then Danny was wrapping his calf around the back of Casey's leg and the hand not in Casey's hair dropped to cup the undercurve of his ass. Lifting and pulling, Danny aligned their cocks. Casey raised his hand to the open neck of Danny's shirt and tugged the collar out of the way of his seeking lips and teeth. He licked Danny's neck, mouthed and bit and felt Danny twist his body even closer, panting. They were welded together from knee to nipple. Casey thought that the sensation of the hardened ridge of another man's sex against his own was the most extraordinary thing he had ever felt. He pulled his mouth off Danny's collarbone and leaned against his shoulder, gasping, "We shouldn't do this here."
"Screw that," Dan muttered. He pushed Casey down onto the armchair and wrenched it around so that it faced the corner, effectively screening him from view. He stood over Casey for a second, looking down. In the lightspill from the newsroom his eyes gleamed. His hair was standing up all over his head. His erection was sharply outlined by the light of Manhattan's skyline falling on his denim-clad crotch. Beautiful, thought Casey. Then Danny dropped to his knees and shoved Casey's thighs apart, and Casey stopped thinking at all.
Dan had thought his heart would stop, looking at Casey sprawled in the chair, his lips wet and his hands clutching the chair arms. Now he was filling his mouth with the remembered sensation of nipples surrounded by hair, and his hand was scrabbling at Casey's fly. Casey grunted and tilted his hips up at the touch, bouncing his ass on the chair. Dan caught his hip, then slid a hand under him to run a finger down the back seam of his chinos and press it up behind his trapped balls. Casey was moaning now, sliding down in the chair, his silky voice ragged.
Dan had Casey's pants and boxers down. Casey toed off a shoe, and fought his left foot free of the tangling clothes, raising it to wrap around Dan's ass. Dan was fingering Casey's cock, gently. "I always wanted to ask you how come you weren't circumcised," he breathed, and blew on Casey's retreating foreskin.
Casey gave a strangled laugh and gasp. "Pediatrician in our town was a real rebel--he used to talk parents out of it...my mother...listened...shit, Danny, please..." and that sensation, the sensation of a cock filling his mouth, Casey's cock in his mouth. That was completely new, obliterating everything that came before.
They were sprawled on the floor behind the sofa. Dan was on his back, raised up on his elbows, legs bent at the knee. Casey lay on his stomach, his head between Danny's thighs, Danny's cock in his mouth, and Danny had to watch, had to see the miracle with his own eyes. He was channeling that hormone addled teenaged self he had so recently disavowed. As Casey's head moved up and down, he caught glimpses of his long back and legs, the pale globes of his ass. Dan knew he wouldn't last. It didn't matter.
"Casey," he gasped. "Casey." Casey ran his hand down Danny's upraised naked thigh, and pushed a gentle, curious finger against his asshole. Danny's back arched and he banged his head on the floor as he came.
They dressed themselves fumblingly, and staggered to the elevator. On the way down to the garage, they were overcome with shyness, and couldn't look at one another, disheveled in the harsh electric light.
They stood by Danny's parked car. Casey usually took cabs, although Danny often drove him home at night. Feeling panicky, Dan said, "So, what now?"
Casey relaxed, looking at Dan. Looking at the person he was absolutely sure he was in love with, for the first time in his life. "Now, we go home."
"Home," Dan said wonderingly. "Okay. Let's go home."