Danny and Don were sitting in their favourite diner, playing cards between their plates and drinks, when the former suddenly asked, “Whaddaya think of Lindsay?”

Don stilled halfway through reaching for another card, then said carefully, “She’s nice.”

“Mm. I guess.”

“You guess? Messer. You datin’ ‘er. Ain’t ya supposed to know that kinda stuff, whether your girlfriend’s nice?” The words sounded bitter to Don’s ears, but Danny seemed to be concentrating mostly on his hand of cards to notice.

“Anyway, what’re you askin’ me for, huhn?”

Danny scowled up at him. “You’re my best friend. You’re supposedta help me out with these stupid-assed problems.”

“What’s the problem? You’re gettin’ laid by a cute, smart girl. Who’s nice…you guess.”

“What else?”

Don frowned and finally met the other man’s gaze. “Whaddaya mean, what else? What else, what?”

Danny worried the cards in both hands and gave Don a pleading, earnest look. “I mean, yeah, she’d nice and cute and smart…but what else? She…she wants me to go to Montana for Thanksgivin’.”

Don felt a lurch deep in his belly. He scoffed to keep up appearances. “Seriously? Does she know you hate Thanksgivin’? That you won’t even spent it with your own family that don’t even really celebrate it anyway, let alone travel thousands of miles to do it with hers?”

Danny’s mouth contorted with distaste. “Exactly. But when I tried to explain it, she got all, ‘how un-American of you!’, ‘whaddabout turkey and apple pie and football?’ I don’ even like turkey.” He sighed and slumped back in his seat. “This is startin’ to get outta control, man.”

“Whaddaya mean? The All-American girly thing?”

“She wants me to start shavin’ regularly. She tried to throw out my favourite jeans last week just ‘cause the knees are torn out and the cuffs are goin’. She almost had a hernia when I told ‘er that I skipped prom to get drunk with my cousins at a Beastie Boys concert and that the only summer camp I’ve been to is Fresh Air. Can you believe that?”

Don just grunted noncommittally. He could believe that. Danny bounced from girl to girl with some regularity, but when he was with a girl – be it for two weeks or two months – he fixated. He’d find one thing he liked about her and let it cloud his judgement until he found himself in a relationship with someone he didn’t even really like. With the model it’d been her laugh, with the journalist it’d been her neck, with the pyro-chick it’d been the way she kissed…It was freakin weird the kind of girls Danny would suddenly go for, only to wake up one morning and see the light, always much to Don’s relief. He had seen a lot come and go, but none seemed to stick like Lindsay Monroe.

What he didn’t get was what the Messer found so fascinating about the Montana chick. He thought maybe it had to do with the fact that she didn’t know Danny. She didn’t understand the weight of the Tanglewood Boys or his father’s connections. She didn’t get why he was simultaneously so pride and so ashamed of growing up working class in Yonkers, because she didn’t know the place. She was a blank slate for Danny to present himself upon. She was a neutral figure in a city that did understand and know guys like Danny Messer.

But Don suspected that was also why Danny was having so much trouble with her. There was too much that Lindsay was oblivious and naive to. Danny had been hurt and bewildered when he’d confided to her about losing his chances at going pro in baseball and all she had was, ‘Oh that’s too bad. Me, I like football’.

And Danny did not get the horse and wheat and mountain range thing. Like every American boy – even the bad ones – he had fantasies about cowboys and Indians and loved Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. But he was too East Coast, too New York to actually go there and be happy about it.

“I mean,” Danny sighed, leaning forward on his elbows and getting the pensive, I-have-a-rant-now look on his face that Don was all too familiar with. “With the baseball thing and not getting the way my family works…fine, whatever. It’s different from the way she grew up. I don’t give a fuck ‘bout that-”

Normally Danny was very open about his bitching and whining about girls making him do things or trying to change him, to Hawkes and Don anyway, but he’d been surprising tight-lipped about his relationship with Lindsay. Don had been praying from the beginning that it had more to do with the fact that they were coworkers and not because Danny was actually falling for her. Now he felt an immense relief that made him feel a little drunk.

“-but the other stuff, man…the formal dates and gushing and tryna make me dress different and shave and-and mentionin’ that…she’s lookin’ for marriage and five babies and a house in the suburbs and shit…? I dunno. S’too much for this kid.”

Don stared at him in shock and disbelief. Daniel Silvio Dominic Messer…domesticated? It just wasn’t possible. Aiden could barely get him to help her pick out curtains for her new apartment last year. And Aiden could always make him do anything.

“Holy freaking God.”

Danny nodded. “I know. I know.”

“So what’re ya gonna do?”

Danny gave him a tight, humourless smile. “I gotta bust it up with ‘er. Lindsay, man…I just dunno. It just didn’t work out like I thought it would, y’know?”

“Sure.”

Danny threw down his cards and rubbed at his face with both hands, knocking his specs off. Don picked them up off the table and fiddled with them.

“But you’ve thought ‘bout all the implications of this, right, Messer? At work and everythin’.”

Danny squinted at him and nodded again. “Yeah. I’ll talk to Mac ‘bout it. He knows ‘bout us bein’ together and is not pleased, so I think if I can convince ‘em that Lindsay and me’ll keep it civil, he’ll actually be happy we broke up.”

“Whaddabout Lindsay herself? She can fly off the handle sometimes. She gonna freak?”

“…Maybe.” Danny grimaced. “Should I feel bad ‘bout this? It’s not workin’ and I don’t love ‘er…but she is nice and cute and smart and…”

“Which is exactly why you can’t lead ‘er on, Dan. If she thinks this thing b’tween you is goin’ somewhere when you’re scramblin’ for the escape hatch, it’s just not fair. If you’re serious ‘bout bustin’ up with ‘er, you should do it now.”

Danny was silent for a moment, then held out his hand. Don gave him his specs and they both stood, reaching for their wallets.

When they pulled up in front of the lab, Don asked, “You gonna do it now or tonight?”

If he’d asked simply ‘when’re you gonna do it?’ Danny would probably have ducked out of the responsibility of doing it any time soon. The guy normally didn’t give two shits about what people thought of him or about getting into a confrontation, but with girls he was oddly hesitant and cautious. God help all Danny Messer was a gentleman. But Don basically giving him two choices would help him make himself buckle down and just do it.

“…Tonight. Mac’ll kung fu me with his mad marine skills if I cause a disruption in the labs in the middle of shift. And I don’ know how Lindsay’ll react.”

Don had noticed that over the past few weeks the nickname ‘Montana’ had receded from Danny’s vocabulary. He never mentioned it, but he was glad about it. It’d always bugged the shit out of him.

“Awright, pal. I’ll see you later,” Don said, cranking the engine back over. “Gimme a call if…I don’ know. If whatever, I guess, awright?”

Danny gave a jerky shrug and nod. “Dammit…I really dug her in the beginning. Why can’t I stop gettin’ bored or irritated with people...?"

“You get bored or irritated with me?” Don asked teasingly with a grin.

Danny rolled his eyes and lightly swatted Don on the shoulder in affection. He didn’t say anything, just got out quickly and headed for the lab doors. Don waited till he’d disappeared into the CSU building then pulled out into traffic again.