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The flower had been there when Steve had arrived at the office.
He'd come in alone--a rarity in itself--because Danny had said he had something he had to do that morning. No matter how much Steve had tried to pry it out of him, Danny had kept mum, and Steve had spent far too much time the night before tossing and turning, trying to figure out what it might be.
He'd taken a longer than usual swim that morning, figuring Danny would be late, but Danny had beat him to the office.
With a flower. One white carnation in a regular water glass Steve recognized from their break room.
Steve stopped just inside Danny's door. "How did your thing go?"
Danny gave him a brilliant smile, and Steve wondered if maybe he was allergic to carnations, because he was having a little trouble breathing as Danny said, "It was the best breakfast ever."
"Really?" Steve somehow managed to walk across the room to drop into the chair in front of Danny's desk. "That good?"
"It was."
"Must've been good," Steve said, nodding at the flower, "if she gave you a flower."
The smile got impossibly brighter. "She did," Danny said, finger tracing the carnation petals more delicately than he'd ever seen Danny handle anything other than Grace. "And it's almost as pretty as she is."
Steve was definitely going to have to see about an allergy test. Odd, because he could've sworn carnations were practically hypoallergenic. "So you had breakfast with a lovely lady, then?"
"The loveliest," Danny said, his voice going soft in a way that made Steve swallow carefully. He didn't remember ever hearing Danny's voice like that when talking about a woman before, even Gabby. "I can't imagine a better lady to have breakfast with every single day."
Steve swallowed again. Maybe the carnation was causing his throat to swell up. He should probably get the epi pen from the first aid kit before he lost the ability to say something about it. Except he couldn't get up until he knew who this woman was. "So does this paragon of virtue have a name?"
"She does," Danny nodded, looking as if he was going to start laughing from joy. "And it's every bit as beautiful as she is."
"You gonna share?" Steve asked, the words barely squeezing through his throat, and he was seriously going for that epi pen as soon as Danny coughed up a name.
Danny's laughter finally spilled over. "It's Grace, you big goof," he said, tossing a pen at Steve, which landed in Steve's lap without him so much as moving a muscle. "She had a father/daughter breakfast thing this morning for Aloha Girls."
Steve's throat and lungs opened up without the need for medical intervention. "You had breakfast with Grace?" he asked. "Why didn't you just say so? Why all the secrecy?"
"Because every time I have plans with her people do things like shoot me or try to blow me up," Danny said. "I thought maybe if I kept it quiet until it actually happened the criminal element might not throw a grenade in my window at 6 this morning or something."
"Seriously, Danny?"
"Hey, it worked, didn't it?"
"I just...." thought you'd found a girlfriend I was going to have to get rid of. Steve cleared his throat. "I thought you weren't the superstitious type."
Danny shrugged. "And yet I still keep St. Michael around, don't I?"
Steve nodded, smiling as he remembered Danny giving a St. Michael medallion to Kono. "Even Danny Williams has his superstitions. Who knew?"
"Let's hope the criminals never figure it out. They might start throwing black cats at me or something."
"Better black cats than bullets."
"That is true."
"Meanwhile, we need to go catch some of those criminals. Bullpen in five?"
Danny nodded, and Steve took an easy breath as he pushed himself out of the chair. Danny was still single, still unattached, still available.
Though maybe Steve should try doing something about that before someone else did.
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END