One More Cup Of Coffee
"Each purchase comes with free cleaning and stone checking for life." Danny rubbed his chin. "Not that we're actually going to purchase anything."
"Diamonds aren't just for girls anymore." Rusty leaned over his shoulder to see the laptop screen. "It's so kind of them to put their inventory online."
"We're living in the golden age of information," Danny agreed, nudging Rusty back so he could stand up. "Now for the part we can't do from our hotel room."
Namely, surveillance. A lot of surveillance. The security, the layout, and angles of exit and entry. Not to mention the names of all the employees, their work hours and building access, birth signs, and where they ate lunch every day of the week.
Danny liked being thorough. Rusty liked saying that Danny had been making contingency plans in the womb.
"It's a date," Rusty said.
"It's not a date."
"When in Rome," Rusty said cheerfully. He pulled on a jacket, covering up a blue shirt that looked like it was designed by Jackson Pollock.
"When you're in Rome," Danny said as he folded up a very large tourist map, pocketed his dummy wallet, and slipped on his sunglasses, "you always end up getting chased by the Polizia."
Rusty shrugged. "Details."
Danny shook his head and walked out of their hotel room. Rusty caught up with him before the elevator doors closed.
"So, diamonds," Rusty said. He tilted his head. "Which anniversary?"
"Thirtieth," Danny said.
Rusty blinked. "That's a long time to wait for diamonds."
"You won't have to wait thirty years for yours," Danny said.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Rusty bussed his cheek in front of the entire hotel lobby. "You say the sweetest things."
"I will paint your toenails pink while you sleep," Danny promised.
Rusty fell in step beside him. "You know my feet are sensitive; I'll kick."
"Well, I'll just have to get you drunk first, that's all," Danny said.
Foil crinkled as Rusty pulled a candy bar out of his inner jacket pocket. "What if you fall asleep before I do?"
Danny sighed. "Then I suppose I'll wake up with pink toes."
"Got it in one," Rusty said. He took another bite of his candy bar. "Honey."
When Rusty came back from a bathroom break, he was eating ice cream. It was melting fast, dripping from the cone and dotting the skin on the back of his hand. Rusty chased after the rogue droplets with his tongue, using a little more zest than the situation required. Rusty wasn't just eating his ice cream cone; more like molesting it.
Danny wasn't a dessert man. He preferred a rare steak and a good red. Rusty, however, could locate any Krispy Kreme in a twenty mile radius, and Danny suspected that Baskin-Robbins circulated Rusty's sketch on free scoop night as a precautionary measure.
Rusty knew women, what made a good grease man, and how to play poker, but even so, Danny told people that there were two areas in which they never should ask Rusty for advice: comestibles and couture.
The chair squawked as Rusty pulled it out and sat down next to Danny at the table. Ice cream wasn't on the menu at the outdoor cafe they'd been using for surveillance, but Danny didn't ask where he got it; Rusty had his ways.
Danny's third black coffee was long gone, and Rusty's side of the table was littered with empty sweetener packets folded into tiny blue and pink origami figures.
"We've been here long enough," he said. "We should move to another location."
"Or..." Rusty said after a particularly long and contemplative lick.
Danny recognized that tone. "No."
"Yes," Rusty said, smiling.
"No," Danny told him.
"We're in San Francisco. What does a male couple do to blend in?"
"I have the feeling I'm about to find about," Danny said. He rested his hands on the arms of his chair and watched Rusty out of the corner of his eye.
Rusty was grinning like he'd won a game of Twenty Questions in one guess. "You should kiss me."
"Even the government doesn't believe in cruel and unusual punishment, Russ."
"Are you implying that kissing me is a hardship?"
"Of course that outfit doesn't make you look fat, darling," Danny said, and kissed him.
Rusty tasted like toffee ice cream, his mouth cool and sweet. Rusty made a pleased humming noise and kissed him back like Danny was his melting ice cream cone. The lazy sucks and swirls of his tongue grew firmer and more intent, with a hint of teeth. It was Rusty's 'your place or mine?' kiss, and the moment Danny realized this, he breathed in sharply and sat back in his chair, covering his retreat by taking a large bite out of Rusty's ice cream cone.
Rusty licked his lips. "Okay, so I won't paint your toenails."
"Of course you won't," Danny said. "You'll be too busy." He caught their waiter's eye and lifted his coffee cup for a refill.