Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(31)

Zaf shot her a dubious look, put down his phone, and reached for her noodles. “All right. Open up.”

“Just be careful,” she muttered under her breath. “I have an overdeveloped gag reflex.”

“Erm . . . okay,” he said, looking as if he expected to wake up and find this entire situation had been some sort of weird, cheese-fueled dream. When the waking up failed to occur, he shrugged his massive shoulders and held out a forkful of noodles. They both hesitated for an awkward moment before Dani, in a bid to look comfortable and couple-y, opened her mouth and leaned in toward the fork.

At the exact same time, Zaf moved, too. Because of course he did.

He jabbed, she jerked. Their mutual enthusiasm did not, unfortunately, make for a calm, controlled, social-media-friendly feeding experience.

Actually, Dani ended up with a wad of bean sprouts at the back of her throat, all of which she promptly spat out onto his lap.





Friday 12:36 P.M.



ZAF: Noodles again?

DANIKA: All the yes, but don’t feed me this time. I’m not ready to die.

ZAF: I told you it was a bad idea!

DANIKA: And I told you about my gag reflex, so it looks like we’re both terrible listeners.

ZAF: George asked me yesterday why my crotch smelled like hot sauce. I think he thinks I have some kind of food fetish now.

DANIKA: Does he think you have a Teflon dick, too? Because a hot-sauce fetish sounds extremely painful and also a high UTI risk.

ZAF: Should’ve thought of that before you threw up on me.

DANIKA: IT WASN’T VOMIT. IT WAS JUST FOOD. IT WAS UNDIGESTED FOOD. IT WAS UNSWALLOWED FOOD. HOW MANY TIMES?



Saturday 8:48 P.M.



DANIKA: Are you free for late-night phone calls, or do you have weekend-type plans?

ZAF: Weekend-type plans?

DANIKA: You know what I mean.

ZAF: Yeah. I just enjoy your nerd phrasing. Have to let it marinate.

DANIKA: I am strongly considering blocking your number.

ZAF: But if you did, who would be your five-minute entertainment tonight?

DANIKA: There’s a sex joke in there somewhere but I’ve been staring at this book for three hours now, so my brain is too blurry to find it

ZAF: If you’ve been working for three hours that means you owe me six phone calls already. So close the book and ring me now.



Over the weekend, Tackle It hit a milestone: ￡3,000 in one-off donations had been made since the Dr. Rugbae video went viral. Zaf had posted about it online, received an unholy number of likes and comments, and the total donations had bumped up even higher. He’d made Fatima a bowl of rasgulla roughly the same size as her head, because she was a genius mastermind who deserved to be recognized as his niece again, and he’d gone out with Jamal to a milkshake bar in town that offered a ton of old arcade games. Basically, he’d had a great fucking time. But for some reason, when he remembered the highlights, the first thing that came to mind was Danika sending him an emoji wearing a party hat. Probably because she never used emojis.

And the fact he’d noticed that, and was now ascribing significance to it, made Zaf want to smother himself.

It turned out that was physically impossible, though, so he compromised by rereading one of his favorite books on Sunday. A romance, obviously. Happy ending, obviously. That was what he wanted: a happy ending. And yes, he’d learned the hard way that those didn’t always last, but he wasn’t going to shoot himself in the foot by getting attached to a woman who didn’t want one at all.

The reminder worked.

During their Sunday-night phone call, he barely mooned over Danika at all. During his post–phone call wank (unavoidable—she had a sexy voice, okay?) he kept things fast and thoughtless. On Monday, when she turned up at his desk to fake flirt before and after class, Zaf remembered through every smile and lingering look that this was all for show. It. Was. All. For. Show.

And when she texted him later that morning, her messages like little rays of sunshine no one else would ever see?

That was friendship, obviously. Friendship, full stop.

DANIKA: I can’t wait for lunch.

DANIKA: Not the fawning all over you and feeding you grapes part. The food part.

Huh. Zaf hadn’t realized grape-feeding was on the fake-lunch-date cards at all, but suddenly he couldn’t wait, either.

DANIKA: My stomach is eating itself. RIP me.

ZAF: Didn’t you eat your protein bar?

DANIKA: Yes, I ate my protein bar, you absolute parent. It’s a shame I don’t have a daddy kink, or I might get off on those things.

Zaf set his jaw and shifted in his seat. She kept . . . saying things like that, these past few days, and it was getting harder and harder not to bite.

ZAF: Come and get another one.

DANIKA: You want me to choke down two in one day?!

He should probably be offended, but he found himself laughing into his hand, disguising the sound with a cough and a glower when a passing group of students stared at him. Once they were gone, he set his tiny smile free and typed out a response.

ZAF: That’s not very polite.

DANIKA: I can’t leave my strategic library position to come and get a protein bar. My seat by the window will be stolen. The risk isn’t worth the tasteless but protein-rich reward.

ZAF: Are you telling me you don’t like my protein bars?