Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(45)

At least she knew what not to do. When Zaf had mentioned his anxiety disorder, natural curiosity had led Dani to spend a few hours researching the topic. So she wouldn’t grab him, or ask silly questions, or do anything else that might make him feel worse, and that was something, wasn’t it?

Well, it was all she had, so she supposed it would have to be.

After a while, his breathing slowed, and his broad shoulders relaxed inch by inch. With every infinitesimal sign of release, the thick rope of concern wrapped around Dani’s throat started to ease. Then Zaf opened his eyes and gave her one of his hard, impenetrable stares, the one that meant I’m going to be a bit of an arse now, and she knew he was back to his usual self and annoyed as always. She waited for him to say something brisk and grumpy and vaguely annoying. He opened his mouth, as if preparing to do just that. But after a long moment, he scrubbed a hand over his beard and sighed.

She bit her lip. “Are you okay?”

He grunted.

“Should I . . . cancel the interview? Because we can do that. If you want.”

He stared at her, his expression unreadable. “Ten minutes before we’re due to go on?”

“I don’t care if it’s ten seconds. Tell me,” she said firmly, “and I’ll go in there and tell them.”

After a long moment, his lips twitched. “Are you being nice to me right now? Because that’s twice in one day. Would you also take me somewhere with coffee and cake and try your best not to bitch about the evils of caffeine? None of the cheap shit, mind. I know you’ve got money.”

The spluttering noise she made was half amusement, half a sigh of relief. “If you can be irritating, I assume you’re much improved.”

“Yeah, actually. I guess, with some associations, you just have to . . . get through them. And if that’s what’s going to happen tonight, I’ll do my best to handle it.” His words were cryptic, his expression pensive, and she almost wanted to ask more questions. To learn what was going on inside his head, every tiny detail.

Luckily, before she could embarrass herself like that, he spoke again. “But you should know for future reference that I could be irritating with one foot in the grave.”

Dani couldn’t help it: she laughed. It was a quick, guilty bubble of sound—but then he smiled in response, slow and sweet like spilled honey, so she laughed some more, and suddenly he was laughing, too. They sat in the middle of the pavement, giddy and giggling and breathless like a pair of schoolchildren, and Zaf put an arm around her shoulders and sort of . . . leaned on her. Even though he didn’t give her half his actual weight, it felt good. So good Dani forgot she was supposed to be laughing.

And then they were simply very close, and Zaf’s eyes were very dark, and his face was very soft and very dear.

“You know what, Danika Brown?” he said.

She snuggled deeper under his arm, but only because she was cold. “What?”

“You’re all right.”

“Just all right? What a disgraceful understatement.” But all right from Zaf felt a thousand times better than self-conscious compliments from someone else. All right from Zaf made her twinkle inside as if he’d made a night sky of her. Except people weren’t allowed to make things of Dani, so she snorted and shoved him, and everything was easy again. “I hope our online stalkers aren’t lurking somewhere, filming all this.”

“Fuck ’em,” Zaf said cheerfully, but she didn’t miss the faint remains of wariness in his eyes. He caught her hand and hauled them both to their feet.

It was ridiculous to feel a little flip in her stomach every time he manhandled her, but apparently, Dani was a ridiculous human being.

“All right,” he said. “We’d better go in.” Except he didn’t move. “Am I sweating?”

She pressed a hand to his forehead. “No.”

“Feels like I’m sweating.”

“Is that usually how it feels?”

He shocked her by answering with honesty rather than a roadblock of a grunt. “Yeah. You know when you exercise in the freezing cold, and your sweat is hot but your skin is like ice, and you can almost feel the salt?”

She nodded, pressing her lips together. There was a sorry little hollow in the space between her stomach and her ribs, and in that hollow lived a very sad gnome who was greatly displeased that Zaf struggled this way, but glad he hadn’t been alone this time.

She hoped he wasn’t ever alone.

“Feels like that,” he said. “And then there’s the whole lungs-clogged-with-water sensation.”

“Oh. Delightful.”

“And my stomach dropping out of my body like it’s made of lead.”

“Sounds ideal.”

Zaf nodded solemnly. “Fan-fucking-tastic. Dan?”

“Yes?”

“Is this your version of being supportive?”

“Yes,” she said. “You can probably tell it doesn’t come naturally. I apologize.”

“Don’t,” he murmured, so quiet she barely heard him over the passing traffic. “I like it.”

Three words, and the familiar ache of not quite being enough vanished in a B-movie flash. “Oh. Really?”

Her heart pounded in time with the rhythm of his reply. “Yeah. Really.”