Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(67)

I’m happy to inform you that our head teacher was as impressed by your work as I am. We’d love to have you teach a workshop to one Year Nine class and one Year Eleven class over the summer term. Please find a proposed schedule attached.

Kind regards,

Emma Cheung

By the third week of their arrangement, and the second week of their, er, sexual arrangement, the scarlet flower of affection in Zaf’s chest—the one that was supposed to die—had multiplied. He was housing a brightly colored meadow, beautiful and dangerous.

Every morning, he woke up and told himself, This is minor. This will pass. At least you’re not in love with her. And every night, he ran his hands over Danika’s skin, kissed the moans from her mouth, lost himself inside her, and pretended the squeeze of his heart was some kind of deadly arrhythmia, or a hallucination, or something he’d eaten. Anything but that reckless thing he was absolutely not allowed to feel. Anything but that.

Weekends were the best and the worst. Best, because he couldn’t see Dani at work, didn’t have to spend his lunch worrying about how many of his reactions to her were just for show and how many were an overflow of affection. Worst, because trying not to pine over Dani might be uncomfortable, but waiting all day to see her was starting to feel like torture.

Which couldn’t be a good sign.

It was Saturday morning, a week before Dani’s symposium—and ten days until their fake relationship and their fuck-buddy status were both due to end. Just ten more days, he told himself, and you can start getting back to normal. Then he pulled out his phone and texted her, not because he needed to, but because his day would be a thousand times better once she replied.

ZAF: Hey. Are you free tonight?

She was always free, but he always asked. He kept it simple, though, kept it light. Wouldn’t want to come on too strong, or she might notice that he, you know, adored her beyond reason.

Then again, he was starting to think Danika wouldn’t notice adoration if it smacked her in the face with a feather pillow, so he was probably safe. Kindness from someone other than her sisters or Sorcha left her baffled. Every time he asked how her day had gone, or fed her snacks while she prepared for her symposium instead of telling her to stop, she looked at him like he might be some lizard overlord wearing human skin. Then she shrugged and went on with her day, because, presumably, Dani didn’t have a problem with lizard overlords as long as they left her books alone.

She must be buried in those very books right now, because the text he hoped for never came. In the end, Zaf spent his Saturday the way he usually did: taking the kids to a local league game with Jamal in the morning, bringing his mother vegetable pakoras at the shop, and listening to Fatima talk about a show called Fleabag for way too long. Then he went home, clicked through some promising emails, and thought about the one from Mac Stevens that he still hadn’t answered.

It was past time he did something about this.

Despite his subconscious fears, Zaf knew, logically, that there was no connection between his grief and the time he’d spent playing for the Titans. Blurring lines between past and present wouldn’t unravel all his progress or take him back to the dark place he’d been in when his family had shattered. Only one thing about pro rugby had made his experience worse: the part where his minor claim to fame led the press to swarm him like mosquitoes.

But faking it with Dani had overwritten those memories with newer, lighter ones. This time around, he had control. He had the power. And something about that caused his fears to fade until they were blurry at the edges.

Still, when he opened Mac’s email, he heard the thump of his pulse in his ears and felt himself hesitate. Zaf sat with his anxiety for long, long moments, until his breathing slowed and he was calm enough to push past it. Fast. With gritted teeth.

Yes, he told Mac, of course I remember you, and the family’s okay, what about yours? I . . . I can definitely offer the emotional workshop stuff without the coaching, if that’s what you need. We can work something out.

Then Zaf hit Send, ran a hand over his beard, and realized he was grinning. Adrenaline flooded his veins like he’d just roared in a tiger’s face and come out unscathed. “All right,” he told himself, shutting the laptop. “Take five.” This called for a celebratory cup of tea or twelve.

He was in the bathroom ten minutes later, humming under his breath and getting undressed for the shower, when Dani’s name lit up his phone.

DANIKA: Not tonight. Currently drowning in my own blood.

ZAF: ???

She didn’t reply.

Buttnaked, Zaf sat on the edge of his bathtub—shit, that was cold—and stared at the screen, waiting for her reply. Obviously, Dani wasn’t actually drowning in her own blood right now. Usually, when people were in the middle of something like that, they didn’t text about it. On the other hand, Dani wasn’t particularly usual, and she wasn’t texting him anymore, and he could definitely imagine her, say, trying to open a bag of Skittles with a kitchen knife, accidentally stabbing herself in the hand, and texting him about it shortly before passing out from blood loss.

Fuck it. He hit Call.

She picked up after a few seconds, sounding fairly healthy, if a little tired. “Hello?”

Zaf sighed, closing his eyes and raking a hand through his hair. His heart pounded against his chest—and yes, he knew that was unreasonable, but he was always going to be himself. “Fuck’s sake, woman. I thought you were dying or something.”