Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(89)

I missed you, Dani realized, and wanted to kick herself. I didn’t deserve you. Not in any context. But it was better to attempt to do right by someone than to give in and refuse to try.

Jo sighed. “God, you look so serious. And tired. You never look tired. Are you sick or something?”

“No. I’m not sick. Simply repenting for my many mistakes.”

Jo gave her a considering look and leaned against the wall. “Go on, then. What’s this apology for?”

“The entirety of our relationship.”

Both women eyed each other for a moment, then smirked almost simultaneously.

“I was a bad friend,” Dani went on. “You can’t control feelings, but I blamed you when you felt things for me. You were hurt and I didn’t give you space to feel that. I didn’t respect that it was real. You were my friend and if you’d come crying about some other woman, I would’ve supported you. So I should’ve supported you when that woman was me”

Jo took a deep breath and looked away. After a long moment, she shrugged. “I was barking up the wrong tree with you. You made that clear from the start; I just didn’t want to hear it. Or maybe I thought I could change you. But I couldn’t, and that’s okay, because people shouldn’t be changed.”

Dani agreed with that, to a certain extent. People shouldn’t be changed—but perhaps they should grow. Which would explain the constant, hollow ache that had filled her chest whenever she tried not to care about Zaf and failed.

Growing pains.

“Thank you for apologizing,” Jo said. “I appreciate it.”

“Yes, well. Record the incident in your diary tonight, because I doubt it’ll ever happen again.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Jo snorted. “And I’m sorry, too. Honestly, I just . . . I kind of want us to be okay again.”

“Oh thank God. Yes. Let’s be okay again.”

Jo grinned. Then, after a slight hesitation, she held open her arms.

It was a wonderfully awkward hug, and Dani felt better for it—just as she felt better for being open and honest, for engaging with emotion even if the vulnerability made her uncomfortable. For trusting Jo enough to accept that she cared, and daring to care in return.

They went their separate ways with uncertain smiles, and Dani felt as if she’d been reunited with the best parts of herself. Not the parts so obsessed with staying safe that they electrocuted anyone who got too close. But the strong parts, the determined parts, the ones that made her the woman she was. And she remembered Gigi’s words: You know him best. You know how to explain and how to earn his forgiveness.

Click.

She knew what to do.

Dani hurried off to her seminar, ideas sparking, mentally cataloguing every romance novel she’d ever seen Zaf read or heard him talk about. While her students got to grips with the horror of close reading on a Tuesday morning, she opened her laptop and ordered digital copies of every love story she could recall.

Dani might not be good at everything, but she’d always been damn good at learning.

When the seminar ended, she looked up at the girl with Zafir’s—no, with Zain’s eyes—and murmured, “Fatima. Could I have a word, please?”

The girl nodded, clearly nonplussed.

When the rest of the students had filed out, Dani stood. “I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, and please feel free to say no.” She knew she was being wildly inappropriate. All things considered, Dani had expected Fatima to be yanked from her class long ago. But apparently, none of the Powers That Be realized Dani was teaching her fake—ex . . . oh, whatever—boyfriend’s niece. Clearing her throat, she continued, “I was hoping to . . . arrange something for your uncle. And I wondered if you might have any idea how I could contact his friend Jamal.”

Fatima, thankfully, didn’t seem alarmed by the request. “Sure,” she said with a shrug. “I have his number, if you want it.”

“Oh, thank you! Although—would he mind you giving it to me?”

Fatima huffed out a laugh. “Everyone has Jamal’s number. He might as well stick it on lampposts at this point. He likes to know people will call him if they’re in trouble, you know?”

Now, that certainly boded well. Surely such a lovely man wouldn’t give Dani too hard a time for brutally rejecting his best friend’s heart, would he? No. Definitely not.

And he didn’t—but when she rang him later that day, he was certainly cautious.

“This is Danika Brown,” she said, and there was a heavy pause.

“Hi, Danika,” Jamal replied, his voice gentle but steady, moss over immovable earth. “May I ask why you’re calling?”

“It’s, erm, about Zafir. You see, I know him from work, and—”

“I know who you are.”

Well, yes, she supposed that made sense, what with their fake relationship and Jamal being Zaf’s best friend and so on and so forth. Dani cleared her throat and pulled herself together. “I suppose I’d better get to the point, then. I need to apologize to Zaf. I want to do it in a very particular way, and I could really use your help.”

There was an unnerving moment of silence. Then came Jamal’s voice, several degrees warmer. “All right, Danika Brown. Let’s talk.”