Take a Hint, Dani Brown

by Talia Hibbert

  “Danika,” Zaf began.

  “And then she got me thrown off my Ph.D. for being so utterly useless—”

  “Sweetheart, come on. She doesn’t even work at our—”

  “And then she called someone who knew someone, and they somehow stripped me of my master’s, which—”

  He caught Dani’s face in his hands, held her gaze with his. “Which is not ever going to happen. Do you know who you sound like right now?”

  She scowled at him, but she didn’t pull away. “No,” she muttered. “Who?”

  “Me,” he said softly. “You sound anxious, you sound under pressure, you sound like me. Happens to the best of us. So we’re going to try something, okay?”

  He saw her throat bob as she swallowed. He waited for a sarcastic comment, for a deflection, but one didn’t come. Instead, she said quietly, “Okay. What?”

  “We’re going to breathe together.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “And by that you mean . . .”

  He laughed. “Just trust me, okay?”

  “I do,” she said, and those two little words all but knocked him out.

  Slowly, he drew her into a hug. Zaf knew, logically, that Danika wasn’t a small woman—actually, that was one of the things he liked about her. But sometimes, she really felt small. Like right now, when the tension leaked out of her, drop by drop, and she relaxed slowly into his arms. Zaf kissed the top of her head, then pressed his nose into her hair and breathed deeply. Once, twice, as many times as it took, until her breathing slowed, too, and they were in calm, steady synch.

  It was good, doing this for someone—with someone—instead of just himself. Perfect, doing it for Danika. Time seemed to slow, or dissolve, or disappear, and his heart rate sank so low he was either totally at peace or a little bit dead.

  Eventually, she tipped her head back to look at him. “Thanks,” she murmured.

  “Anytime.” Seriously, anytime. All the time. Forever. Just say the word. Holy shit, please say the word before I die.

  Instead of reading his mind, she took a breath and raised a hand to her own chest. He knew she was touching the gemstones beneath her dress, reminding herself what each one meant to her. Finally she murmured, “I can’t keep doing this.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Breathing?”

  Danika’s glare, as always, was a thing of beauty and impressive venom. “This,” she repeated. “Fixating on my goals, pouring all my energy into my work until there’s nothing left.” She faltered, swallowed hard, and Zaf’s heart squeezed. He tried to remember if he’d ever heard Dani address the obsessive way she worked, and came up blank. There’d be a self-conscious joke here, a wry comment there—but the way she was looking at him now, solemn and serious, was different. This was different.

  He held her closer, kissed her temple, and waited.

  “I don’t let anyone else do the things you do for me,” she said. The words rushed out, all jumbled together, her awkwardness as obvious as it was adorable. “I don’t let anyone feed me or force me to take breaks or drag me outside to see the sun. And lately I’ve been thinking—what did I do before you? Did I just . . . not eat? Not sleep? Not breathe? I don’t even remember, like it was so unimportant my brain didn’t retain the information. But that’s not okay. Taking care of myself matters just as much as my work.”

  “More than,” he said mildly.

  “Don’t push it.” She pinched his side, then bit her lip, that mind of hers whirring so fast he almost felt the heat. “I love my job because it never demands more than I can give. But lately I think I’ve been offering too much. Like maybe I’ve forgotten . . . balance. So last night, that’s what Sorcha and I asked for. Balance.”

  “That’s good, Dan,” he said softly. “That’s really good.”

  She snorted. “It’s really good that, at twenty-seven years old, I’ve finally committed to eight hours a night and regular trips outside?”

  “It’s good that you realize you’re more valuable as a person than an idea-machine.”

  “Oh, gag.” She smiled—just the tiniest tilt of her lips, but it left him feeling as if he’d been knocked over the head with perfection. “I can tell this is your job. You’re very good at supportive pep talks.”

  “You’re not my job, Danika. Not even close.”

  Her eyes caught his for a second before easing away. “I know.”

  If Zaf judged correctly, she’d just hit her weekly threshold for emotionally vulnerable conversation in the space of ten minutes. Still, he couldn’t let the moment fade, couldn’t take the truths she’d offered without sharing some of his own. “I’ve never really thought of Tackle It as my job, anyway.”

  “Oh?” she murmured, and he caught a flash of gratitude for the slight subject change.

  He shrugged. “Security is my job. Tackle It is . . . my dream, maybe. Or my duty. Or both. Something I can’t leave alone. Which is why I, er, changed the ‘About’ section on our website the other day and started altering the mission statement I put in our funding requests. Just to reflect my reasons for doing this. To mention that I went through loss, that I struggled with my own mental health. You were right, before,” he said, cupping her cheek. “I was worried about the mechanics of moving on, but that’s not who I am. Putting gold frames around my scars. That’s who I am.”

  “I know,” she said again, this time with an incandescent smile. “I’m glad you know, too. I’m proud of you, Zafir.” Then she rose up on her toes and kissed his nose, and he thought he might never recover.

  * * *

  It turned out that a symposium was some big, academic event involving panels, presentations, research displays—all of that. Zaf stayed by Danika’s side for the first hour or so, and, even though he doubted #DrRugbae watchers would be in high supply here, she held his hand. If she weren’t stressed out as fuck, he’d have teased her for that—but she was. Stressed out as fuck, that is. So, as the minutes ticked by, he concentrated on keeping her calm. And when it was time for her to go, he caught her by the hips and kissed her with just a shadow of the devotion in his blood. When she pulled back, she was dreamy-eyed and smiling, as if she felt it, too.

  Tell me you feel it, too.

  “There we go,” he murmured, and tapped her chin.

  “Fuck off,” she said crisply, and kissed his cheek.

  When he took a seat in the audience, the place where she’d kissed him still fizzed, warm and alive. He breathed in, rubbed his hands over his face, wondered if the way he felt about her shone out from him like starlight. It was so bright and so fucking obvious, everyone in a five-mile radius must be able to see it. When someone tapped him on the shoulder, he turned, certain they’d say something like Wow. You’re a goner, huh?

  But they didn’t. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with an excited-looking older man, a tall, lean guy with carefully combed wisps of gray hair and flushed pink cheeks. “You’re Zaf Ansari,” he whispered, “aren’t you?”

  Zaf grunted and turned his attention back to Danika. There were three other women sitting at the table with her. Only one of them was black, so she was probably Inez Holly. Then he saw the nervous way Dani shifted in her seat, the awestruck glance she sent in the older woman’s direction, and decided that was definitely Inez Holly.

  “I’m a big fan,” the balding, pink-faced man whispered in Zaf’s ear. “Supported the Titans all my life. I was really gutted when you left. I—”

  “Shut up,” Zaf said. Professor Holly was short and compact, with graying, natural hair in a cloudy halo around her lined, nut-brown face. Like Danika, she wore all black, and when she spoke, her voice was low and slow and considered, her accent broad and northern. Something about the way she held herself, from the steady set of her shoulders to the no-nonsense line of her mouth, seemed to say, Respect is mandatory and I comfortably await your payment.

  She kind of reminded him of Danika.

  “Excuse me,” the pink-faced man hissed after a blessed few moments of silenc
e. “What did you say?”

  Zaf huffed out an impatient sigh and turned to face him. “I said my girlfriend has been worried about this panel for fucking centuries, and now it’s happening, and if anyone talks over her or gets in the way of me hearing how incredibly smart she is, I will put that someone through a wall. So it’s really in both our interests for you to shut up.” He paused. “Cheers, though. Appreciate it.”

  “Right,” the man said faintly.

  Zaf turned back to the panel—and realized with a little start that, when he’d called Danika his girlfriend, it hadn’t been for show. He’d meant it. Because she felt like his.

  He needed to keep an eye on that. The problem was, he didn’t want to.

  Up on the platform, the speakers were invited to introduce themselves, and then the real discussion began. A moderator asked questions and made sure everyone had a turn to comment on concepts that went straight over Zaf’s head. The talk still managed to be compelling, though—or maybe that was just Dani’s voice, a shining golden thread gleaming out at him, husky and electric with enthusiasm. It took her a little while to really get going—not that anyone who didn’t know her would notice. But after a few questions, she forgot to worry and lost herself in the topic, holding her own just like he knew she would.

  At one point, she said something about examples of historic erasure being available “in real time, right before our eyes, if we need a blueprint to justify our interpretation of past texts,” and Inez Holly nodded her head approvingly and murmured, “Mmm. Mm.”

  For a moment, he was worried Dani might actually dissolve from sheer pleasure and float away. Or that she might jump up out of her seat and scream, Did you see that? Did you see that, everyone? Inez Holly just nodded at me. But she limited her reaction to a beaming smile. Her gaze wandered across the crowd and found his, as if she’d been searching for him, as if she wanted him to be a part of this moment.

  And Zaf knew. He knew, once and for all, that he loved her. So hard and so hopelessly that he couldn’t deny it, couldn’t fight it, couldn’t hide from it for another fucking second. He loved her intelligence and her ambition, her crystals and her sticky notes, her charming smiles and her dreamy ones. He loved the way she thought in straight lines and facts but believed in magic to honor someone she’d lost. He loved her chameleon curls and her passionate speeches and her awkward unfamiliarity with her own emotions. He just—he loved her.

  Zaf remembered the man he’d been three weeks ago, the man who’d decided never to fall in love with Danika Brown, and realized he’d discovered the meaning of hubris.

  Oh fucking well.

  Worth it.

  * * *

  It took Dani a good thirty minutes on the panel to realize that, even though she could feel her voice shaking with nerves, no one appeared able to hear it. She didn’t know how that was possible; she just knew that the audience watched her speak as if nothing strange was afoot, and her fellow panelists responded to her points with thoughtful respect, and Inez fucking Holly appeared to agree with her more than once, which must mean . . . it must mean . . .

  It must mean everything was fine, and Dani was doing well. It must mean that when Eve and Sorcha and Zaf had sworn she could do this, they hadn’t been lying or soothing or biased. They had been right. Which she’d already known, logically, but now, as her heart slowed and her clammy palms dried and her confidence grew, she felt it. And it felt good.

  When the panel finally ended and Dani headed over to Zaf, she was so exhilarated that she practically ran. He caught her, thank goodness. Wrapped his arms around her and pressed her safe against his chest, kissed the top of her head and lifted her clean off her feet for a moment. It was enormously undignified and completely unnecessary. It wasn’t as if anyone here cared about #DrRugbae’s public displays of affection, or even wanted those displays.

  But Zaf loved touching her. And Dani—Dani was quite fond of Zaf.

  She was still grinning like a loon a couple of hours later, when she abandoned him by the table of watered-down juice in the postsymposium reception room to nip to the loo. But when she entered the bathroom, it wasn’t empty. Inez Holly stood in front of the sinks, slicking on a nude lipstick and throwing Dani into a spiral of excited, starstruck panic simply by existing. Any urge Dani had to pee vanished like smoke. Inez Holly could not be subjected to the sound of her bodily functions. In fact, Dani was in the midst of a passionate mental debate about the pros and cons of backing slowly out of the room when Inez Holly’s eyes met hers in the mirror.

  “Danika,” Inez Holly said, “isn’t it?”

  It took Dani a disgracefully long time to splutter, “Er, yes. Me. My name, rather. That is indeed my name. Correct. Thank you.” Oh dear goddess, did I just say ‘thank you’?

  Inez Holly gave a quirk of the lips that might, on a less stately lady, have been referred to as a smirk. “Did you need the toilet?”

  “Pardon? Oh, no.” Then, realizing that sounded quite odd, Dani added, “I just wanted to come in and . . . check my hair.” Wonderful. Now, rather than odd, she sounded both vain and ridiculous, since hair less than two inches long was not exactly in need of regular checking.

  But Inez Holly refrained from passing judgment, for she was great and merciful. “Well, by all means, claim a mirror.”

  Would it be awkward to take the mirror next to Inez Holly? Would it be insulting not to take the mirror next to Inez Holly? Dani considered this for a few feverish seconds before realizing it was a moot point, since there were only three mirrors and Inez Holly was in the middle.

  Pull yourself together! She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the reassuring lump of her garnet beneath. Self-confidence. She never lacked it, usually, not in this arena. And she was on something of a roll today; she’d properly acknowledged her ever-so-minor workaholic tendencies and aced the panel she’d spent so long preparing for. She could certainly handle this.

  Inez Holly gave her an amused sideways glance as Dani squared her shoulders and chose a mirror. “Has anyone ever told you that you think very loudly?”

  “Yes.” Dani fished out Charlotte Tilbury’s Legendary Queen from her handbag. “I do hope it wasn’t distracting, out there.”

  “Not at all. I enjoyed sitting on the panel with you, you know. It’s always nice to meet other sensible people in one’s field.”

  Dani very nearly drew a line of wine-red lipstick across her own face. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Right. I—thank you.” Inez Holly called me sensible! Just wait until Zaf heard about this. Then it occurred to her that she should probably take advantage of this miraculous moment. “Professor Holly, would it be all right if I asked you a question?”

  Inez Holly turned to face her. “The teacher in me wants to point out that you just did. By the way, great lipstick, but you should probably . . .”

  “Oh, yes.” Apply lipstick to bottom lip as well as top lip, then ask meaningful question. That done, Dani forged on. “I was wondering—well, you’re quite inspirational to me. I hope to be where you are in some years’ time. I’m working toward it, but it’s not always easy, and I was wondering if you might have any advice.” Which was the sort of open-ended question Dani usually abhorred, but she thought it best to leave Inez Holly with options. She might prefer to share advice like “Always wear matching underwear in case you get hit by a truck” over the personal, in-depth secrets of her career so far.

  At least, Dani had assumed she might. But that assumption, like so many she’d made lately, proved wrong. “My advice?” Inez Holly arched an eyebrow. “I’d say . . . anything you want to do, you can. Hurdles were made to be jumped, glass ceilings were made to be smashed.” She leaned in closer. “But all that can be exhausting, so make sure you take care of yourself, too. There’s great value in the things that bring you joy.”

  Dani blinked, taken aback. “Things that bring me joy?”

  “Outside of work,” Inez Holly added pointedly. “Don’t forget that part. I know your typ
e. I was your type.”

  Dani suspected she should feel chastened right now, rather than pleased by any comparison to Inez Holly.

  Regardless, the word joy circled her mind, refusing to be ignored. She could hardly write off the very advice she’d asked for, even if it was somewhat unexpected, so she let the word settle and noticed the memories it produced. Apparently, joy was dinner with her ridiculous sisters, bingeing Netflix shows with her nonsensical best friend, arguing with her ludicrous grandmother. Repotting her plants, dyeing her hair for no discernable reason, being with Zafir—

  She cut that last thought off for now. Whacked a fence around it and resolved to deal with it later. Then she asked, “Is it a bad sign if all the things that bring me joy seem to be vaguely absurd?”

  “Certainly not,” Inez Holly said serenely, and waggled a mauve gel manicure in Dani’s direction. “Once every two weeks, I drive an hour to my favorite salon to get my nails done. I don’t give a damn what else is on my to-do list; this is nonnegotiable. Major or minor, if something keeps you human when pressure makes you feel like a volcano, hold on to that thing by whatever means necessary.”

  “I see,” Dani said quietly, letting those words sink in. “I—thank you.” It was a shame she couldn’t be more eloquent, but she was still grappling with the mental fence she’d created, the one that wouldn’t stay put. Because every time she thought joy, Zaf zipped to the front of Dani’s mind and refused to vacate.

  Teasing him at lunch in front of sneaky camera phones, shagging like rabbits as if sex were vital to their continued existence, watching him make dinner from the corner of her eye as she tried to concentrate on research. It was mortifying and inconvenient and sure to bite her in the backside, but clearly . . . clearly, joy was Zaf.

  The realization left her dazed, even if it wasn’t entirely out of the blue. The giddy, tender swirl of her feelings shouldn’t matter: you weren’t supposed to put your happiness in someone else’s hands. It never worked. It was foolish. It was dangerous. Only, Dani had been struggling for a while to see any part of Zaf as dangerous, not when he looked at her as if she were the world. Now here was Inez Holly herself, like an unwitting sign from the universe, telling Dani to stop stalling, stop making him wait, and choose joy.