Take a Hint, Dani Brown

by Talia Hibbert

  Dani’s attempt at an acerbic response was cut off by her older sister. “Redford,” Chloe said imperiously, phone pressed to her ear, “if you have any dodgy friends who might be persuaded to dump someone in the River Trent, gather them now and tell them I pay very well.”

  Dani tried to laugh, but it came out as a choked squeak, accompanied by a bubble of snot.

  “Oh, darling.” Eve shuddered, passing her another lavender-scented tissue. “What an atrophied state of affairs.”

  “It’s fine,” Dani insisted, after blowing her nose. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” She’d tried, and she’d failed, but that was to be expected, so why should it hurt? It shouldn’t. And neither should the knowledge that Zaf had deluded himself into loving her, because it wasn’t as if she loved him. She’d simply been high on Inez Holly’s approval and had made some shoddy decisions last night. This morning’s events had been a warning shot from the universe, a reminder of who Dani was and the lessons she’d learned about attempting romance. That was all. That was all.

  She opened her mouth to explain as much in a clear and calm manner, but all that came out was another ear-splitting wail.

  Oops.

  “When I picked her up,” Sorcha said grimly, “she was essentially unintelligible, but I did hear Zaf.”

  “That’s why I’m calling instead of texting,” Chloe was saying patiently into her mobile. “No paper trail. I see no reason for your line to be bugged, so this is a fine method of arranging a man’s imminent death.”

  “Chloe, honestly,” Dani managed, “Zaf hasn’t done—”

  “Little sisters should be seen and not heard,” Chloe said grimly, before her concentration went back to the phone. “I’m not implying anything, darling, I’m just saying that you’re a very resourceful man who might possibly know other resourceful men, especially since artists are known to have an excess of feeling. Yes. Yes. Well, of course I don’t want you to go to prison; I wasn’t suggesting you get caught. No. I’ll ask her. Danika, would you like orange chocolate or dark?”

  “Both,” Danika said glumly.

  “Same for me,” Eve piped up.

  “And me.” That was Sorcha.

  “We’ll all have both. Oh, stop moaning, our teeth have survived this long. Good-bye. I love you, too.”

  Dani’s stomach lurched, a stab of pain flaring behind her ribs. I love you, Zafir had said. I love you as you are. It had sounded so wonderful, coming from that beautiful mouth in that slow, familiar voice, and she’d wanted it so badly she’d felt dizzy. But she couldn’t—she just couldn’t—

  Why would he say that? Why would he say that to her, and make everything so much more impossible? She was only just coming to grips with the fact that they could be together properly, that she might not fuck that up, and he expected her to believe he’d somehow fallen head over heels within five minutes?

  Yes. He expected you to believe him, because he never lies. And because being a romantic doesn’t make him a fool.

  But he must’ve been mistaken. He must have been, because Dani hadn’t even tried to be lovable. Except . . .

  Except he’d sort of told her that she didn’t need to try. Which, now she could breathe again, and think without the weight of his entire life’s hopes and dreams crushing her, did sound quite reasonable and very Zafir-like.

  Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

  The tears started again.

  “Good Lord,” Chloe said, putting the phone down. “You really must tell us what’s happened, Danika, or I might be moved to call Gigi.”

  “I think—I think Zaf loves me,” Dani wailed.

  There was a moment of silence before Sorcha piped up cautiously, “Oh . . . no?”

  “But I didn’t—he shouldn’t,” Dani sobbed. “Or he couldn’t! Except he does really seem to like me, and he’s inhumanly wonderful, so perhaps he could, and if he did, I’ve just ruined everything.”

  “Sorry, don’t let me throw you,” Eve said, “I’d just like to check before we go any further. Are you telling me that your fake boyfriend, who you have, obviously, been sleeping with—”

  “Bravo, by the way,” Chloe interjected.

  “—told you he loved you, and you decided, for some reason, that he’d . . . made it up?”

  “Yes,” Dani managed in a very small voice.

  “And what,” Eve asked delicately, “did you say to him in return?”

  “I said . . . I said we’d made a mistake.”

  “Oh sweet fucking Christ,” Sorcha muttered. “Baby Jesus in a manger, give me strength. Danika Brown, if I strangle you—”

  “Don’t be angry with me,” Dani snapped. “It wasn’t—I wasn’t ready for this! All I asked for was a nice, goddess-mandated fuck buddy, and the signs led me to believe that I’d gotten one.”

  “Oh, for shite’s sake, Dani!” Sorcha cried. “You know that’s not how signs and invocations work. You’re not supposed to use random happenings as an excuse to avoid dealing with what you really want. You’re supposed to pay attention to what resonates. You’re supposed to take a fucking hint!”

  “Is that honestly your best solution?” Dani demanded. “Focusing on what I want? Because that would involve letting myself be lost and confused and in love with him, which is a lot to fucking deal with, Sorcha!” She hadn’t had a chance to work through the pros and cons, or check it for safety from every angle. For heaven’s sake, she hadn’t even written it down, and nothing even counted until you wrote it down, which meant that Dani was currently engaged in the highly dangerous practice of loving Zaf without a permit, so no wonder she’d fucked it up, and—

  “Oh my God,” she gasped. Her thoughts, her breaths, her heart, all lurched to a stop.

  Loving him. Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  She loved him.

  Dani turned the idea left and right, examined it cautiously as if a vicious alien might burst out from its middle, and finally judged it to be irrefutably true, if not totally safe. She loved Zaf. Which would explain why she’d felt as if she were being crushed by a wheel of terror when he’d had the audacity to love her, too.

  Sorcha clapped her hands. “Oh, there we go. There it is. Give the girl a prize.”

  Dani burst into tears again.

  “Sorcha,” said Eve, who appeared to be—for once—concentrating fully on the matter at hand. She’d even taken her AirPods out. “I’m not entirely following this conversation, and Dani is alarming me. Tell us what you know, or we’ll sic the cat on you.”

  Sorcha looked around. “What cat?”

  Chloe removed her glasses and polished them on the edge of her cherry-printed swing skirt, a gesture she no doubt hoped was threatening. “He prefers to avoid company unless absolutely necessary,” she said, “but make no mistake, he is a fearsome creature, indeed.”

  “What on earth are you—?”

  Dani decided now might be a good moment to pull herself together and explain things to her sisters. “When Zaf and I started sleeping together,” she said, her voice shaking slightly, “we had rules. I always have rules. It makes things . . . safer.”

  “Safer than what?” Chloe frowned.

  Dani took several deep breaths and dabbed at her face with more tissues before answering. She laid out the facts for herself as much as for anyone else, building a map to her own emotions—emotions she’d clearly kept locked away for far too long, if she barely recognized them when she stumbled into their path.

  “Safer than feeling things,” she said. “Because feelings hurt. Rules don’t. But everything with Zaf was so easy that I forgot the risks—until things went too far, and suddenly, he loved me. It just . . . it didn’t seem plausible. Or safe. I didn’t want to fail or fuck it up. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I didn’t want to admit he could hurt me.”

  Chloe eyed her carefully. “I see. Completely understandable. But, darling . . . you seem hurt right now, and I’m willing to bet he is, too. So whatever path you chose to avoid
that issue—”

  “Was the wrong one,” Dani whispered, cradling her head in her hands. “I know. I know. You don’t need to tell me that.” Not anymore, anyway. Because she was using real logic now, not fear-driven desperation, and it was achingly clear that trying her best for Zafir and failing would’ve been far less painful than . . .

  Than giving up. He’d told her he loved her, and she’d just given up.

  Her first instinct was that he might be better off without her. But then she remembered that she was Danika fucking Brown, that she had Inez Holly’s email address, that she achieved her goals no matter what, and if she made loving Zaf—properly, the way he deserved—one of those goals, she could do it.

  Assuming he wanted her to, which, after this morning’s fiasco, was doubtful.

  “I’m going to fix things,” Dani said, because speaking the words aloud would make them realer. “I’m going to do my best, anyway.”

  “I’m glad,” Chloe said gently. “But, darling, I have to ask: this unfortunate incident aside, are you all right? With your . . . feelings, and such?”

  Dani hesitated. Then she whispered honestly, “I’m not sure.”

  Chloe pinned her with an all-seeing, older sister stare and made a soft, encouraging sound that meant, Do tell, before I drag it out of you on pain of death.

  Apparently, by engaging in a very snotty relationship-related breakdown, Dani had tipped her hand. Her strange-and-possibly-unhealthy-attitude-toward-relationships hand. For the sake of her remaining shreds of dignity, she tried her best to resist spilling her guts. Unfortunately, her iron will was more aluminum today, so after a few seconds, the whole story came tumbling out.

  Mateo and the things he’d said, Dani’s abject humiliation and gut-wrenching pain. The failures and rejections that came after, and the decision she’d made to avoid romance for good. All the things Dani had learned about love—or rather, about protecting herself from it—flooded the room, and her sisters descended into solemn silence. As she spoke, her shoulders lifted and her stormy emotions calmed, all the fears she’d never admitted to finally flowing free. By the time she was done, a weight that had lived in her gut for years had disappeared. Without it, she stood taller and saw things from an angle she hadn’t been able to reach in a while.

  Hmm. Fascinating. Perhaps discussing emotional nonsense did have some uses after all. It certainly made her feel better, and wasn’t that her latest goal? Taking care of herself as if she deserved it?

  You do deserve it. Maybe if she’d really understood that fact, she wouldn’t have hyperventilated at the unreserved tenderness in Zaf’s eyes that morning.

  As Dani’s halting speech ended, everyone—even Chloe—left their various seats to join her on the carpet, slipping an arm around her shoulders or squeezing her hand. She was surrounded by her sisters and her best friend, and it felt like being wrapped up in a blanket as soft as clouds and strong as armor. This was love, and part of her had always known that if she shared her darkest thoughts with these women, she’d receive such love instantly. Maybe she’d held off because deep down, she hadn’t thought she deserved it.

  Dani was starting to realize she’d treated the opinion of everyone who’d ever left her as an irrefutable truth: Danika Brown is not worthy of love. The trouble was, building a conclusion based on irrelevant or unreliable sources never worked. And when it came to Dani’s worthiness, the only source she should really value was herself.

  “Well,” Sorcha said after a moment. “I had no idea about all that.”

  “Nor,” Chloe murmured broodingly, “had I.” She paused. “Possibly because you never really tell us anything, darling.”

  Dani sniffed and scowled under the weight of three patient stares. “Yes, I do,” she lied.

  “No, you don’t,” Eve said. “I used to just read your diary, but then I got too old to avoid feeling guilty about it.”

  Dani stared. “Remind me to smack you for that at a later date.”

  “Why would I possibly remind you to smack—”

  “Girls,” Chloe interrupted. “Let’s focus on the issue at hand, shall we?”

  The issue, Dani assumed, being her sudden verbosity in the case of emotional sharing. She supposed her siblings’ and even Sorcha’s stares of astonishment were warranted; she certainly couldn’t remember ever word-vomiting all her pointless problems at anyone before. Except these days, they didn’t seem so pointless, and she had a feeling that Zaf—Zaf, who always listened; Zaf, who always cared; Zaf, who wanted everyone to know themselves—was partially responsible for that.

  She’d hate him for it, only she was quite tragically in love with him, so hate was proving difficult.

  “I remember that little shit Mateo,” Chloe went on. “Never liked him. I don’t trust southerners.”

  Oh. Apparently, the issue at hand wasn’t Dani’s attitude change; it was everything she’d just admitted. She dried her eyes and murmured, “Mateo was Welsh.”

  Chloe sniffed. “Wherever he was from, I don’t trust them.”

  Sorcha laughed. Eve snorted. And Dani felt incredibly light, despite the lump of sadness blocking her throat and making it hard to breathe.

  “You know,” Eve said thoughtfully, “you really ought to share with the class more often, Dan. Because now we know all of this, we can tell you helpful things, like: Mateo was a total scumbag. And: you should marry the Superman security guard. And: we love you.”

  Dani managed a wobbly smile and forced out a mortifyingly honest response. “I love you, too.”

  “Awwww!” Eve slapped a hand over her heart and pretended to faint. “You know what else I love? That this witch stuff actually works. You might have to teach me.”

  Sorcha rolled her eyes. “It’s not about whether or not it works, Eve.”

  But Dani was suddenly sure that it absolutely had.

  Before she could examine that thought further, the front door opened with a creak and the jangle of keys. “All right,” Redford called from the hallway. “If the guy I’m supposed to kill is that big fucker from the video, we’ll need an airtight plan.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  @ADRENAWIN: Are we still talking about that #DrRugbae thing, or . . . ?

  Texting Zaf after what had happened really didn’t seem like an option. The idea of talking to him over the phone, without being able to see his face—or, worse, calling and him not picking up—felt even more ill-advised. And turning up at his house after storming out just that morning wasn’t acceptable, either, not in Dani’s mind. She wanted to get this right. Not someone else’s idea of perfect, but right, for both of them.

  To put it simply, they needed to talk. Shudder. After she’d apologized. Double shudder. So Dani spent Sunday evening trimming her hair and dyeing it red for confidence while on the phone with her grandmother, searching for sage advice.

  “Men are difficult creatures,” Gigi said as Dani slapped scarlet gloop onto her head. “And it does sound as if you hurt his feelings, my dense little darling. Not that I blame you. You’re far too delicate to be expected to weather the drama of sudden romantic confessions.”

  Dani did not consider herself remotely delicate, but she decided now wasn’t the time to argue the point. “I was hoping you’d have some sort of magic tip to help me win him over.” Because if the tables had been turned—if she’d been brave enough to admit she loved Zaf, and he’d thrown it back in her face—Dani knew very well she wouldn’t be particularly understanding. Not even if she knew all about his reasons.

  Hurting a loved one was like running over someone’s foot; you rarely meant to do it, but the bones still broke.

  “Tips?” Gigi mused. “Hmm. I rarely bother winning people back, darling, so I’m afraid I won’t be much use. Unless you want to hear about oral techniques—”

  “Nooo, thank you. Nope. No. Definitely not.”

  “I didn’t think so. In that case, my beautiful buttercup—you know him best. You know how to explain and how to earn his fo
rgiveness. I don’t think anyone can help you with that.”

  The advice rang in Dani’s ears as she rushed to Echo bright and early Monday morning, Zaf’s cup of bitter black coffee warming her hand. She’d been too jittery to order a green tea for herself, gripped with the urgent need to see him, even if she had no idea how to explain herself, or make it up to him, or anything else. She just had to see him, and tell him she loved him, and then she’d figure it out from there.

  Except Zaf wasn’t at his desk.

  “Morning, duck.” George beamed as she strode into the foyer. “Nice hair.”

  “Oh,” Dani murmured, her steps faltering. “It’s . . . you.” She couldn’t help it if you came out sounding a bit like dog shit. She didn’t want George’s pink-cheeked smile. She wanted a grim-faced scowl.

  George appeared unperturbed by her less-than-warm welcome. “That for me?” he asked hopefully, reaching for the coffee.

  “No.” Dani jerked back, which was ridiculous. Zaf wasn’t here, and she certainly wasn’t going to drink his awful brew. But he must be around somewhere. He had to be. She needed to give him this, and tell him she was sorry, and see if he’d still brought her morning protein bar or if he’d absolutely washed his hands of Dani and her poor nutrition, which she wouldn’t blame him for. Not because of the nutrition itself, but because she’d been a shit. “Where is Zafir?”

  George gave her an odd look. “Called in sick. Thought you’d know.”

  Sick? “Right,” Dani said calmly, as if she weren’t absolutely stricken. “Of course.” But there was no of course about it. Zaf never called in sick. Never. She’d noticed that the same way she’d noticed everything about him, for months and months now: easily, without ever once realizing how closely she watched him or how fascinating she found even his mundanities.

  He was wonderful, he was everything, and she’d hurt him, and now he’d called in sick. Shame curdled like sour milk in her belly. “See you,” she muttered to George, and scurried up the stairs.