Take a Hint, Dani Brown

by Talia Hibbert

  But this video . . . “It’s too much,” he said, and his voice came out rough and croaky. “Too many people. Attention isn’t always a good thing, Kiran, you know that.” Back when Dad and Zain had died, there’d been . . . a news drought, or something. Zaf had already stood out more than he should, being one of few Muslim pros, non-practicing or otherwise. Journalists had been all over his “tragic” story like flies on shit, and his world had shattered under someone else’s microscope. So, no, attention wasn’t always a good thing. He’d learned that when the press had turned his family’s unhappy ending into a sports section headline.

  Kiran looked up, a flash of sympathy in her eyes. The teasing satisfaction left her voice in an instant. “Things are different now, Zafir.”

  Yeah, they were. Didn’t mean he wanted complete strangers asking him about those differences. His gaze drifted to the family photo wall, dominated by old pictures that included Dad and Zain Bhai, frozen in time forever. The poltergeist of his grief curled itself up tight inside him. Pain was private. Some things weren’t for public consumption. There were lines.

  In life, there were always lines. Good or bad. You just had to figure them out and stick to the winning play. Stay on track.

  “I did this to help you,” Fatima said, “because you’re social media illiterate. This is big, Chacha. The hashtag’s on Twitter and everything. I knew you wouldn’t take advantage of your viral moment.”

  Zaf was perfectly fine with being “social media illiterate” if it meant he didn’t say shit like viral moment.

  “And this particular video has nothing to do with Dad and Dadaji,” Fatima went on, her gaze unnervingly sharp. “People aren’t talking about that at all. They’re talking about your super-romantic opposites-attract love story.”

  That statement pricked the balloon of Zaf’s worry, because as far as he could tell—and he may have obsessively scrolled through the comments on his way here—it was true. Hmm.

  “This associates your name with something positive. The more people think about #DrRugbae, the less they’ll remember about . . . before,” Fatima insisted.

  “Doctor what?” Mum interjected. “What is this love-story nonsense? Zafir?”

  “It’s not a love story,” Zaf gritted out. “My friend got stuck in a lift.”

  “And you just had to carry her out in your big, strong arms,” Fatima snorted.

  “I think,” Kiran said with a slow, dangerous smile, “that I’d like to see this famous video.”

  Zaf glared at his niece. “I am regretting every time I ever fed you as a child. I should have let you starve.”

  “You shouldn’t be embarrassed about your new girlfriend. If your follower count is anything to go by, she’s getting Tackle It a ton of publicity.”

  That was . . . an interesting way to look at it, but for one crucial detail. “Great, except she’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Well, maybe she should be. I like Dani. She’s smart and funny and a good teacher.”

  Mum made a sound that suggested she was moments from a pride-and-excitement-induced heart attack. “Zafir is marrying a teacher? From a university?”

  Kiran, meanwhile, narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Wait. Is this the woman you’re always telling me about, with the hair and the books and whatever?”

  Aaand that was his cue to leave. He pointed at Fatima and said ominously, “I’m not done with you.”

  She snorted. Kids these days had no healthy fear of their elders.

  “Zaf,” Kiran said, “you can’t ignore me forever. Or even for an hour, usually.”

  “Fatima!” Mum was practically shrieking now. “Show me that video!”

  “All right,” Zaf said loudly, “love you guys, gotta go.”

  “Wait! Zafir! Where are you going?”

  He was already at the front door. He may have sprinted. “Bye!”

  Only when he was partway to his flat did Zaf realize he’d failed in his mission to kill his niece, or even properly shout at her. But every time he thought about it, he saw Fluff’s happy little face and heard her calmly explaining how she’d actually done him a favor, and he felt bad about telling her off.

  Which didn’t mean she was right. Obviously.

  Zaf wandered out of the neighborhood he’d grown up in, a working-class one that his family had always refused to leave, occupied by Pakistanis like them, other South Asians, West Africans, Jamaicans. His own city apartment was less diverse and way less familiar, but on the plus side, he didn’t have any neighbors to make nice with. Or make eye contact with. These things swung in roundabouts.

  As he moved through the city streets, passing the glowing signs and lit-up windows of chicken shops and dive bars, he muttered under his breath, “This is not a good thing. This is not a good thing. And what the hell is Dani going to say?” He had no idea, but he didn’t think women generally appreciated becoming social media sensations without their consent. This could affect her work or something. And Zaf knew her well enough to realize that if that happened, she’d sneak into his flat and slit his throat as he slept.

  But when he got home and checked his phone again, he was . . . thoughtful. Fatima had been right about the boom in his follower count. There were more comments and likes under his pictures than ever, most people actually interacting with the content or asking questions about the nonprofit. Other people were commenting #DrRugbae and IS THIS REALLY ZAFIR ANSARI?, which kind of ruined the effect—but no one, he noticed, had posted anything about his “tragic past.” People used to call him that all the time. Tragic.

  He pushed that thought away, along with the flare of old, aching anger it caused, and switched over to Twitter. Typed in that ridiculous hashtag. Took a breath, propped his legs up on the sofa, and started reading.

  @BEYONCESBANGS: #DrRugbae if you know, you know.

  @SLYTHERINBIH: Uhhh everyone at NGU knew about #DrRugbae lol they basically shag on the desk every morning in Echo

  @HOLLY_COOKE: Does this mean nerdy girls get pro sports players now? #DrRugbae

  @POPPYANNACOOKE: Ha, maybe if they look like THAT nerdy girl.

  He scrolled until his eyes blurred and saw not one mention of his brother or his dad, not one mention of death and pain. Fatima’s earlier words came back to him, and something hopeful and daring and a little bit ridiculous stirred in his chest. Then he switched over to his DMs, scowled at the influx of messages from strangers—and saw, buried in the chaos, one from the Nottingham Post.

  Zaf stared. Blinked, hard. Stared some more. He tapped the account, noticed the verified check mark, and fought a spike of anxiety before hopping off the sofa and starting to pace.

  “Open it,” he told himself. “Just open it. If it’s some bullshit question, you can delete it and block them. It’s social media. You have control over social media.”

  Well—you did unless someone filmed you salivating over a work friend and posted it online and it went viral. But still. He had control over this. So he sat down and opened the message, and his old, habitual nerves were replaced by a fizzy, sunshine sort of shock. No invasive questions about dark times or personal struggles here—just invasive questions about his nonexistent relationship.

  Hi Zafir,

  Hope you’re well. Our team is planning to cover the adorable #DrRugbae video, and we were hoping you and your girlfriend might have something to add before we publish. Is there anything you’d like to say about the video? We’d love to mention all the good you’re doing with Tackle It, too.

  Holy shit. They’d love to mention Tackle It? Maybe Fatima was right. Zaf tapped out the first few words of a response, then deleted it all at once.

  You and your girlfriend. That’s what the message said: they thought Dani was his girlfriend. If he replied, he’d need to correct them. But if he corrected them, why the fuck would they write about this hashtag bullshit? Why would they write about Tackle It? And how would he do just what Fluffy had said and . . . and change people’s associations?

 
He didn’t know. But the hopeful stirring in his chest was a roar now, and the half-formed, impossible idea in his mind was so wrong it made him feel kind of dizzy, and he couldn’t make himself type out the words She’s not my girlfriend. He couldn’t. Through the tangle of fevered, guilty thoughts, one thing stood out nice and clear: he needed to talk to Dani.

  But first, he better figure out what the fuck he wanted to say.

  Chapter Five

  “No umbrella?” Sorcha tutted as she popped hers open. “You trollop.”

  “It was sunny this morning,” Dani sniffed. “I’m sure you can’t blame me for the indecision of the weather, darling.” Not to mention she’d been somewhat distracted since, erm, “going viral” on Monday. It was Wednesday now, and Dani remained in a befuddled sort of fugue state, which did not lend itself well to remembering umbrellas.

  Of course, she’d made sure to apply mascara. Apparently, one never knew when one might be recorded and posted online without permission.

  “It’s March, babe. What did you think was going to happen?” Sorcha rolled her eyes and held the umbrella between them, though she favored her own head a little more. The bitch. “If this blowout curls up, I’ll kill somebody. Possibly you.”

  “That threat would work better if you ever attempted to follow through,” Dani murmured, but her focus had already drifted away from the icy drizzle and toward the mammoth building ahead. Sorcha was a writer, and she tended to get . . . edgy every time she submitted a manuscript, so today Dani had paused her symposium preparation to drag Sorcha off for an emergency cupcake in town. Now they were returning to campus, which meant walking past Echo.

  Echo, of course, meant Zaf.

  Yesterday morning, while she’d waited in line for his coffee and her green tea, Dani had devised a cunning plan: first, she would ask Zaf when on earth he’d been planning to mention the whole “pro rugby player” situation. Second, they would laugh together over silly social media frenzies and the vagaries of human nature. And third, she would somehow segue smoothly from that sparkly bonding moment into the fact that they were apparently destined to bone.

  But he’d ruined everything by barely talking to her at all. She’d entered the building to discover that Zaf had lost his marbles and was demanding students line up to scan their cards at his desk, rather than the more casual policy adopted by, oh, every campus security guard ever. When Dani had tried to hover (in order to chat about ridiculous videos and lonely vaginas and so on), he’d grabbed his coffee, practically thrown a protein bar at her, and proceeded to look pointedly busy. When she’d come down from her class hours later, George had been at the desk in his place. Apparently, Zaf had just nipped to the loo.

  The bastard was avoiding her, and heaven only knew why.

  Dani didn’t teach on Wednesdays, so she probably could’ve popped in today and caught him by surprise, but that seemed undignified. It wouldn’t do for Zaf to see that she was bothered by his sudden distance. Or rather, for him to think she was bothered. Which she wasn’t.

  Sorcha must’ve followed Dani’s gaze toward the building, because she purred, “Planning to visit your boyfriend, hmm?”

  “Stop,” Dani muttered. The word boyfriend made her stomach seize up like a gazelle in the face of danger. “Maybe I’m paranoid, but I swear students keep pointing their phones at me.”

  “Oh, they are,” Sorcha said, sounding disgracefully unconcerned. “Who knew Zaf was famous?”

  “He’s not famous famous.” The words were automatic, but Dani wasn’t sure if they were true. He certainly wasn’t A-list, or even C-list, but judging by the comments Eve had read out last night, Zaf had once been reasonably well known. Which didn’t concern Dani—after all, her grandmother Gigi had been something of a musical legend in the sixties and remained a classic sex symbol. But Dani had always known that about Gigi, while she was beginning to wonder if she’d ever known anything about Zaf.

  Which was a ridiculously dramatic thought, one she shook out of her head immediately. He was a friend from work, not her lifelong confidante. He didn’t owe her bloody confessionals across the security desk. He didn’t owe her anything.

  Still . . . “Did you know,” Dani said out loud, apparently unable to help herself, “that he runs some sort of charity?”

  “Does he?”

  “Eve showed me his account last night. It’s supposedly his account, anyway. He uses rugby to teach boys to embrace their emotions. The website was all, something-something-something, toxic masculinity. You know.”

  “Hmmm,” Sorcha said slyly. “Interesting. And speak of the devil.”

  Dani knew exactly who she’d see even before she turned her head.

  Huddled just inside the entrance to Echo’s underground car park stood an unmistakable, imposing figure in a security uniform. Zaf was eating what looked like a sub from the union restaurant, his hair spilling over his eyes like black ocean. But it was obviously him. No one else had those thighs, which were thick and muscular and looked in danger of splitting his uniform trousers, or that torso, which seemed, beneath his navy-blue jacket, like the kind of solid core an Olympic shot-putter or possibly the Hulk might possess. And no one else, Dani might as well admit, made the constant thoughts and ideas whirring in her mind stutter, momentarily, to a stop.

  Being as effortlessly sexy as Zafir Ansari should really be illegal, or at least regulated. He must represent some sort of danger to the public.

  “I should probably go and talk to him,” Dani said absently, because it was true. They had things to discuss, such as their sudden viral fame and why the fuck he was acting so strangely. Again, not that she cared.

  “Talk to him? About your feelings? In the rain? How romantic.”

  “No one mentioned feelings,” Dani muttered. “I’ll meet you in the library.”

  Sorcha batted her lashes. “Unless you get lost in Zaf’s eyes on the way there.”

  “Oh, gag.” Dani wrapped her cardigan around herself—why hadn’t she brought a jacket this morning?—and left the umbrella’s protection behind.

  Everything was muted and cool in the concrete entryway of the car park, the sound of rain fading a little and the air growing sharp. The closer she got to Zaf, the more she noticed the shadows beneath his eyes and the tense line of his jaw. He’d looked like that yesterday, too, slightly haunted as he avoided her gaze and grumped at poor, innocent undergrads. It occurred to Dani all at once that, if he never mentioned his background, maybe he didn’t want people to know. But now it seemed as if everyone knew.

  She was busy frowning at the pang that thought caused in her chest when Zaf finally noticed her. He pulled out one of his earbuds and said with a defeated air, “Danika.”

  “Sorry. Did I ruin your plan to avoid me?”

  He screwed up his face and scrubbed at his beard, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath. Which was both ridiculous and impossible, and yet, that’s how it felt. Then he sighed, “Yeah, actually. But I wasn’t enjoying it much, anyway, so I’m glad you’re here.”

  Everyone and everything exhaled.

  “Of course you’re glad,” she said. “The real question is why you’d avoid me in the first place.”

  “And the short answer,” he replied, “is that I was, er, thinking about some things.”

  “That sounds like heavy-duty thinking.”

  “Well, we don’t all have as much practice as you.” Before she could formulate a response to that, he changed the subject, a little furrow forming between his eyebrows. “Why aren’t you wearing a coat?”

  Oh, not this again. “It was sunny this morning,” Dani said for the second time in ten minutes, sounding defensive even to her own ears.

  Zaf shook his head, unzipping his jacket and shifting his sandwich from hand to hand as he slid out of the sleeves. “You need someone to keep an eye on you.”

  “Keep saying that and I might decide you’re a misogynist.”

  “Is that what you think?” He wrapped his jacket ar
ound her shoulders, then squeezed her upper arm. His eyes met hers, not with a challenge, but with quiet, open care—as if he was actually waiting for a response.

  “Well, no. I was joking.”

  “Oh. Good.” He smiled slightly, and they stood like that for long moments, close and connected in the shadows. Dani thought she felt a gentle tug within her chest, as if there was a ribbon tied around her breastbone, connected to the curve of Zaf’s solemn mouth.

  Then he let go, and stepped back, and took a bite of his sandwich, and the moment dissolved. Which was fortunate, as she had no idea what the bloody hell had just happened and would prefer to forget about it completely.

  To that end, she cleared her throat and gave her borrowed jacket an assessing stare. “Hmm. Not bad. And it’s almost black.”

  “Yep. One hundred percent nylon, too. Nothing but luxury.”

  She laughed, but the sound was slightly breathless. His fault: she could see more of him now he’d stripped off for her. The way his shirt stretched tight over his chest, the corded muscle on his exposed forearms—it was all deliriously visible. The hair on his arms was dense and black and silky. He had ridiculously thick wrists. His hands were big and long-fingered and he was currently using them to unplug his earbuds from his phone.

  “Listening to porn again?” she asked, pushing all horny thoughts firmly aside. Small talk, then sexual propositions, that was the rule. Although, she supposed discussing porn might be blurring boundaries. Oh, well.

  Zaf’s cheeks flushed darker. “I was never listening to porn. I listen to romance novels.”

  Erm . . . what?

  “I beg your pardon,” she sputtered after a moment. “Did you just say you listen to romance novels?”