Take a Hint, Dani Brown - Talia Hibbert Page 0,108
was working on it.
Jamal flicked him in the back of the head. “You’re moping.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Look at your face—you’re moping.” Jamal steered him around a corner and down the street.
“Maybe I’m pissed because you just dragged me outside for no reason. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Nothing you need to panic about, anyway. I promise.”
A promise from Jamal was good enough to ease the threat of flickering anxiety, but Zaf still couldn’t stop himself from guessing. “Is this about one of the kids?”
“Nah. All good.”
Zaf thought some more. “Are you going to propose to Kiran?”
Jamal rolled his eyes. “Inshallah, obviously I’m gonna propose to Kiran.”
“And you’re taking me to discuss this on the . . . rugby field?” Because that’s where they’d wound up, he realized, as they stepped onto the familiar grass. “Right now? Is it that urgent?” A thought occurred, and Zaf thumped his friend in the shoulder. “Are you doing it today?”
“No. I haven’t even got a ring.” Jamal looked genuinely nervous for once in his laid-back life. “What kind of ring do you get a woman like that? Plus, it has to match the first one.”
The ring Zain Bhai gave her, the one she’d never taken off. Zaf’s heart squeezed, but it wasn’t discomfort so much as awed, gentle envy.
Love could hurt so bad, but fuck was it good.
Zaf was going back to work tomorrow. He had to. Maybe Danika would sail right past him as if they’d been nothing, maybe he’d have to chain himself to his desk so he wouldn’t chase after her like some lovestruck hero, but he needed to see her. Or he’d never get the chance to tell her he was sorry. Or to tell her that, if she didn’t want his love, fine—but if she did, it would always be there.
Always.
“So,” Zaf croaked, “you want ring advice?”
“From you? For what? Like you’re some fashion icon. I’ll ask Fluffy, thanks very much.”
Zaf laughed—and then, freed from the distraction of his sister’s possible proposal, he finally noticed the goalposts at the far end of the field. The ones they were walking toward right now. The ones that usually stood plain and unadorned, the white paint chipped and the metal rusting in places, against the backdrop of the field and the cluster of silver beeches just behind it.
Today those posts had countless bunches of huge, bright flowers wrapped around them. Every inch of metal, up to the crossbar, was hidden by white and red carnations, each bigger than Zaf’s fist, a sea of petals scattered on the mud beneath the goal. Behind that spectacle, in the long evening shadows cast by the beeches, was a group of teenage boys perched on BMXs, who all started waving. They shouted over each other like excitable puppies given human form.
“Here he is!
“Here, Zaf, we kept an eye on all this because—”
“Fucking Ollie Carpenter was sniffing up here, but—”
“Quiet, quiet, we’re supposed to fuck off now.”
“Cheers, lads,” Jamal called, and they all dispersed.
Zaf stared. “What—?” Then someone else walked out of the shadows. The last person he’d ever expected to see, a living fantasy—but he felt the evening breeze on his cheeks and the familiar give of the earth beneath his feet and knew this was real. “Danika,” he breathed.
“Right,” Jamal said, nodding happily. “You don’t look pissed, so this is my cue. In a bit.”
“What? Wait—”
Jamal was already jogging off, back in the direction they’d come. Which left Zaf alone, confused, cautiously hopeful, and absolutely dizzy with longing.
He looked at Dani. Dani looked at him. There were only a hundred meters between them now, but he couldn’t make his feet move. He also couldn’t stop his eyes from devouring her. Her hair was red, just like the day they’d met—when she’d looked up from her phone and her smile had hit him like a sledgehammer. He might have been doomed from that moment on.
Or maybe doomed wasn’t the right word anymore.
Today, she wore a black sundress covered with tiny, silver moons and black sandals with a blocky sort of heel that couldn’t be comfortable on mud and grass like this. She looked perfect, of course. She always looked perfect, even wringing her hands like she was right now.
“Zaf,” she called across the distance. “Are you—are you going to come over here?”
He swallowed. Examined his own buzzing mind and frozen feet. Replied honestly, if a little hoarsely, “Can’t.”
She hesitated. “Okay.”
Another pause as they studied each other. Maybe he was a fool, to look at her now and feel so