“It’s not broken, Zaf,” Jamal snorted. “People are . . . following you, or commenting, or—” He broke off with a shrug. “Something.”
“Why?”
“Oh my days.” Lucas sighed and snatched the phone. “Put your finger on the button.”
“What? Oh, yeah.” Zaf unlocked the phone and watched Lucas tap rapidly at the screen. He wondered if the younger generation had the strongest thumbs known to mankind. Maybe from now on, kids would be born that way, like evolution.
A few more taps, and the angry buzzing cut out.
Zaf exhaled. “What did you do?”
“Turned off push notifications.”
Zaf caught Jamal’s eye and mouthed, What?
Jamal wrinkled his nose. Dunno.
“Now let’s see what’s going off,” Lucas muttered. More taps, and then a moment of frozen surprise on the kid’s face. After a second, the surprise melted into a shit-eating grin that made Zaf, who understood teenagers much better than he’d like, feel nervous.
Very nervous.
“What?” he demanded. “What is it?”
Lucas looked up, his blue eyes dancing in a way that didn’t help Zaf’s nerves one fucking bit. “@FatimaAnsari’s tagged you in something.”
“Fatima’s always tagging me in things.” Zaf frowned, holding out his hand for the phone. “What is it?”
But Lucas skipped out of reach and said loudly, “Zaf. You didn’t tell us you had a girl!”
The handful of boys who hadn’t left yet dropped their bikes, their heads snapping up like predators smelling blood on the breeze. A second later, they swarmed Lucas like piranhas.
“What are you on about?” Zaf demanded.
The boys were jostling to see the phone now, muttering shit like “Give it here” and “Whoa. Who is that?”
“Look, look, look.” Lucas pointed a gleeful finger at the screen and said, “Dr. Rugbae!”
Everyone fell about laughing.
Zaf surged forward, but the kids swerved him like some kind of athletic hivemind. It was Jamal who finally managed to grab the phone. But once he saw the screen, he started laughing, too.
“What?” Zaf growled. “Give it to me before I knock your block off.”
“Go steady,” Lucas tutted. “Don’t think your missus would approve. Since she’s a doctor and all.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Mate.” Jamal shook his head, his laughter fading as he held out the phone. “Just—don’t lose it, okay? And don’t kill Fatima.”
Zaf accepted the phone with a frown . . . and stared down at a video of himself carrying Danika Brown out of Echo like she was a fairy-tale princess and he was a devoted knight. Holy shit. Holy shit. Embarrassment flared to life like a forest fire, burning hotter with every second the video played. Dani smiled at the camera like a vixen, and Zaf stared dreamily down at her like she was the source of all sunshine. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Who the hell looked at their friends like that? If she saw this video—
If she saw this video, she’d probably think he was obsessed with her, or in love with her, or one of those douchebag “nice guys” who only befriended women because he secretly wanted to sleep with them. They’d have to have a painfully awkward conversation where she explained that she wasn’t interested, that the coffee and the occasionally flirtatious jokes were just friendship and lighthearted banter, and shit, she’d thought he knew. And it would be especially galling because he did fucking know. Of course he did.
So why are you looking at her like that?
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Jamal said, sounding unusually cheerful—practically fucking gleeful, actually. “But I’m assuming that’s the woman you’re always mooning over, the one who brings you coffee. Yeah?”
“Coffee!” the lads crowed, as if Jamal had said, The one who blows you every morning. Zaf would have told them all to fuck off, but they were just excited kids, and also, he was too busy trying not to die of embarrassment.
“I don’t moon over her,” he muttered darkly. What the hell did that even mean? And how did you delete a video someone else had posted to Instagram? While he tried to figure that out, his gaze drifted to the number of views and comments—and his heart plummeted through his body like a lead weight. Which didn’t feel too healthy.
How many views? And there was a hashtag—a bloody ridiculous one—and his name. What rugby-obsessed weirdo had recognized him, bearded and seven years older, on some random internet video? He didn’t know, but the fact it had happened at all made his heart pound. And, since his heart was currently rolling around in his stomach, the sensation was even more uncomfortable