the time to lose his head over Danika’s hotness. He was supposed to be concentrating on taking back the fucked-up suggestion he’d just made.
“It was a bad idea,” he said. “I know that. I’ve been reading too many romance novels. No one fakes relationships in real life.”
“Faking a relationship,” she said slowly, as if she were turning the words over on her tongue, examining them as she spoke. “I thought that’s what you meant.”
He searched her tone for amusement or annoyance or something, and came up completely blank. Studied her expression and saw nothing but that familiar thoughtfulness. He’d always liked the way she considered things, the way she learned them inside and out before expressing her thoughts, but right now it was fucking killing him. “Bad idea,” he repeated, trying to ignore the thud of his heart against his ribs. “Even if you wanted to, you probably couldn’t. You might be with someone. Or gay. Or both. Probably both. I never asked. I know you were dating that professor—”
“You know about Jo?” For the first time, Dani sounded kind of . . . off. Upset, maybe.
“I don’t know nothing about nothing.” Clearly. Zaf shoved the final bite of his sandwich in his mouth to shut himself up. In hindsight, he probably should’ve done that a good ten minutes ago.
Her lips quirked, and the tension faded from her mouth, her shoulders. “Okay. Well, I’m not gay.”
He swallowed. “Right.”
“I’m bisexual.”
“Got it.” He crushed his sandwich wrapper into a ball and reminded himself that just because Danika was into guys didn’t necessarily mean she was into security guards with the social skills of a fucking brick wall.
“And, no, I don’t have a partner,” she went on. “I don’t do the commitment thing. Ever.”
Well, shit. Zaf wasn’t exactly in a hurry to find a relationship—he had his own crap to deal with, and sometimes that crap seemed never ending. But he still valued commitment. He still envied old married couples. He still remembered the love his parents had had, the love his brother and Kiran had had, and wanted it despite the danger of loss. If commitment wasn’t for Dani, then she and Zaf weren’t for each other.
So stop thinking about her like that.
Yeah, yeah. Easier said than done. “Ever?” he repeated, trying not to sound too invested in her response. “Like . . . you don’t want to find some nice young, erm, person, and settle down and—?”
“No,” she said, looking unusually severe all of a sudden, shadows obscuring the light in her eyes.
“Are you, erm . . .” Right on time, he forgot the technical term he’d been looking for. “You don’t . . . get those . . . feelings?” he asked, then wondered why the fuck he was delving even deeper into what was clearly personal shit. Like he hadn’t talked himself into enough holes today.
But Dani didn’t seem irritated by the question—more by the topic itself. “Am I aromantic? Sadly, no. Coupledom simply doesn’t suit my constitution. Aside from which, I am entirely too busy for dating and ego-stroking and sharing my feelings and meeting people’s parents.” Her expression grew more and more disgusted with each item she listed. Zaf might have laughed, if something about her carefully disinterested tone wasn’t setting off alarm bells in his head.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “But—you know that sharing your feelings is always important, right? Whether you do the romance thing or not.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Is this part of your workshop? Are you going to make me throw a ball, too?”
He sighed. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just describe rugby as throwing a ball.” He was also going to pretend that the cold weight of disappointment in his belly had nothing to do with his personal feelings for Danika Brown. He was only bothered by all this because, if she had no time for a relationship, she wouldn’t have time to fake one. It had nothing to do with her smile, or how smart she was, or the fact that she brought him coffee no matter how busy she got, or anything else like that, because if it did, he might have to admit that his crush was a little bit more than a crush.
It wasn’t, though. More, that is. Definitely just a crush.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Okay. No relationships for you. You know what? Can we just forget about—?”
“No relationships for me,” she interrupted, “which means that I’m perfectly free to fake date you.”
It was a good