he did: anxiety. That was why. But still. Dani was never going to treat him like a sideshow, because she was a good person. And if she had, she wouldn’t have been a good person, so what she thought wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
He’d never . . . he’d never quite looked at it like that.
“I was at practice,” he said, steeling his spine because if he didn’t, he might wobble, just a little bit. “My phone was off. But it was a big crash, locally, and there were a couple of sports outlets that paid extra attention to me—I don’t know if you know, but there aren’t many Muslim rugby players. It was a, er, point of interest.” He rolled his eyes as he said the words. “Most of them were just waiting for me to fuck up. But anyway. I got more press than I technically should’ve, and when I left practice, there was a reporter waiting for me.”
Dani’s eyes widened. “Zaf . . .”
“He told me. He said, ‘Zafir, how do you feel about the tragic death of your father and brother?’ ”
She pressed a shaking hand to her lips. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“I broke his nose.” Zaf paused. “That’s what I heard, anyway. I don’t really remember.” He flashed her a smile, because telling this story shouldn’t be sad; it was already too much to bear inside his head. “I was always surprised he didn’t press charges, but—”
“But you would’ve been well within your rights to murder him, and he probably knew it,” Dani snapped, rage flickering around her like flames, so intense he could feel the heat. He wasn’t angry anymore, had worked hard not to be, but for some reason he liked seeing that anger in her. Maybe because it was for him. She was feeling for him, and it made him hungry for more.
Get a grip. He cleared his throat and continued. “Life went downhill from there. Everything fell apart, or maybe I ripped it apart with my bare hands. I don’t know. I was kind of going through some shit.” She laughed softly then, just like he’d wanted her to, and even more pressure slipped away. “I made some bad choices, wanted to fight the world. And for about a week, a few of those right-wing rags decided following me around was their new favorite thing. It didn’t last long—I wasn’t famous enough. But it felt like forever to me. So now, I guess, I’m a bit . . . private.” That wasn’t the full story, just a fraction of it. Because the press had left Zaf alone eventually, but grief hadn’t. Not for a long, long time. He wasn’t going to tell her about the heights his anxiety had reached, or how it turned out depression could fuel rage like nothing else, or how bleak it felt when the fire ran out and the demons were all you had left. Not right now, anyway.
But the unexpected lightness in his chest made him think that he could. Some other time, he could.
Which was . . . novel, to say the least.
“I see,” Danika murmured, and he felt oddly certain that she did, at least a little bit. Her gaze was steady on his, and beneath the sadness, nothing had changed. There was no pity, no judgment ready and waiting to crush him. He was still himself, but the biggest relief was the fact that she was still Danika.
She would always be Danika. She would always be just fucking right.
Then she continued. “And I see what you meant, now, about your past, and not wanting to bring it into the present.”
He shrugged, clearing his throat. “Yeah. Well, what you and me are doing, it’s, er, changing associations, according to Fatima. Which helps.”
“Changing associations,” she repeated gently. “Interesting.”
He arched an eyebrow, because he could practically hear her mind whirring. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Just . . . I understand wanting to shift the narrative. But changing it completely—is that possible, in this case? I mean, your loss, and your anxiety, they’re at the root of why you started Tackle It. Aren’t they?”
He stared at her, unnerved by the ruthless way she drilled down into something he wasn’t always comfortable thinking about. “Well—I don’t know. Maybe. But it’s not—I’m not going to parade my family’s death like it’s part of the organizational ethos.” He realized he was sounding a little defensive, mostly because right now she reminded him of Jamal. And Kiran. And his