But Zaf wrestled with fear every day, and even when he lost, he came away bruised and bleeding because he’d tried. She couldn’t show her pathetic, nameless panic to a man like that. It would be fucking insulting.
The silence between them stretched before Zaf looked away. “Okay, sweetheart,” he sighed. “Okay.”
Dani knew what sighs meant: disappointment, dark and heavy, to match the sudden shadows in his eyes. Protecting him from that felt almost as important as protecting herself from drowning. “Zaf, I—I just have a lot going on right now. And interpersonal issues are not my strong suit.”
She watched his lips tip into a cautious smile and wanted to celebrate. “Interpersonal issues,” he repeated. “Is that what we’re having?”
“I—” I’m a coward. I’m lost. I’m addicted to being around you and I don’t know what I’ll do when it stops.
Maybe it shouldn’t stop.
“I don’t know what we’re having,” she said finally, “because I’m not best placed to analyze the situation at present.”
“Bad timing, huh?” His gaze caught hers and held. “You want me to wait, Dan? Ask me. Just ask, and I will.”
The words spilled from her lips without rational thought, pushed out by some needy, ravenous thing she couldn’t control. “Wait. Please.”
“All right,” he murmured. “I’m waiting.”
Something shimmered between them, something strange and dizzying. She was building up the nerve to examine it when Zaf turned away, heading back to the kitchen.
He opened her steaming egg fried rice and his own chow mein, grabbing cutlery as if nothing had happened and switching back to their previous topic. “We don’t have to talk about work if you don’t want to. We can watch TV instead.”
Dani hesitated. Felt a little ashamed of her weakness, and a lot like kissing him in gratitude. Finally, she asked, “Do you like zombie films?”
He looked up, and, God, he was so fucking beautiful. “Hell yeah, I do.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next week flew by so quickly, Zaf barely had enough time to be anxious. He still managed, obviously. But it was a tight squeeze.
Dani went into overdrive, preparing for the symposium, and Zaf . . . well, Zaf did what he could. There’d been a moment, on the night he’d brought her dinner, when he’d thought he’d ruined everything. That he’d been too honest, hinted too hard, reached for something bright and been doomed to burn.
Then she’d surprised him. Danika always surprised him.
Wait. Please.
They still didn’t talk about their feelings or sleep in the same bed. But that meadow of affection he’d been trying to starve, the one that bloomed inside his chest for her? All of a sudden, she wouldn’t let it die. When they had lunch together, her feet nudged his under the table where no one could see. When they rode the library elevator alone, she played with his hair. One night, after sex, she put her arm around him with such painful awkwardness, it took Zaf a while to realize what she was doing.
“Is this cuddling?” he asked, incredulous. “Just straight cuddling, no sex? Is that a thing we do?”
“Quiet, Ansari.” She smothered him with a pillow until he tickled her into submission.
Before long, he started coming over early to cook dinner. She’d eat saag paneer with one hand, the other clutching a book. “Sorry,” she’d say every so often. “I’m—sorry. I’m busy. You don’t have to do this.”
“I know,” he’d say. “I want to.”
She’d smile, and eat, and read. He’d crack out his laptop and catch up on work. But when the clock struck nine, without fail, she’d pull the computer gently from his grip and drag him off to the bedroom.
Not that he was complaining.
On one of those near-perfect nights, it happened. Zaf, his nerve endings still tingling from his orgasm, was pressing Dani against the living room wall as he kissed her good-bye. They did that, now: they kissed good-bye, like a couple who couldn’t wait to see each other again.
“All right,” he panted against her lips. “All right. I’m going.” He stepped back, already missing her.
Instead of opening the door to kick him out, she hesitated. “Wait. I, erm, mumfupdumpin,” she mumbled, padding over to the kitchen.
He squinted after her. “You what?”
Silence as she riffled through a drawer, then returned, clutching a little black pouch in her hands. She cleared her throat. “I made you something.” And then, while his brain was still processing those words, she shoved the pouch at him like a toddler presenting a finger painting.