“You have no idea.” Questions and concern successfully dodged, as always. Now they’d leave the conversation there, go inside, and never, ever discuss exactly what had triggered him, because Dani wasn’t his family or his forever, which meant she didn’t need to know.

But she looked at him—just looked at him, with this quiet, conscious acceptance, as if to say Maybe you’re hiding the whole story, but if you need to, I’ll let you. And something about that look leaned on every last one of Zaf’s pressure points—not in a painful way, not exactly. More like a massage that hurt really fucking good.

Maybe she wasn’t family or forever, but she was a really good friend. Beneath his memories of moments like this going pear-shaped, one undeniable fact shone like a star: Dani didn’t hurt people and she didn’t make things worse. She always—always—tried to make them better. That must be why, for the first time in a long time, he wanted to keep talking more than he wanted to shut someone down.

He could trust her. He did trust her. He would trust her.

“The thing is,” he said, “I’m nervous because, back when I used to play, something bad happened. One day my dad and brother were in a car crash, and they, uh, died.” He always stumbled over that part. Not because it hurt—although it really fucking did—but because it seemed so . . . small. So simple and flat and anticlimactic a phrase for something as monumental as death. You told people “they died,” and hell was folded up inside those two short words. Some people got it. Some people didn’t.

He knew the minute he met Dani’s eyes that she did.

“Oh,” she breathed, and caught both his hands in her own, as if she knew instinctively that once upon a time, he’d fallen apart—but if she just held him tightly enough now, the memory of it might be a little easier.

And it was easier with her hands on him and her eyes so soft and warm. Suddenly, he had no idea why he’d worried she might react the wrong way to any part of this story. Well, yes, 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 own doubtful midnight thoughts, wondering if he was making the right decision by keeping things separate, or just the easiest one.

“Of course not,” she replied firmly, but her eyes burned into him as if she saw things he’d rather hide. She put a hand over his chest for a moment, just the lightest touch, as if she’d needed to reach out and check his heart was still okay in there. “I was just thinking, Zaf, that . . . you’re brave. Most people, when something scars us, we hide it. When you started Tackle It, you framed a scar in gold. Don’t you think?” She waited, as if she actually thought he’d be able to respond to that.

Sorry, no. He was too busy trying to figure out why those words unraveled the knots in his chest so easily.

After a moment of silence, Dani shook her head and gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Sorry, that was . . . weird. Very weird.”

“No. No, that was—” Truer than I know what to do with, and I think I need a moment.

“Inappropriate,” she supplied wryly, “and dangerously close to maudlin.” He could hear the discomfort in her voice, knew she hadn’t meant to get emotional with him. Danika didn’t get emotional with anyone, and usually, he’d lecture her about that—but right now, it didn’t seem right.

Because Zaf was beginning to wonder if he had some shit of his own to sort through. When he’d started therapy, he’d been determined—really determined—to heal. To move on from a grief so huge that it might crush him if he couldn’t find a way to fold it up and make it safe. He would never be over Dad’s and Zain’s deaths, but fighting the darkness in his head had been like . . . like his battle cry.

Was it possible to move on too hard? So hard you became afraid of even glancing back? He didn’t know, and standing outside a radio station while his fake girlfriend tried to pretend she was the friendly neighborhood robot didn’t seem like a good time to figure it out.

“Anyway,” Dani was saying, “if anyone brings up your family during this interview, don’t worry. I’ll eat them.”

That startled a smile out of him. “Good to know. Jamal pretended to be my publicist and outlined what they could and couldn’t ask. So it should be fine, but . . .”

“But some people struggle with basic listening skills,” she finished, facing his fears head on. “Well, I can promise you this: I’ll be right beside you to misdirect whenever necessary. All right?”