“Thank you,” he murmured, his hand moving to stroke her hair. For once, she couldn’t bring herself to push that quiet, meaningful thanks back in his face, so she closed her eyes and waited.

Before long, he continued his story. “After the accident, I went a little bit off the rails. I think I already mentioned that. I’ve had anxiety ever since I can remember, but being without my dad and Zain—especially Zain . . .” Dani felt herself move with the rise and fall of Zaf’s chest as he took a deep breath. “There were seven years between us. My parents thought they couldn’t have another kid, but then I showed up. So he was kind of like a junior dad, you know what I mean? He was always there, and then he was gone, and I just couldn’t fucking breathe. People think anxiety makes you nervous all the time, and it can. But no one ever talks about how it makes you angry. Eventually the anger faded, though, and after that, I was . . . nothing. For a long, long time, I was nothing.”

Dani felt the pain in his voice like a punch to the chest. “No, you weren’t. You’re always something, Zaf. Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when you don’t feel anything, you’re still kind, and smart, and thoughtful, and one grumpy motherfucker. You’re still you.”

His smile was faint but real, and she was greedy for it. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.” He pulled her closer, kissed her cheek. “At the time, it was romance novels that reminded me. Since you’ve never read one, that probably sounds weird. But it’s all about emotion, Dan—the whole thing, the whole story, the whole point. Just book after book about people facing their issues head on, and handling it, and never, ever failing—at least, not for good. I felt like my world had already ended unhappily, but every book I read about someone who’d been through the worst and found happiness anyway seemed to say the opposite. Like my story didn’t need to be over if I didn’t want it to. Like, if I could just be strong enough to reclaim my emotions, and to work through them, maybe I’d be okay again. That’s kind of what inspired me to, er, keep going. To make good choices, even when feeling better seemed impossible.”

There was a flood of something soft and all-consuming in Dani’s chest, and it was entirely for him. She didn’t know how to express something this big—couldn’t even give it a name. But she wanted him to feel it. So she pressed little kisses into his skin, every part of him that she could reach, and when he slowly started to relax beneath her, she knew he understood.

She also knew now, really knew, why romance meant so much to him—not just the books, but that search for his own happily ever after. She’d thought he was just sweet, loving, maybe a little old-fashioned, but now she realized he was . . . inspired. That he was one of those people, one of many, whose lives had been forever changed by someone else’s words. And that wasn’t something Dani treated lightly. She made her living out of words. She knew very well that they could be everything.

Which made this new information intimidating, to say the least.

This fresh glimpse inside Zaf’s head made her lungs constrict, made her bones creak with the threat of extra weight, extra pressure. But she steeled her spine and tried to breathe through it, because now wasn’t the time to worry about all the ways she could disappoint him. And anyway, it wasn’t as if they were in love or something. They were just together, and trying. That was all. Baby steps.

But a nervous little voice in the back of her mind whispered, You know where he wants those baby steps to take you.

She pushed the voice away and focused on what mattered—on Zaf.

“Will you tell me about your family?”

“Yeah.” He heaved a breath, and smiled. “You’ve met my niece. I know she acts like a normal human being in public, but don’t trust it; she’s feral.”

“You must be very proud.”

“Obviously. As for the rest of them . . . you’d like my sister—my sister-in-law, Kiran. She’s always in control. Thinks big. Focused. She runs a dress shop with my mum, and thousands of people follow her on Instagram to, er, look at her outfits.”

“Really? Good Lord, she must dress well.”

“Yeah.”

“That explains why you have such firm opinions on clothing.”

“No, it doesn’t. I only have firm opinions on your clothing. The opinions are that you look great in it and even better out of it.” He said these things with a matter-of-factness that had her grinning like a loon. “My mum,” he went on, “is bonkers, good at hiding it, and spends most of her life silently laughing at the rest of us while pretending to be calm and dignified.”

“Oh, she sounds wonderful.”

“She is,” Zaf said, with feeling. “And then, of course, there’s my dad and my brother. Dad was big into computers and had no idea why I hated school or why I liked running around on a pitch getting beat up, but he supported me anyway. He came to my games and cheered whenever I touched the ball, even when everyone else was silent.” He laughed at the memory, and the sound made Dani’s heart lift. “And Zain Bhai . . . Zain was my hero. He loved books and he loved rugby, almost as much as I did. He actually got up for dawn prayer every day, but he didn’t judge me if I overslept. When I started struggling with anxiety as a kid, he’s the one who noticed and figured out what was going on. He explained to my parents that it was serious and it was real, and he took me to the doctor. He was just . . .” Zaf’s voice cracked slightly before he recovered. “He was just special. And I miss him.”

Dani bit her lip, because if she didn’t, a tsunami of emotion might spill out and drown them both. “Thank you,” she managed eventually, “for telling me.”

“Thanks,” he said softly, “for being someone I can tell. I wish . . .”

“What do you wish?”

“That they could meet you.” He shrugged. “But at least Mum can.”

The solemnity of the moment was cracked by the strained, wheezing noise Dani made as she choked on her tongue. “You . . . want me to meet your mother?” she squeaked.

“Er . . .” He gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “You sound like you want to jump out of a window right now.”

“No! No, nooo, no. It’s just . . .” She could count on one hand the number of family meetings she’d been involved in, post-Mateo. Actually, she could count on one finger, and that had been an unfortunate accident involving bad sex (there had been whipped cream, much to the dismay of both Dani and her vaginal pH), mind-blowingly poor timing, and a spare key under the doormat.

“Relax,” Zaf snorted. “I’m not trying to wheel you out already. I’m just assuming it’ll happen eventually, unless you develop some seriously impressive avoidance skills.”

Dani gave a nervous laugh and wondered just how serious those avoidance skills might have to be. Not that she’d ever avoid Zaf’s last remaining parent, whom he spoke about with such love in his voice, and with whom he was clearly quite close, and who might easily hate Dani’s guts or generally disapprove of her hair and her boobs and her witchcraft, not that Dani would care, but Zaf might care, and—

“All right,” he said firmly, a slight smile curving his lips. “New subject, before your head explodes.”

“My head’s not going to explode.”

“No, it’s not, because we’re changing the subject.”

She laughed. How could he always make her laugh? And why did he seem so much calmer about all this, as if things between them hadn’t transformed out of nowhere? Not that she was complaining, exactly. One of them needed to stay calm through all this new territory, and it made sense that Zaf would be that one. Even now, the way he touched her, the easy rhythm of his breaths and the warmth in his eyes, made her heart rate slow a little more.

His thumb stroked her cheekbone, a soothing motion that went on for long moments before he spoke again. “I once asked you why you didn’t believe in relationships.”

“I remember.”

“You gave me an answer. But I’ve been wondering lately,” he said, his tone careful, “if you told me everything.”

Dani swallowed. “No. I didn’t.”

Beneath the sheets, his hands found her waist and held on tight. “Do you want to tell me now?”

Not really. That was her gut instinct, anyway, but for once, she didn’t quite agree with it.

She thought about all the things he’d told her, all the troubles he’d shared with her simply because she’d asked him to. The pain he’d endured, and fought, and beaten, and how honored she felt every time he gave her a glimpse of it. If he could tell her all that, surely she could tell him an embarrassing story or two, couldn’t she?

Yes. Yes, she could.

So Dani began. “I did fall in love once. During undergrad, I met a boy called Mateo. I’d never been in a relationship before him—I suppose I was a late bloomer. And a giant nerd.”

Zaf squeezed her hip. “You’re still a giant nerd.”

“This is true, but I was worse back then. Finding time to balance my giant nerdery with actual human interaction has never come naturally to me.”

His lips twitched. “Really?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“I’m just saying, I hadn’t noticed.”