And the fact he’d noticed that, and was now ascribing significance to it, made Zaf want to smother himself.
It turned out that was physically impossible, though, so he compromised by rereading one of his favorite books on Sunday. A romance, obviously. Happy ending, obviously. That was what he wanted: a happy ending. And yes, he’d learned the hard way that those didn’t always last, but he wasn’t going to shoot himself in the foot by getting attached to a woman who didn’t want one at all.
The reminder worked.
During their Sunday-night phone call, he barely mooned over Danika at all. During his post–phone call wank (unavoidable—she had a sexy voice, okay?) he kept things fast and thoughtless. On Monday, when she turned up at his desk to fake flirt before and after class, Zaf remembered through every smile and lingering look that this was all for show. It. Was. All. For. Show.
And when she texted him later that morning, her messages like little rays of sunshine no one else would ever see?
That was friendship, obviously. Friendship, full stop.
DANIKA: I can’t wait for lunch.
DANIKA: Not the fawning all over you and feeding you grapes part. The food part.
Huh. Zaf hadn’t realized grape-feeding was on the fake-lunch-date cards at all, but suddenly he couldn’t wait, either.
DANIKA: My stomach is eating itself. RIP me.
ZAF: Didn’t you eat your protein bar?
DANIKA: Yes, I ate my protein bar, you absolute parent. It’s a shame I don’t have a daddy kink, or I might get off on those things.
Zaf set his jaw and shifted in his seat. She kept . . . saying things like that, these past few days, and it was getting harder and harder not to bite.
ZAF: Come and get another one.
DANIKA: You want me to choke down two in one day?!
He should probably be offended, but he found himself laughing into his hand, disguising the sound with a cough and a glower when a passing group of students stared at him. Once they were gone, he set his tiny smile free and typed out a response.
ZAF: That’s not very polite.
DANIKA: I can’t leave my strategic library position to come and get a protein bar. My seat by the window will be stolen. The risk isn’t worth the tasteless but protein-rich reward.
ZAF: Are you telling me you don’t like my protein bars?
DANIKA: They taste like cardboard.
DANIKA: Keep giving them to me, though.
As if he had any intention of stopping.
ZAF: For food emergencies?
DANIKA: You ask so many questions. I’m working now, I have to go.
And she really did go. There were no more texts during her breaks—not a single one—and she didn’t show up to lunch, either. Zaf leaned against a lamppost by the food court, staring longingly at the noodle van and the library in turn, like a man with a desperate craving for chili bean sprouts and books. Or chili bean sprouts and a bookish woman. Whatever. Clearly, he was delirious with hunger, since he’d finished his store of snacks around 10 A.M. as always. Hours ago now.
He checked his phone again, but there was no response from Dani to his latest nudge. Since his brain was his brain, his first thought was that she’d died. She’d taken the stairs and fallen, or she’d been crushed between those fancy moving bookshelves—the ones with signs on them saying to shout before you pulled the levers, only no one ever did.
Lucky for Zaf, he was used to shoving unreasonable worries away, so he drop-kicked those ideas into the sun and moved on.
In reality, he’d probably been stood up by his fake girlfriend. Ouch. Of course, knowing Dani, it was equally likely that she’d just gotten distracted—that she was lost in a book or a journal, her phone at the bottom of her bag, time a distant concept she preferred not to play with. Which would be fine, if it weren’t for the fact that they had social media stalkers to manipulate into free publicity.
And, wow, it all sounded incredibly mercenary when he phrased it like that. But still.
Zaf needed to be seen with Dani before this flash in the pan . . . un-flashed. He wasn’t about to let a single fake-lunch-date opportunity slip through his hands. So, for the good of Tackle It—obviously—he had no choice but to hunt down his girlfriend.
His fake girlfriend.
Obviously.
The low murmur was a familiar fixture in her dreams. “Hey. Danika.”
Danika, said with those soft, round consonants. Dani smiled, squeezing her eyes tight against the light. If she could fall asleep properly and sink fully into this dream, she might see Zaf as well as hear him. And seeing him was always a thrill.
Unfortunately, her inner eye remained stubbornly blank. She might have sulked over that, if it weren’t for the feel of a large, warm hand stroking her hair.
“Dani.” The whisper was quieter and closer, now. She felt the warmth of a body beside hers, caught the scent of coffee beans and spiced citrus—a scent she usually tried not to enjoy, because sniffing people was . . . just . . . odd. But it was okay to sniff people in dreams. Or to fantasize about taking the whole of them, making them yours, popping them into your mouth like a glossy, round grape, seeds and all, and trusting they wouldn’t choke you. For example.
“Sweetheart. Wake up.”
She’d really rather not. Even though her position was a little uncomfortable and her pendants were digging into her chest, this dream or half dream or whatever was too heartbreakingly lovely to abandon.
“You’re drooling on a book.”
“Shit,” Dani blurted, and jolted upright in her seat. At which point, a few things became immediately obvious: first, that she had fallen asleep in the library. Second,
