Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters, #2)

by Talia Hibbert

spread a lot of warmth and did a lot of good, and someone like that should not be treated as an afterthought.

like your voice, and it’s cool when you get excited about nerd stuff.”

how much she’d do to support the people around her.

She was the sweetest person on earth, only she wasn’t used to getting any of that sweetness back.

“That is the cutest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Because you’re my real friend,” Zaf said, and meant it.

Dani noticed the instant his breathing changed.

Right now, do what you need to do.”

“But no one can be fine all the time.

anxiety disorder, natural curiosity had led Dani to spend a few hours researching the topic. So she wouldn’t grab him, or ask silly questions, or do anything else that might make him feel worse, and that was something, wasn’t it?

All right from Zaf made her twinkle inside as if he’d made a night sky of her.

glad he hadn’t been alone this time. She hoped he wasn’t ever alone.

Dani didn’t hurt people and she didn’t make things worse.

how bleak it felt when the fire ran out and the demons were all you had left.

her eyes burned into him as if she saw things he’d rather hide.

When you started Tackle It, you framed a scar in gold.

Truer than I know what to do with, and I think I need a moment.

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.

Was it possible to move on too hard? So hard you became afraid of even glancing back?

Garnet—but it also brings balance, strength, courage.

he’d dealt with all that but look at him—look at him—he was still fucking going.

“I love sports, of course I do—but the culture can easily become toxic.

Perhaps they were best friends. How cute.

She’d never been with one of those people. Not that she was with Zaf. But still. Even Dani’s sisters didn’t read her papers.

No one outside Dani’s profession had ever withstood her disjointed ramblings

She simply wasn’t as fascinating as the written work itself,

“Don’t look so surprised. You know I love your brain.”

sunlit happiness zipped through her blood,

it must be the people in her personal life who were oblivious dipshits.

none of them appreciated her enough—not

Why was no one reading her stuff?

“Don’t start complaining about my sleeping patterns,” he snorted, “or I’ll stop answering your texts at two A.M.”

“You have the energy of a newborn baby.”

“Which suggests that you are, amongst other things, pure of heart and always hungry.”

You feel so fucking real to me.

“Oshun and I get along well,” she continued, nodding at the statue. “She’s the goddess of beauty, purity, abundance,

“Which is why I asked her to send me you.”

me. Cure me. Please.

Lying is haram, little brother.

“I’m too work-focused. I don’t say the right things,

love would ask too much of her, and so she wouldn’t or couldn’t try.

“People harp on about compatibility for a reason. If you value family and work, you just need someone who feels the same way, someone who admires that about you.

Someone who understands how awkward you are—”

If it was worth it, and you wanted to, you could make room for a relationship, too.

What you get out of being loved, it’s supposed to be worth the compromise. When it’s good, it makes you want to compromise.”

Maybe there’s some lucky individual out there who’s just dying to spend forever with a bookish workaholic who wants to vomit at the prospect of romance, but I don’t care enough to bother searching for them.

he hadn’t been lying when he’d said he respected her choices. Didn’t mean he had to like them. But he respected them, because he respected her.

“no one touches you but me.”

Especially affection like this. Bright and beautiful and wild and terrifying, just like a forest fire.

“You’re impossible, is what you are.”