Page 102 of Spring Awakening

“I keep imaging that we do it,” Zach whispers against her lips. “Me in Scotland and you here, but we do it. It’s just three years, and then I get to keep you for the rest of my life.”

She smiles slightly. “Yeah?”

He nods, his lips against hers. “You’re the love of my life.”

She smiles so brightly that his lips only touch her teeth. He pulls back and wonders why he didn’t tell her he loved her the day he met her. “I am?”

“You are. I want everything with you. Children, a family, more cats if you want. Anything you want. I want to give it to you. You are my heart.”

“I would not wish any companion in the world but you,” she whispers.

Zach frowns. “The Tempest?”

She sighs. “I adore you.”

He kisses her hard. “Let’s go home.”

Before they can leave the river, Mali gets a string of texts.

Mali pauses as she reads them all. Her face doesn’t show much, but Zach doesn’t think it’s a catastrophe. “Frank says we have to go to Carl’s tonight,” she says, with a frown.

“What if we ignored her?” Zach says, pulling her into his arms. She smiles as she looks up at him. “She can’t make me do laps in Scotland.”

Mali raises her eyebrow as she leans closer to him. “You wanna bet?” He grunts, and Mali laughs. “What do you think? Wanna take me out tonight?”

He smiles, kissing her quickly. “It’s a date.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Mali sips on herdrink as she stands at the bar with Cam. The Goliath contract came through, and the bar is free, so Mali is on her second overly sugary-sweet cocktail, and trying not to throw something because it didn’t come in time to save Zach. It turns out, it would never have been in time to buy Zach out this season, because the funds are delayed, but that’s beyond the point.

Mali will probably stop drinking after this cocktail, because she wants to fuck Zach so badly, and she doesn’t want to miss a second of it because she’s tipsy. Cam is currently in a text war with her dickhead of a boyfriend, Andrew, but Mali doesn’t mind waiting for her, because really, she’s just checking Zach out from across the room. He looks so good when he dresses up. Well, he looks good all the time, but there’s something about him when she knows he cared about what he looks like. He’s trimmed his beard, but he’s not clean shaven, and the lost libido from being heartbroken this week has come back with a vengeance.

He looks over at her, smiling as he does. She looks him up and down slowly, catching the moment he knows she’s fucking withhim. His arms tense, and he blushes, and she loves him so much she might cease to exist. She wants to walk over, grab his hand, and take him home. It’s his fault, the way he kept touching her when she was getting ready. His lips were against her shoulder, or her thigh, or her neck. His eyes lingered every time she was speaking. Mali always liked foreplay; she didn’t know how much she loved it when the person barely touched her.

“He’s mad at me, and I don’t know why,” Cam says. Mali wants to roll her eyes. Cam always thinks Andrew is mad at her, and it’s because he is. He’s mad she leaves the house when he doesn’t want her to. He’s mad when she doesn’t answer her phone right away. He’s always mad, and Mali wants Cam to leave him because he’s a controlling prick, but she’s told her that. She’s spoken to Frankie when Cam came to drinks with fingertip-like bruises on her arm. She texted Cam to check she was okay when she had to leave dinner early because Andrew told her to.

“Why?” she asks instead.

“I don’t know,” Cam whispers, and she sounds more heartbroken than she ever has. Mali frowns. “He’s just not talking to me.”

“Girl, didn’t he drop you here?”

Cam frowns at her drink. “Who?”

“Andrew.”

“Oh,” Cam says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She’s so pretty, and nice, and deserves someone leagues better than Andrew, who would never be good enough for her. She deserves to realise Ezra loves her.

“Yeah. I mean Ez. He’s not talking to me, and I don’t know what I’ve done.” Mali wonders if she does know he’s in love with her and that she’s hurting him. She doesn’t think so. Cam is nice enough that she’d put Ezra out of his misery if she knew. She’d stay away from him if she didn’t like him back. The look in her eyes suggests she has no idea. That he’s her friend and he’signoring her, and she needs him, but she doesn’t know how to ask for him.

“I think he’s just tired. The Goliath contract has been a lot,” Mali says, though she feels bad about it. “You want me to say something?”

Mali asked Cam the other day if she was alright, but it was more than that. It came after she had a fight with Andrew. Cam knows everyone hates him, even if they pretend not to when he’s around. She looked nervous, and Mali hasn’t known her that long, but Cam never looks nervous. The way she watched her phone and responded to him immediately. The way she made excuses for his behaviour. The way he always looks angry.

“Nah,” Cam says, with a forced smile. “Andrew bought me these. Aren’t they pretty?”

Mali swallows a foul taste as she looks at the flowers on the screen. She avoids looking back at Cam, at the hopeful look in her eye as she tries to defend her boyfriend. Mali wonders if she loves him. She wonders if she knows she could be happier.

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