Page 21 of Spring Awakening

“They’re really pretty. Thank you.”

He nods. Mali thinks about the things she’s supposed to be asking him. The date of the event. What he wants from it. How much help he needs.

“You and Ezra are friends?” Mali asks. Zach rolls his neck, actively loosening up, as if he was expecting her to ask why he bought flowers for her desk. She wants him to talk more than three words to her, but she’s not sure being inside his mind is something she needs right now.

“I don’t think he hates me, but we’re not mates.”

“You’re friendly.”

Zach shrugs. “I guess.”

Mali has a silly idea. It’s so stupid she hasn’t said it out loud to anyone, but she wants to tell Zach. She leans over the desk. “Have you seen those movies where the grumpy person gets set up in a fake relationship?”

“Excuse me?” he asks, then the worst happens. He pulls the hairband on his wrist with his teeth as he puts his hair up. It’s like it happens in slow motion. Mali swallows. She’s neverseen his arms from this angle. He rolls his neck, scrunching his eyebrows a couple times when it’s done. A few locs fall on the sides, but his face is entirely uncovered. Every three minutes, she forgets just how attractive she finds him. He looks at her, and she realises she hasn’t spoken at all. “Mal?”

Mal? Mal. Her heart flip-flops in her chest. If he ever cared enough to actually flirt with her, she might combust on the spot.

“Er, you know… likeThe Proposal.”

Zach looks positively tortured, and she wonders if he has a crush on Ezra. “I don’t want to do that.”

Mali laughs. “No one would believe you settled down, and you’re not grumpy enough. I want Ezra to do it.”

“You don’t think I’m grumpy?” he asks, sitting up a little. “And why wouldn’t I settle down?”

She avoids mentioning the newspaper articles about him being a playboy. Lord knows how he manages to pick up girls when he can barely look her in the eye. Perhaps he throws his hair up and they ask him to take them home. She’d understand.

“No,” Mali says. “I don’t know what you are yet. I haven’t figured it out.”

“Are you trying?”

Mali looks at the hopeful tilt of his brows, like he doesn’t ignore her most of the time. “I don’t know. Back to Ezra.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s not going to do it.”

“Dammit,” she grumbles. “Don’t tell him I told you. It’s like pillow thoughts. So, when is this event?”

CHAPTER TEN

Zach sits at thetraffic light, watching the rain pelt against the windscreen. He told Mali it was going to rain today. He wonders if she thinks about him now that she must be hearing the rain against the office roof. He wonders if she replays their conversations in her head. He wonders if she would think he was a loser for googling things to say to people when you don’t know how to start a conversation. He wonders if she knows how churned up he is inside because she told him a pillow thought, which means she thought about him when she was in bed. Sort of.

He spent a large portion of today with her, and he managed to speak more than four words every time she asked him a question. She even laughed when he asked her if her favourite colour was purple. Zach didn’t need Google for that. Mali didn’t answer him, though—she just laughed and tucked her hair behind her ear. Then some of her hair fell back over her face, and he was tortured with the idea of moving it for her. There isn’t going to be a time where he gets to see her without her wig on, but he wonders what her hair is like. Perhaps she’s bald, likeFrankie. She has the face shape for it. Whenever he thinks about her, she has cornrows. If he told his old therapist that, they’d say he wants something that connects them. Something that’s got nothing to do with how badly his life is going right now. Something that means she was in his life when he was happier. Weirdo.

The light turns green… or it turned green a few seconds ago, because someone beeps behind him, and he throws a hand up as he swings around the corner. He turns left when he should have turned right. His house (now full of boxes and a vague sense of doom) isn’t this way. So, apart from the extra time in traffic, he has no idea why he went left.

Then he sees the office. It’s shrouded in darkness despite it only being five pm, as it always is this time of year. The office light is the only thing illuminating the carpark. On game days or at practice, the floodlights are on, but there’s nothing of the sort this evening. There’s no need for him to be here, although he knows why he is. Zach sighs. He could pretend he was never here and go home. Mali won’t drown walking home in the rain. She might even have an umbrella. Someone might already be coming to pick her up. She makes friends with everyone that walks through the door; he wouldn’t be surprised to see the postman turn up to give her a lift home.

He could leave.

He groans as he unlocks his car and jogs to the office door. He looks through the window. There’s no one in there apart from Mali, who is taking photos of the flowers he gave her. It might be strange to buy flowers for a colleague that barely speaks to him, but could he be to blame when she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth every time she looked at them this afternoon? Zach’s chest feels weird again. He takes a deep breath and opens the door.

“Sorry,” she starts, spinning on the spot. “We’re closed. Oh, hey. You’re back.” She’s smiling at him, and it makes his stomach flip.

“I’m back,” he replies, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I’m just locking up, but I can wait if you’re quick,” she says, perching her bum on the edge of her desk, making her boots squeak against the lino. She’s wearing a skirt today, and the almost see-through black tights make his throat constrict every time he sees them.

“I don’t need anything,” he says, walking closer.

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