Page 23 of Spring Awakening

Zach laughs. “Can I take you home, please?”

Mali narrows her eyes, somehow getting closer when they’re already touching. She smells amazing, even this late in the afternoon. Every day she wafts through the office, and he tries not to follow her like a puppy dog, but now she’s so close, and it’s like she might smell this good just for him.

Stupid man.

“Are you going to run me over with your car?” she asks.

“If I’m trying to get you into my car, wouldn’t it be better to ask if I was planning on crashing it?”

Mali pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, but it’s no use—she laughs all the same.

“Please don’t. I have a big meeting next week.”

“What’s it about?”

“Can’t tell you,” she replies, walking away. He almost reaches out to keep her here, but his fingers rub uselessly against his trousers instead.

“Why not? I won’t tell anyone.”

Mali looks at him like he must understand why she can’t tell him. They’re not friends, and it’s his fault.

“How would you tell anyone when you never talk to anyone?”

“I talk to you.”

Mali snorts. “Sometimes.” Then she grabs her bag, looks over at him, and sighs. “Promise? Because I haven’t even told Frankie yet.”

Zach’s positively ecstatic at the fact she’s telling him anything. That she told him enough he had something to pull at. He draws a cross over his heart and says, “Hope to die.”

Mali looks at him with a serious face. “I can’t believe you do things like that, and you won’t let me call you cute.”

Zach laughs. “Get in the car, Okeye.”

The drive to Mali’s house takes six minutes, and she talks the entire time. He knows what she’s having for dinner, and that Buffy doesn’t usually like men, and that she bought a new wig but doesn’t have anywhere to wear it. He knows she laughs at her own jokes (though he knew that anyway because she giggles to herself when she’s at her computer alone). He knows she looks at him every time she’s finished a sentence and wants to see how he’s reacting.

He knows he’s going to carve out the time around five p.m. every single night and pray for rain so he can watch her fingers drum against her knees when she turns the music up, and he knows he’s going to smell her in his car from now until forever.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A shiver runs upMali’s back as she stands on the sidelines, her phone trapped between her palms. It was her idea to get some photographs of training. She had a late lunch with Frankie last week and perhaps mentioned that thirst traps are a selling point, and it had nothing to do with how she was scrolling on Zach’s Instagram. (He hasn’t posted in weeks, but that also has nothing to do with it.) Now, Mali understands that not everyone wants to sell their body… but one quick message in the work group chat suggested everyone on the team was more than happy to do just that.

It was Frankie’s idea, though, to get the photos at the sunrise training because “aesthetics” and “vibes” and at the time, Mali foolishly agreed. Now, she stands in her jeans and a crop top. Mali might catch a cold, that’s true, but she (Toby) spilt tea all over her coat as she walked in, and it’s currently on a rinse cycle in the laundry room, and one look at the spare training kits suggested she might vomit if one touched her. Instead, she jumps on the spot a little before setting up a shot of Ezra.

Doing the shoot now makes sense. It means all the players will look their best and be on their best behaviour when Blyke turn up tomorrow. Blyke is easily the largest sporting company in the world. They have sportswear for every sport Mali can think of. They have buildings. They’re a household name, and they’re interested in sponsoring the Titans. She’s terrified, because the only person she’s told is Zach. If she tells the team, they’ll freak out. They know someone is coming in soon for a preliminary look. Only Zach knows how far along it is.

Mali takes a deep breath. The pictures are good so far, even with her vague photographic abilities and mobile phone. The players—and if she’s being honest, their muscles—are doing the heavy lifting. Frankie wasn’t wrong when she said sunrise would work as a background. She’s even managed to make Toby look hot. He is ducking his head in a lunge, so you can’t see his face, and he has decent thighs, but he doesn’t need to know that. There are abs galore, and she swears Kai oiled up for practice. The photos will definitely work, even if just to increase their social media presence. Maybe they can do a charity calendar or something. Their arses can pay for the funding of season tickets.

Mali’s hair blows in front of her phone for the twentieth time, and she’s about to whip her wig off just so it stops ruining the photos. Sure, for her Instagram, she’d be all over the lilac strands over the lens, but it’s not her the fans want to see. She probably has enough photos for now, but she’s shamelessly waiting for Zach to turn up. While she does, she bends down on one knee, getting a slow-motion video of Ezra and Kai stretching. Kai lies on the ground with his leg up as Ezra pushes it back, leaning over him. Rugby is some of the most homoerotic shit she’s ever seen.

“Fuck,” she mutters, as her hair slips through the slack ponytail she created with her free hand. She’s going to lose the shot. Then, before she can move a muscle, the hair is pulledback from her face. Fingertips trace the back of her neck, and it fucking better be Frankie… even though she can see her down the other end of the pitch. The only other person on the team she’d let touch her is Zach, and she thinks if she’s kneeling on the ground, and he has her hair wrapped in his fist, she might combust imagining what comes next.

She wants to turn—to check it’s not him—even though every fibre of her being knows it is. He drives her home most nights, and he’s still only spoken a handful of words to her. Somehow, despite the fact he turns up at five every day, he’s still decided that small grunts and nods are the only way he wants to interact.

The other day, she mentioned in passing that a fuse blew in her kitchen, and he wordlessly strolled into her house to fix it for her. She made him a cup of tea, and he half explained how his mother made him take up a trade in case rugby didn’t work out. “I’m an electrician, Mali,” he’d said, as if that was common knowledge. And ever since he stood in her kitchen, she’s imagined him everywhere else in her home. When she’s in the shower, in her bed, lounging on the sofa. She wonders if she should have let him move in just to see what he looks like in every room.

Now, she’s glad he doesn’t live there, because if he did, she’d have to be quiet when she thinks about this exact moment later tonight. As his hands move, Mali wants to ask what he’s doing, but he speaks before she can figure out how to move her tongue in a way that doesn’t feel sexual.

“How hard can I pull?” he asks. His voice is closer than she was expecting, like he might have bent his lips to her ear. She’s about to tell him she doesn’t mind a little sting, but her brain catches up to her vagina, and she remembers she’s wearing a wig. He’s asking if he’s going to pull it off.

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