Page 55 of Spring Awakening

Zach laughs. “What do you mean? Mali, you’re my best friend.”

“I am?” Her eyes widen, her brows tilting at the middle like she might cry.

Zach scoffs. “I can’t believe this is how I’m finding out I’m not your best friend.”

Mali moves closer, her toes wiggling between his thighs. She leans on the back of the couch again. She’s so close he can see the smattering of freckles on her nose. The way her eyes track his face like she doesn’t know if he’s lying. The way she rolls her lips.

“You’re my best friend,” she whispers.

“Fibber,” he mutters, but she laughs and presses her forehead against his shoulder. “What’s the team-building?”

She kisses his shoulder, and he almost misses what she says. “Oh, yeah! Have you seen those videos where the gym guys try yoga?”

He swallows. She kissed him, and now she’s asking him questions like anything else matters.

“Kai sends like fifteen thousand videos a day. It’ll be in there somewhere,” Zach says.

Mali laughs, sitting up and grabbing her phone from the coffee table. Her top, which is his top, gets caught. He can see the skin on her back, and he’s going to think about it for the rest of time. Zach twists slightly, resting his arm on the back of the sofa. When Mali moves back, she leans closer to him, bringing up a video of massive men crying, sobbing, and throwing up while attempting to do some pose he’s not sure he could get into if he tried.

“You wanna torture the team?”

Mali laughs, showing him another one. “Yes.” She sinks closer to him, her back almost resting against his side. Buffy pushes hispaws into Zach’s thigh like a warning, but he jumps ship when Mali scratches under his chin.

“Oh, hey, baby boy,” she whispers, kissing him on the forehead. Where’s Zach’s forehead kiss?

Zach pouts. “Who’s going to teach us?”

“Me.”

“You can do yoga?”

Mali shrugs. “Yeah. I haven’t been since I started work, but I doubt my legs will snap the first time I try.”

Then, the worst thing happens. She opens her photo app, and he tries to catalogue everything in it, but she’s scrolling too fast. Selfies he would kill for, a few photos of the team from the other day… though his eyes only fall on his. He has no idea what anyone else looks like. Shit, hopefully. Then, she pulls up a video.

“So, I wanna do this, but I don’t want anyone to injure themselves.”

Zach feels like there’s a rock in his throat. Mali’s on screen, her phone propped up, and she’s in a lunge position. She moves slowly, the skintight leggings she has on hiding nothing. He shifts in his seat. She places both her hands flat on the ground, and leaving one foot on the ground, lifts the other high in air.

“You’re trying to kill me,” he whispers, and she laughs, turning her phone off.

“You’ll be fine. I took a photo last week where Ezra basically had Kai bent in half.”Hot, but also not what he meant. He’s survived two out of two slip-ups, so he doesn’t mention it. Zach rests his ankle on the coffee table.

“Can I see the photos?” he jokes.

“Perv,” she mutters back, placing her phone on the coffee table. When she falls back against the couch, the back of her head rests against his arm. “And I deleted them. They’re all on my work computer.”

But he just saw them on her phone. It was definitely him. An accident, maybe?

“When are we doing it?”

“Mmm, this week. I need to talk to Frank, and this time, youallhave to repost things. I am on my knees, begging and trying to get the team’s social media up, and you all ignore me.”

“You’ve never asked me to repost anything,” he replies, instead of making an inappropriate comment about how he’d do anything to get her begging on her knees. She’s already dangerously close to him, and his erection was growing after seeing seven seconds of her doing exercise.

“I messaged you,” she replies, rolling her neck a couple times until she shuffles, and the side of her face hits his chest. He waits for his kiss. “I could definitely win this game,” she says, watching the show.

“You haven’t said a single right answer,” he replies, his fingers absentmindedly running along her arm. The place he would kiss her if he were brave enough.

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