Page 9 of Spring Awakening

Hope blooms in her chest. It’s pathetic how fast she’d run back if they so much as sent someone to get her. If they so much as texted her. She really wants the job. He looks winded, and like he wasn’t expecting to see her there, which is weird, because he’s literally standing outside her front door. She doesn’t know him, but she wants to believe he’s not here to murder her just because she called him out one time.

“You changed your hair,” he replies.

She did. It hangs at much the same length as before, hitting the middle of her back, but it’s a more subtle light-pink colour, which has nothing to do with his comments on being professional. Mali likes to keep her work life and personal life separate. If she’s doing something after work, or perhaps entertaining people who aren’t her parents, she’ll switch her wig. Otherwise, she whips it and her bra off the moment she gets into the house. But now he’s seen another part of her—a part she doesn’t want to feel self-conscious about. Suddenly, she wishes he’d leave.

“Yeah.”

She shuffles on her feet. He changed his too. It’s down now, and she’s not sure which she prefers. Somewhere, sitting on a brown leather couch, her mum can sense she’s leaving the door open too long with the heating on. She’s sure she’s going to get her phone momentarily and it will be full of grumpy face emojis and an abundance of kisses.

Why is Zach here? How does he have her address? Maybe he’s the stalker. There’s a moment where they stare at each other. Mali has no idea what he wants, and she needs him to leave so she can get ready for the lodger. She’s mopped, dusted, and aired out the spare room, but now she needs to make sure it’s not arctic cold. Zach makes no move to leave, and gives no suggestion as to why he’s here, standing under her porch in the freezing cold.

Buffy doesn’t care that they’re having an almost awkward staring contest; he strolls right through her legs and butts his head against Zach’s shins. Mali scoffs. He’s supposed to have his claws out in defence, so heaven knows why he’s purring at this Greek God of a human.

“Hey, cutie,” Zach says, bending to give Buffy a stroke. “What’s their name?”

Mali doesn’t know why the question shocks her so much. He seems so devoid of interest that she wasn’t expecting him to care about her cat.

“Buffy.”

Zach snorts, scratching his fingers under Buffy’s chin. “Cute. I’m more of a Spike guy.” She notes his voice doesn’t get high like when people usually talk to animals or babies. Still a grumpy fuck, even though Buffy is the cutest thing alive.

Mali frowns. “Are you here to see me? Do you want to come in?”

Zach picks Buffy up, and Mali almost tells him to put him back down, but Buffy has his paws against Zach’s chest and hishead rubbing over the light stubble of Zach’s jaw. She’s not sure what she’d be making him put Buffy down for, other than to be difficult. Either way, Zach accepts her offer, thankfully, and rubs his feet against the doormat a couple times. She closes the doors behind him.

Now that the outside weather isn’t distracting her, she takes in the sight of him better. He’s in grey sweats and a matching jumper. God, he’s furiously attractive. Somehow, she thinks he matches her hallway. He fits between the photo frame that hangs slightly crooked because she can’t be bothered to drag a chair into the hall to tilt it back, and the shoe cabinet that she places her keys on.

“Do you want a tea?” she asks, even though he hasn’t properly responded to anything she’s said.

“I’m here to see the spare room.”

Mali blinks. Zachariah. Riah? “Wait, what?”

He shrugs, but she can tell he’s uncomfortable. “Why did you think I was here?”

“I don’t know,” she lies.

“Did you think I was coming back to whisk you back to the office?”

“…no.”

He frowns like he knows she’s lying. Is she supposed to show him the spare room, or are they both aware he can’t live here? Does she even know why he can’t live here beyond the fact he was kind of rude at a job she no longer has, and she’s thought about him in an inappropriate way in most of the rooms in this house? It’s not like they work together anymore. It wouldn’t be awkward in that way. She wouldn’t see him in his dressing gown and then watch him running across the field during lunch. It’s not like he’ll see her without her wig on—not that she’d mind. She just… well, she’s been protective since he said she didn’t look professional. He has dreadlocks. He’s probably heard that abouta million times, and she’d never dream of saying that to him. So she’s not sure why he’d do her the disservice of saying it.

“You don’t need to show me upstairs.”

Mali swallows. Even with how awkward this interaction is, she thinks about taking him upstairs anyway. In any other life, she would have hoped she was showing him upstairs for any other reason than she needs the rent because no one turned up to her job yesterday.

“Okay.”

“I’ve got other places to check out.”

“Are you moving closer to work?” she asks. It’s none of her business, really, but she never thought Zach would be the type of person that has roommates. She knows the pay for Titans players isn’t the same as professional rugby players, but it’s not bad. He definitely makes more than her, and that would be true even if she wasn’t unemployed.

Zach shrugs, his signature move, and bends down to place Buffy on the floor. “Got a couple reasons.”

She feels bad, even if she shouldn’t. The stairs are literally behind him. She could usher him up so easily. “I can show you, if you want? It’s just—well, it’s one room, and we’d have to share the living and the kitchen, obviously, but—”

“No big.”

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