Page 23

Zach’s nervous, and he’s not used to it. There’s been times where he’s stood in front of thousands of angry rugby fans (some of them kids, but they’re savages, so it counts) and he was only sweating because Frankie makes them do drills in the changing room so they don’t cramp up. He’s gone home with a handful of people before, and his legs have never been shaky in the way they are now. All over a few possibly flirty, possibly friendly Instagram messages.

He sits in his car outside the office—despite the fact he’s late—and scrolls through Mali’s Instagram. She’s so pretty. It’s kind of his favourite thing when she takes a photo because she looks hot. Like she knows she looks so good people must see it. She’s never been wrong. He looks at the recent ones. The photos by the riverside. He stops in his tracks when he sees himself. It’s the back of him, probably from one of the days he’s been lucky enough to walk to work with her. He can imagine a child with him so clearly that it’s a little painful. He knows she’d want them to wear matching holiday outfits, and he’d be in them so fast his head would spin.

Mali is ruining his life.

And it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Still, he shakes it off as he strolls into the office. The meeting isn’t mandatory, but Mali asked him to go, so. The office is buzzing when he walks in, groups of players huddled like they’re in the middle of a game.

“There he is,” Kai calls out, and everyone turns to face him.

“Champ!”

“What?” Zach asks, looking around for Mali. The answer always lies with Mali, but she’s not here.

“Finally followed her back.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mal,” Toby replies, like he is in fact on a nickname basis with her when he is not. Zach frowns.

Kai laughs. “She’s been blushing about it.”

Zach doesn’t know how to feel about that. Mali isn’t his girlfriend, nor is she a girl he picked up at a club, so how she feels about him as a rugby player shouldn’t matter. And yet something in him sinks when he realises that might be the thing she likes most about him. Still, he sits on her desk and waits for her. When she finally comes back in, the place erupts, and she starts frowning.

“What?” she asks, and then her eyes fall on him, and he’s never seen someone so adorable in all his life. The blush rises on her cheeks, and it’s so deep he can see it, and it’s his favourite sight in the world. He doesn’t care if she only likes him because he’s a rugby player. He’ll run and catch a ball until his knees give out.

When she reaches him, she’s pouting, and he’s smiling so brightly she groans and throws her hands over her face. Then her hands hit his chest, and he wraps his arms around her as if this is something they do. He pulls her closer, as if this is practiced, something they’ve ever done outside of home. She takes a deep breath, leaning further against him when he moves his legs apart.

“They’re so embarrassing.”

“Is it their fault you were so excited I followed you back?”

Mali groans. “Stop.” He wonders if she’s about to stamp her foot. He thinks she might pull back when she drops her hands, but he doesn’t give her a chance, grabbing her hands and placing them around his back. She looks up at him with a small pout. He could kiss her.

“It’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“Being friends with someone you knew before they had any idea you existed.”

“You’re so starstruck by me, Mal.” She pulls away this time, but he’s stronger than her, and he keeps her there with a laugh. His hand slips behind her neck, under her hair. Like this is a place just for those two, that no one else in the office can see.

“Shh,” she replies, her cheek against his chest. “I like you better at home.”

“Fibber.”

“Oh my God,” she groans, but there’s a laugh in there somewhere. “It was a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal for me too,” he replies, wondering if he can say this part out loud. “I’ve wanted to see all your hidden photos since you half showed me a yoga video.”

Mali laughs. “You were so good at it.”

“I had a great teacher, and I needed to beat Ezra. What’s today about?”

She sighs. “We need to increase everyone’s social media presence.” Zach’s not sure if she knows she’s still leaning against him, but then, as if he’d spoken, she moves away. “Sponsors want to know you can sell something, and right now, the only one actively engaging is Toby.”

“That’s because he loves himself.”

“Yes,” Mali replies, “but his fans love him too.”

“He flirts with his fans.” Zach frowns. “Do you want me to do that?”

“I don’t know. Can you flirt? Maybe it’s almost as bad as your playing,” she says, her eyes raking slowly over his body. Zach barely resists the urge to tense his arms. “And we all saw you go down like a sack of potatoes the other day.”

“You are so mean to me for no reason.”

Mali laughs, her fingers tapping against his stomach. “Do you even flirt, or are you used to people doing whatever you want because you look like that?” Well, he tries to flirt with her, but he need not waste his time, because she’s never noticed. He wonders if she’s flirting with him now.

“Like what?” he asks, his entire body on fire. She shrugs and walks away. He wants to hold onto her hand—to pull her back, make her stand in front of him and tell him what she means. He wants to beg her to tell him what she means. What does he look like to her? If she asked, he’d tell her what she looks like to him.

He’d try, at least.

He’d tell her she looks like someone he wants to be better for. That she looks like his heart outside of his body. That she looks like the first person he looks for in any room, in any thought, in any lifetime. That she looks like his soul, his heart, everything he never dared think he’d have. That she looks like the greatest part of his life.

He’s so sure if she turned back to look at him, he’d tell her.

“Right,” Mali says, clapping her hands like she does when she doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing. “We need to up social media presence. Goliath are interested in sponsoring us, and Frankie said we could pick a couple projects as a team to fund with it. You’ve got two weeks to come up with a proposal you might like and put it on my desk. Anonymously.”

Toby stands up, but Mali gets there first. “No. I’m not choosing them. Frankie will.” He sits back down. Zach wonders what his proposal will be. A junior league, probably. It saved him from so much when he was younger.

“So, with that bombshell in mind,” Mali says, “who has the first great idea to improve your social reach?”

Zach racks his brain for an answer. He doesn’t know what it is, but he wants to be the one to give it to her. Alas, Toby throws his arm up first. Twat.

She spins to him, giving him finger guns like a loser. God, he’s obsessed with her. “Toby?”

“I like posting half-naked photos, because chicks send me half-naked photos back.”

Zach closes his eyes, but Mali says yes. Sex sells. Half-naked photos sell.

“All the practice photos I post do really well,” she says, “but you need to post something yourself. You can post what you like as long as it’s not offensive. Kai, your baking photos always do well. Today, we’re practicing thirst traps because Cam already brought in cookies. Who’s going to be my guinea pig?”

Zach stands up, but Kai’s already running towards her. Damn. Zach decides to go and grab a cookie instead of sitting back down. That way no one will know he was desperate to be the one she was touching in the middle of the office.

“I saw you,” Ezra says, when Zach gets to the kitchen.

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Zach replies.

“Shouldn’t she have asked you straight? Aren’t you dating?” Ezra asks, taking the cookie from Zach’s hand.

He rolls his eyes, getting another one. “Why would you think that?”

“You just hugged like my parents do in the kitchen.”

Zach smiles. Ezra’s parents have been together for decades, and he’s ecstatic that any part of him suggests he’d get that with Mali. That they look like a couple so in love it spans a longer time that he’s been alive. That she might look at him like he looks at her.

“She doesn’t even know I’m flirting with her.”

Ezra snorts. “How?”

“She thinks I fancy you,” Zach says, taking another bite. Ezra doesn’t still besides him, but Zach can tell he stopped breathing for a second. He could leave and pretend he didn’t say anything that sounds remotely like him liking guys. He could walk away, and he’d never have to know what Ezra’s reaction was going to be, let alone deal with it. Before he can, Ezra says…

“Well, duh.”

Zach laughs. “Shut up, man.”

Ezra licks the cookie wrapper, and Zach almost snatches it from him. It was clean three licks ago. “Do you?”

Zach shrugs. He’s never quite thought about it. Ezra is hot, but everyone thinks Ezra is hot, unless they’re lying.

“Probably, if I could think about anything other than her.”

“Ah,” Ezra replies. “She’s caught you.”

“She’s got me.”

“You gonna ask her out?” Ezra asks, like a masochist. Zach takes another bite. They probably look utterly ridiculous over here having a gossip session while everyone else fixes Toby’s posing. Zach watches Mali reposition his arm. There’s a line of them waiting to hear what girls like about photos.

“Nah. She’s way out of my my league.”

“Women are all like that, man,” Ezra replies. “If you want someone in our league, you gotta ask a guy out.”

“Stop trying to get me to date you.”

Ezra laughs—a bent over, people look at them kind of laugh. Zach wonders if they’re flirting. Well, he’d seriously think about it if Zach didn’t know Cam existed.

“So, you’re not going to ask her out, and you’re not going to ask anyone else out?” Ezra confirms.

“Yeah.” Zach sighs. Mali holds Kai’s phone out in front of him, her head poking over his shoulder as she tells him to tense his arms. Zach takes a deep breath in. She touches him all the time. Sort of. He leans on her chest when they watch television, he runs his fingers against her spine when they make a tea together, and he kisses her on the forehead when she goes to sleep. So, it’s more she doesn’t stop him than she touches him. It’s not his fault. Now he’s touched her once, he’s not sure what to do with his hands if she’s not around.

“You in love with her?”

Zach eats the last of his cookie, wondering if Ezra even needed to ask the question.

“Yep.”

“Since when?”

He shrugs. Since the beginning of time. Since the dawn of the dinosaurs. Since he could breathe. “Forever.”

“She’s only been here a few months.”

“What’s your point?”

Ezra thankfully stops talking when Mali walks over, a pep to her step he’d be foolish to not notice.

“Hey.”

“Hey, honey,” she says, filling up the kettle.

Ezra groans. “Am I chopped liver?”

Mali spins to look at him, a blush on her cheeks like she truly might not have realised he was there. “Sorry. Hey, Ez.” He grunts again. “What are you two talking about? It’s a right little mother’s meeting.”

“Zach told me you think he fancies me.”

“Dude.”

Mali’s eyes widen, looking at Zach like she’s done something wrong. Like she had any say in Zach semi-coming out.

Ezra carries on. “And I said, who’s shocked? Everyone fancies me.”

Mali grimaces. “That doesn’t work on you.”

“Right?” Ezra says, with a quick laugh. “Though I’d give it a whirl.”

“Are you gonna come practice?” she asks, wringing her fingers together. She looks nervous.

Ezra snorts. “I don’t do social media.”

“Innit,” Mali replies. Zach smiles because she uses it wrong, but he likes it all the same. “Well, Zach, do you wanna do the collaboration with Sweet Tooth?”

“What collab?” Ezra asks instantly.

“Cam and I are doing a post for the family game day. She said sales are always down around this time, and we agreed half-naked men will sell cookies. Though Ezra Adebayo would sell more…”

“Fine,” he mutters. “Do I need to take them now?”

Mali smiles. “No. At the event, with Cam.”

Ezra blushes. Well, he ducks his head, which is basically professing his love in front of the world. Zach flips through the Shakespeare quotes in his head for something that would make Mali laugh.

“Are you coming over?” she asks, before he can think of one. She’s looking right at him.

“Nah. I’m already proficient at taking half-naked photos.” Mali looks at him with a face. A pretty face, but it has an expression he has no detective skills to decipher. Then, she smiles, as if her prior thought is completely gone.

“’Kay.”

She walks away, and Zach wonders if she knows she forgot to make her tea.

“She’s jealous.”

“Huh?” Zach replies.

Ezra smiles at the floor. He is pretty. “Mali. She thinks you fancy me, and she’s jealous.”

Zach looks over at her, catching the quick way she turns to talk to someone.

“Quick, laugh,” Ezra says.

“What?”

Ezra hits him in the stomach.

“How is that going to make me laugh?!”

“Have you ever flirted with someone in your fucking life?”

“Says you.”

Ezra frowns. “I flirt.”

“When was the last time? And looking at Cam is not the same thing.”

He throws his wrapper way. “You’re on your own, pretty boy”

“You think I’m pretty?” he calls out, and Ezra flips him off. Zach smiles for a moment, then goes to flick the kettle on again. Is Mali jealous? If she was jealous, then there must be a reason. Like, a she wants him to like her reason. Right? Otherwise, what would be the point of it all?

He pours her a tea, stealing glances at her every few minutes. She’s not looking at him anymore, and he wonders if he wants her to be jealous. There’s nothing in him that thinks he won’t be a mess if she ever tried to act on it. What if she tries to kiss him and he self-combusts instead of kissing her back? She’s easily the hottest woman he’s ever seen. How is he supposed to make anything good for her when he’s going to spend the entire time thanking God she exists?

Ezra is wrong.

And if he’s not…well, Zach will have to pick himself up off the floor and figure it out. He’s already told her he hasn’t gone down on someone in years. Fuck. She’s good, though. Nice. She’d probably coach him through it instead of taking the piss. The thought of it makes him lightheaded. God, she’s going to catch him googling “how to have sex when you can’t believe the girl is this hot.” He wants it to be good for her; that’s all he cares about. He wants everything to be good for her, always.

What if she wants more than sex? What if she wants him to love her? He does, that’s not the issue. He’s just not good at it. He’s never been in love before. He loves his family, but being in love with someone he can choose is not something he’s ever prepared for. Mali is the light of his life, and the thought she’d give him so much power over her feelings makes his knees shake. What if the family she’s been dreaming of for years doesn’t look anything like him? What if he fails?

He sighs, opening his phone and finding the therapist’s email. If he has any real chance of making someone like Mali happy, he wants to be good at it. He shoots off a quick message. It just says “Therapy?” because he’s terrified, but he’s done it. That’s gotta count for something.

Now, he deserves a reward, so he walks over and perches on the edge of Mali’s desk, then places her tea on her coaster. She comes over moments later. He smiles at the floor when she sits next to him.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she replies.

“You okay?”

“I’m tired,” she moans, shuffling until she rests her head on his shoulder. “Where did Ezra go?”

“Off to fangirl about Cam, probably.”

Mali laughs, pushing her arm through his. She doesn’t hold his hand or anything. She just rests against him.

She is jealous.

And he is ecstatic.