Page 26

Mali’s not sure how long she’s been asleep. Her body aches, but right now, her body always aches. Could have been twelve minutes, could have been twelve days. All she knows is if she tells Zach she’s awake, he’s going to make her move because the hospital said she should move, but she doesn’t want too. It’s not as bad as it was six days ago, when she came home. It’s mainly a stiff feeling now. The pain is there if she reaches up too quickly, but resting isn’t killing her. She’s cosy, and she doesn’t want to walk and then have to leave Zach again.

All she’s learnt in the past week is that Zach is the cutest thing alive. Sleeping outside her bedroom because he was nervous she wouldn’t wake up but didn’t want to sleep next to her because she wasn’t awake to say he could. As if she would ever mind if he was here. He hasn’t slept in her room since, because he only needed to check for concussions for twenty-four hours, and she didn’t have the courage to ask him to stay.

She’s also learnt that a week off work is only fun if she can move. Lying in bed while Zach is at training is boring. Watching the telly on the couch while Zach is at his mum’s is boring. Being without Zach is boring.

She did manage to convince him to get her laptop from work. Now, she’s about to finish setting up their largest contract ever. Blyke will look like David if she can manage to get Goliath on board.

Goliath are storming the sports market. Mali wouldn’t do anything to sabotage the Titans’ contract with Blyke, but there are other things Goliath can sponsor. They’re into equipment and grounds rather than uniforms. They’re interested in helping with a junior league. Mali hasn’t mentioned it yet, but they’ve sent a few names of people they’d like involved. Zach and Kai, mainly, and Mali knows they’d both be great at it.

Mali’s waiting for Frankie to confirm the team for next season. There are a couple new players Mali doesn’t think are cut out for the team, but she’s not a coach. Toby has gone, and she’s missed a full week at work, so she has no idea who is replacing him. Zach doesn’t gossip around the office enough to get the lowdown.

Zach’s agent hasn’t been in touch regarding him moving, so she’s sure he’s still on track to stay another year with the Titans. Hopefully, if they can get to the premiership next year, he won’t be constantly worrying about being uprooted again. Mali wants to know if the Goliath funding will come in time to buy Zach out of his contract. Frankie agreed it would be a worthwhile investment, and Mali tried to be casual about it. She wants to know if he wants to stay with the Titans. She wants to know if he’s staying here. She wants to know if he wants to stay with her.

There’s a knock at her bedroom door, and she pulls the duvet over her head. If she can’t see that the light is on, then it’s not on. There’s no reason for her to feel guilty about letting Zach stand in the hallway being ignored. He could think she fell asleep with the light on. He might think she’s asleep at seven thirty-eight p.m. It’s starting to get dark outside. She could be asleep.

“Mal?” Zach asks, and God, everything in her chest twists at the sound of his voice. She can’t believe she thought he was grumpy. That his frown was just what he looked like. That he wasn’t the one thing in the world she wants right now.

“Mali.” He’s stern now, like he’s done with her dicking around, yet she remains under her covers. The door clicks open, and he sighs lightly. She could be asleep under here. He’d never know.

“You don’t sleep with the light on,” he says, and she knows that. But it’s not bright under her blanket. In fact, the only thing it appears to be is stuffy. “And you hate to sleep with something covering your face.” That’s also true. She never knows when something is there, and it creeps her out. She tries to place Zach. He could still be over by her door, or he could be in front of her. Looking down from the foot of her bed. How is he light enough on his feet that she has no idea where he is? It’s possible he’s going to drag her out of bed by her ankle, shake her shoulders and ask her why she’s ignoring him.

Of course, he doesn’t, and she feels his hand lightly against her duvet. He lifts it slightly, and she looks up at him.

“Oh, honey,” he whispers, his hand against her waist. She stops breathing. He’s never touched her like this before. Sure, she’s thought about what his hands would feel like, friendly and not. The way she imagines his hands anywhere against her. How she thinks his fingers would fill her so easily. It’s just pillow thoughts. Shower thoughts. So, she lets herself get away with it. Somehow, his hand is lighter than she thought, but she knows she wouldn’t be able to move unless he let her. His fingers drum lightly against her ribs. She wonders if he can feel the ridiculous hammering of her heart.

“How bad is it?”

She sniffs, feeling utterly ridiculous because it’s no worse than a big bruise. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

He spins her as if it’s nothing, a slight tug of her shirt until she’s sitting on the edge of her bed, her feet hitting the carpeted floor. She frowns at him as the goosebumps rise on her thighs. His hands part her knees, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she realises he’s kneeling on the floor. Between her legs. And somewhere in the back of the mind, she keeps the loosest grasp on the moan that wants to escape. He places his hands against her waist like he’s terrified that if he lets go, she’ll leave.

She won’t. Only because if she moves a millimetre his thumbs are going to touch the bottom of her boobs, and she’s not sure what ungodly sound will come out then.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks. His voice is so low. It’s not a whisper. It’s more sensual than that, like he’s realised she knows she’s in her bedroom with the hottest man she’s ever seen in her life between her legs. Like he knows she’ll willingly do anything he asks if he so much as flicks his thumb.

“You’re going to make me walk,” she replies, ducking her head. The goosebumps on her thighs are subsiding, perhaps because she’s never been hotter. He moves his hand, and he doesn’t touch her nipple like she so desperately needs, though she arches her back slightly to get him to, even as her chest aches at the movement. Hussy.

Instead, he tilts her face back to his. He keeps a hold of her jaw, and she wonders if she’s ever been this turned on before. Maybe he’s never been wrong. Girls just do what he wants, and all he has to do is look at them. He looks concerned right now. Not like he wants her to take her top off, but she’s not sure how much of a choice she has.

“It’s supposed to help,” he says, his brow furrowing. Why is he so fucking cute? “But you did already shower today. Can I check?”

“Okay.”

Zach takes a breath, and Mali grips the edge of the mattress. He won’t hurt her, she knows that, but he looks so petrified that he might. Her top—well, it’s his top, but hopefully the bruise means he won’t notice—lifts, and she takes a deep breath in.

“Hold on, baby,” he mutters. He ducks his face, and when he comes back, he looks like he might die. His thumbs rub lightly against her skin. “I’ll kill him.”

Mali smiles. “Don’t do that.”

“I could.”

“I know you could, honey,” she says, with a sigh. “But can you stay here with me instead?”

“Yes,” he replies, shuffling on his feet. His hand holds the back of her neck, and once again, he presses his lips to her forehead. “What if we go for a garden wander? I’ll carry you all the way to the back door, and we’ll do one lap. I’ll show you where I think we could put a pond?”

She smiles. We. Where we could put a pond.

“And then you’ll lie in bed and watch Sandra Bullock movies with me?” she asks.

He kisses her nose. “Promise.”

The garden wander is less of a wander and more of a Mali taking half an hour to walk the fifteen-metre garden. But the plants she bought with Miriam are thriving, and the roses Zach bought her when he did, in fact, gatecrash are about to bloom. He lets her hold his hand the entire way around, and then sits her in the kitchen while he makes a mountain of popcorn and a cuppa and races it upstairs. Then he comes back down again to carry her up.

Before they make it to her room, he takes her into the bathroom. It smells pink. When she looks, the bath is full, there’s bubbles everywhere, and the water is in fact purple. And glittery. Her vagina is screaming at the thought of getting in there—and not in a good way—but Zach looks so pleased with himself.

“The shop had the purple ones and the ones with flowers in,” he says, taking her towards the bath so she can see the small flowers. Fuck, this is going to kill her.

“It should be a good temperature. I can help you get in. I’ll close my eyes.” He sounds so excited, and ugh . She turns to him and lifts her hands as far as they can go without hurting her. It’s higher than yesterday. She wonders if when she can get her hands to his neck, she’ll kiss him. She wonders if she should risk it.

“You’re the sweetest,” she whispers. “But I can’t get in there.”

“Too much pain?” he asks, his eyes wide.

“No. I feel better today.”

He frowns. “You don’t like it?”

“I love it,” she says, and she almost tells him she loves him too. “I love it so much, but, baby, there’s like three bath bombs in there.”

“Yeah. The guy at the store said two was best, and salts. I think I stirred them okay.” She might cry. Not just because he’s sweet and she’s hurt, but because he really is sweet, and she thinks she might get lucky, and he’ll be sweet to her forever.

“Mal, what’s wrong?” he asks, with way too much worry in his eyes.

“I want to get in,” she says with a sniff, “but I’ll get a UTI. I’m lucky if I don’t have one just from being in here.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “I can run a new bath?”

Mali smiles. “You get in. Please.”

“It was for you,” he says.

“Yeah, but you’ve had a tough few days too, and if I remember correctly, you haven’t had one in years. If you get in, it’ll be a triple treat for me. One: you’ll have a bath, and I think you’d be cute in a bath; and two,” she says, and he smiles, “I’ll sit in here with you and get to see your muscles all soapy; and three: I’ll tell you why we’re doing renovations on the outbuilding.”

“You’re a trickster, but lucky for you, I only ever want to do what you want.”

Mali turns to face the door as Zach gets in the bath, and she scowls the entire time. But it’s worth it when she turns back around and he has his locs piled on top of his head, and there’s soap all over his abs. She told him she was going to look, so she doesn’t feel bad. She takes a deep breath and blames it on the fact she has to crouch down. Zach got some cushions from the sofa and covered them in plastic bags so she could sit close without the ache from the tiles. She would have been fine, but he seemed desperate to do something for her, as if he’s not already doing so many things.

“I’ve been thinking about coming out properly,” Zach says, as she gets comfortable. “What would you think if I did a magazine article with Frankie? I don’t want her to be excluded. It’s not like I’m the first queer person on the team.”

Mali smiles at him. “I can get you the cover if you want it.”

“Do you think Frankie would be up for it?”

She swirls her fingers through the bubbles as she wonders if framing the magazine would be too much. “Ask her.”

Zach grunts, and Mali laughs. She grabs the face mask Zach bought for her. Cutest fucking man alive. She dips her fingers in, and he leans forwards like he knew what she wanted. She likes touching his face. Usually, he’s clean shaven but she’s not mad at the stubble right now.

“Do you want to have dinner with Frankie?” she asks.

“Baby, why on earth would I want to do that?”

She lets him take the face mask from her and match the way she put it on him. She shivers when his fingertips land against her neck. She wonders if he can feel her quickening pulse. Maybe that’s why his fingers stay in that place.

“I think you need to bury the hatchet,” she says.

“She hates me.”

“She’s a grown woman.”

“I don’t like her.”

“You’re a grown man.”

Zach grumps, his lips pouting like he’s not a grown man, and she almost tells him she’s in love with him. He leans forward, and she rests her hand against his jaw.

“Please,” she whispers. Mali tilts his jaw until he’s looking at her again. “ Please. ”

His eyes soften as he sighs. “Your face is dangerous.”

Mali laughs. “What?”

“You could ask me to do most things and I would have no choice but to say yes.”

“What are the few things you’d say no to?”

Zach thinks about it, and Mali feels the insides of her chest rewiring. She knows that, realistically, her body cells regenerate every seven years or so. But it feels like it’s happened right now. Like every cell in her body knows she wants him. Like every part of her is halfway to being his.

“Maybe nothing,” he mutters, rubbing his face against her hand. She goes to drop her hand, but he catches her, pressing his lips to her palm.

“If I promise not to ask for anything, will you say yes to dinner?” she asks.

“I’d do anything you wanted,” he replies, and it warms her to her core how she trusts him completely.

“I’d do anything for you,” she says back. She hopes he has the same confidence in her words that she has in his. She wonders if when she says things like this, he believes it would be true, no matter what. That she’d do anything for him, even if they stayed friends for the rest of their lives. If he never touched her, never kissed her, never loved her. She’d be his anyway.

“Apart from getting into a bath that’s filled with enough chemicals to mess up your system?” he says.

Mali laughs. “Apart from that, but I was so close. I used to sit in the bathroom with my mum, and sometimes she let me use her salts. When I was younger, we used to share,” Mali says, smiling up at him. “Then one day I did it without her and I thought I was going to die.”

“Sorry,” he replies with a smile. “I used to share baths with De, but we didn’t have salts.”

“Were you close?”

“Kind of. I always wanted to be closer, but I think it’s an age thing. I thought he was so cool. I thought he was the best thing in the world, and all I wanted to do was follow him around,” he says, with a small smile. Mali imagines Zach as a tiny child, and her heart aches. “I don’t have any good memories with him. I’m worried if I ignore all the bad ones, he won’t exist to me anymore.”

Mali reaches for his hand, and he links their fingers together. “You don’t need memories all the time. You have Devon’s nose, and you sound like him. He’ll always exist as an extension of you.”

Zach smiles. “My kids are gonna be best friends for life, whether they wanna be or not.”

Mali’s heart quickens. “I thought you weren’t having them.”

“I didn’t think I would.”

“How come?”

He shrugs. “A relationship was never something I let myself think I wanted, because it had never been a thing anyone showed any interest in.” He traces a bubble, then looks up at her. “But I dunno. I think I might get lucky.”

There are butterflies in her toes, and her chest, and her fingertips. How weird would it be to tell him she wants his children? Pretty weird, but she could do it if she had any idea how to talk anymore. Zach wants children. Maybe he’s thinking about it with her, because who else is showing an interest in him other than her? Mali isn’t a jealous person, but if there were another person, she might die on the spot or something.

“You’ll be such a good mum,” Zach says casually, like her entire body isn’t thumping. He shifts slightly in the bath, but Mali’s not nervous about seeing his dick anymore. She can’t take her eyes off his face. Can’t tear her gaze away from how his chest blushes when he talks about children. How his eyes light up when he’s clearly thinking about something he’s thought about in enough detail that it plays in his mind. “You’ll let them be whatever they want to be.”

“Like a rugby player,” Mali says.

“Yeah. Or a teacher, like your mum. Or whatever your dad says he does. Or they could be a dustbin man, I don’t mind. Happy and healthy, that’s all I care about.”

Mali smiles. She imagines a tiny Zach holding his hand, and her eyes well up. She wants Zach to be happy. She wants him to have whatever she wants. She desperately wants him to want that with her.

“Isn’t it crazy that when I think about kids, they have purple hair?” Zach says casually. Mali blinks. He thinks about his children having her hair. He continues like he can’t tell she’s not breathing. “No face, no gender, just purple-haired happy people, running around adding ‘literally’ into every sentence they can.”

Mali has thought about Zach romantically for the longest time. Then it turned into how her life looked in the future, and Zach was there, in every corner of her brain. She never thought he might think like that too.

“You hate my purple hair,” she whispers.

Zach rolls his eyes. “Before I met you, I didn’t have thoughts about what was pretty. Things were just attractive, you know? Nice. But I never thought about it more than that. I was never trying to ‘compare thee to a summer’s day.’”

Shakespeare again. She wonders if Zach has any idea how romantic he is. How he could have any person he set his sights on. How happy he could be if he let himself realise people don’t always want to be casual with him.

“But seeing you with purple hair that day shoved everything else down. Suddenly, I had a whole stack of words about how pretty things were, and none of them were good enough for you. I think it changed my biology. Every time I saw something nice, all I thought was, ‘not as pretty as Mali,’ and then I wanted to show it to you to see if you liked it too.”

Mali swallows. “I can’t believe you’re a smooth talker and the first time you spoke to me properly you stared at your phone the whole time.”

Zach laughs, reaching for her hand. “I had to google things to say to you.”

“What?” she replies. “Why?”

“You’re too beautiful. I couldn’t form a sentence when you looked at me.”

“Are you serious?”

He smiles brighter. “Why else do you think I mentioned the weather so often? It’s not even my fault, Mal. Half my cognitive function disappears the moment you look my way, and I was so desperate for you to want to talk to me.”

“I always want to talk to you,” she whispers.

“I’m slowly starting to let myself believe it,” he says. “At the start, I so badly wanted you to be impressed by me that I panicked. I still do.”

“You know I have a T-shirt with your name on it from every club you’ve ever been at, right?” she says, and the look on his face suggests he didn’t know that. Mali also knows he always thinks people want him for his body. His rugby ability. She doesn’t care about that.

“But then I met you,” she says, her voice low, “and rugby is so far down on the list of reasons I think about you all the time.”

“Can’t believe you think I’m shit at rugby,” he says, and she laughs, flicking water at him.

“You’re literally so annoying,” she says, then, “and maybe my favourite person in the world.”

Zach looks at her with slightly wide eyes. Like maybe this conversation has been a long time coming for him too. Like it still came out of nowhere. Like he has no idea how to contain any emotions right now.

“You know,” he says, swallowing and sitting up a little. She takes a deep breath, because there are many reasons she’s in love with him, but he’s still the most beautiful person she’s ever seen. “After I did all the hard work of changing my biology and it’s all your fault, yada yada yada…” Mali rolls her eyes, but she leans closer all the same. “I had to do it all over again when I saw you without your wig on. And despite the physical turmoil that put me in…” She flicks water at him again, but he holds onto her hand before she can retreat.

“…you’re my favourite person in the world too.”