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Mali sips on her drink as she stands at the bar with Cam. The Goliath contract came through, and the bar is free, so Mali is on her second overly sugary-sweet cocktail, and trying not to throw something because it didn’t come in time to save Zach. It turns out, it would never have been in time to buy Zach out this season, because the funds are delayed, but that’s beyond the point.

Mali will probably stop drinking after this cocktail, because she wants to fuck Zach so badly, and she doesn’t want to miss a second of it because she’s tipsy. Cam is currently in a text war with her dickhead of a boyfriend, Andrew, but Mali doesn’t mind waiting for her, because really, she’s just checking Zach out from across the room. He looks so good when he dresses up. Well, he looks good all the time, but there’s something about him when she knows he cared about what he looks like. He’s trimmed his beard, but he’s not clean shaven, and the lost libido from being heartbroken this week has come back with a vengeance.

He looks over at her, smiling as he does. She looks him up and down slowly, catching the moment he knows she’s fucking with him. His arms tense, and he blushes, and she loves him so much she might cease to exist. She wants to walk over, grab his hand, and take him home. It’s his fault, the way he kept touching her when she was getting ready. His lips were against her shoulder, or her thigh, or her neck. His eyes lingered every time she was speaking. Mali always liked foreplay; she didn’t know how much she loved it when the person barely touched her.

“He’s mad at me, and I don’t know why,” Cam says. Mali wants to roll her eyes. Cam always thinks Andrew is mad at her, and it’s because he is. He’s mad she leaves the house when he doesn’t want her to. He’s mad when she doesn’t answer her phone right away. He’s always mad, and Mali wants Cam to leave him because he’s a controlling prick, but she’s told her that. She’s spoken to Frankie when Cam came to drinks with fingertip-like bruises on her arm. She texted Cam to check she was okay when she had to leave dinner early because Andrew told her to.

“Why?” she asks instead.

“I don’t know,” Cam whispers, and she sounds more heartbroken than she ever has. Mali frowns. “He’s just not talking to me.”

“Girl, didn’t he drop you here?”

Cam frowns at her drink. “Who?”

“Andrew.”

“Oh,” Cam says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. She’s so pretty, and nice, and deserves someone leagues better than Andrew, who would never be good enough for her. She deserves to realise Ezra loves her.

“Yeah. I mean Ez. He’s not talking to me, and I don’t know what I’ve done.” Mali wonders if she does know he’s in love with her and that she’s hurting him. She doesn’t think so. Cam is nice enough that she’d put Ezra out of his misery if she knew. She’d stay away from him if she didn’t like him back. The look in her eyes suggests she has no idea. That he’s her friend and he’s ignoring her, and she needs him, but she doesn’t know how to ask for him.

“I think he’s just tired. The Goliath contract has been a lot,” Mali says, though she feels bad about it. “You want me to say something?”

Mali asked Cam the other day if she was alright, but it was more than that. It came after she had a fight with Andrew. Cam knows everyone hates him, even if they pretend not to when he’s around. She looked nervous, and Mali hasn’t known her that long, but Cam never looks nervous. The way she watched her phone and responded to him immediately. The way she made excuses for his behaviour. The way he always looks angry.

“Nah,” Cam says, with a forced smile. “Andrew bought me these. Aren’t they pretty?”

Mali swallows a foul taste as she looks at the flowers on the screen. She avoids looking back at Cam, at the hopeful look in her eye as she tries to defend her boyfriend. Mali wonders if she loves him. She wonders if she knows she could be happier.

“So pretty!”

Mali’s not sure how else to help Cam. She’s spoken to her, her family, Frankie. She hasn’t spoken to Ezra because it seemed like maybe it’s a line she shouldn’t cross. It’s possible the fingertip marks on Cam’s arm were from the bakery, like she said. It’s possible the way she stopped bringing cookies to practice is because work got busy, not because Andrew told her not to.

“Cam,” Frankie calls out, waving her over. Cam takes a sip of her drink.

“You coming, Mal?” Cam asks.

“Yeah, be there in a sec!” Mali watches Cam go to dance, and she wonders how long it will be until Cam has to go home. Maybe she hasn’t told Andrew where she’s gone at all. Maybe she’s told him she’s working late again.

Mali places her drink on the bar, takes a deep breath, then goes and sits next to Ezra.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Ezra replies, though he’s looking at Cam. Mali didn’t realise how much pain Ezra was in until Zach said he only wanted to be friends with her, and that only lasted a few days. Mali’s not sure what to say, or if she’s allowed, so she just goes for it.

“Andrew is a dick.”

Ezra snorts. “I know.”

“Cam knows too.” It’s the first time she’s outwardly acknowledged that she knows Ezra likes her. “I know it sucks, but she does know he’s a prick. She’s stubborn, though. You know that.”

“I do.”

“You’re the first person she’d call if she was in trouble.”

Ezra sits up straighter. “What?”

Mali shrugs. “We were playing a game the other night, just silly questions and stuff, and the question was who you would call if you were in trouble. Cam said you so fast I almost fell over.”

“So she thinks of me like a brother,” he says. It’s true that Frankie also said Ezra, but they weren’t said in the same tone.

“I can’t tell you all the questions, because I am a lady, but you were her answer for everything that I answered Zach to. And if you want another hint, Frankie said Beyoncé.”

Ezra laughs. “Have you ever met someone as confident as Frank?”

Mali smiles. “With good reason.” She wonders if she should say anything else. If he knows he’s been avoiding Cam. Probably. She wonders if it’s because he wants to. If he’s staying away because being close hurts too much. He wonders if he knows she’s hurting too. Ezra hums.

“One more thing,” Mali says, turning to look at him slightly, “and then I’ll shush for, like, at least a minute.”

“Dunno if you’re capable,” he grumbles, but he turns to look at her.

“You should say hi. You know… if you want.”

Ezra looks conflicted, and Mali wonders if saying the rest is helpful. She wonders if it’s true.

“Have you spent any time with Andrew?”

“Nah. He never turns up to anything.”

“He does,” Mali replies. “If you’re not there, he goes.”

Ezra frowns. “Weirdo.”

“I don’t know how nice he is…” Mali says, pulling her lips between her teeth. Ezra’s entire body tenses. “…in private. I don’t know how nice he is when they’re alone. He’s not particularly nice when he’s in public. I did speak to Cam, and she says she’s fine, but I don’t know her well enough to know if she’s lying. I have mentioned it to Frankie once, and I thought that would be it. I don’t like to mess with people’s relationships when I don’t know everything. But… there’s things Cam only tells you, and she really misses you, and it’s totally not my place to say anything, but I think she might need you around… especially now.”

Ezra rolls his neck, and Mali’s not sure she’s seen anyone this visibly angry before. Maybe Zach when Toby knocked her to the ground, but her vision was blurry then. Mali wonders if Ezra’s mad at her.

“I didn’t want to say anything, because I might be wrong, and I know you’re not together, and I don’t even wanna know how hard it must be for you. Then I was in that space for like half a second and I almost died, and I still know that if Zach needed anything, I would be there. And I know you… well, I know about as much as you’ll let me know, which is that you’re in love with Cam, you think the monarchy is a con, and you only ever vote Labour, and I got two of those from the stickers on your car,” she says, her hands flying around. “So, if I overstepped, I’m really sorry. I just thought you’d wanna know. Whatever you do or don’t do is up to you. I’ll never tell anyone I spoke to you.”

Ezra looks at her, and she has no idea what he’s thinking, because she never has any idea what he’s thinking. She should be scared of him, because he’s terrifying and he’s looking at her like he’s trying to figure out how to take her brain out without making a mess, but she trusts him. He leans forwards, and she frowns until kisses her on the temple.

“Thank you.”

She smiles at him as she gets up, and she smiles at him until he’s no longer in her view. She smiles at him as she watches Cam’s eyes light up when he goes over.

Mali looks to find Zach. He’s already looking right at her.