Page 6

The grass pricks at the back of Zach’s neck, but he has no energy to lift his hand to push it away. Training wasn’t harder than usual today, but he is knackered, and he can feel the burn in every one of his muscles. Training usually wipes him out, but today, he’s mentally tired, which isn’t something he’s felt since school. There appears to be no cure for it. When he googles it, it comes up with medications, therapy, blah blah blah… but he’s not sure what medications he’d even need. He can’t take sleeping pills because he can’t miss training or the five alarms he has for his mum. He can’t see a therapist because he tried that already and his mum almost had a heart attack. He can’t talk to friends because he has none, and talking to himself might take a dangerous turn.

Zach sighs. It hasn’t helped that he couldn’t sleep last night. The new PR girl was running around his mind. She thinks he’s rude, which might be true, but then she laughed a couple times, and he’d thought everything he said was in the same tone. She’s confusing. He doesn’t want to be rude to her; he doesn’t like it when she frowns at him. He tried to flirt with her, joked about burning bridges, but she didn’t seem to like that. And then she figured out he googled the word sweetheart, and he’s still wondering why she would call him out on it. That’s what it said! He wasn’t lying.

Her laugh plays in his mind, that and the ringing in his ears from being next to Ezra in scrum training for an hour. He might look in the mirror and see his ears no longer attached to his body.

“Azan!” Coach shouts, and what now?! He heaves himself off the floor, the burning in the back of his throat inching closer to nausea than he’s comfortable with. Still, he jogs over to where Frankie stands on the sidelines, wrapped in a thousand layers. Even with the puffer jacket on, she’s shivering. Pussy.

“Coach?”

“Why have I got five missed calls from you?” she asks, her brows rising with the question. He wonders if she realises she’d be warmer if she wore a beanie. Ever since she shaved her head a few weeks ago, she seems to have forgotten she no longer has hair. He’s not going to tell her that though.

“That was yesterday. I assume Ezra fixed it.”

Her eyebrows rise more. “What, I have a brother who has to fix things for me? Is it because he’s a man?”

Zach barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. He didn’t mean it like that. God, she’s so infuriating. Frankie is only like this with him. With everyone else, she’s at least sometimes nice, but ever since Zach’s interview mishap, it’s like no one in the team can take anything he says the way it’s meant. They always assume there’s some ulterior motive.

“I texted the both of you,” Zach clarifies. “She only said Adebayo, so I didn’t know which one of you she was chatting about.”

“Well, Ezra’s on the field today, and we had a family thing yesterday, so I guess I’ll have to fix it,” she replies, batting her eyelashes, and Zach smiles wide. Her entire face is going to drop when he tells her.

“Sure, Coach.” He smiles, and her jaw tightens. She’s going to make him run hundreds of laps. “There was a new bird in the office yesterday.” Her jaw hangs slightly. “Said she’s doing PR, but no one was in the office all day, and the heating wasn’t on. That’s why I called you five times. That’s why I called Ezra.”

“Fuck. Did she come back?” she asks, spinning in her place and blowing her whistle as she runs away, as if anyone knows what that means.

“Dunno,” Zach calls, following after her.

“Why did you leave her?!” she throws over her shoulder.

“I’ll do laps, Coach, but I’m not taking the blame for this.”

“Dammit,” she mutters, and he smiles until she disappears into the office. He does hope someone was there for her, if only so she wasn’t cold. Zach spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours trying not to think about her. The way she so blatantly checked him out mid-conversation. The way her eyes narrowed when he told her he didn’t talk to anyone. It’s true, which is why he said it. It wasn’t until he thought about it later that it sounded like he didn’t want to talk to her because she was staff, which is untrue. She could be the one calling the shots on the pitch, and he’d still avoid talking to her. Whether that’s because he doesn’t like to be friendly or because she’s so enticing he can’t speak, he’s not sure. Either way, Lisa is the only one at work that says good morning to him, and he always replies to her, so he supposes his statement wasn’t entirely correct.

Zach thinks about the way PR girl’s hips shook when she pretended she wasn’t cold. The way her entire face scrunched up when she called him bro. He wonders what else he’d need to do for her to smile at him. He sighs and grabs his phone from his bag.

Thankfully, there’s three notifications for houses for him to look at. The first one is tonight. Keen. Excellent, because he’s moments away from living in his car. The other two are rejections. Nasty. Rude. Uncool. If Frankie is done with training now, attempting to fix the mess they’ve made in the office instead, he could go back to his mum’s, make her dinner, and go see the house all in one evening.

He waits three minutes for her to come back out, then legs it. Frankie would find a way to fine him even if he was the only one left on the pitch. Zach wonders if it would be better to tell the team, or at least Frankie, what’s going on at home. Maybe then they’d be more lenient. He knows Lightman gets off early every Thursday because he picks his daughter up from her mum’s. Kai missed practice because he had the dentist. (Ezra knocked his tooth out during practice, but in his defence, Kai wasn’t paying attention.) But the last time he told anyone on his team something, he was practically chased out of the village. There’s a chance the Titans aren’t like that, but Zach’s beyond telling people things about himself now.

Not when he has no way to retaliate.

Mali dusts the mantel on her fireplace, wondering if taking the time to put the fire on might be a bit much. She’s not even sure the person who turns up is going to want to rent the room, fire or not. She’s not even sure she wants them to. But it hit three in the afternoon yesterday, and Mali had to admit that the job wasn’t happening. It’s humiliating, but the only person apart from her parents that even know she was there is Zach, and he’s probably forgotten her already.

So, she left, and spent the rest of the afternoon eating ice-cream on the couch with Buffy. Late last night she got a notification for a viewing, so she spent all day tidying. No, they might not want to look in the tumble dryer, but what if they notice the lint tray is full? What if it means Riah (a guy, sob) doesn’t want the room? What if it’s all linked to her having to work at Marks 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 his head 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 about a 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.”

“Okay.”

Zach stands at full height again. He looks at her, the crease between his brow deepening as his eyes roam her face.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I…” He shuffles his feet awkwardly. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

Zach huffs out a laugh and scrubs a hand over his face. She follows his fingers as they move across his jaw. He has tiny gold earrings in (she wonders if he puts them in after every practice; there’s no way they’d stay there during a scrum) and it’s upsettingly sexy. Something settles in the pit of her stomach, but she’ll try her best to ignore it.

“Most of our conversations,” he says, and she smiles slightly.

“I thought you didn’t talk to the staff?”

Zach groans. “To be fair, I only talk to Lisa. She’s the only one who likes me.”

“I’m not sure she liked me,” Mali jokes. “She made the worst cup of tea I’ve ever had.”

Zach laughs, his shoulders settling into a low hang. “Innit. Shoulda warned you about that, but I had a bad morning. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“Thanks.”

“And your hair isn’t unprofessional. Sorry.”

Mali wonders if his voice was always this deep and smooth, or if the low light of her hallway is affecting her ability to hear anything without imagining an erotic undertone.

Mali shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like we’re going to be working together anyway.”

“If it’s any consolation,” he says, as he walks towards the front door, “I did speak to Frankie.” He stops and reaches up to tilt the frame back into place. His sweatshirt rides up, and she sees the band of his boxers and a sliver of skin. Mali’s never longed for someone like this. It’s the most bizarre feeling. She doesn’t know him—she should have no desire to make him feel good—and yet she wants to know what he likes.

She blinks when he turns around. “Oh.”

Zach shrugs. “She seemed mortified. I bet if you came back tomorrow, someone would be there.”

She groans. “That’s so embarrassing. She hasn’t even texted me.”

“The club isn’t used to having anything—not that you’re something to have, but they aren’t used to it.” Mali ponders whether she’d let Zach have her. “And yeah, the bar is on the floor, but I don’t think you’d regret it if you gave them another chance. Besides, I’m the only one that saw you.”

"And Lisa."

"She's not a snitch."

Mali takes a moment to trace the outline of his shoulders. Then she looks back at his face. “You wouldn’t tell anyone?”

Zach smiles a little. It’s not a smirk—just a barely there smile he directs more at the ground than at her. She realises she’d let him have whatever he wants.

“Depends.”

Mali squints, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall. This is probably the most comfortable she’s felt since he came in. There’s nothing about him that makes her scared, per se, even if he should, by all accounts, be described as scarily large. But it is the first time it’s seemed like he’s not about to run out on her like a skittish badger.

“On what?”

“If you turn up tomorrow.”

She hums. “I’m going to wear orange hair.”

Zach rolls his eyes. Mali wonders if he gets headaches from doing it so often.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less. I’m sure it will look as pretty as the pink.”

Mali clenches her jaw so she won’t smile, but she’s not sure how well it works. “You think the purple is gross?”

Zach smiles a little wider, and fuck her and him, because a dimple appears. “I don’t think it’s gross.”

Mali hums, but she’s not sure she believes him. She’s trying to pretend she doesn’t care either way.

“Bye, cute stuff,” Zach says, bending down to wave to Buffy. Buff’s over him now. That makes one of them.

“See you around, bro,” he says to Mali, his hand on the door handle.

“Night, Zachariah.”

He groans, and the cold bites at her calves again. Mali smiles this time, an easy, full smile that she directs mainly at his back because he’s halfway out the door. If she goes back tomorrow, she wonders how much of that will have to do with him.