Page 26 of The Not So Super Hero

B ailey stood in the doorway, flushed and arms pinned to his sides.

He scoffed, cursing Ryan in his head. Bailey needed him!

Why couldn’t he be a good wingman? Or a distraction.

Now, he and Zane were alone. Not like he expected anything to happen, but, like it could.

Sighing, the poor boy slowly made his way back towards his bed.

Each step felt a little heavier than the last.

Zane watched Bailey’s every move; to the point where he returned to the bed. Feeling Zane’s bright blue eyes on him made Bailey’s knees tremble. That reaction didn’t go unnoticed based on Zane’s smug expression.

“Shut up,” Bailey grumbled.

“Are you hearing things? Because I said nothing,” Zane replied. Bailey squirmed. Their arms brushed, so he swiftly crossed his arms in a futile attempt to separate them.

Zane would have moved further away, but the wall pressed against his opposite arm.

Good thing he was best at ignoring things because, at that moment, he needed to ignore something.

That something was the warmth next to him and how it reminded him he had a heart.

He hated when it worked up. He wished it would crawl back into its hole and die.

“I can hear you thinking sassy thoughts,” Bailey said, curling his nose.

“My sassy thoughts?” Zane chuckled again, and without Bailey’s permission, leaned closer.

Bailey knew he did it on purpose by the grin Zane sported.

He couldn’t stay mad because now he stared at Zane, and his pretty eyes, and his soft-looking hair, and his stupid handsome face.

Bailey needed to see a doctor immediately. He was unhealthy.

“Normally, I’m the one in a foul mood, but you’re trying to steal that today. What’s wrong? Regretting inviting me up here already?”

“No, of course not,” Bailey replied so quickly that Zane, nor himself, expected it.

The air went still. Both went silent. Zane’s grin fell.

Bailey swallowed the lump in his throat.

Then the next, and the next. The silence between them had a mind of its own, twisting around them like a heavy mist.Bailey wished he could have been more tactful.

He wasn’t thinking straight because he honestly didn’t want Zane to believe that he disliked his presence.

Actually, Bailey didn’t have the time to think since his mouth went off without his permission.

But, the point of him saying that was, Bailey wouldn’t have offered Zane to come up to his dorm if he didn’t actually want the man to be there.

He simply didn’t want Zane to feel out of place.

Something told Bailey that Zane was used to that feeling and he sure as hell didn’t want to add to it.

Zane eventually pulled back, so that he was no longer in Bailey’s sight.

However, Bailey forgot his No Looking rule and spun his head to watch Zane.

He sunk into the pillows behind them. Bailey wasn’t sure what changed; the atmosphere, Zane himself, but the room grew warm.

Zane’s expression hadn’t changed. He just looked different, like he was comfortable for once. That thought made Bailey’s toes curl.

Of all the people to make him feel that, it had to be Zane.

Bailey wished he had better taste in guys.

Couldn’t he crush on the nice guy? The one who would buy him flowers or watch bad horror movies with him through the night?

Regardless, the feelings never left. Bailey couldn’t help but feel this sense of attraction to Zane.

It didn’t matter how much he denied the truth.

His heart was practically writing his feelings on a billboard and placing it before him while screaming, admit it already!

Bailey was so screwed. But it wasn’t all bad, right?

Zane had his moments, like how he was quiet next to Bailey with a sort of soft expression that really suited him.

Sometimes he was funny, sometimes he was kind, like when he helped Bailey out of the store during that villain attack.

Maybe Zane would show even more sides of him if Bailey tried harder at getting to them?

“What do you do in your spare time?” Bailey asked.

Zane cocked a brow. “What?”

He shrugged. “What do you like to do in your spare time?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.” He shrugged again.

Come on, Zane had to know at least part of the reason.

The guy was pretty mysterious without meaning to be.

He was lazy, kept to himself, and had secrets.

Not to say Bailey was an open book either.

Zane didn’t know everything there was to know about him, but Bailey thought it would be nice if they started somewhere.

“Watching TV, I guess,” Zane responded hesitantly, as if he expected Bailey to take that information and misuse it somehow.

“It’s just a simple question, Zane.”

“Which is why it’s bugging me.”

“You can ask me one?” Bailey suggested.

“I don’t really have anything to ask,” he answered because, honestly, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask.

There was this constant gnawing at the back of his mind that reminded him of Leona, her words, and how he was an idiot for accepting Bailey’s offer.

His best bet was to leave Bailey alone, act like they never knew each other. It was the best for the both of them.

“Come on. You have a little interest in others of the human race, right?” Bailey asked.

“Nope.”

Not shocking for Bailey to hear. He chuckled.

Zane gave a small smile, so miniscule that Bailey barely saw it, but it was certainly there.

It kind of made him nervous and ecstatic.

How many others have managed to do that?

Was Bailey allowed to feel a bit proud, or was he thinking too highly of himself?

“Since you won’t ask me anything, then I’ll just keep asking you,” Bailey said.

“Oh, joy.”

“Do you believe in aliens?”

“Wow, for a moment, I thought you were going to be normal.” Zane pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how someone like Bailey existed. He cut through the tense atmosphere like it was nothing.

“Normal is boring, so I take that as a compliment,” Bailey chirped.

“Believe me, it wasn’t.”

“Is that your way of saying you don’t believe in aliens?” Bailey was positively gleeful at the look of exasperation on Zane’s face. It was nice to be the one (kind of) teasing instead of being the one that was getting teased.

“Why the fuck are we talking about this?” Zane rubbed the sides of his temple with his knuckles. This kid was bad news. Why did he even agree to come up here? Yet he made no move to leave. Why weren’t his legs moving? Why couldn’t he just get up and leave? He needed to, seriously.

“If aliens exist, I think they would have already come here, but they probably didn’t like us, so they left,” Bailey added.

“No surprise there. There’s no intelligent life here, after all.”

“Ha! You insulted yourself.”

“Never thought of myself as intelligent, so, technically, I didn’t.”

“Whatever, you can’t dig yourself out of that. You insulted yourself, end of story.” Bailey crossed his arms.

Zane stared in disbelief at Bailey, the boy who seemed so keen on starting the conversation.

Unlike Bailey, who seemed to thrive off speaking, Zane did not.

His vocal chords often forgot they were functioning.

Silence was what Zane was best at so it was making things very difficult.

He was at a loss of what to say, how to start and keep a conversation, not that he wanted to. ..

“Have you ever considered going to college?” Bailey nudged Zane’s leg with his foot.

“No.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“It’s exhausting.”

“Not if you go for something you like.” Bailey nodded, thinking about how he didn’t see school as exhausting. He had days when he wanted to sleep the entire time or classes that really bothered him. But he ultimately liked college. It had its peaks and valleys, just like everything did.

Zane stiffened, thinking immediately that he had nothing he liked that much. There wasn’t a single thing in his life that interested him enough to pay thousands of dollars to know more. Hell, there was nothing he enjoyed so much to even get out of bed.

Shrugging, Zane replied, “I don’t have anything I like that much.”

Bailey frowned. It almost hurt looking at the man next to him that seemed to honestly feel that there wasn’t anything in his life that interested him.

Bailey had so many interests that he often lost count of what they were.

It seemed so normal, to have interests, to enjoy some things over others, that Bailey never even considered there was someone who didn’t have them.

“I think I should leave,” Zane mumbled, getting up so fast that he didn’t have time to blink before Zane was off the bed and heading to the door.

“Wait, hold on!” Bailey called. Stumbling off his bed, he followed Zane without too much self-harm.

He hit his elbow off the bedside table and his arm was still tingling from it but he ignored it in favor to grasp the back of Zane’s shirt.

“I’m sorry if the questioning bothers you. We can just watch TV then?”

“I thought the point of me coming up here was to rest?” Zane argued. Bailey’s fingertips rubbed against his arm. He hated the way his skin broke out in goosebumps.

“Then we won’t watch anything. I’ll study and you can rest,” he said.

Before Zane responded, the ground shook.

The building groaned and swayed. Bailey tipped forward, ramming his side against Zane.

He clutched Bailey by the shoulders to prevent him from whacking his head off the floor.

The quaking came to a stop, but then the alarms started blaring.

Zane sent Bailey a glare, who was already smiling sheepishly.

“This is your fault,” he growled.

“It is not!” Bailey argued.