Page 106 of Spring Awakening

“Love you,” she says, kissing Frankie on the cheek. Frankie mumbles that she loves her back, but she’s half dancing with Cam already.

“Love you too,” Mali says, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Ezra on the cheek. He grunts, but he bends down so she can reach. Zach is talking to Kai and a couple other players, and she should feel bad about interrupting them, but she doesn’t. She grabs Zach’s hand.

He smiles when he looks at her. “Hey, baby.”

“Hi,” she says, then waves to the guys. “Wanna get out of here?”

He smiles brightly at her, then looks to Kai. “Bye.”

It’s not cold tonight, and Mali strolls home with Zach’s hand in hers. She can’t stop looking over at him. Every time she does, he’s already looking at her, and she blushes like a schoolgirl with a crush.

“Wanna walk along the river?” he asks. “I’m obsessed with it now.”

“Yeah?”

He hums, and she links her arm with his. He kisses her on the forehead, and she wants to stop and kiss him for real, but she’s been thinking about sleeping with him for the longest time, and it doesn’t happen on a bench outside.

“Yeah. It meant nothing to me at all until we walked home together months ago, and I barely managed to say a word to you. Now, I dunno, feels like our spot. No one else is allowed there. It’s just for us.”

“Maybe we should get it written into law or something.”

“You probably could,” Zach replies, with a laugh. “You can do anything.”

Mali holds his arm tighter. They’re still a few roads away from the river, and home, but she doesn’t mind the stroll.

“You know, I had no idea you loved me,” Zach says. “You were running around saving me from Scotland, and I spent all my time wondering if you might like me enough to want to answer my call once a month.”

“You’re a ridiculous man,” she whispers, and he smiles. She wants to take a photo of his silhouette against the starry night sky, but she knows it would never do it justice. She wonders how to get this image of him seared onto her skin.

“Well, I knew you had the hots for me, so bad,” Zach says.

Mali giggles, and he holds her hand against his chest. “I do have the hots for you.”

“I just didn’t realise it could ever be more than that. I thought you’d think I was hot and a bit grumpy and reclusive.”

“I do think you’re hot and a bit grumpy and reclusive,” she replies. “You’re my favourite thing in the world.”

He kisses her knuckles. It’s quiet again, apart from the way her heels click along the cobblestones, but Mali has just one question.

“You know I’d want to be with you regardless, right?”

He looks down at her. “I do know that.”

“Okay. Because the Dougals are stillinthe premiership, and if you want that—I support you, because you deserve anything that you want. The spreadsheets are still valid. I still want that life with you.”

He could go, but Mali knows he won’t. She knows he wants to stay with her because he loves her, and she knows it as surely as she knows the sun will rise tomorrow.

Zach halts. The glow from the corner-shop sign is the only thing she can see beyond his face.

“I want you. I want you, and our house, and Buffy, and children running around that go to the rugby club we love. I want to stay at the Titans, help them get to the premiership. I want to retire there, and I want you. Everything I have, everything good in my life, has happened because of you. I don’t want to be anywhere you’re not.”

Mali smiles, then shrugs. “’Kay.”

Zach laughs, pulling her against him as they walk again.

“I can post whatever I want on my socials, now, right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Mali replies, their hands swinging. “Unless it’s shoes. Did you read the contract I sent?”

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