Page 2 of Spring Awakening

Zach sighs. The sunrise peeking over the edge of the housing estate does nothing to keep his spirits up, as his locs keep hitting him in the face. This morning, he decided an extra five minutes in bed took priority over tying them up and making them look half-decent. Of course, he could have thrown them up when he got changed, but he’d rather be annoyed for two hours than look bad. There are people here who can see him.

In all his twenty-seven years, the only thing Zach has been good for is his face and his body. If his knees gave out on himon the rugby field, or if he didn’t attract people, he’d sit on a bench and crumble into nothing. He’s gotten used to being needed for one thing, and he’s good at it. It’s why he spends time making sure he looks good even when he’s doing a quick run to the shop. His face has been on the back of a newspaper more times than he can count. Lately, it’s been for the league win and helping the Titans move up a rank, but before, it was him and a string of girls he’s never spoken to again. Zach used to hate being photographed, but then he got paid for the photos a couple times, the team trended on social media, and the higher-ups kept looking at him in a positive way. Then, he decided if it was going to happen anyway, it might as well benefit him.

Today, there are no photographers at training. No one cares about the team that much that they’d camp outside the grounds to get some grainy, dark photos of them training in full winter gear while Frankie shouts at them. But Zach’s used to making sure he looks good now.

He could turn up to training as if he’d rolled straight out of bed. The entire team is far too macho to be anything other than oppressively straight. Zach’s not sure he’s the only queer player, but he’d hanker a guess that out of twenty people on the pitch, he’s far from the only bisexual out here. So, he’s just going to assume someone is harbouring a secret crush on him. It’s terrifying to come out as a professional athlete, but the Toulshire Titans are barely even mainstream. The only people that know anything about most of them are the six-year-olds at the local park. Better now than later.

To be fair, Zach hasn’t told his teammates that he’s bisexual. He should. He wants to, but they don’t like him anyway. He doesn’t need to give them another reason to oust him. His need to discuss it, to have it out in the open, is probably due to how he was outed at his last club and hounded out of town because of it.That’s what his therapist of three weeks said, anyway. Zach tries not to think about it too much.

The only issue with the photos and the girls is that it makes the people closest to him think he’s only after one thing. His mum thinks he’s always seeing someone new because he wants that—not because that’s what’s always been expected of him. No one wants to date him for real, which is good, because he has no desire to date anyone anymore. But some people (Frankie, and he shouldn’t care because why is she bothered who he does or does not sleep with?) assume that the quick sex and non-existent relationships are all on him. That these poor girls he has on his arm every other week are clueless, desperately-in-love women he’s tricked. When, in reality, Zach’s not sure he’s ever flirted with someone in his life. He’s always the one that’s approached, and yeah, sex is fun, so of course he’s going to go home with them.

Sometimes, it gets him down. Lately, he’s been missing something. His therapist said it was love, romance. Someone to look forward to coming home to. He misses a life he’s never had. The image of walking along the river hand in hand with someone is blurry to him now. The thought he’d ever be anything other than miserable is not something he thinks about. Most of the time, he goes to a club and finds someone hot enough to distract him from it. Zach just hasn’t been fucked well in a minute.

Since he joined the Titans last year, the club got promoted, and that came with a whole host of other commitments. So, he’s been too tired to get laid. He can’t jack off at home because his roommates are weirdos who always walk into his room without knocking. (Hopefully his landlord kicks him out mid-contract, because he thinks being twenty-seven and having roommates outside of London is lame.)

Sadly, there’s no one on the team that has tickled his fancy. Ezra Adebayo, the team captain (yes, Coach Adebayo did nameher brother captain, and no, no one is willing to call out the nepotism) is hot, with his deep brown skin and sharp jaw. He has thighs that suggest he’d fuck so well, but he’s still a rude wanker, and Zach can’t be bothered with the politics of it all. Even though people always “joke” with him that he’s only bisexual because he “can’t decide” or because he’s “greedy,” Zach can’t capitalise on sex with anyone right now.

No one on the team can stand him, and he’s not the least bit interested in attempting to figure out if anyone is slyly flirting with him behind a thinly disguised veil of blind hatred. He’s never seen any women around the training grounds apart from Coach, and he’s not even going to attempt to flirt with her. She’s terrifying, and he has more respect than to assume she’d want to be hit on by her players. She’s also a lesbian.

Zach’s mum keeps telling him he needs to grow up and settle down, but he’s been a grown-up for longer than he should have been, and he’s too busy to do the latter. Zach would never tell his mum he’s been the parent since he was old enough to learn how to use the oven, because it’s never been her fault, not really. Besides, when he goes to see her later, the chance she’ll remember him at all isn’t all that high. So, at least she won’t be disappointed that he’s still alone.

The only person trying to keep her out of a nursing home is Zach. His dad skipped town decades ago because he’s a knob and had a second family. Devon was supposed to help. He was meant to be taking some ownership of his life and ensuring their mother was safe while Zach was at work. He promised he was going to keep to the schedule (he only had to go around twice a week and make sure she was okay and that she was taking her meds) but he’s back in jail again. He gets out in a couple weeks, but Zach’s doubtful this stint did the rehabilitation the first three avoided. So, it’s down to Zach. Again.

Zach tries not to blame Devon. They had a rough time growing up. They weren’t on the streets or anything, but there were times they didn’t have a home. Still, he never noticed anything was wrong until he was in secondary school. Then, as he almost doubled in height and weight, he realised there was never enough food, never enough heat, never enough help. When he was that age, Zach blamed his mum. He didn’t know there was anyone else he could blame. Teenage Zach decided it was the end of the world if he didn’t have name-brand trainers, and it was selfish of his mum to make him walk home instead of getting the bus. That coming home to an empty house was anything other than his mum trying her best.

But as he grew up, he realised his mum was the only reason they were still alive. That the reason she sat in the kitchen while they ate was so they wouldn’t see her eat nothing. That the missed rugby games and the late pick-ups were because she was working two jobs, desperate to put her sons through school without living on someone else’s sofa. It’s only ever been the three of them, and Devon hasn’t come back around quite as much as Zach did. He didn’t change his bad-boy demeanour when he hit seventeen. He didn’t force himself to focus on anything other than getting in trouble. It’s hard on Zach. It’s harder on his mum. Especially now, when she forgets so often.

So, no, Zach’s not in a place where he wants to let anyone in. He’s not about to let anyone else take as much of him as he’s given in the past.

“Azan!” Coach screams. “Knees!” Zach almost sighs, but then he remembers that a sigh is five laps, and the porridge sits heavy in his chest, so he keeps his knees high instead.

Zach loves playing rugby, but he wishes he could propel himself to the higher leagues faster. He has plans, and none of them centre around making as much as he does now. He needs more money, and not because he wants to impress anyone—hedoesn’t need that—but because he needs to look after his mum. He wants a house, preferably with a side wing so his mum can have some independence but still be close for if she has an episode. He saw a house for rent on his morning scroll that seemed perfect. It even has an outbuilding for his mum. Live-in landlord though—ew. But as the days turn to nights and back again, Zach realises he might not have a choice.

CHAPTER THREE

Mali stands in thecarpark, the wind blowing the edge of her dress against her thighs. The patent leather of her briefcase feels clammy in her palm, even as the chill of the air burns her nose. The case is basically empty, but it’s vintage and cute, so she carries it as she stands outside anyway. She’s not nervous or anything. She already passed the interview with Ezra—the most terrifying man alive, and it has nothing to do with how he stands at six foot six and is built like a brick house. It’s not even because she had a poster of him in her room when she was a teenager, and he was her favourite player in the league. It’s because she’s not sure he’s ever smiled. He may be incapable of it. She remembers sitting in the pub garden with her parents watching him win the premiership title with his former team—the Dougals—and she never saw his cheeks lift once.

Ezra is easily the most popular member of the Titans. His fanbase stretches through the decades. He has the most chants dedicated to him—more than she’s ever heard for any other player. The fans don’t care that he’s grumpy; they don’t care he spends most of the games swearing; they don’t care that he’snot smiling in his photo ops. They care about his loyalty and his ability to knock down the biggest opponents.

Sponsors care, though. About the lack of smiling. If she could get him to participate in something, they could upgrade the outside of the training facilities so fast, if only so the first thing people saw when they turn up isn’t rusty walls and crumbling benches.

A car beeps as it unlocks next to her, and she jumps. Thankfully, her feet don’t actually leave the ground, as she sees the driver moments later, his keys still in hand. Zachariah Azan. The Titans’ newest recruit, who has somehow made himself a villain within the team already. The gossip within her mum’s friend group (the most untrustworthy source—a bunch of sixty-year-old women who have more time in their day than is reasonable, but still) is that the team doesn’t even talk to him. No slaps on the back when he scores a try, or a penalty kick, and he scores the majority of them. She’s seen him score a penalty kick when he’s basically in the stands.

He’s not a villain to her. She’s kind of obsessed with him.

And God, he’s fit in real life. Taller, too, and somehow, impossibly larger than she thought—like he might be about to block the sunlight out completely. As he steps closer, she sees his jawline in real time, and she wonders how it’s reasonable that a face like his exists. She watches the muscle in his cheek harden as he clenches his teeth. It’s like he’s carved out of fucking marble. He’s as magnificent as a statue they might put in an art museum she’d never want to visit. There’s a furrow to his brow that makes it harder for her to breathe, and it’s a wonder she hasn’t passed out.

Mali feels like a fourteen-year-old with a crush. Like she’ll start spontaneously giggling if he looks at her. How embarrassing. Then he does look at her, just the once, and she realises she might be staring. In her defence, the grainynewspaper photos don’t do him justice at all, and he still looks like a work of art in them.

He doesn’t say anything, but neither does she. Is she starstruck? Unsure, but she doesn’t like the feeling. She waits for him to say something. Anything. Mali has heard him talk before, and she thought about it for the longest time, until the memory of the deepness of his voice disappeared altogether. She decided not to go looking for the video online. It made her feel weird. She’s like a two out of ten on the wanting-sex scale, if that scale exists, but everything about Zachariah Azan makes her feel like she’s on fire. Even if she’s read he’s a ladies’ man, and that’s not her type. (She’s not stalking him. It’s common knowledge, as he’s in every local newspaper every week with a different girl on his arm.)

Sometimes he even makes the tabloids, but only for his sporting endeavours. The back-to-back games with over thirty-five points. The “wonder kid” who stepped up to save the Titans from relegation. It’s true it was mainly down to him that the ball hit the ground, but he had a whole team supporting him. Not that she thinks he would ever admit that. The after-game interview where he basically said he’s the reason Toulshire got promoted went semi-viral. Now, there are rumours about him leaving the team for something new. Something bigger. It would be a shame, Mali thinks, for him to leave so early, but if her mother’s group chat is correct, he’s not having a good time here. She’d better set up some sponsorship opportunities while she can.

Zach looks her up and down again as he gets to his car. Mali preens a little, because, well, he is hot, and he’s at least famous enough that he might get a free coffee from the local shop. Just because she’s had dirty thoughts about him in her bedroom doesn’t mean she’s going to act on it in the middle of the carpark, or ever. He knows he’s attractive, but Mali’s never been madabout that. It’s not his fault he has that jawline and those lips. Besides, the way his eyes linger doesn’t mean she would ever have the balls, or the gall, to flirt with him. He’s pretty, but he’s not her type. Commitment is her type.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says with a wink, as he throws his bag in the boot. Even with the deep vibration of his voice, the endearment sounds gross. “Want an autograph?”

Is she still staring? Probably. Is he being kind? Unsure, but she’s leaning towards no. Either way, she doesn’t want one. Mali has always thought asking celebrities for a photo or an autograph when they’re just out and about is gross. What’s she going to do with a photo? Make it her background even though he has no idea who she is? Couldn’t be her. Besides, it’s her first day, and she doesn’t want to look like a superfan, even if she is. Mali wants to keep an air of mystery about her. It will last about two weeks because she’s incapable of keeping anything to herself, but she’ll try.

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