Page 20 of Spring Awakening

Zach shrugs. “I can make you a tea, or get you a water, or you can pretend you don’t have a headache the entire time, but I’d prefer it if you weren’t hurt.”

Mali pouts so hard her lips nearly touch her nose. “I don’t like the teabags,” she whispers.

Zach rolls his eyes, then gets up and walks to the kitchen anyway. Mali guesses she can drink it if there’s enough sugar in it. She follows him and leans against the counter while he pulls two mugs out.

“Two sugars, please,” she says, and he looks sideways at her.

“Did you like the tea I made the other day?” he asks. “I mean actually like it, not just saying yes because you want me to be happy?”

“I’ve seen you happy exactly zero times,” she replies, then gets a little sad about how true that is. “But yes, I did like the tea. Thank you.”

Zach hums, then opens the cabinet with the teabags, and Mali tries not to whine, but then she sees it overflowing with all kinds of tea. Twinings staring her in the face, right next to the PG Tips, which are glorified bags of sand.

“Oh my God!” she says, her hands against the worktop as she stretches to look. “There are loads!”

Zach hums again, but he won’t meet her eye. He stares at his arm, and she realises all too late that she’s in his personal space, her chest resting against his arm with her need to view the teabags.

She swallows and takes a step back. Mali’s thinking ridiculous thoughts, like maybe Zach got these. Not for her. Just—well, she thinks he got them. “Did you get these?” she asks.

“Nope.”

“Are you lying?”

He smiles a little as he stirs the water. “We’ve got an event to plan.”

Mali smiles as she follows him back to her desk, and she wonders if they’re going to truly be friends.

Unfortunately, a few of the players have decided to have lunch and be loud and annoying. (And yes, Mali is aware she sounds like a grumpy old woman.) In the combined five minutes she’s had in her life of talking to Zach, she’s realised he turns into a different person when people are around. It can’t just be the interview, because other players have said worse. It’s not his fault he went viral for it.

Zach’s not paying attention to her right now. She follows his eyeline, and he’s looking at the flowers he left on her desk. It reminds her to get some new flowers for her desk because she had to throw hers out last night. She makes a note on her stack of post-its.

“Right, so—”

“They’re for you.”

Mali looks up at him. “Hm?”

Zach shuffles in his seat. She wonders if he’s not particularly comfy in it. She makes another note—to look for a wider chair. “The flowers. Your vase was empty this morning, and I had to pop to the shop anyway.”

“Oh.”

“I just got the same ones as last time.” He did. They’re a different colour (pale purple) but the tulips make her smile as much as the last bunch had.

“Thank you,” she replies, running her fingertips over the petals. “How much do I owe you?”

Zach frowns. “They’re a gift.”

“Oh.”

He swallows again, and she hasn’t seen him look this uncomfortable since he stood in her hallway and they attempted to avoid talking about him living across the hall.

“You should put them in water.”

“Yeah.” Mali stands up too fast, her chair wobbling as she moves, then grabs the flowers and her empty vase and leaves. She can’t believe Ezra had to go help set up practice. At the time, she didn’t argue, because she thought it would be worse with him here, but she’s starting to think she should have forced him to stay. Zach is so confusing. She hasn’t been this confused since secondary school. There are some parts of her teenage years that she feels nostalgic over (the music, the deadly amount ofeyeliner, the drinks at the beach) but being confused over a guy is not one of them.

It only takes a few minutes to fill the vase and arrange the tulips so they sit at different heights. They’re pretty, and she’s going to get caught smiling at them all the time. Ugh. Frankie was going to have a field day with this. But still, it was cute. Even if there was nothing behind it because Zach seemed to actively avoid spending any time with her. She’s not sure how to navigate this now. They’re just flowers from a sort-of friend. He noticed she didn’t have them and went to get her some. Friendly. Even if most of the time he’s anything but.

She sits back at her desk, and Zach watches the flowers as she places them next to her computer. She almost puts them in front of her so she doesn’t have to look at his face.

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