Page 7 of Spring Awakening

“Can you stop calling me that?”

“If I do, will you give me someone’s number? My toes are about to fall off, and I don’t know where the heating system is, let alone how to use it.”

Zach picks his bag up and walks away, and she barely has time to call him a wanker under her breath before he’s gone. He pushes open a door that was closed when she tried earlier this morning. Maybe all the hinges are on timers. Her university didthat to keep people out of labs and classrooms after hours. Zach must be here for something—training? Perhaps there are other people here. She follows him, running to catch up before he turns down a corridor and she’s left alone again.

She’s about to call for him, despite the fact she thinks he’ll ignore her entirely, but then she hears him talking.

“She’s been sitting out there all morning,” Zach says. Mali hides behind the wall before she seeps into a puddle. How can he possibly be mocking her? It’s one thing to be a dick to her face, but to be a dick behind her back when he doesn’t even know her name is just rude.

“Ridiculous,” Zach carries on. He sounds annoyed. Huh. “It’s completely unreasonable to get someone to start work—I guess to sort out our image—and then not even have the brains to make sure she doesn’t freeze to death before she starts.”

Oh.Oh.

“I don’t think there’s an office manager yet,” Lisa replies.

“So?” Zach replies, his tone friendlier with Lisa than it was with Mali. “Adebayo did the interviews. He was whining about them weeks ago, but he said she was decent. I’m calling him if I can find my fucking phone. I left it here after practice.”

“Oh, Zach, it’s in lost and found.”

“Thanks, Lis,” Zach replies, and Mali thinks it’s just her he’s rude to. Grumpy, if she had to pretend it was cute. Mainly rude, and a little childish, but either way, he is helping her. So, she turns and runs back to her desk so it doesn’t look like she was stalking him, even though she was.

“You know Coach is going to hear about it and make you run laps!” Lisa calls after him.

“Oh, no,” Zach mocks, closer to the hallway than before, and of course, the door is fucking closed and locked again. “What a shocking change of events that would be. Oh.”

Mali spins on the spot. She’s been had. “Oh, hey.”

“I’m starting to think you don’t work here and you’re actually a crazed stalker,” Zach says, with no humour to his tone.

“Er, you came to me twice. I only followed you one time.”

He rolls his eyes as he walks past her, pressing his hand against the button which clearly states Press Here. The door slowly creaks open, and she walks through before him lest he calls her out for stalking.

“I was hoping you were going to see someone else and I could ask for their help.”

“Did you not think I would be capable of helping you?” Zach asks, strolling into the only office that has a door. He riffles through a box on the desk and pulls out a phone, then lets out a breath, his shoulders sinking.

“Well, you didn’t say anything, you just left.”

“I needed my phone,” he says, holding it up as he perches on the edge of the desk. He’s closer to her eye level now, and she tries to look anywhere other than his face. He looks at home here. She wonders if this office belongs to him. If he’s going to end up being her boss. Gross. “I don’t have Adebayo’s number memorised. I’m not rain man.”

Mali frowns at him. “Are you this rude all the time? Or is there a reason today is particularly bad for you?”

Zach looks up at her from where he’s typing something into his phone. “I wasn’t rude.”

She tilts her head. “Are you joking?” He doesn’t respond for a second, and she thinks he might be ignoring her, even as she stands in front of him.

“Sweetheart is a commonly used friendly term of endearment.”

Mali squints at him. “Did you just google that?”

Zach blushes, like maybe he did google that. Fuck. He’s rudeandcute? A dangerous combination. He stands up. “Heating is over by the kitchen. That’s my one nice thing for the week.”

Mali spins around as he walks out. “Did you text Adebayo?”

He carries on walking.

“Zach?”

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