Page 71 of Spring Awakening

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Zach replies.

“Shouldn’t she have asked you straight? Aren’t you dating?” Ezra asks, taking the cookie from Zach’s hand.

He rolls his eyes, getting another one. “Why would you think that?”

“You just hugged like my parents do in the kitchen.”

Zach smiles. Ezra’s parents have been together for decades, and he’s ecstatic that any part of him suggests he’d get that withMali. That they look like a couple so in love it spans a longer time that he’s been alive. That she might look at him like he looks at her.

“She doesn’t even know I’m flirting with her.”

Ezra snorts. “How?”

“She thinks I fancy you,” Zach says, taking another bite. Ezra doesn’t still besides him, but Zach can tell he stopped breathing for a second. He could leave and pretend he didn’t say anything that sounds remotely like him liking guys. He could walk away, and he’d never have to know what Ezra’s reaction was going to be, let alone deal with it. Before he can, Ezra says…

“Well, duh.”

Zach laughs. “Shut up, man.”

Ezra licks the cookie wrapper, and Zach almost snatches it from him. It was clean three licks ago. “Do you?”

Zach shrugs. He’s never quite thought about it. Ezra is hot, but everyone thinks Ezra is hot, unless they’re lying.

“Probably, if I could think about anything other than her.”

“Ah,” Ezra replies. “She’s caught you.”

“She’s got me.”

“You gonna ask her out?” Ezra asks, like a masochist. Zach takes another bite. They probably look utterly ridiculous over here having a gossip session while everyone else fixes Toby’s posing. Zach watches Mali reposition his arm. There’s a line of them waiting to hear what girls like about photos.

“Nah. She’s way out of my my league.”

“Women are all like that, man,” Ezra replies. “If you want someone in our league, you gotta ask a guy out.”

“Stop trying to get me to date you.”

Ezra laughs—a bent over, people look at them kind of laugh. Zach wonders if they’re flirting. Well, he’d seriously think about it if Zach didn’t know Cam existed.

“So, you’re not going to ask her out, and you’re not going to ask anyone else out?” Ezra confirms.

“Yeah.” Zach sighs. Mali holds Kai’s phone out in front of him, her head poking over his shoulder as she tells him to tense his arms. Zach takes a deep breath in. She touches him all the time. Sort of. He leans on her chest when they watch television, he runs his fingers against her spine when they make a tea together, and he kisses her on the forehead when she goes to sleep. So, it’s more she doesn’t stop him than she touches him. It’s not his fault. Now he’s touched her once, he’s not sure what to do with his hands if she’s not around.

“You in love with her?”

Zach eats the last of his cookie, wondering if Ezra even needed to ask the question.

“Yep.”

“Since when?”

He shrugs. Since the beginning of time. Since the dawn of the dinosaurs. Since he could breathe. “Forever.”

“She’s only been here a few months.”

“What’s your point?”

Ezra thankfully stops talking when Mali walks over, a pep to her step he’d be foolish to not notice.

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