Chapter Text
The look on Principal Fry’s face when Zack started going to school on the regular again was half the fun.
It hadn’t been his first choice — going back and actually trying, that is. Walking through those doors in the morning felt like a tease. You know, ‘here’s the entry portal to a world that won’t be yours, and credentials that still won’t be enough.’
A high school diploma wasn’t going to get him into med school, after all. Even if it would, by the time he knew what he was doing, he’d still be a decade too late to save mom. Add on student loans, and his apparent new destiny to be an intergalactic superhero, and seriously, what was the point?
Except that Trini had given him lip about it, said that if she had to deal with the grossness of Angel Grove High on a daily basis then he could damn well suck it up and have her back. And Billy made a point of giving him a high-five every time they crossed paths in the hallway. Which was a bigger deal than it sounded like, because Billy didn’t touch people unless he really meant it.
Jason and Kim were... Jason and Kim, still popular kids in outcasts’ clothing, but they listened when he talked, which was a lot more than he’d had in a long time.
And all of that was how he ended up standing there in the run-down old gymnasium on a rainy winter day, while Coach Bartlett lectured on about the differences in the rules between rugby (an ungodly game played by heathens) and good old American Football (tm) (R).
Zack tuned out the coach’s smoker’s cough in favour of checking out the girls instead, the keeners actually taking notes for the test, the rest of them looking as hideously bored as he was. Trini caught his eye and stuck out her tongue, and he pulled a face right back at her.
But behind her, standing apart from the other girls—that was a lot more interesting. She had to be new. Zack had been back at school pretty much full time for the past month, and he would definitely have noticed her if she’d been around.
She was tall, taller than Kim and most of it leg, and her long brown hair was pulled back in a half ponytail that framed her face. She was probably slim everywhere but he couldn’t tell through the square bulk of the green letter jacket from some other school, her hands jammed deep into the white-trimmed pockets. As for the rest of it – short skirt, black tights, low-heeled boots that made him uncomfortable in all the best ways. Damn, he thought. And niiiice.
Like she felt his eyes on her, she turned toward him, looked him up and down in a way that suggested she didn’t miss much. He smiled. She didn’t.
Lecture over, the coach switched to calling out teams —not girls against boys, which might have made things interesting (too bad they’d never get talked into shirts vs skins for that one), but girls to the gym, boys to the field. He started to turn, to head off with Jason to the change rooms, when Bartlett’s raspy voice cut in to the hubbub.
“You’re Thomas Oliver.” Coach was talking to the new girl, and Zack hung back to listen. He wasn’t the only one. “Tommy Oliver- T-o-m-m-y? Short for Thomas. ‘Cause I’ve got you down here as Thomas.”
She didn’t flinch, tall and proud enough to look him right in the eye. “It’s Tommie. With an I-E. And I’m not short for anything.”
That grabbed a couple of laughs, the noise level in the gym dying down. Some of the other girls started drifting back, a couple of the cheerleaders whispering behind their hands.
“Well, Tommie, you’re in the wrong group. Girls over here, boys over there.” Coach lifted his lip in an ugly sneer, and Zack’s hands curled into fists all on their own. Zordon and Alpha had been really damn clear about when and how they were allowed to use their powers, but if there had ever been a face that needed punching, it was right there in front of him.
Tommie barely flinched, hands still in her jacket pockets and staring down Coach as cool as you please. “I’m in the right group.”
Coach started to turn red in the face, not used to being challenged, and sure as hell not used to being challenged by a student. “No, you’re not. Get over there.” And he waved his meaty arm in Zack’s direction, and the door to the boys’ locker room.
He couldn’t beat the crap out of the gym teacher, no matter how much he wanted to, so Zack did the next thing that came to mind—impulsive, sure to bring the wrath of the faculty down on his head, but the right thing. Hell, we’re already in detention. They can’t do anything more to us for speaking out.
“You’re not serious,” Zack called out, loud overtop of the buzz of conversation. His voice echoed off the high ceiling; he had their attention now. Trini was still in his line of sight, and she caught Zack’s eye, then nodded. Message acknowledged. She grabbed Kim’s arm and kept her from leaving. “Come on, coach. No-one wants a girl in the guy’s locker room.”
“I do,” came a muffled voice from one of the football jocks in the back, but the scuffle that followed sounded like he was being sat on.
Coach turned on Zack, like he’d expected, the red flush making it up his thick neck and past the collar of his Tigers tracksuit. “And no-one wants a boy in the girls’ showers. Now if you’re done, Mr. Taylor-”
Trini cut in, pitching her voice just as loud. “What are you, blind? Please. Her eyeliner’s better than Kim’s.”
Coach wheeled around, his back to Zack, to face the new challenger. “Don’t you mouth off at me, young lady!”
Someone was at Zack’s elbow, and he barely had to look to know that it was Jason. A glance – you in? – and a shrug back – you have to ask?—and Jason stepped in to the circle of space that had opened up around Tommie and Coach Bartlett.
“Seriously,” Jason said, calling the attention of the room to himself. “What if she sees – you know. Guy stuff.”
“Private guy stuff,” Zack added for good measure. Call it wrong, but he was actually starting to enjoy this. Mostly for the look on Coach’s face as he approached terminal meltdown, but also for the hesitant surprise in Tommie’s eyes as the rangers stepped up.
“I’ve seen it, Jason,” one of the girls called back — one of Jason’s exes, Zack half-recognized, but he couldn’t remember her name. “It’s not that exciting.”
Jason rolled his eyes and sighed, the catcalling picking up from the guys on the football team.
“I’m pretty sure it’s against school rules to force someone to go in the wrong locker room.” And there was Kim stepping up to the plate, all sweetness and light hanging over her like the golden girl she used to be. She still had that effect—on adults, mostly—the aura of pretty-princess never quite washing away. “I could call my mom. She’s a lawyer, and she’d be able to tell us one way or the other. Title nine regulations-”
“Fine, fine!” Coach never quite reached terminal velocity, throwing his hands in the air with such force that his clipboard came close to taking flight. “Enough already! All of you get your gym uniforms on somewhere, and for the love of God, no-one talk to me about locker rooms again.”
He stomped off towards his office, a black storm cloud practically forming over his head. And now that the entertainment was over the crowd broke up as well. Zack lingered for a minute, not sure exactly what he was hoping for. Which was fine, because nothing happened. Until he turned and yelped, because Tommie was standing right behind him, and he hadn’t even heard her approach.
“Geez, girl! You could give a guy a heart attack sneaking up like that.” He led with his big mouth and an exaggerated smile, a habit too ingrained to break.
It won him half a smile and a faint snort of a laugh, her green eyes looking into him, through him, and leaving something bright and burning in their wake. Damn.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment that felt kind of like connection, or... or recognition of something important. Something that faded away almost as soon as the realization hit, leaving him just a regular guy, standing in the gym with a classmate.
“No problem,” Zack shrugged the weirdness off with a grin. “Barrett’s a jerk. The only thing he cares about is his football team, and everyone knows it. We’ve got to stick together.”
She gave him a look as much wary as it was puzzled. “I’m sorry; we?”
“Students. You know. Fresh meat for the grinder.” It isn’t just that, there’s something else here, but what it was precisely he couldn’t begin to guess.
“Zack Taylor,” he introduced himself. “You should come sit with my friends and me at lunch. Unless you get a better offer.” He kept it loose, easy, non-committal - yeah, you can hang if you’re cool, or if not, no big. The less he asked for, the less he’d be disappointed if it didn’t come.
Except Tommie raised an eyebrow, looked almost like she was considering it. Then she nodded, slowly. “I might.”
“Might come, or might get a better offer?” he pushed it, because that was what he did – ask anyone.
And like people usually did, she turned and started to head away. Right before she moved too far away to speak properly, she looked back at him over her shoulder. And she smiled. “I’ll let you know.”
Zack was absolutely, totally, one hundred percent not watching the cafeteria door. Sadly, Jason was very busy watching him not watching the door, and not being all that subtle about it either. And now Jason was taking a breath and he was going to say something, and Zack was not going to be held responsible for whatever was going to come out of his mouth in response.
So Tommie emerged out of the lunch line at just the right time. She stood for a moment with her tray in her hands, scanning the room and looking – yeah, she probably wouldn’t hate him for thinking it – a bit lost in the chaos. The cafeteria was like any other high school caf; tables full of cliques and weirdos, and weirdo-cliques. Like theirs.
Zack wasn’t sure if the table had been Kim’s old one or unclaimed territory. Just that by the time he started coming back to class regular-like, it had already belonged to the rangers. And today he stood up, trying not to look too eager – keep it cool, boy – and waved her over.
“I guess she didn’t get a better offer after all,” Trini said, chin in her hand and grinning up at Zack. “Look at him,” she nudged Kim in the ribs. “He’s practically drooling.”
Zack sat, because his friends were all jerks, and he was beginning to regret his choices. “Let it go, crazy girl, or I’ll tell Kim what I caught you doodling in your notebook yesterday.” That got her, Kim’s head whipping around, and Trini scooping up a glob of what might once have been mashed potatoes on her spoon, like she was going to throw it at him.
“What were you doodling?” Kim reached across Trini to grab for the notebook, and Trini blocked her, a half-hearted struggle breaking out as Tommie rocked up next to the table.
Tommie paused for a beat, just long enough for Zack to get embarrassed, give up, and come back through to ‘whatever, this is my life now’ before she spoke, laughter in her voice. “This is where the cool kids sit?”
Kim, now with mashed potato on her nose, let go of the notebook and Trini shoved it into her backpack. Jason shook his head. “Technically it’s where the delinquents sit. Sorry. You’re falling in with a bad crowd.”
“Sure,” Kim snorted a laugh, producing a tissue from her purse and wiping her nose clean. “And if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” She slid down the bench some, squishing herself up closer to Trini – who didn’t move – and making space.
Billy frowned at Kim from Jason’s other side. “You own a bridge?”
She shrugged. “It’s a metaphor.”
He shook his head. “Technically it isn’t; a metaphor is representative or symbolic of something else. Just saying you own a bridge isn’t symbolic of anything. It’s more of a – not an analogy, that requires the use of the word ‘like’-”
Tommie sat in the space Kim had left open, setting her tray down. “The word you’re looking for is idiom,” she suggested, those green, green eyes taking them all in. From the way Trini and Kim were tucked in against each other, to Jason’s ducked head and grin, and the excited clap of Billy’s hands as he agreed with her answer. And Zack might be the crazy one, but he could have sworn he saw her shoulders relax, just a little.
Billy went on for a while, like he did, and how did one kid manage to know so much about so many things? Zack would have had to study for years to pick up the information he seemed to absorb just by breathing.
“Call me crazy,” Tommie said after Billy had wound down, “but you don’t seem like delinquents. Unless Angel Grove sets the bar low.”
“It does,” Zack began, but Billy talked over him.
“We’re not delinquents, we just all have detention.”
She paused halfway through popping the top on her drink, a smile starting to curl up one corner of her mouth. “What did you do?”
Trini shrugged. “Kim punched a dude – I just skipped some classes.” She hadn’t been in the original lockup; either had Zack. But skipping school – even if it was to save the world – got you in trouble. Especially when you couldn’t explain exactly what kind of sludge monster it had been that ate not only the homework, but your textbook, backpack and half of Kim’s dad’s car.
So he fessed up as well, since the conversation was heading there anyway. “Same. I’m an unrepentant truant. Jason, on the other hand -- there was a cow involved.”
“Technically it was a bull, not a cow.” Jason corrected him, nodding in that way he had when he was pretending to be serious. And Tommie’s eyes – they went wide, the look she gave Jason a lot more concerned than it had been before. “No! Not that way.”
“Says you.” Kim had been inching closer to Trini’s backpack and made another grab for it. Trini slid further down the bench in their game of keep-away, shoving her backpack further under the table.
“Billy’s the worst,” Trini added helpfully. “He blew up the locker room.”
“Seriously?” The surprised smile blossomed bright across Tommie’s face. “Now that’s something I can respect.” She held out her knuckles for a fistbump, an offer Billy didn’t accept.
“It was an accident!”
“Alarms went off, the fire department came-”
“Now you’re just making things up.”
Tommie dropped her hand and fell quiet again when the teasing started to fly, a half-smile lingering on her lips when Kim finally tackled Trini off the bench and made a break from the lunchroom with the notebook.
She didn’t say much more that lunch, but she came and sat with them the next day, and the day after that.
She was in his math class. He passed her a note, up three tables and over one. It stalled out on Kait’s desk, a cheerleader so perky that uppers seemed like they’d be a lost cause, the folded piece of paper tucked under her elbow until Zack wanted to scream. But it got there, while the teacher was droning on about coefficients and tangents.
Coffee after school on Wednesday?
And when the note got back to him, just before the bell, her sharp, angular writing was at the bottom.
Sure. Why not.
It wasn’t a super-enthusiastic yes, but it was something he could work with.
Zack almost missed meeting Tommie after the final bell. Wednesdays were weird like that.
He had a spare final period, which meant time to run home and check in with his mom (easier now that he could move so much faster; harder when he was trying not to get caught doing it). But this Wednesday had been one of her bad days.
He’d gone home earlier, been there longer, until mom had finally called him out on his restlessness. It was always there, the pull that came from not knowing where he was supposed to be, from the wanting and the urge to run without knowing where to and how far.
Here; he was supposed to be here with her. Nothing else mattered in the long run.
“Get out,” she’d finally told him when he’d fessed up. He couldn’t keep anything from her, he never could. He’d never had to say the words about being a Ranger. She’d just known. Same way she knew this time when he’d looked at his phone one too many times, checked on her pillows and brought a third cup of tea in fifteen minutes.
“If you keep that girl waiting too much longer, she won’t be waiting for you at all,” mom had said. “No matter how handsome you are.”
So he’d given in, because no-one ever won an argument with his mother. Not once.
The parking lot at school was still full. It was only a few minutes past the bell, the exodus still in full swing. Tommie was waiting for him by the door, a frown settling in between her eyes that cleared when he vaulted up over the railing and landed easily beside her on the stairs.
(Too much, too obvious, but she hadn’t seemed to notice the use of his powers. Call it his one freebie.)
“I thought you’d changed your mind.” Tommie stared him down, her expression closed down, not frowning but not smiling either. Waiting.
“Like I’d miss out on this?” Zack pushed the laugh, the wild grin that was the easiest one to reach when everything else was tangled. “Come on, pretty girl. Let’s hit the town.” That made her smile. Not a full one, so much still holding back behind her eyes. But he’d take what he could get. (He hadn’t earned more. Not yet.)
He had her laughing by the time they had coffees in hand. Well, no. He had a coffee, she had an obscene joke of a coffee drink with three pumps of caramel and whipped cream that left a smear of sugar on her upper lip when she lifted the lid to drink.
Tables were good but booths were better, even when she slid in across from him rather than beside. The coffee hit him warm and sharp, no sugar to cut the burned-bitter taste that held half the wake-up power of the stuff.
At least the conversation was easy once they were away from classmates and the echoes in the school halls, from watching for the sideways looks. There was so much he wanted to know, and asking her about herself helped to keep the questions away from him, from him and all the things he wanted to talk about and never could. “Where’d you move from, anyway? And why Angel Grove? We’re not exactly on the ‘top 500 places to visit in America’, especially after what happened this year.”
“That’s part of it, actually.”
His hand twitched at his side, wanting to reach out and brush the white smudge from her lip. She got there first, her lip glistening and soft, damp from the tip of her tongue.
Damn.
Tommie’s smile quirked up, like she’d noticed him staring. Zack sprawled against the cushions, draped his arm across the back of his side of the booth like he didn’t care at all that he’d been caught out. “How so?”
She shrugged, stirring the whipped cream into her drink. “My dad’s in construction, a subsidiary that works with FEMA. So when whatever the hell that was happened here, he got an option to transfer over. Why not, right? A chance to start again in a different podunk little town.” Her eyes had a challenge in them, one he didn’t bite at.
“If you wanted podunk and little, you sure made the right choice. Angel Grove is the armpit of California.” But there was something she hadn’t mentioned, and he cocked his head, watching her. “What about your mom? Does she work for the same place?” You’d think he’d know better than asking that, but people seemed to be happier when he assumed that their families were normal, whole.
Tommie shook her head, a few strands of brown hair falling from the ribbon holding back her bangs. When she spoke, though, she held his eyes, the aura of ‘fight me’ sitting thick as an aura around her. “She went all Jesus-freak on me a couple of years ago when I came out.” There it was, the challenge and the pain. Defiance simmered below, through and over her skin, power and fuel and fire burning green in the depths of her eyes. “She wanted to put me in electroshock therapy or send me to a camp for wayward queers. So dad left her, and took me. It’s been just us ever since.”
And around the lump in his throat, the breathlessness that caught him tight, Zack nodded back. “He seems cool.” What else was there to say?
He hadn’t come out, not to mom, even though – once again – he was pretty sure she knew. But he’d never brought a boy home; never even brought a girl home. It was always, always easier to try and keep his worlds separate.
It didn’t work, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t tried.
She’d probably be fine with it. His mom was one of the best people he knew. But still. Even good people had blind spots. And that was one he didn’t want to learn.
(There was always that thought – she’d be gone soon. Then none of it would matter. Why run the risk, why upset the boat? Because if he was wrong, and her last thoughts of him were of disappointment – if she went to her grave hating some part of him – how could he keep going?)
Head in the sand. That was easier, and he needed some space for easy somewhere in his world.
Tommie didn’t notice his internal war, or the way his mind had drifted. She just nodded, the smile coming back, and the thick bubble of anticipation-tension slipped away. “He is. What about you?”
“Am I cool?” he scoffed, deliberately misunderstanding the question. He spread his hands wide and gestured at himself. “Obviously.”
“Get over yourself,” Tommie snorted a laugh. “You know what I mean.”
So he dropped the act, the shield between himself and the world. “It’s just me and my mom. She’s awesome, and we’re pretty tight.”
And looking at Tommie eased the mess, loosened the strangling knot in the depths of his stomach. She was something else —not just in the ‘hello’ sense, but also in everything she wasn’t. She wasn’t a Ranger, or a hero. Not a doctor or a social worker or a teacher. Just a girl. Which let him, for once what felt like forever, just be a boy.
“Oh no,” Tommie deadpanned, hands wrapped around her cup. “Single teens with single parents. We’re the setup for a rom-com.”
“Pitch it to Hallmark, we’ll make millions.” Zack laughed, and this time Tommie laughed with him.
Coffee turned into a walk, the breeze plucking at Tommie’s sundress and tugging the floaty skirt snug against her legs. He didn’t feel so bad about noticing when he caught her glancing at him once or twice, her eyes lingering on his shoulders. And if more of a strut came into his step after the first one, what of it? It felt good to be noticed, better to be noticed back.
It wasn’t quite sunset, the shadows of the trees long against the ground. The playground was empty now, the little kids usually hanging off the jungle gyms and screaming around the swings all gone home, to be fed dinner and tucked into their beds by gentle hands. The warm light touched everything with gold, picked out the summer highlights in Tommie’s hair as she boosted herself up to sit on the wooden bridge of the kiddie climber. Zack followed, settling in beside her and dangling his legs over the edge.
“What’s your instrument?” she was asking, a conversation they’d been having since before ducking under the hole in the wire of the fence around the elementary schoolyard.
“Guitar,” he shrugged. “I like being able to mess around with it on my own, instead of dealing with band and music class and stuff. A guy with a trumpet at a campfire just seems weird, but a guitar can go everywhere.”
“That reasoning definitely rules out the double-bass,” she agreed easily. “You don’t strike me as a country music kind of guy, though. Unless you’ve got a secret passion for the trucks-and-farm-girls genre.”
“Not so much. I like my classic rock. But Billy’s got the biggest collection of Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash tracks I’ve ever seen.” He didn’t feel too bad about outing Billy’s secret love. One afternoon at his place and she’d pick up on the twangy banjos pretty quick.
(And he didn’t even question how he’d started to assume she’d be there, like she could fit the pieces of her life against the edges of his without raw spots or empty spaces. Or that she’d even want to try.)
“Your turn,” he said instead, nudging his thigh against the long line of hers, so close against him in the early twilight. “What’s your big thing when you’re not at school.”
“I’m not all that musical,” Tommie admitted. “But back home, my old town, I mean – I taught at the dojo.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. I’ve got a black belt in karate.”
And if Zack had to pinpoint the moment his libido just up and died from overstimulation, that would have been the one to stick a pin in. “Daaaamn,” he drawled, his overactive imagination already filling in with images of her in a gi, (of her in ranger armour, green like her eyes, and how had that slipped in there?), of Tommie pinning him down and keeping him against the mat, her hair falling down around them like a curtain-
Yeah. So he liked cuties who could fold him in half without breaking a sweat. Kick his ass and call him a power bottom. It was one of the reasons Trini’d yanked his chain so nice when they’d first met, all that fire and destructive potential wrapped up in a soft and curvy package. It was a primal sort of thing he didn’t feel like examining all that closely.
Except she’d taken his surprise as something else. “What, girls can’t fight?” she asked him, her defences on high alert. And didn’t they have to be? He was still an unknown factor, still a potential entry on her list of ‘terrible first dates.’
“Oh hell no,” he corrected her assumption as fast as he could, shaking his head. “Trini and Kim are terrifying and could take me down in a heartbeat. That was my impressed face. Do you compete?”
“I used to,” Tommie replied, her voice and face wistful, her arms resting on the bridge railing as they looked out over the playground, the sky beginning to turn gold and orange. “But I’m not allowed anymore. The officials get freaky about what division to put me in.”
You have got to come and train with us, he almost said. We can fill some of those empty spaces for you, he almost added. I want to take that sad off your face and bring back the smile.
Except he didn’t say any of it, other people’s secrets sour and solid on the back of his tongue.
“They’re just jealous because they know you’d wipe the floor with anyone they put up against you.” It was a poor second choice but the smile came back, along with a flush of colour across the top of her cheekbones.
“You’ve never even seen me fight.”
“Don’t need to, girl. You’ve got fire.”
Chill seeped into the evening air but she was warm against his side, and the temptation was just too fucking much. Zack laid his hand over hers, carefully, slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted.
She didn’t.
So he brushed the strands of hair away from her eyes, rested his palm against her cheek, let her heat sink into his skin. She leaned into the touch, her eyes fluttering closed and her lashes long and dark against her cheeks. And she pressed her hand against his, to keep him there cupping her face, hold the sweetness of touch and skin on skin.
“Tommie,” he asked softly, and she opened her eyes again. In the daylight her eyes had been emeralds, glittering and sharp. Now they were jade, soft in the evening shadow, the gentle grey-green that meant welcome home.
Zack kissed her, because he couldn’t do anything else. He kissed her sweet and kissed her chaste, a brush of his lips against hers that spiralled a firework deep down into his gut and ignited it there. And when he sat back, the taste of caramel and whipped cream stayed on his lips. “I think I’ve got a new favourite flavour,” he murmured, the cheesiest line that had ever come out of his mouth but the truest at the same time.
“I thought you didn’t like caramel,” she teased, her low voice everything warm and thrilling.
“It grew on me.” He was sunk before he’d realized there was a hole in the side of his boat. Titanic on an iceberg, baby; look out below.
He wanted – he wanted to kiss her again, to try it with tongue, to hear his name in her mouth the way her voice was now, husky-deep and half-distracted. Skin tingling, breath catching in his chest, he leaned in again, closed his eyes in anticipation as sweet as every Christmas morning.
His phone buzzed angrily in his pocket, the particular rhythm that meant Jason, that meant trouble, that meant ‘fall in, soldier, and fuck everything you were doing before.’
Fuck him. Zack stole another kiss, as careful and gentle as the last, before the guilt soured everything else.
Something’s up at the ship, said the text when he sat back, pulled his phone out to check it. Tommie’s eyes stayed closed for a breath, the growing dark shielding her expression as he jammed his phone back into his pocket.
“I have to go,” Zack apologized. “It’s- work. Something’s come up. With inventory. And they need me to go in.” He was a shelf-stocker, that much was true. It wasn’t a great lie, but what the hell else could he do? If it was just him-
But that was the point of a team. It was never going to be just-Zack again. And some things he just didn’t have the right to expose to the light.
“Sure,” she said, because what else could she do? A moment ago they’d been connected, sinking into each other, tasting the very beginning of something new, sweet and wild. Now she was dropping down to the ground and smoothing her hair back into place, the cool air a wall between them one more time.
He followed and grabbed for her hand before she could walk away. “I’m sorry. This isn’t me bailing out on you, I swear. I want to do this again. Friday, Saturday, whenever.”
Tommie let him tug her closer in and she chewed on her bottom lip for a second before nodding. “Sure,” she said again, and this time she met his gaze. “Okay. As long as this isn’t about the caramel,” she finished, light back in her eyes.
“Cross my heart and swear,” he vowed, clasping his free hand over his heart just to drive the promise home. “I like you, Tommie Oliver.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, Zack Taylor.” She took her hand back instead of kissing him again. “But you’d better go, if you have to go. I don’t want to be responsible for getting you fired.”
“I’ll see you later,” he promised, walking backwards rather than turning around. “And pick up where we left off.”
“Keep dreaming,” she called back, standing in the park, her arms folded at her waist. “You’ll have to work a little harder than that.”
“Deal!” And then he did turn to jog away, not breaking into his real speed until he was behind the houses and out of sight.
“A signal coming from the moon,” Zack said, disgust thick in his voice. “That’s it? I’m pretty sure NASA’s got a handle on that shit, Zordon.”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Jason interrupted, giving him a glare. “It could be something.”
“I can’t believe I ran out on my date for this.”
Tommie: See you after school?
Zack: I can’t. I have to-
‘Go train,’ he almost typed. But then she’d ask what, and with whom, and he’d be stuck in another lie.
Zack: I can’t. I have to work Thursdays. How about Saturday?
Tommie: Sure. 2 pm, at the park?
Zack: I’ll be there.
Zack’s line about Trini and Kim being able to take him out wasn’t an exaggeration, especially as distracted as he was. Thursday evenings were for the team, but he couldn’t get his mind off the night before, off the promise for Saturday afternoon, or the way his world was changing under and around him. Excitement was good for him, but maybe not for his cred as the fake enemies — and his real teammates —sat him flat on his ass over and over again.
He crapped out and sprawled across one of the rocks, water bottle in hand, watching Kim and Billy face off. A time-out to consider his many sins and get his head back on right, a quiet moment that ended when Jason sat down beside him, his jacked arms shiny-sweaty from the workout.
“You like her,” Jason started the conversation halfway through, but Zack didn’t need to think too hard to catch up.
He swigged from the bottle and passed it over to Jason, using his hand to wipe off the top. “Yeah, I like her.”
“You know she’s-”
And all Zack’s alarms went off. Jason was a good guy, yeah, and he hadn’t blinked at any of the personal shit that anyone had thrown his way over the past months. But there was always a first time to show his ass. “Don’t say something stupid that means I’ll have to hit you.”
Jason recoiled, hurt flashing in his fair eyes. “Can you give me some credit? I was going to say, she’s not a Power Ranger. You have to be really careful what you tell her, Zack. Is it worth it?”
“Do I have a choice?” Zack pushed himself up to sitting, resting his elbows on his knees. “Trini and Kim, you and Billy-”
“It’s not like that.”
“Don’t make me hit you for saying something even stupider. Look,” Zack continued, taking the bottle back. “Either I date someone who isn’t in on it, or I don’t date. And celibacy’s not my thing. I’m not going to be a fifth wheel forever.
“I like her. Maybe she’ll like me, maybe she won’t. But either way, it’s got nothing to do with the team.”
Jason shook his head, and Zack could see Jason’s father in the set of Jason’s jaw, in the way he took everything on his own shoulders even when it wasn’t his problem –and none of his business. “Just be careful, all right?”
“Keep your eyes on your own paper, Jason. I’ve got this.”
Zack pushed himself to his feet, and wiped his hands off on the thighs of his track pants. And when he engaged again, even as he landed hard in the dirt, the sense-memory of soft lips and sweet caramel overrode the shock of impact and the dust in his nose. And when he headed home, the bruises already healed, it was with the image of jade-green eyes held close around his heart.