Chapter Text
The drive had been miserable. Maybe it hadn’t been Zack’s best idea to get outrageously drunk the night before he knew he had to be at NYU by 9:30 am, but he had never been known for making great decisions. So, yeah, the drive was miserable. He was hungover and already late for meeting Cody and Bailey to help scout out apartments. Honestly, Zack wasn’t even sure why they had invited him in the first place. They could pick their cute little apartment by themselves, but he had jumped at the chance to see his brother and friend again. Not that he missed them. He’d never admit to that.
The coffee shop on campus was quiet when he stumbled into it half an hour late, but there were enough people for him to feel a little self conscious about how many of them had seen him pull on the door very obviously labeled push for a good few seconds. God, he was too hungover for this shit. Zack spots Cody and Bailey tucked into a corner booth waving at him as he steps over to order some sugar monstrosity that probably isn’t going to make his hangover any better.
“Name?” the boy at the counter asks. He’s got curly brown hair and a mischievous grin that makes Zack’s stomach turn a little, but that might just be the hangover talking again.
“Zack,” he says simply, and then as an afterthought, “with a K.” Because people at coffee shops always spell it wrong.
The boy tilts his head to the side a little, like a confused puppy and mouths with a K . Before Zack can even process the events the barista nods and begins to write something on the cup. He pays and begins making his way across the little shop and sits across from the two people who he currently considers the bane of his existence.
“You look like shit,” Bailey greets.
“Fuck off,” he responds creatively.
Just after Cody has begun to pull out a folder full of apartment listings he has apparently printed off, the barista calls his name. Zack lets out a sigh of relief. He really needs more caffeine if he is going to do this.
He’s quick about grabbing his drink off the counter and making his way back to his seat. He doesn’t even glance at the cup to see if it’s the right one. Just prays that if it's the wrong one it still has caffeine.
“What does your cup say?” Cody says with a little laugh.
Zack glances down at the cup and looks at the name written across the side.
“What the fuck?” he mutters as he reads it. Kzach .
He thinks back to the boy at the counter and thinks about the confused look on his face and the impish grin. He wants to be annoyed. He really does. But it’s pretty funny, he has to admit.
“It’s Zack with a K,” he says with a roll of his eyes and then lets Cody go back to showing off the apartments he wants to check out.
Everyone had been surprised when Bailey decided to transfer to NYU from Yale. Except Zack. He’d seen it coming. There was only a two hour car ride between her and Cody, but they were both too busy to ever visit or meet halfway. And he knew neither of them were about to break it off. They were it for each other. Zack could tell. So, yeah he wasn’t surprised when Bailey announced it.
He is surprised, however, that all the apartments they want to look at have three bedrooms.
“Do you guys really need this much room?”
“Whaddya mean?” Bailey asks, not looking up from where she is checking the bathroom tile for cracks.
“Well, I assume you will share a bedroom and I get having an extra to make into ,like, a study or whatever you nerds call it, but three?”
Cody and Bailey share a look. They have a whole silent conversation right there in front of him.
He remembers a time on the ship when he would have understood the whole thing. But then life got in the way and the drives from Boston to NYU went from once a week to every other weekend. And then Zack got a job at a little bar close to his apartment and the visits got few and far between.
But now he’s just lost. Staring at them trying to decipher what the looks mean until Bailey sighs and says, “Fine.”
Cody looks a little sheepish as he says, “It’s for you, man.”
“Uh, do I really visit enough for it to make sense for me to have my own room in your apartment,” Zack asks. They are dancing around something, but he really doesn’t want to be the one to say it.
“Well, we were thinking Boston might be getting a little lonely for you,” Bailey says with a shrug.
“So, we thought maybe you’d want to move here,” Cody finishes for her.
“It’s not lonely,” he defends, even though it feels like a lie even to himself. He’s got friends and despite what everyone seems to think, he’s not still pining over Maya. He got over that years ago and he’s been on plenty of dates since. Even if they usually just end in one night stands. He’s not lonely .
Things are tense between the three of them for the rest of the day. Even as he drives back to Boston, Zack’s shoulders are still stiff. He could have stayed on the couch of Cody and Bailey’s tiny on campus apartment, but that felt weird after the long day.
Cody calls him a week later to tell him which apartment they had settled on.
“No pressure, but it does have an extra bedroom. If you change your mind.”
He does move into the apartment with Bailey and Cody. But it’s not because he’s lonely. It’s because he knows the rent will be easier to make between three people. Definitely not because he’s lonely.