A Note for My Head Asking What My Heart Said

“If anything happens, call me on my cell,” Zel told her brother hurriedly. Rian and Zack were dragging her through her living room towards the front door after a fifteen-minute period of arguing, whining, and begging her to come hang out. “When you get hungry, there’s leftover pasta in the fridge! And don’t let Stephania watch more than two hours of cartoons! And remember to start that paper, I’ll help you when I come back! And—”

“Zel!” Luciano insisted, rolling his eyes. “Just go. We’ll be fine here.”

Rian grinned. “See? He’ll be fine. Twelve is old enough to stay home alone.” She still remained rooted to her place, so he sighed dramatically. “Have it your way. Zack?”

Thus prompted Zack bent, grabbed Zel by the legs, and swung her over his shoulder. Flailing her hair out of her face, she looked up at her brother, getting farther away by the second as Rian and Zack continued towards the door. “Be sure to lock the front door after I go, and don’t answer it for anyone unless we know them, and—” Rian slammed the door behind them. She shot him an evil eye. “I wasn’t finished.”

“You are now,” he replied, grinning.

The three of them walked— well, two of them walked— to Rian’s car and Zack put Zel down and allowed her to climb into the front seat. After a few minutes of driving, music, and idle chatter, her pocket vibrated and when she pulled out her phone, it blinked “Naomi” at her. “Hey, girly,” she greeted.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Naomi asked. “I just called your house and Lu said I just missed you.”

“Dawson and Merrick kidnapped me.” They both beamed when she glared at them. “We’re going to an as-of-yet undisclosed location.”

“Jack’s house,” Rian informed her easily.

“Never mind,” Zel told her friend. “We’re going to Barakat’s.”

Naomi whined. “It’s not fair that they can get you to hang out and I can’t! I demand that you all come over to my apartment!”

Zel raised an eyebrow at both her childish ultimatum and at the suggestion itself. “You want to bring three strange boys into your apartment?” she asked sceptically. “Boys whom you’ve only heard about from me?”

“You talk about us?” Rian asked curiously, glancing over at her from the driver’s seat.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she replied dryly. “I was honest about you all.” Turning back to the phone, she adjusted her seat. “Are you sure about this, Nay?”

“Heck yeah,” Naomi replied. “If they’re weird or boring, at least I can ogle them.”

Zel chuckled, shaking her head. “Good plan. See you after we pick up Jack.” She hung up and looked straight ahead out the windshield. “We’re going to Naomi’s place.”

“We are?” Zack asked, confused, from the back seat. “Naomi’s your friend at the salon, right?”

“Yep on both accounts. I’m sure Jack won’t mind hanging out with a pretty girl.”

Rian laughed. “You’ve met him, right?” he asked, speeding up to make a light. “Jack’s almost as bad as Alex when it comes to meeting girls.”

Zel rolled her eyes and gazed out the window. “I find it hard to believe that’s possible,” she muttered under her breath.

As it turned out, Jack had been sitting around his basement all day watching terrible television and was more than happy to relocate. As in, he almost trampled Zack in sprinting to Rian’s car. Zel raised an eyebrow at him, sprawled across her lap. “So this is where I left my Ho-ho,” he said gleefully.

She laughed, pushing him off her. “Hi to you too, Jack. Since when am I your—” He reappeared from the floor, holding a sealed plastic wrapper, and blinked at her. “Oh. Okay then.”

Zel buzzed the button for the apartment and waited for the speaker to crackle. “C’mon up, Zellieface,” Naomi’s voice invited as the gate unlocked. Jack repeated the nickname to himself before cracking up; Zel could only roll her eyes, thinking that one nickname was enough.

After climbing the three flights of stairs, she pushed the apartment door open and walked in casually, the three boys trailing behind her. Naomi’s apartment was simple and a little cramped with furniture, but it was homey and surprisingly spacious for a college student; the assumption was her parents helped pay rent. “Hey, kids!” came a call over the melody of a piano playing jazz.

Jack, Rian, and Zack stood semi-awkwardly near the door while Zel strolled over and leaned her elbows on Naomi’s shoulders. “You won’t even stop playing for new friends?” she asked dryly.

“Psh, no,” she replied, grinning. “They wanna be friends, they have to learn that music is better than people.”

“I think you picked the right people to invite over then,” Rian chuckled, walking over. “I’m Rian.”

Naomi shook his hand, other hand still playing. “Oh, I know who you are. Just because Zel here doesn’t get out doesn’t mean all of us are out of the music loop.” She beamed when Zel swatted her shoulder. “How’s about you go find some food, hon, and I’ll take a boy to pick a movie.”

Zel shrugged and wandered towards the kitchen. “Careful, boys,” she warned lightly. “Nay keeps a riding crop under her pillow.”

“Kinky!” Jack grinned, wiggling his eyebrows as he followed her. “But I prefer handcuffs.”

“But they chaff something awful,” Naomi pointed out, turning around on the bench. “Better to use neckties.”

Zack rolled his eyes, heading over to the bookshelf full of DVDs. “Oh god, not another one,” he groaned. “As if Jack needed any encouragement.”

“Hey, just be happy Alex isn’t here too,” Rian said, sitting on the couch. “Then they would never shut up.”

In the kitchen Jack had jumped up on the counter to watch instead of helping Zel look for snacks. “I like her,” he stated, looking around at everything. “She makes dirty jokes, she doesn’t seem to give a shit who we are, and she’s fucking hot besides!”

She snorted, rifling around in a cupboard. “I knew you would. You reminded me of her that night you came to the bar. Naomi, don’t you have any actual food?”

“Are you kidding?” Naomi called back. “I’m in college! You expect me to actually stock this place when I’ve got a roommate with hungry friends?” Zel scoffed and wandered back into the room with Jack trailing after her. Naomi smiled brightly at them, holding up a DVD case. “I’ve got movies.”

“Can’t eat a movie though,” Zack highlighted, pulling out his cell phone. “I’ll order some pizzas.”

“And soda,” Rian added, reading the back of a DVD.

“Red vines!” Jack shouted, beaming. “And booze! We’ll have a party!”

Naomi looked around at the guys and grinned at Zel. “I like these boys. They bring me food!” The other girl just laughed and shook her head. It had been so long since she’d been around people her own age; it amazed her how much like kids they were. Only withbetter different priorities, like sex, munchies, and alcohol.

Eventually the time came to pick up the pizza, so after everyone donated to the cause it was voted that everyone whose named began with Z had to go pick it up. “You do realise we’re taking your car though, right?” Zel asked with a smirk as she fished Rian’s keys from off his belt. “And my name doesn’t actually start with Z.”

A few minutes after they’d gone, Rian’s phone buzzed in his pocket and a smile spread across his face. “Hey, Kara,” he greeted softly, walking out the door. In the middle of a conversation, Naomi and Jack watched him disappear and the door shut.

They exchanged glances, and Jack rolled his eyes. “Hurr, I’m Rian,” he mocked, waving his hands around, “I have a girlfriend, durr hurr hurr.”

Naomi laughed and got up to go back to the piano. The new friends had been talking for a while, getting to know each other, and Naomi had taken a particular interest in Jack; he was quirky and strange, but had a certain charm about him that she’d never really seen. Sitting at the bench, she stretched her fingers and began playing an intricate classical piece she’d been working on perfecting.

Jack, being musically trained in some definition, naturally found it impressive, but classical wasn’t his style. Fooling around was. So he sauntered over and scooted into the bench beside her. He watched her face a moment, completely intent on what she was doing, before cracking a tiny smile and, with an exaggeratedly extended index finger, pressed a high, white key.

She frowned slightly, but continued played. Raising his eyebrows at the challenge, Jack pressed another key, and then another lower down on the scale, closer to where she was playing. “Jack, stop, I’m playing,” Naomi chided distractedly, keeping her eyes on her fingers.

Instead of following her direction, he reached his hand across her and plunked down on a low note before snatching his hand back when she swatted at it. Trying to suppress his grin, Jack kept playing random notes. “Jack, come on!” Naomi protested, trying to not laugh. Piano was serious business for her.

After several minutes of this continuing, he was playing the piano beside her like a three year-old might, grinning delightedly at the sound it was making and the reaction it was drawing. Naomi stopped abruptly and spun sideways to stare at him hard. Jack only smiled, and after a long pause, the edge of her mouth tugged upwards.

“I don’t care what you say, Dawson,” Zel stated as she and the two boys walked up the hall, “There is absolutely no way that I—” She stopped, having opened the door, and blinked at the sight before her. Shutting the door silently, she turned back to the others, cheeks tinged pink.

“What?” Zack asked. Zel bit her lip but still cracked up into laughter, adjusting the bags of drinks in her arms.

Rian eyed her sceptically. “What, Zel? What’s so—” A thump sounded from inside, just after a discordant clang, and curious he threw open the door, only to stare along side Zack just as Zel had done.

Now having fallen off the piano bench, Naomi and Jack were tangled up on the floor, fiercely intent on discovering every section of the other’s mouth, both their hair in complete disarray, shirts both pushed up a good half a foot or more. Zel’s mirth was now joined by awkward snickers of Rian and Zack, which drew the pair’s attention, making them break apart.

“Uh...” Naomi stuttered, staring back at the three. “I’d say this isn’t what it looks like, but I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Christo vivo,” Zel laughed, walking into the apartment, “We leave you alone for ten minutes and you’re halfway to rated-R material.” She shook her head as she stepped over them, trying to disentangle themselves, to head into the kitchen. “If I had known you two would hit it off this well, I’d have dragged you together sooner.”