All The Good Things

Chapter 4 - "I know the truth."

Ash yawned as she entered Professor Huxley's class. Between working in the office, extra shifts at the coffee shop, and homework, she had barely gotten a total of ten hours over the last two nights. She sipped her iced coffee and mindlessly followed the gray jacket in front of her up the auditorium's seats, putting her seat choice in their hands.

The gray jacket came to a stop midway up and turned right into a row of seats and Ash followed. It wasn't until the person in the gray jacket turned to sit that Ash realized it was Zach.

Seeing him was like an extra shot of expresso in her coffee. She had planned on sleeping through most of the class but a chance to get more info out of Zach would be enough to keep her awake.

He didn't notice her as he began to pull his books and computer out of his bag.

"Did you finish the book?" Ash asked, nodding to the copy of A Tale of Two Cities on top of his computer.

Zach looked at her without the slightest hint that she had surprised him and shook his head. He had been in the coffee shop the day before and had barely taken his nose out of the book the whole time. He had still been reading when Ash had clocked out and headed home for the night.

Ash took the seat right next to him and took a closer look at where his bookmark was. He was close to the end.

"Sydney is a great character," she said. "I did a psychological profile of him for one of Huxley's sophomore classes."

Zach simply nodded and instead of the nonverbal answer annoying Ash, it made her smile.

"No," was all she said as she reached into her backpack for her own things. She pulled out everything she needed and looked back at Zach to find him patiently waiting for her to expound on her 'no'.

"You can't do this," she added, gesturing to his face. "This whole blank, stoic thing where you act like you barely understand English and you don't have an intelligent thought in your head."

The corners of his mouth became pinched like he was holding back a smile and Ash found her own smile growing.

"I know the truth," she told him. "I'm not going back to your stony silence."

"Just because I choose not to speak does not mean I want people to think I'm unintelligent," he countered. "Maybe I didn't think anything you said was worth a response."

"Maybe," Ash said looking at him closer, "but I don't think so. I've observed the strong silent types before and they use their silence to make people aware of them. You use your silence to disappear."

"I've got invisibility powers now?" he jested.

Ash's smile turned to a knowing smirk. "You just used deceptive behavior." She leaned in closer, crossing into his personal space. "A comical response. Why do you want to avoid talking about how you disappear?"

As Ash had questioned his words, the pinched corners of his mouth had disappeared for just a moment before a full smile spread across his face. His chin dropped slightly but his eyes remained on Ash as he leaned even closer to her.

"Deceptive behavior?" he questioned, his voice suddenly low and conspiratorial. "A comical response? What are you saying, Cafe Girl?"

Before Ash had time to comprehend the change in the tone of conversation Zach ran his hand through his dark hair and suddenly she was very aware of not only his tousled hair falling back into his face but his biceps stretching out the arms of his t-shirt.

"Hmmm?" he hummed. He rested his chin in his hand, his fingers creating a perfect frame under his mouth and Ash's focus shifted to his lips. But, instead of looking for non-verbal cues, she was noticing that his lower lip was fuller than the top and how the right corner seemed to naturally slant downwards. On most people, the downward slant would make them look grumpy but on Zach, it looked teasing.