Breaking The Ice

Don't Push It

TJ's POV

I sat anxiously in the coffee shop on campus, checking the time on my phone as I waited for Zayn to arrive so we could talk about the night before. I was completely exhausted after only getting a few hours of sleep after Harry and I finished the paper at 7am, both of us practically falling asleep as we sat on my bed by the time I submitted it via e-mail.

I had to give it to him. Harry had done a large majority of the work once we got started, and I was impressed by not only his ability to write while completely wasted, but the quality of the work we were able to produce. For the amount of time we spent writing something that originally took me a month, I felt confident that what I ended up submitting hopefully wouldn't drop my average too much.

I'd woken up around ten to find a text from Harry letting me know he'd gone to the gym and then planned to spend the day in the library, along with a few texts from Zayn from the early morning hours that I hadn't seen yet. It was obvious that he was drunk and ruminating about whatever it was that had happened between us, although I wasn't sure what exactly that was.

As usual, I was confused about what was even going on with us. I knew that a large part of it was my fault, but when I thought about the night before I couldn't figure out if we'd had a fight, if we were cool, if we were now something more because he'd kissed me, and I had no idea what to even do about it.

I liked Zayn. He was sweet and considerate, and he'd been incredibly supportive of me, always understanding when I was busy and never making me feel guilty about it. He'd made it clear that he was interested in me, and in a lot of ways I felt like I would be an idiot not to pursue a chance with him. I really had enjoyed being around him the times we had hung out, but I was hesitant for some reason and I just couldn't figure out why.

"Hey." He said as he leaned down and kissed my cheek, snapping me out of my own head. "Sorry, I know I'm a few minutes late."

"Oh, that's okay. I hadn't even noticed." I said, doing my best to shoot him a smile as I awkwardly stuck my hands between my crossed legs as he sat down.

"Did you order?" He asked, looking like he could use a coffee, and I realized he must have been hungover and still agreed to meet with me.

"I didn't know what you'd want, so I just thought I'd wait." I shrugged.

He nodded as the waitress came over and we both put in our orders, before she walked away and left us sitting there awkwardly across from each other. Zayn sat back in his chair, looking down at his hands, before he took a deep breath and looked back at me.

"Look, Teej." He started. "First of all, I'm sorry about how I acted last night. To be honest, I was bummed that you said you couldn't make it, and I wasn't expecting to see you. When I saw you were there, I made an assumption and that wasn't fair."

"You don't need to apologize to me, Zayn. I'm the one who should be apologizing to you." I sighed. "You have been nothing but patient with me, and you've always been so sweet and supportive. You deserve better than what I've given you, and I'm sorry that I disappointed you by not going."

The waitress approached with our drinks and set them down in front of us, both of us thanking her before she walked away.

"I get it Teej, your life is crazy. You've got a lot going on, and I understand that. You know what you want, you work hard, and that's part of why I like you so much. I'm not the kind of guy who needs your attention constantly, or who wants you to sacrifice things that are important to you in order to make time for me." He said sincerely. "I just really like you, and yeah, I'd love to see you more and spend time with you. I think part of it is that I just don't know where you're at. I have no idea where I stand with you, what this is or where it's going, and I think it's starting to fuck with my head a bit."