zero • njh

• one •

I grunt annoyed as I watch Zayn grab his milkshake from the counter at Nip N Sips and hands the cashier a 5 dollar bill. "Are you done already or do you maybe want to order ten more burgers?" His hazel eyes inspect my face for a moment and a slight grin forms on his lips. "I'd love to, sweetie, but I'm afraid that I can't afford that since I spent all my money on your  food."

I roll my eyes at his comment. "Don't be a dick and let's go already. I'm tired." Zayn starts to walk towards the exit and I follow him with crossed arms and tired eyes. Tonight would have been our movie night, but Zayn decided to show up two hours late so it had to be obvious why I'm mad. After a huge argument, we just agreed to grab something to eat and call it a night. He didn't explain why he was late yet. 

Sighing he opens the door and looks at me.
    "Listen, it's not that big of a deal. You're making drama over nothing." His words aren't really calming me down either.
    "Excuse me? Turning up two hours late is a hella big deal, Zayn!" I scoff at him, trying very hard to keep my voice down. As we walk over to Zayns black Nissan Juke, some of the soccer jocks, that are literally always sitting around in their cars in the parking lots, whistle after us. Zayn flips them off with a loud "Fuck you!", making them burst out into laughter.
He takes a sip from his milkshake and unlocks his car. I aggressively open the door and throw myself into the passenger seat, then shut the door a bit too hard.

   "Geez, calm down already!" He slowly starts to get annoyed to as he sits down and puts his shake into the cup holder, then turns to look at me. "I wanted this to be a surprise, but since you're not giving me the option to make this really cute and wholesome, it's your fault that this surprise sucks."
    "Surprise?" I whine and pout at him. "I mean, I am surprised, because you're never late, but seriously? Just be honest and tell me what took you so long already."
   He stretches out his arm and pulls up his sleeve, revealing a small black number on his skin. I instantly grab his arm to get a closer look of it. The number 6, still covered with foil to protect the fresh wounds, now decorates his forearm and fits perfectly in between all the other tattoos he already has. 

"Holy shit, why didn't you tell me?!" All my anger is gone and replaced by pure amazement for this gesture. Zayn chuckles at my reactions and lets me move his arm, in order to look at the tattoo from all angles. It's a pretty basic font, but somehow it looks like art to me. "Like I said, I wanted this to be a surprise."
   "It's so cool." I look at Zayn with a huge smile plastered on my face. 

Zayn and I literally went through everything together since sixth grade. We were unseperable from the first time we met. Dad and I moved to Chicago after my mom died in a car crash and Zayn was the first one to welcome me here. The first few years of school were alright, I had a few friends that I really liked, but when high school startet, everyone suddenly started to care about soccer, partys and sex. I didn't care about all that, but that wasn't what was considered to be cool. And after that, Zayn was pretty much the only one who acknowledged my existence.
    There were never any romantic tension between us, which we figured out two years ago after kissing once and agreeing on never doing that again, because it felt like kissing your old, wrinkeled uncle. It made us grow even closer to each other though and I was so happy to have him in my life.
    The number 6 became our lucky number, without either of us ever mentioning it. 

Zayn suddenly jerks my hands off of his arm, throwing me back into reality and pulls down his sleeve again, covering the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. "So what do you think?" he shyly asks and turns on the car engine, making the car roar loudly before humming silently in the background.
   "I absolutely love it." I say deamily as he starts pulling out of the parking lot. "Should I get one too? It'd be so cool." He giggles, knowing that I'm being ridiculous for even thinking about such thing. "You know your Dad would kill you if you'd get a tattoo. And then he'd come after me for making you do stupid things."
"Gaaah, I know." I sob and lean my head against the window. Having a police officer as a dad could be exhausting sometimes.