no hearts bound - z.m.

hour four

10:07 PM

Zayn sat against the wall on the floor next to Honey, his lips curled around a freshly lit joint he had just rolled. As the smoke rose in the air, he took the moment to look over at her.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she expertly rolled, and he was surprised that she could do it so well with the length of her nails. He couldn't help but just stare at her in the crimson light, the golden highlight across her cheekbones more apparent in dim light.

"What?" She muttered while she sealed the spliff with her lips. Even with the dark lighting, he could see the traces of red lipstick on the outside. "I can feel you staring."

"Why don't you like your name?" He asked, his head rolling to directly face her. "It's pretty."

She shrugged, but inside she gushed at his subtle compliment. "I hate it and sometimes I wanna legally change it, but I only keep it so I know that I'm still where my dad is from."

"Where's he from?"

"Morocco," she answered, playing with the pendant against her chest. "Not that I give a shit about that nigga."

It was silent for a bit before he chuckled and passed her the joint. "My name used to be Zain with an 'I' before I changed it to a 'y'."

Honey's eyebrows furrowed before she slapped his shoulder. "Now that's a nice name! Why did you decide to change it?"

Sighing, Zayn leaned his head against the brick wall. "I hated being know as the Arabic kid when I first moved here and a lot of kids teased me about it. I thought it would be cool if I spelled my name different."

"You and me both, I guess," she murmured, taking a pull. She felt the high settling in and calming her nerves, and suddenly she didn't mind being alone with Zayn anymore. "Thanks for lighting me up."

"No need to thank me," he said, shaking his head. Then after a moment's pause, he spoke again. "I took $5 out your wallet so it's not really free."

Her jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"

Complacently lifting a shoulder before sending her a bright grin. "I told you, I'm not that nice."

10:37 PM

"So why did your last relationship not work?" Honey questioned Zayn, finally putting the roach out into the ashtray.

While they were smoking, Zayn started asking her questions about her life, at first invasive to illicit a reaction, but then quickly turned into a relaxing conversation.

He shrugged and leaned his back against the wall next to Honey. "I wasn't ready to give her what she wanted. Gigi was... a lot. She was great, but sometimes I felt like our energy just didn't sync up. We called it off two months ago, but we're still good friends."

She nodded and bit her lip. "That's good. I wish I could say I didn't have my share of messy exes, but I'd be lying."

"Is Kevin one of them?" He inquired, shifting his body so he could give her his full attention. His hazel eyes were very unnerving under the warm, red lights and she knew she couldn't lie to him.

"No, well—not really," she admitted, sighing when she recalled the one time her and Kevin thought it was a good time to test the waters of their friendship. "We fucked once after we graduated high school because we thought we were going our separate ways to different colleges."

"So you're in school now?"

"No." Honey felt stupid answering these questions because she knew how it sounded. "I went to community college after I lost my scholarship, and you can imagine how weird that made everything at first, but it's fine now I guess. It's been three years."