Office Gossip (Jade)

[Jade Parrish]

Jade sighed in response to his sigh. "Of course it doesn't. It makes it harder. And hell yes I'm better at this than you," she told him, smirking. "I'm a realist after all and people like me have to look out for the people with their heads in the clouds. That and your my employee and I can't have you daydreaming about hot Asians on the job." She winked at that comment.

"Good, because I wasn't going to let you stop me," she declared, although she really had no idea about where to find this guy or what his last name was. All she knew was his name was Kai. "And I wasn't trying to make you feel bad about Oliver, just so you know." She thought she'd just add that.

She lingered at his desk, wondering why she was still there. What did she have left to say? She knew and she bit her lip, the possibility of being vulnerable taunting her.

[Deleted]

Zach looked up at her, smirking wryly. "So, I have my head in the clouds, do I?" He didn't take any offense from that comment as it was pretty much true and always has been. If he didn't, then he wouldn't have so much material he just had to get down on paper all the time. Writing wouldn't be his passion. "And..." he started with a small pout. "I'm not daydreaming about hot Asians." He paused, looking away with a slight shame. "That's plural...there's only one." Unless she wanted to count Oliver, but 1) Zach didn't think of Ollie like that and 2) he was only half Korean; most of Oliver's family was British. Very British.

Though, speaking of Oliver, something else Jade said earlier only just now sunk in. "...You slept with Oliver?" he asked as if she had just announced that he was having twins. "Wha...When did this hap...pen?" He looked at her curiously.

[Jade Parrish]

"I think you know the answer to that," Jade said pointedly. Of course his head was in the clouds. "You're a writer, and so am I. I just write facts and you write fiction. We complete each other." She sarcastically drew a heart in the air. But then he got awfully specific and she rolled her eyes at him.

She was about to walk away to go retrieve her phone from her work desk to text Oliver asking for Kai's number. She was determined to figure out what everyone saw in this guy. And then she wanted to face palm at what Zach said next. She turned on her heel, running a hand through her hair. "Seriously, Zach?" His head was really up in the clouds. "Last week."

[Deleted]

Jade was right and Zach agreed with her wholeheartedly. As writers, the only thing in this world they knew they'd always be in love with was their writing. That was a fact that hadn't changed since Zachary first picked up a pen. Maybe even before that when he started spinning stories in his head to tell to his younger siblings as he put them to bed. Zach's mind was always full of various fantasies and fiction; you'd never know what he actually thinking from his vacant, daydreaming stare that his closest friends and family were familiar with.

But apparently his head was a little too much in the clouds. It was a simple question, but Jade's reaction was like he'd just asked if the sky was blue. "Last week..? But last week was----!" The Christmas party. Zach's eyes kind of glazed over as he tried to recall….anything about last week. "Shit…" he said quietly. "Where the heck was I when all that happened?" Avoiding Kai, no doubt.

[Jade Parrish]

"Do you not even talk with Oliver anymore? Are you two not the type of bros that tell each other when you bang a chick?" Jade was only half joking, but she punched him in the shoulder for effect. She watched as realization crossed over his face. "How should I know where you were? I just thought that you and Oliver were really close." She had a certain smirk on her face. "You know, since you two banged each other to get the experience out of the way." Sure, it made her sort of uncomfortable in a weird way, but she joked about it because that was Jade.

"Look, Zachary, there's a fine line between reality and fantasy and sometimes I think that you're a little too far into the fantasy. Maybe I'm too far into reality. But hey, we've gotta find a balance."

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"I do!" he said defensively. "I told him about Noa!" Though granted it was a whole two months after the fact that Zach finally said anything. And at the time Zach still didn't mention anything to Oliver about Kai. He probably should but….what was he afraid of anyway? Jade had a point, they were best friends. They were each other's first. They were supposed to be able to tell each other anything…so why did the idea of telling anyone about Kai make Zach feel so utterly sick to his stomach?

"I don't know…." Zach mumbled, his mind clearly distracted by the truth of everything Jade was saying. Was it shame? Was that it? Was he just too ashamed of himself and how he was behaving to let anyone know for fear of judgement, hoping that it was just a phase that would pass before anyone noticed?

Zach sighed, expelling the breath sharply through his nose. "You may be right…" he yielded. "No…I'm sure you're right." Zach hung his head again, brushing a hand back through his hair. "Shit….what am I going to do?"

[Jade Parrish]

Jade's smirky smile faded into a slight frown as she realized what turmoil she'd put him in, although sometimes you needed to confront these things and maybe Jade hadn't confronted all of her demons, but she liked to help others do so. "I'm gonna meet this Kai guy and see what is so damn tempting about him and you're going to just be you, okay? Hang out with Oliver? Write some stuff, go people watching. You have plenty of other things to do, right? Besides see Kai?" She really did want to help him and she wanted Oliver to have his friend back. "I can tell Oliver gets pouty about you being with Kai all the time. So would it hurt to spend some time with him?"

[Deleted]

Zach sighed again. He didn't know what he was doing and hadn't from the second he met Kai. He'd been doing nothing but acting so completely unlike himself even to the point of lying to his best friend. It made him sick thinking about telling Oliver, it made him sick knowing he lied to him, and it made him sick just thinking about coming clean. The longer it went on, the harder it was to say anything, especially since now he was going to have to come up with reasons for why he didn't say anything in the first place.

He nodded. "Yeah…there is. I…I can do that." It wasn't like Zach and Kai were seeing each other all the time, and with school starting again, he wasn't even going to have the time for it anyway. Though that thought….made him really irritated somehow. "I'll talk to Oliver…" he just hoped that his friend didn't hate him already. Zachary looked up at Jade. "…thanks. And…I'm sorry, Jade, for…for all this."

[Jade Parrish]

"Alright, well I think that's enough thinking for one day," Jade concuded, exhaling a breath and bending down slightly (she didn't have to much with her height, but he was in chair) to plant a kiss on his cheek. "Good...and in the mean time I'll do some research on the Lust Fairy and report back to you," she said with a wink. "Don't apologize. Just talk to Oliver, okay?"

She didn't want to hurt his brain too much and she knew she'd already made him think about a lot. He needed some time to let it soak in. "Looking forward to seeing your spread for the newspaper."