At the Club

by The Hurricane 13

Zack took a seat near the bar to wait for Cody to come back from the bathroom. The brothers were in Boston on Christmas break and had decided to hit the teen club with some of their friends. Barbara and Bob were on the dance floor and Max, Tapeworm, Jessica, and Janice were in the arcade. The young crowd was electric as one of Zack's favorite songs, 'Right Round' by Flo Rida, was blasting through the speakers. Zack smiled and tapped his foot to the music as he soaked in all of the goings on around him. Suddenly, he felt a tap at his shoulder and turned around expecting to see Cody. Instead, was a tall skinny blonde girl that Zack immediately recognized.

"Oh, God... not her," he thought to himself.

"OHMIGOD! CODY!" the girl said, her voice already grating on Zack's nerves.

"No, I'm Zack, but Cody's here if you want to go look for him," Zack said over the loud music. He thought maybe if he pretended not to know the girl, she would go away. Instead, she sat down in the booth right next to him.

"Don't you remember me, silly?" the girl said. "It's Cassandra! I used to date Mark!"

"No, I remember you," Zack said. "You know, the bench on the other side of the table is empty if you wanna move over there."

"Huh? I'm sorry, I can't hear you over this music," Cassandra said, "You wanna go somewhere quieter so we can hear each other talk?"

"What makes you think I wanna hear you talk?" Zack said, not quite loud enough for Cassandra to hear him.

"What?"

"I said I can hear you just fine. Let's talk," Zack said, this time speaking over the music.

Zack was in agony as Cassandra talked almost nonstop for the next five minutes. With each 'omigod' and 'like,' Zack got more and more annoyed. At one point, he pulled his cell out of his pocket and held it under the table and sent Cody a text.

"Where R U? Come Save Me!"

As Cassandra continued blabbering, Zack tried to think of a way to escape. Unfortunately, the ditzy blonde was sitting between him and freedom and he couldn't get a word in. Finally an idea popped into his head. If she wouldn't stop talking, he would have to find a way to shut her up. There was only one way he could think of to do that. He quickly leaned forward while she was in the middle of a sentence, grabbed the back of her head, and caught her completely off guard by kissing her. At first, Cassandra didn't know how to react, but after a few seconds she relaxed and started getting into it. Zack himself wasn't particularly enjoying it at first either. The girl was very pretty, no doubt, but Zack couldn't stand her. She made London look like a rocket scientist. As he felt her relax, though, he caught himself getting into it. When their tongues met, he forgot why he was doing it in the first place.

The make out session lasted several minutes until Zack felt another tap on his shoulder and heard a loud "AHEM!"

He removed his tongue from Cassandra's mouth and looked up to see Cody standing over them.

"Um... I have to be going, but, omigod, you, like, HAVE to call me this weekend so we can get together," Cassandra said as she quickly stood up in embarrassment.

"Actually, we're going back to the ship this week so... yeah," Zack said.

Cassandra leaned in close to his ear.

"I'll wait for you," she whispered before giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and turning away.

Cody took a seat at the table across from his brother and they sat in awkward silence for a few minutes before Cody finally spoke up.

"I thought you hated her," the younger twin asked, puzzled.

"I do," Zack responded with a smile, "but I had to shut her up."

The End.

Notes on the pairing:

Everyone knows Zack.

Cassandra appeared (as Mark's date) in the SLOZAC episode – A Tale of Two Houses.

(Author's Note: This one-shot was originally posted as part of the "Strange Love" collection which can be found on author Wyntirsno's profile. The premise of the collection was that several different authors drew random names of characters that had appeared on the Suite Life series over the years and wrote one-shot romance stories with the random characters.)