Zachary Hanson walked into the living room of his girlfriend's house to find her lying on the couch, watching television in her pajamas with an old family quilt covering her. Her hair was a mess and she had no makeup on, but he smiled upon seeing her anyway. She looked up to see him and immediately put her quilt over her head.
"Go away, Zac!" she yelled, her voice clogged and nasally.
"Oh don't even, Wynn," he said, taking a step down into the room and walking over to his girlfriend Bronwyn. She slowly removed the quilt, looking up at him. She had brown eyes and blonde hair, but at this point her eyes were very heavy and her hair was dry and thrown carelessly on the top of her head. "I brought you some soup."
"You didn't have to do that," she said. He sat down on the floor next to the couch. She sat up and he handed her the thermos of chicken soup. "Thank you, honey. You're so good to me."
"Yeah, well, I try," he said. "Have you taken anything recently?" She nodded.
"Yeah, I had some Dayquil about an hour ago."
"Has it done anything?"
"Yeah, my fever's down." He put his hand against her forehead and she rolled her eyes. "Zac, I'll be okay. I'm stuck here for a while, but I'm okay."
"This sucks that you're sick," he said, sighing. "I'm leaving tomorrow. I was hoping we could go out tonight." She shook her head.
"You shouldn't even be here. You can't afford to be sick." He sighed. "I really like your hair." He smiled, running his hand over his newly shortened hair. All of his long blonde hair that he had been sporting for years was completely gone, replaced with a short brown traditional cut.
"Yeah, well it needed to be done."
"You're damn right," she said. "I've been telling you that for years." He gave her a look. He and Bronwyn had been friends for years but didn't start dating until about seven months ago. That attraction had always been there, and everybody knew it, but it just didn't work out until recently. They were never single at the same time; he was dating somebody when she wasn't, and when he broke up with his girlfriend she'd just started to date something else. That happened for about three years before he came home after a long absence to find the both of them single, so he immediately asked her out, not wanting to miss the rare opportunity again. He hadn't been home much the past seven months, and today was the first time he'd seen her in about six weeks. He was hoping they could go out and spend some quality time together before he had to ship out again in the morning. "When are you going to be back?" she asked.
"I don't know. The tour's going to last for at least two months."
"Two months?" she asked, her voice squeaking. Her sickness was causing her to lose her voice. He reluctantly nodded. "Zac, that's just so long!"
"Yeah," he said. "Drink your soup." She did. "I'm sorry I'm going to be gone for such a long time but this is my job. I love what I do and you knew when you started going out with me that it was going to be an issue."
"I know," she said.
"And I even had to pull some strings to get out here today," he said. "We were going to go out on tour without stopping at home first, but I insisted."
"I'm sorry I got sick," Bronwyn said. He shrugged.
"It's okay. I still got to see you." He leaned it to kiss her but she shook her head and put her quilt over her mouth.
"No," she said. "I don't want to get you sick."
"You're not going to get me sick!" Zac said. "Come on, I haven't seen you in a month and a half and I won't see you again for another two."
"Zac, you're going on tour in which you have to sing and play your drums for three hours a night just about every night! I'm not going to get you sick! I'm losing my voice. What happens if you lose your voice?"
"I'll get to come back here and see you?" Zac asked. She shook her head. "Oh, all right. I'll go. But if you're better by ten o'clock tomorrow morning I want a goodbye kiss, you got me?"
"Yes, Zac," she said.
"Okay. I'll see you later then." He leaned in to kiss her and she pushed him away. "Sorry, sorry, it's a habit. Feel better, Wynn, all right?" She nodded. "I'll call you later." He got up and walked away. "Make sure you finish that soup."
"I will," she said. "Thank you."
"No problem, babe." He walked out of the room and left the house. He felt terrible leaving her there by herself while she was sick, but he was slightly relieved as well. He was always paranoid about getting sick when he was about to leave on tour, and usually if he knew someone was sick he would do everything in his power to stay away, but this was his girlfriend. He came home to see her.
He got in the car and drove back home. His phone rang on the way there and he didn't want to answer it. "Well," he said to himself, "everybody else does it. I can be the jerk on the phone too." He picked up the phone and put it to his ear. "Hello?"
"Zac! Hey, I heard you were in town!" It was Zac's best friend Jayden Townsend. He was another reason Zac wanted to come home before the tour.
"Oh, hey man," Zac said. "How'd you find that out?"
"Oh, Bronwyn called me," Jayden said.
"Bronwyn called? I just left her house five minutes ago!" Zac said.
"Well, yeah, she just called me after you left. She suggested that we go out tonight since she's sick and she can't go out with you. You up for it?"
"Sure. If I can't make out with Wynn a night with the boys will just have to do," Zac said, lightly laughing. "So where are we going?"
"I don't know," Jayden said. "Maybe we could go out to a club or something."
"Jayden, I'm not old enough."
"Like they've ever carded you, Zac," Jayden said. "You're Zac Hanson. Just having you in the club would give them business, of course they're going to let you in. They'll even let us drink because of you." Zac sighed. He wasn't much of a drinker but most of his friends were. He was the only one in his group of friends who wasn't eighteen and with his birthday months away he often had a hard time with it. However, Jayden was right and he never got carded because of who he was, and he often got his friends free booze as well.
"Yeah, you're right," Zac said. "I just don't like taking advantage of that."
"You're not taking advantage of that," Jayden said. "We are!" Zac smiled.
"Okay, okay. I'll go out with you guys tonight. What time?"
"Um�come over to my place at nine." Zac looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock. That gave him plenty of time to eat dinner and get ready.
"Great. I'll be there," Zac said. "See you then." Jayden said goodbye and Zac hung up the phone. He felt better now that he was off of it and still driving. He turned on the radio, settling on a little Violent Femmes, smiling. He hadn't seen his friends in a long time, just as long as it'd been since he'd seen Bronwyn, and he hadn't been out with them for even longer.
He arrived home with his small smile still in tact as he saw his mother, Diana, setting the table in the dining room for dinner. "Hey Ma," he said. She looked up.
"Hi dear, I didn't expect you back so soon," she said. "Where's Bronwyn?"
"Oh," Zac said, shaking his head. "She's sick. I wanted to stay with her but she was afraid I'd catch it so she sent me home." Diana nodded.
"That's disappointing," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Zac said. "I brought her some soup but I was there for about five minutes before she insisted that I leave. I'm going out with Jayden and the guys tonight instead." Diana looked up at him.
"How does Bronwyn feel about that?"
"It was her idea." She nodded. "Yeah, we're gonna go out around nine. I'm not entirely sure what we're going to do, but, you know, whatever�" She nodded again. He didn't want her to know he was going clubbing with his friends when he wasn't even legally old enough to do so. As far as he knew, she wasn't aware that he even did that sort of thing.
"All right, honey. Are you staying for dinner?" He nodded. "Great. Finish setting the table." Diana walked out of the room and Zac shook his head. He'd been home for ten seconds and already he was being put to work.
At nine o'clock Zac arrived at Jayden's house (ten minutes from his own) and went inside without bothering to knock. He saw a few of his other friends' cars there and he figured they were inside already. "Hello?" he called out. Jayden walked into the room from the kitchen.
"Zac!" he said. "Hey man!" Jayden walked over and gave Zac a hug. Jayden was about three inches taller than Zac and lanky with short blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He reminded Zac a lot of Taylor if Taylor were to cut his hair, although Jayden was more attractive. "Oh, man, you look so different! Check out your hair."
"Check out your muscle," Carter McGillis said, walking out of the kitchen.
"Hey Carter," Zac said. "Gee, I didn't know you felt that way about me." Carter gave him a look. Carter was the oldest out of Zac's friends, at nineteen. He had just finished his first year at the University of Tulsa, where Jayden was going in the fall. All of his friends pretty much looked alike, varying in hair and eye color. They'd all hung out so much that they all started to look and act like each other. Out of all of them Zac was probably the most built, but he'd hardly say he was hardly buff.
"Funny, Zac," Carter said. "But it's true! You've gotten bigger."
"It's just the shirt," Zac said, looking down at himself. He was wearing khaki Dickies with a white semi-tight short-sleeved dress shirt, open to show a bit of his white undershirt.
"Whatever." The door opened behind them and Phoenix Whitaker walked in.
"Oh, hey Nix," Zac said. Phoenix hated his name and refused to be called anything but Nix. He hated his middle name even more than his first (it was Muriel) and figured because he nearly killed his mother when she was in childbirth his father was so pissed off at him that his name would be cursed for the rest of his life. He'd already decided that his first son would be John Michael so at least he wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassment of having a name like Phoenix Muriel Whitaker.
"Zac! Hey!" Nix gave Zac a hug and Jayden looked around.
"Well, we're all here. Are we taking my car?" Jayden asked.
"What about Ben?" Carter asked.
"Ben?" Zac asked, looking around at his three best friends. "Who's Ben?"
"Oh, sorry Zac you haven't met him yet," said Jayden, smiling. "Ben just moved here from Denver about a month ago. He's a cool guy. You'll like him. He called earlier and said he'd be late so he'll meet us at the club."
"Oh, okay," Zac said. "Then let's go." They turned around and left, climbing into Jayden's Jeep Cherokee to drive downtown. Zac sat up front with Jayden while Carter and Nix sat in the back.
"Zac?" Carter asked, looking out the window as Jayden pulled out of the driveway.
"Yeah, man?"
"Is that your Beemer?" Zac's eyes drifted to his car parked along the curb in front of Jayden's house. He sunk a little bit in his seat.
"Um," Zac said, lowering his voice. "Yeah."
"Dammit, Zac," Carter breathed.
"Uh, how about some music?" Zac asked. He quickly turned on the radio, not really caring what music was playing, as long as there was something to break the silence. His family didn't have as much money as people thought, but they did have some and Zac got the Beemer for his seventeenth birthday, one of the few things Zac had ever asked for. It wasn't until recently that he actually had the nerve to take it out of the garage and this was the first time he'd driven it in front of his friends.
"So, Zac," Nix said, "Where's Bronwyn?"
"Oh, she's sick," Zac said.
"Really? That sucks." Zac shrugged.
"Yeah, I mean I came home to see her and she ended up being sick. I went over there earlier and she made me leave after, like, two minutes because she was afraid I'd catch it and since we're starting the tour later this week that would be a really bad thing. I wanted to spend some time with her but she looked really bad and I'm leaving in the morning�"
"Already?" Nix asked. "You just got here today! I wasn't even aware you were in town until about an hour ago."
"Well I only got in three hours ago," Zac said. "We leave at ten tomorrow morning to go to New York." His friends looked disappointed. "What? I'm here now!"
"Yeah, but when are we gonna see you again?"
"Two months, I think," Zac said. "It'll be a while."
"Two months?"
"Oh come on, guys," Zac said, shaking his head. "You get like this every time I go away. This is my job."
"You're seventeen years old, Zac."
"Yeah, and I've been doing this since I was six, all right? I've been doing this longer than I've known any of you. I like what I do and yeah I miss you guys when I'm gone and yeah it sucks sometimes but it's still my job. I'm still out there doing what I love to do and getting good money for it in return. I don't want to have this talk with you again."
"Yeah, Zac, we know the lecture," Jayden said. "It's not like we're trying to talk you out of doing something you love, but we just miss you, man."
"I know," Zac said. "I miss you guys too. But when we get back from the tour I'm going to be home for a good full month."
"Oh, great," Jayden said. He glanced back at Carter and Nix. "Guys?"
"Oh, yeah, great," Carter and Nix muttered.
"Thanks guys," Zac said. "You totally just ruined my evening." Zac turned the music up and a song from Sublime came on. Zac started singing immediately, and Carter joined in after a few lines, then Jayden and Nix, and by the chorus all four of them were singing loudly to "What I Got." All of them were flat except for Zac, who was singing perfectly, as always. That never bothered any of them because it was just all in good fun. Sometimes it annoyed Zac when he spent hours in a studio, trying to be absolutely perfect and on key, and then he sang with his friends and they were all terrible. That night it didn't seem to bother him.
After the song Jayden's phone began to ring and Carter picked it up, telling Zac to turn the music down. "Hello?" Carter asked. "Oh, hey Ben!" Zac suddenly felt very out of it. These guys had a new friend that they were comfortable around, used to seeing all the time, and he had never even heard of him. All of them seemed to know him, as if he was a part of the group to replace Zac when he was gone. Zac didn't like being away from his friends all the time. He didn't like not being able to see his girlfriend every day, or every week, or every month at that. He didn't like going away and returning to find everything being completely different, or that suddenly Ben was a household name and he didn't even know who the kid was.
"Ben's on his way and he said he'll meet us when we get there," Carter said, putting Jayden's phone back in the cup holder it'd been sitting in since they got into the car. Beside him Nix had lowered the window and lit a cigarette.
"Jesus Christ, Nix, don't smoke in the car," Zac said.
"Why not?" Nix asked. "It's not like I'm holding it in the car and blowing the smoke in your face."
"Those things'll kill you someday, Nix," Zac said, shaking his head. Nix gave him a look. "I'm serious. I don't want that anywhere near me."
"Zac, we're going to a club. People are going to be smoking all over the place." Zac groaned. "Whatever, man." Nix ignored Zac's request and continued smoking. It was a few minutes later when they arrived at their destination and parked. They walked over towards the club and Zac fell into place next to Nix, immediately getting a whiff of the smoke that had attached itself to his clothes.
"Ugh," Zac said, and immediately moved. Nix flicked him off. "Fine, be that way! But when they recognize me and give me free drinks, you get nothing."
"Oh, there's Ben," Jayden said. "Hey Ben!" Jayden waved to a tall, lanky kid with a haircut similar to Zac's, wearing khakis and a blue polo shirt tucked into his pants with a brown belt and brown shoes. He had dark brown hair and bright blue eyes (accented by his shirt) with a fair complexion. He was a really attractive fellow that Zac noticed immediately.
"Hey guys," Ben said, giving a smile to Zac's friends. Ben turned to Zac immediately. "Oh, you must be Zac. I'm Benjamin Fletcher."
"Zac Hanson," Zac said, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"Oh, yeah, you too," Ben said, giving him a bright smile, showing a set of perfectly straight white teeth. "These guys don't shut up about you. It's like I already know you."
"Yeah," Zac said, giving him a careful look, testing him out. "I get that a lot�"
"Well, are we going to go in, then?" Ben asked, putting his thumbs in the pockets of his khakis, looking around at the guys. Jayden nodded.
"Yeah. Zac?" Jayden asked, looking at Zac.
"Okay, follow me," Zac said, stepping out in front of them. Ben fell into place by Nix and immediately made a face.
"Ugh, Nix, were you smoking in the car?" Ben asked.
"Shut up! You know, Jayden and Carter don't have a problem with me smoking, I don't understand what the big deal is!" Ben backed off immediately, putting his hands up.
"Sorry," Ben said. "Geez�" Zac bypassed the line, confusing Ben, and stepped immediately up to the bouncer in front of the club who was taking care of the line.
"Hey," Zac said. "What's up?"
"Oh, man, Zac Hanson!" the bouncer said, drawing attention from everyone in the line. Zac smiled. "Come on in, no cover for you and your buddies." Zac nodded to his friends and they went inside without paying the cover. He was happy until the cashier stopped them.
"Yes?" Zac asked.
"Are you kids drinking tonight?" she asked.
"Uh, yeah," Zac said. She held up some "I can buy alcohol" wristbands and put them on the five boys, none of who were old enough to drink. After that they went upstairs to the semi-private VIP room Zac always made sure he had when he went out. Clubs were just so crowded and with this being Tulsa, he was so insanely popular it was hard to go out and have a good time without a place where he and his friends could be by themselves.
There was a guard outside the VIP rooms and Zac nodded to him. He immediately opened the door and the five of them went inside. The room was only semi-private because, although it was walled off from those on the second floor, there was a balcony where he could view the people downstairs and anyone across from him at the stairs could see him.
"You know I don't think I've ever been in one of these before," Ben said, looking around before he sat down. The room was rather boring; there was a long red couch against the wall with a long glass table and a few choice paintings on the walls.
"Well that's because you've never went out with Zac before," Jayden said. Ben nodded, looking at Zac who's settled down on the couch already. Nix had lit up another cigarette, which pissed Zac off, but nobody said anything about it. Ben sat down next to Zac.
"So," Zac said. "You're from Denver, right?" Ben nodded. "Why'd you move here?"
"Oh, well, my parents got divorced and my mother and I moved here," Ben said. "My mother was offered a job here and I came with her." Zac nodded.
"Oh," Zac said. "Well I'm sorry about your parents." Ben scoffed.
"Don't be. They're happier apart than they ever were together," he said.
"So, what about school?" Zac asked. "Are you going to college?"
"Well I'm still seventeen," Ben said. Zac nodded.
"Ohh�"
"Yeah," Ben said. "I'm going to Winfield when school starts up again. I won't be eighteen until October." Zac looked slightly amazed.
"October what?"
"Twenty-Ninth."
"Really? Wow, so you're like, a week younger than me, then? I'm finally older than someone!" Zac said. "I'm not the youngest!" Ben smiled.
"Hey, Zac, why don't you get us some drinks?" Jayden asked. Zac groaned.
"Why me?" Zac asked. Jayden gave him a pressing look. "Oh, man, you guys are such cheap bastards. You can't pay a few bucks for a fricken beer. Let's send Zac out! He'll get them for free!" Zac reluctantly stood up. "So what do you guys want?"
"Beer," Jayden said.
"Beer," Carter said.
"Beer," Nix said. Zac looked at Ben.
"Ben?"
"Hmm�I think I want a martini." Zac gave him a questioning look. "Why don't I go with you? I'll help you carry the drinks back."
"Sure," Zac said, turning to the door. Ben got up and followed Zac out of the room.