"Hey baby," Zac said into the phone later that afternoon. "How are you doing? Do you miss me already?" Taylor looked up from across the room and smiled. They were sharing a room while they were here in LA and Zac was so pleased to have someone else in the room when he called Ben, and he was able to say what he wanted to say without worry. Taylor obviously still had a problem with it, but he was adjusting and even insisted that Zac call Ben while he was in the room.
"Yes I do," Ben said. "How was your flight?"
"It was okay. You know, a flight's a flight. Um, have you seen Jayden since Wednesday?" Zac asked.
"Actually I'm supposed to go out with all of them later. Jayden arranged it but Nix invited me, so I don't know how he feels about it. I'll talk to him, though. It'll be easier with only one of us there. It'd probably be better if it were you, but I'll still talk to him."
"All right," Zac said. "Well tell him I said hi, okay?"
"I will. Oh, I got myself a job today."
"A job?" Zac asked. "You never told me you were thinking about getting a job."
"Well, I figured I needed something to take up my time while you were gone and I could always use the extra money. You know, it'll make me feel more independent. I'm not taking my mom's money to put gas in my car or take you out or anything."
"I guess that's okay," Zac said.
"What, do you not want me to have a job?"
"I don't know. You can do whatever you want to do, it's not like I'm going to stop you. I just don't want us to both be occupied with work all the time."
"It's not going to be like that honey," Ben said, lightly laughing. "I'm not looking to work a lot of hours or anything like that. I'll make sure I'm not working when you come back in town so we have time to do what we want to do."
"So what exactly are you doing?" Zac asked.
"I'm a waiter."
"A waiter?" Zac asked. "Why?"
"It'll be fun! I've always wanted to do something like this. Don't fret about it. Actually, it's kind of funny�they almost didn't hire me until I mentioned�for whatever reason�that I'm gay and they were like 'Oh, you're gay? Welcome aboard!' I think they needed to fill a minority quota or something."
"Where are you working?"
"Jive. The coffeehouse."
"I don't know if I've ever been there."
"Well you have to go, then. It's a really nice place. They usually have people do acoustic sets on the little stage they've got up there. The guy from the Sky bar performs there on Tuesday nights."
"Does he? I remember that guy."
"Yeah, I was there and I was like 'Where have I seen you before?' Then he told me he worked at the Sky bar and it made sense. He actually asked about you. He remembered seeing you there and he remembered me being there with you."
"He did?" Zac asked, the worry evident in his voice.
"Don't worry, honey. I just told him you were a friend of mine. You worry too much�Oh, hey Nix!" Ben said. "Are we going?"
"Yeah," Nix said in the background. "Who're you talking to?"
"Zac."
"Hi Zac!" Nix said.
"Hi Nix!" Zac said.
"He says hi," Ben told Nix. "Hey, honey, we gotta go."
"All right, I'll call you later," Zac said. "And don't forget to try to talk to Jayden. Bye."
"I won't. Bye." Zac hung up the phone and looked over at Taylor.
"Why would he talk to Jayden?" Taylor asked. Zac paused. Taylor didn't know Zac had come out to his friends and Zac was slightly afraid to inform him about that. However, the secrets were getting to be too much to handle.
"I kind of, uh, came out to my friends on Wednesday."
"Did you?" Zac nodded. "Well, are Mom and Dad going to be the last people on the planet to know?"
"Oh come on, Taylor, I can't tell them! They'll freak out and disown me. We've had this discussion before." Taylor shook his head. "And come on, they're not going to be the last people in the world to know. As soon as I tell my friends and family and have sworn all of them to secrecy, that's it. I'm not coming out publicly."
"You're not?"
"No. It'll only spark controversy, Taylor. You know how mean the public is to us. They already hounded us for our long hair and what have you, now one of us is actually going to admit to something like that?"
"Yeah, but once you've said it they can't make fun of us anymore because it's true." Zac shook his head.
"I don't know if I want to go through something like that," Zac said.
"Well, whatever, but you're going to have to tell Mom and Dad sometime. They're going to start to wonder when you stop going out with girls and start spending all your time with Ben."
"I told them that I was helping Ben in his music class, which is true, so that'll buy me at least until Christmas, but after then I don't know."
"Zac, this is just fleeting. You're going to have to tell them sometime."
"Yeah, but hopefully by then I'll be able to convince them that homosexuality is not wrong." Taylor rolled his eyes and snorted.
"Fat chance."
"It could happen. And anyway, I'll be eighteen soon and they can't stop me from doing anything."
"Meaning they could also kick you out of the house."
"Then they'll kick me out of the house. I don't want to live with people who can't accept who I am anyway." The door opened and their mother walked into the room. Zac looked over and forced a smile on his face. "Hi Mom."
"Hi kids. Are you all settled in? Is there anything you need?"
"No, Ma, I think we're fine," Taylor said, looking around. "You don't need to worry about us so much."
"I just want to make sure everything's okay," she said, giving Taylor a sympathetic, motherly look. "Look at you two. My babies are so grown up." Taylor rolled his eyes as Diana put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. "Mom!"
"I love you, honey."
"And of course there's no love for Zac at all," Zac said, shaking his head. "I see how it is. Taylor always gets all the attention."
"Oh, honey, there's always love for you. Come here." Zac got up and Diana put her other arm around Zac. "You've gotten so handsome, Zac."
"I know," Zac said, smiling.
"That reminds me, Sheila was looking for you earlier. She wants to talk to you about something," Diana said. "You should probably go talk to her."
"All right," Zac said. "I'll go do that now before we get too busy." Zac kissed his mother before walking out of the room and down the hall to Sheila's room. He knocked on her door and she opened it a moment later.
"Zac! I was just looking for you. Come on in." She opened the door fully and allowed him to come inside. "Sit down." He sat down at the table where she had already stacked the mounds of paperwork that she usually had with her. He didn't know what a lot of it meant but he knew it was important. "There are a few things I wanted to talk to you about. First, I just heard you broke up with Bronwyn?"
"Yeah," Zac said. "Like, a month ago."
"Really? What happened there?" Zac sighed. Sheila, among a few other things, was his publicist and right off the bat he was told that if something ever happened, she should know about it. It was basically so she could straighten out any rumors that surfaced on a large scale. Of course there was always going to be bizarre rumors that nobody really cared about, but if anything serious arose, like the accident fiasco that happened a few years beforehand, she could explain what really happened. She couldn't explain the truth if she didn't know it, and she was obliged to keep whatever she knew confidential if she was told to do so. Zac found he could trust her like a shrink and he'd done it a number of times. He told her when he lost his virginity and she never mentioned a word of it to his parents, who eventually did find out but that was because they figured it out on their own and Zac had to explain it to them.
"I, uh, I found someone else," Zac explained.
"Really? What's her name?" Zac bit his lip.
"Ben," he muttered.
"Who?"
"Ben," Zac said, speaking up. She looked at him carefully. "As in Benjamin. A guy."
"Zac, are you gay?" she asked. He nodded. "I had no idea."
"Neither did I," he said. "But don't tell anybody. I don't want anybody to know at all. I haven't even told my parents yet."
"Well who knows?"
"My friends," Zac said. "And Taylor. That's it. Please don't tell anybody, Sheila." She nodded.
"All right. I won't," she said. "This Ben, he's your boyfriend?" Zac nodded. "Have you done anything with him?"
"I haven't slept with him, if that's what you're asking."
"Yes, that's what I'm asking," she said. "Well, anyway, moving on, I got a call a while ago from Calvin Klein. Apparently he saw your ad�"
"Wait a minute, didn't I do a Calvin Klein ad?"
"Yeah, you did, but Calvin Klein himself didn't get to see the ad until it was already in the magazines and he liked it so much that he wants you to do more. He specifically wants you to do a commercial for his cologne Eternity."
"Me?" Zac asked. "Sheila, I told you I had a problem with just doing the magazine ad by myself and now they want me doing commercials by myself? What's next? Fashion shows? 'How about a modeling contract, just for you Zac! Forget your brothers, those two are losers. We want you!' "
"Zac, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
"Really?" She nodded.
On a day off Zac found himself on a beach with a tall, beautiful model about his age. Although he was gay he couldn't help but notice her beauty and that he'd seen her somewhere before. He walked up to her as she was getting her hair taken care of. "Hi," he said. "I'm Zac."
"I'm Corrina," she said. She had an accent that he couldn't quite place.
"You look familiar," he said.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," she told him. "I was in an Nsync video." Zac nodded, realization hitting him. He smiled.
"Ohh� You were great in that." She smiled.
"Thank you. I saw your ad. You looked amazing."
"Thanks."
"Zac! Can you come over here?" the director asked. Zac excused himself and walked over to the director who was about ten feet away. Zac couldn't help but look around; it was absolutely beautiful out today. The sky was blue and the clouds were fluffy but sparse. The waves were crashing and the water was warm, but the day was cool. All in all it was a good day to shoot a commercial.
"What's up?" Zac asked.
"I just want to make sure you're aware of what you're doing here. In a couple of minutes Sally the makeup artist will be spreading sand all over you, to make you look gritty, and you'll pretty much just be rolling around the beach with Corrina. It's kind of like Chris Isaak's 'Wicked Games' meets Calvin Klein. Have fun, play around, just keep it clean."
"Not a problem," Zac said.
"Great. Sally, sand him up." A short blonde walked up to Zac with a spray bottle. She proceeded to get him all sandy as Sheila walked up to him.
"How're you doing?" she asked. Zac shrugged.
"Fine. Getting sandy." Zac looked past Sheila at Corrina who stood up and took off her robe.
"Oh my God," Zac said, looking away.
"What?" Sheila asked. She looked over at Corrina. "Oh, did you not know she was supposed to be topless?"
"No!"
"Don't worry about it, Zac," she said. "You've seen a girl without a top on before."
"Yeah, but not when I just met her!" Zac said. "You know, this always happens. You tell me I'm going to do a simple ad and all of a sudden I'm in a magazine with my shirt open. Now you tell me I'm going to do a simple commercial and the chick doesn't have a top on. Look at her!" Zac glanced over at Corrina but quickly looked back at Sheila.
"Oh, don't worry about it, Zac!" Sheila said. "Just have a little fun. Don't forget that afterwards we're going to have a photographer come in and take a couple of shots of the two of you for the magazine ad."
"Okay, whatever," Zac said.
"All right, you're set," Sally sat, taking a step back and looking over Zac. "Perfect." Zac looked over and Corrina walked up to him as if she was fully clothed instead of just wearing a skimpy bikini bottom and nothing else.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi. Um, are you okay with this?" she asked, giving him a smile.
"I guess if you're okay walking around in front of fifteen strangers topless I should be okay with it too." She laughed.
"It's going to be decent, Zac," she said, rolling her eyes. "But I can't guarantee I won't pull down your shorts halfway through shooting."
"You better not!" he said. She laughed and walked away. Despite the weirdness, he felt it was much easier not breaking the horizon now that he was gay.
Ten minutes later he found himself rolling on the beach with Corrina, nuzzling her neck and running his hands up and down her bare back. A month and a half ago having a nearly naked model pressing her bare breasts up against his chest and nibbling on his ear would have gotten him so hot, but at that moment he realized he was definitely, definitely no longer straight.