On Friday Zac went over to Ben's apartment. Although they spoke on the phone, he hadn't been able to see his boyfriend since his birthday, what with school and all, so he was excited to spend some time alone with him. Zac went inside and found Ben watching television on the living room couch. He looked up.
"Hey honey," Ben said. Zac sat down next to him and kissed him.
"Hey."
"I didn't get to ask you how your interview went," Ben said. Zac crinkled his nose.
"It was fine," he explained. "You know, an interview's an interview. She asked basic questions but all in all she really didn't seem to care about Hanson as a whole. All she asked was about the modeling I've been doing. 'How'd you get into this? What are you doing next? Will you do runway?' It was kind of disheartening."
"Well, come on, Zac, the only reason you're in this magazine is because of the modeling you've been doing. If it was about your music, don't you think they would have invited your brothers?" Zac sighed.
"That is true."
"But it's good!" Ben said. "It's good! It's putting the album back on the charts. You're getting paid well for all of it." Zac made a face. "Be happy. I'm happy for you." Zac turned to him.
"You are?"
"Yeah!"
"Too bad you're still mad," Zac muttered.
"I am not mad at you, Zac," Ben said. "We talked about this yesterday. I'm fine."
"Okay, so I'm just imagining the tension," Zac said, rolling his eyes. "Everything's perfect. I'm going to leave tomorrow, missing your birthday, and I won't see you for a month, but you're okay with it. It's fine."
"Of course I'm still fucking mad at you!" Ben said, standing up. "How do you want me to feel? I don't get to see you anymore! I had a big night planned for us on Wednesday but you had to do a fucking interview for a stupid teenybopper magazine like I don't even exist! Like I'm not important to you!"
"What do you want me to do, Ben?" Zac asked. "Do you want me to quit my job, which I love more than anything, so I can spend all of my time with you?"
"Do you love it more than me?" Ben asked.
"They're two completely different things, Ben!"
"So that's a yes?"
"No it's not! Don't be putting words in my mouth, Ben!" Ben huffed and turned away. "I don't even want to be here if you're going to be like this." Zac got up and headed to do the door.
"Zac, no! I don't want you to go."
"Then stop it!" Zac said, turning around. "To be with me you have to understand that I am not going to be here all the time. It takes work and if you can't handle that, then we have a problem here."
"It's just hard, Zac."
"Do you think I don't know that?"
"Yeah, but you're doing things. What am I doing?"
"Going to school, going to work, various other stuff," Zac said. "It's not like I'm busy twenty four hours a day. I'm probably hanging out just as much as you are."
"Really?" Ben asked. "Then how come you keep telling me you're so incredibly busy to the point where you do even have time to think for yourself?"
"That was before!" Zac said. "This is now." Ben shook his head. "Come on, honey, I don't want this to happen every single time I come home."
"Neither do I," Ben said. He looked at the time. "I've got to go to work."
"Work?" Zac asked. "I thought we were going to do something!"
"I had plans for Wednesday, and then you had to work. Well now I have to work," Ben said. He grabbed his keys off the table. "I won't be back until ten." Zac sighed. "I love you." Ben kissed him and left.
Zac sighed and sat down. Although he felt a little uncomfortable sitting in Ben's apartment now that Ben wasn't there, he didn't exactly want to get up right away. The TV show went to commercial and Zac wasn't at all surprised to see himself. He quickly changed the channel to something else and as he settled himself down his phone rang. He picked it up without looking at it.
"Hello?"
"Zac! Hi, where are you?" It was Sheila.
"Hi Sheila," Zac said. "I'm at Ben's. What do you want?"
"How was your interview?"
"Fine. She seemed to focus a lot on the whole modeling thing," Zac said. "So, what do you want?" Sheila, since Zac's first CK ad, only called for one reason and that was to make Zac do something else.
"You know me too well," Sheila said. "Well CK called, they want you to do another ad."
"Why don't they just make me their official spokesperson?" Zac muttered. "Since June I've done two ads and a commercial for them. Well, what do they want me to do this time?"
"Now don't say no yet, just hear me out first�"
"What is it, Sheila?"
"Underwear."
"Ugh," Zac said. "Fine."
"Now I know you said you�what?"
"I said fine."
"Great! They'll do it when you get back to LA." Zac sighed. His next few weeks were going to be so busy. All of a sudden he had a lot of work ahead of him and he had no idea how he got so swamped. This was all Taylor's kind of thing. Taylor was the tall skinny one with the kind of body a model usually had. Zac was shorter than Taylor with broader shoulders. Sure lately he'd taken a lot of time to work out so he had a nice, sculpted body, but this wasn't the sort of thing he expected to happen. "We'll try to work it out sometime next week when you're not working. I know how upset everyone got the last time we did a photo shoot when you were supposed to be working."
"Yeah, I definitely did not agree to that," Zac said. His brothers were pissed off when they had a writing session scheduled and Zac didn't show up. For some reason there was a miscommunication; Zac didn't know about the writing session and his brothers didn't know about the photo shoot. It ended in a huge fight.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure to double check your schedule before we make any appointments."
"Where exactly is this ad supposed to be?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is it in a magazine, or is it�in a different kind of magazine?"
"Oh," Sheila said. "It's supposed to be, um, onabillboardintimessquare."
"What?" Zac asked.
"It's a billboard in Times Square."
"What?! That's, like, where everyone can see! I'm going to be fifty feet tall! My dick is going to be six feet long!" He paused. "Actually�"
"Your boyfriend might like that."
"What boyfriend?" Zac asked. "I don't have a boyfriend. We don't talk about that."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot."
"Well don't forget again!" Zac said. "This isn't something you just throw around like that." Sheila apologized. "Anyway, when are we going to do this?"
"They're available when you are."
"You know," Zac said, scratching the back of his head and looking around Ben's apartment. "There's really no reason for me to stay here any longer. Maybe we could do it tomorrow, if they can get their act together in time."
"Actually, that might just work out. I'll call them and then I'll get back to you in, uh, twenty minutes."
"Okay," Zac said. He hung up the phone then stood up. Ben would be so pissed off if he found out Zac was willingly going back to LA without even saying goodbye, but Zac knew his schedule over the next few weeks and there was no room for a photo shoot. He was lucky to have an hour to himself every day, and that hour usually consisted of phone time with Ben. He wrote a quick but loving note to Ben and put it somewhere he knew Ben wound find it, then left.
On his way home Sheila called him back. "So what did they say?" he asked, sitting back against his seat, one hand lazily on the wheel.
"Tomorrow is good. We'll have to find a flight back to LA tonight, or at least very early in the morning tomorrow."
"Well I'm ready to go once you find us a flight," Zac said, a small smile on his face.
"Me?"
"Yes!"
"Well, whatever, Zac," she said. "Anyway, how does Ben feel about you leaving early?" Zac made a face. He didn't like it when Sheila asked him questions about his personal life. He tried to be professional with her, and unfortunately that didn't always work out.
"He's fine with it," Zac lied. "I gotta go. Call me when you get us a flight." Zac hung up the phone and turned his attention back to the road.
"That's great! Put your arm up behind your head," the photographer said to Zac. Zac was standing in front of a screen in a studio in a pair of short, black boxer-briefs. He felt very self-conscious standing in a room full of people with nothing but underwear on, but when he took his robe off he noticed a few people staring, including the hot (and gay) hair stylist, Scott. It made him feel better about himself and he allowed himself to let loose when the photographer gave him direction.
He hadn't spoken to Ben yet and probably wouldn't get a chance for the rest of the day. After this photo shoot ended, Zac had the shoot for YM, which he found amusing. He was standing in a room in his underwear, and once that ended he would be standing in the same room, fully clothed, targeting a completely different audience.
He made the mistake of telling his mother what this shoot contained and she yelled at him for a good fifteen minutes, making him nearly miss his flight. She had problems with him even taking off his shirt, much less wear something so small and tight he might as well stand in front of the camera naked. She yelled at him until he mentioned how much money he was getting. After that her view was quickly swayed, although she did say it was still a disgrace.
"Great, Zac, great. Turn around and look back at me." Zac did so, looking over his shoulder at the photographer. "Perfect. Nice ass." Zac's look almost faltered. Although it was a nice compliment, he was tired of people telling him how nice his ass was. He knew it by now. Ben told him nearly every day.
When the shoot was over Zac collapsed into a chair. "Ugh, no more photos," he said. "I can only look hot for only so long before it starts to hurt." Sheila smiled and handed him his phone.
"You have some time before the other team gets here. Ben called about a half an hour ago." He nodded. "Maybe you should put on a robe," she said, glancing down at him. He looked down at himself and realized he was still in his underwear. He'd been walking around in it for about five hours, and by now he was so comfortable he didn't even notice. She handed him a white robe and he put it on. "I'll be over there." She pointed across the room. The only reason she was going over there was because she wanted to give him some privacy.
Zac sighed and called Ben. "Hello?"
"Hi honey," Zac said. "How are you doing?"
"Don't even give me that," Ben spat. "You're doing a photo shoot?"
"Well, yeah, I�"
"You didn't even bother to say goodbye to me? You're missing my birthday, you'll be gone an entire fucking month, and all I get is a note with half a sentence and 'Love Zac' on it? You could have told me you were leaving early."
"Ben, I didn't find out until after you left for work!"
"Oh, so you couldn't come down there and say goodbye. You couldn't have the fucking decency to call me."
"Ben, come on�"
"No! I can understand missing my birthday, I can understand being away for so long, but I cannot understand why the hell you would just leave like that! The next time I see you, you better watch out because I am going to kill you!"
"Ben! Stop it, I'm sorry!" Zac said, his voice rising. "I'm sorry! This was the only time I could do this."
"You could have at least said goodbye," Ben said. Zac had never heard him this upset. "I mean we didn't even get to spend any time alone together. All we did was fight." Zac sighed.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Ben said. "Me too. So�what was this shoot for?"
"It was another CK ad," Zac said.
"What'd they have you selling this time?"
"Underwear," Zac muttered.
"Underwear?!" Ben asked. "Zac!"
"What?" he asked. "It's just some underwear. I looked hot today. You'll love it." Ben sighed. "Come on, it's not like I did it for anybody but you."
"But other people are still going to see it."
"But you'll see it."
"That is true," Ben said. "All right. I'm not entirely supportive, but if you're doing it for me then I'll have to take it as a compliment." Zac smiled.
"I wish I could be there," Zac said.
"Don't dwell on it, okay?" Ben asked. Zac looked up at Sheila who trying to get his attention. She tapped her watch.
"Baby, I have to go. I have another shoot to prepare for," Zac reluctantly said. The last thing he wanted to do was stop talking to Ben when they hadn't even resolved the problem, but they'd been doing that a lot lately. "I love you and I'll call you soon, okay?"
"Okay. I love you too. Have fun with your shoot."
"I'll try." He said goodbye and hung up the phone as the next team came in the room.