"Let’s blow this Popsicle stand," Zac told me, right after the concert ended. Without even giving me times to think, he grabbed my hand and led me to the exit.
"Wait, I gotta…"
"Darling will know where you are," he told me, knowing my statement before I even said it. I stopped and looked at him, shyly. "It’s all part of my charm." He smiled warmly and pulled me out the door. What surprised me the most was when he led me to his car. I was expecting something a little more elegant than the blue Toyota Camry.
"You have a Camry?"
"It’s not mine. I have a friend here, he lets me use the car when I’m in town so I don’t have to worry about rental cars, or that God-Awful tour bus." He opened my door for me, an act I would never have guessed he would do. He got behind the wheel after closing my door and pulled out onto the road without one fan in sight.
"So this ploy has worked every time? No one’s ever thought of leaving the concert five minutes early to come out here and see you?"
Zac laughed, rigidly. "Now what kind of fan would that be? Leave the best part of the show to sneak a peak at my pathetic little self."
"You’re not pathetic."
"I spend most of my free time getting high. When we get a day off and can actually go home, I sleep all day. I don’t do anything besides this, for five years professionally, and God knows how long before that. I’d call myself pretty pathetic."
"Yeah well you’re making millions of people happy as you do it."
"Millions? I think you’re pushing it there. We don’t have that many fans anymore. They’ve all strayed to Backstreet Boys and Nsync. They don’t give two shits about us anymore."
"You make me happy."
"You’re one of the good ones," he said, and looked over at me. "You’re not superficial like the rest of them."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Because you’d rather talk and get to know me, the real me, instead of getting laid and getting high," Zac told me.
"Is there a real you?" He sighed.
"I don’t even know anymore. I’m a different person to everyone I meet because I’m trying to hide who I am and trying to hide my life from someone who’d exploit me. I can’t tell which one is me."
He sat back, noticeably tired. The bags under his eyes were so prominent, I’d be it had been a year since he had a good night’s sleep.
"What time do you have to get up tomorrow?"
"We check out at ten. So I have to be up at least by nine." I looked over at him, then to the road.
"Do you want me to drive?"
"No, I’m okay."
"Pull over. I’m driving. You get in the back and you rest until we get to the hotel."
"We’re five minutes away!"
"Five minutes can do a lot when you’re tired." He looked over at me, then pulled over to the side of the road. He got out and moved to the backseat. I moved over. Darling had told me where they were staying, and I knew how to get there. I looked at him through the rear view mirror. He had his head leaning against the window, his eyes closed. I smiled. The ride to the hotel was short, like he’d implied. I took my time, and we got there in ten minutes. I didn’t want to stop and wake him, but it turned out he really wasn’t asleep. He opened his eyes once the car stopped. We both got out and started walking.
He led me to his room. Once we were inside, I grabbed his arm and yanked him to the bathroom. "Brush your teeth, wash your face, then go to sleep." He grinned at me.
"No sex?"
"You need to sleep."
"I have to call my friend, he has to know where to pick up his car."
"I’ll call him."
"You don’t have to do that," he said, looking down at me.
"Yes I do, alright? You need to sleep. To do that, you need to get in that bed as soon as possible. So hurry up!" I handed him his toothbrush and walked into the other room. "Who’s this guy I’m calling?
"Louie O'Connor. His number’s on that table somewhere."
"Little Louie?" I asked, turning to Zac. "Little Louie’s your friend?"
"You know him?" Zac asked, his toothbrush hanging from his mouth.
"He’s actually a really good friend of mine. We go way back. He’s never mentioned knowing you." Then something clicked. "That’s why I knew that car, it’s Louie’s! I was looking at that thing, thinking in the back of my mind ‘I know this car from somewhere.’ " Zac smiled at me. "I’m happy now. I figured it out."
"You should use my cell phone, it’s cheaper." I picked up Zac’s phone from the table and dialed Louie’s number.
"Hello?"
"Louie! Hi! It’s Nic!"
"Nic?" Louie asked. "Why are you calling from Zac’s phone?"
"Cause I’m here with him right now. Darling took me to the concert tonight. Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?"
"Because. I swear, you and Darling do some pretty weird stuff."
"No, it’s Darling who does it all. I just sit there. But, anyway, Zac’s going to sleep immediately so I’m calling you to let you know where the car is."
"Why is he going to sleep right away? You’re not going to do the hippidy dippity?"
"No, sorry. He needs his rest. And I really don’t care to do that now."
"Sure…I know you better."
"Lou! Stop it! I’m calling you about the car, okay? It’s in the third row from the north side parking lot, alright?"
"Don’t get so uptight, Nic. I’m just playing with you."
"Yeah. Whatever. I’m going now. I’ll see you when I see you."
"Alright. Bye."
"Bye." I hung up and put the phone back on the table. I looked at Zac and he was already in the bed. "Go to sleep," I said.
"Not until you come here with me." I smiled.
"Fine." I crawled into the bed next to him. "Now go to sleep."
"Alright." He closed his eyes. I waited there, watching him, looking over every visible inch of him as he finally could get his much needed rest. He looked much more simple there, like he wasn’t trying to hold back anything. Like he didn’t need any bravado to hold off the world.
My mind began to wander. Darling was so persistent at the concert. You’re going to get laid tonight, no matter how much you don’t want to, you’re going to get laid tonight. Well, there I was, still a virgin and he was asleep. He began to lightly snore, which made me smile. I got out of the bed and walked over to the table.
There was some junk food strewn out over the table. I grabbed a can of Pringles and started eating. There was food at the concert, but I didn’t feel like eating there. I was close to starving now, so the Pringles would hold me over until morning.
A good half an hour later, Darling poked her head in the door. She saw me at the table, looking over the papers there, and Zac asleep.
"What’s going on?" she asked.
"Lower your voice, I don’t want you waking him up," I told her in a whisper.
"Why do you still have your clothes on? And why is he asleep? He’s usually up all night."
"We didn’t do anything, Darling. We got here and I made him go to sleep. He’s dead tired; he doesn’t need to be up all night. I even drove here and let him sleep in the back seat." Darling looked at me, skeptically. "What?"
"Why?"
"Because I can tell he needed sleep, alright? I don’t want to have sex with him. I don’t know him at all. I don’t want to be a slut like everyone else here is." Darling smiled.
"I understand. You’re a really good kid, Nic. You want to stay in the room with the girls?" she asked.
"No," I said, immediately. "No, I’ll stay here with Zac."
"You sure? He might make a pass at you in the morning." I nodded. I was sure, because in the morning I wouldn’t let him make a pass at me.
"Then let him. But he knows if I don’t want to, I won’t be doing anything."
"What, do you two have some kind of bond now? ‘I’m not going to have sex with you so let’s be soulmates’ type thing?"
"No, we just talked, and he really needed someone to talk to. He’s really a good guy, I can tell already." I looked over Darling’s face. She was upset. "Do you and Isaac every ‘just talk’?"
"No," she admitted, "but I want to. But he’s just not in it for a relationship." She sat down across from me. "It sucks. I’ve known Isaac for years, and it’s never been ‘Alright, honey, we don’t have to get high, we don’t have to have sex tonight, let’s just have a nice conversation and go to sleep.' Then you come along and strike up this bond immediately. Every single new girl in every single city has him to start with. Every city we go to, he meets someone new and fucks her and we see him the next morning sniffing with red eyes. I don’t get it. Why haven’t you done anything?"
"Because I don’t want to."
"I don’t get it." Darling got up and left the room, nearly slamming the door behind her. I didn’t get it either.
I woke up the next morning, and Zac was already up. He was at the table, looking over what he had to do for the day. By the way he was scrutinizing it, I almost thought he needed glasses. I sat up in the bed, causing his attention.
"Good morning, beautiful," he said. "You’re finally up."
"What time is it?"
"Nine-thirty." I groaned and rolled over, putting my pillow over my head. "Get up, Nic. We have to leave in a half an hour."
"Zuhhh…"
"What the hell was that?" "A groan. I don’t want to get up." Suddenly, I found myself being tossed around in the soft, comfy bed. I opened my eyes to find Zac staring straight back at me.
"You’re not a morning person, are you?" he asked me. I shook my head. "Well, I am, so get up."
"I don’t want to."
"Get up. If I’m up, you can be up too. I never sleep and I’ve been up for an hour. If I have to strip you naked and throw you in the shower myself, I will." He grinned. "And you know I will. So, get up, lazy-daisy."
"You’re silly." His smile faded.
"I talked to Darling. She’s pretty upset."
"Why?"
"Her and Isaac had a big fight. She ended up sleeping in the girls’ room last night." I looked away. "What?"
"I think I had something to do with it." I rolled off the bed and stood up, smoothing out my bed-head hair.
"Why? Did you talk to her?"
"A little bit after you fell asleep. Darling came in here. We were talking and she got upset," I said, good-naturedly.
"About what?"
"Her and Ike don’t talk at all and she went to him about it."
"Why was she upset about it here?" I sighed.
"Because I told her that you and me only talked, and that we didn’t do anything?" I saw the emotions running over his face. "Well that’s all we did!"
"You can’t go around telling people that, Nic."
"Then what am I going to tell people? That we fucked until the sun rose? Zac, I’m not a slut like the rest of them. If I don’t want this, then I’m not going to do anything with you."
"I got a reputation to hold up, Nic. I don’t want people thinking that I’m opening up to you."
"Are you?" He didn’t say anything. "Well, I’ve got a reputation to hold up too, Zac. I was forced into this situation and you want me to lie to everyone!"
"You weren’t forced into anything. You went to the concert last night on your own free will, you talked to me on your own will. I obviously didn’t make you do anything; I knew you wouldn’t so I backed off!"
I sat down. "This is the last thing I want to talk about right now." He looked me over, much like he had the first time I met him.
"I’m sorry." I looked over at him. He offered a small smile. I wasn’t expecting an apology. It was just another thing I had yet to learn about him.
"Thank you," I said and got up. I hugged him. "You’re so sweet, I cannot believe it."
"Why?" he asked, sitting me on his lap.
"I don’t know. I guess it was because you weren’t very nice to the other girls, I figured you wouldn’t be nice to me either. But I guess I was wrong."
"Nic, you’re different from them. I don’t like them for all the reasons you don’t want to be them."
"So, you like me?"
"More than I like them," he said, running his hands through my hair. "Much, much more."
"Ew! You’re actually touching my greasy hair?" I asked, making a face.
"It’s not greasy."
"I need a shower; my hair is greasy. No matter how much you say it’s not. I don’t even like touching it in the morning. Now you’ve got greasy, oily, yucky hands." He wiped his hands on my shirt.
"There you go."
"Oh, thanks," I said. "I’m going to take a shower. I’m all dirty."
"I’ll miss you." "You would," I said. I got off his lap and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. "You’re not going to leave the door open?" I heard him call out from the main room. I opened the door and stepped out.
"It’s bad enough you’ve been picturing me naked since I first met you, I’m not about to add fuel to your fire." He pouted. "You are so gross."
"No, I’m just horny."
"Well, use your imagination." I walked back in the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
Fifteen minutes later I walked out of the bathroom, drying my hair with a towel. He was packing up his things. I glanced at the clock, finding that it was nearing ten. Zac looked up. "Darling brought over some of your stuff." I saw my bad on the chair by the table. I grabbed it and went back into the bathroom to change. I came back out a few minutes later with a new outfit on, and put my bag down. Zac looked over my new set of clothes—my usual baggy pants, midriff and flannel.
"That is the same thing you wore yesterday, just in different colors." I smiled. "And I thought I had a strange style."
"There is nothing strange about my style."
"At least I looked like I wear different clothes."
"Then what should I do about it?" I asked. "Since you’re mister fashion. You and your yellow boots with green pants and an orange shirt!"
"I was twelve!"
"It doesn’t matter, you still wore it. At least I match," I said. "So, Mister ‘I know everything there is to know about clothes,' what should I do to improve my wardrobe to be up to the standards of the great Zachary Hanson."
"Get rid of the flannel."
"Excuse me?" I asked. "I don’t think so. I’d put on a skirt before I’d take off my flannel."
"Just let me see what you look like without it on. Just to judge." I groaned and took off my flannel, putting it on the chair. "Wow."
"Wow what?"
"It’s weird what a flannel can change about a person. You look so much beautiful."
"Oh, so you’re saying I looked like crap before?" I kidded. He gave me a look, not wanting to go there.
"Don’t even think about doing that to me. Amber used to do that to me all the time. I couldn’t compliment her without her turning it into some kind of an insult.
"What happened between you two?"
"I don’t want to talk about it," he said, then went back to packing.
"Okay."
He turned back to me. "Okay? You’re not going to press and beg and plead until I have to throw you out of the room?"
"No, that’s silly! You said you didn’t want to talk about it, so we won’t. I don’t really mind, it’s just that you kind of look like you do." He looked back at me.
"It’s because I do."
"Then go ahead. Tell someone. If not, me, tell someone else."
"I—I don’t really think I should. Looking back on it, I realize it’s really just a petty thing and I guess I’m embarrassed that I let it affect me so much."
"Well do something about it. Tell someone. If you’re embarrassed, tell me. I’ve probably got more petty things that I made a bigger deal over. Just, if you want to say something, say it."
"I told her I loved her," he said, falling onto the bed and spreading himself over it. "And I did. I really did. I don’t know why, she treated me like crap. But I told her anyway. I thought she meant it when she said it back, but ten minutes later I caught her in bed with Taylor. And it just hurt, so much." I climbed onto the bed and pushed myself over him, looking straight in his eyes.
"Zac, that’s not petty at all. That’s completely serious."
"She used to excuse that we sleep around a lot. And we do. I still slept with all the new girls."
"That means you’re doing it too much with too many people. Sex isn’t supposed to be something you do all the time with everybody. That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to do it with you just yet."
"What’s the other reasons?"
"I don’t know you, I just met you yesterday. And I don’t love you, I don’t know you enough to love you."
"Well until you know me, and until you love me, we won’t do anything." I smiled.
"Forget about her. If she could so that to you and use ‘we sleep around a lot’ as an excuse, she’s a bitch and she never loved you."
"Yeah, I’m realizing that now. You know, you really are a good kid."
"I’m older than you, stop calling me kid."
"When’s your birthday?"
"August 15. I’m sixteen."
"Fine. You’re older than me. But you’re smaller than me, so I can still call you kid."
"Okay, but just don’t go telling everyone."
"Oh, I will. Don’t worry." He smiled warmly at me. "You do look beautiful, with or without the flannel."
"Thank you." He pulled me down and gently kissed me. It wasn’t anything big or spectacular, it didn’t even last long, but it was still our first kiss. I’ve kissed a lot of guys; Zac’s slept with lots of girls, but for some reason, that first kiss left a new shine in both our eyes.
As I laid my head down on his chest, the door opened and Isaac walked in. "Am I interrupting anything?" he asked, glancing between the two of us.
"No," I told him. "What’s up?"
"We’re checking out, like…" he looked at his watch. "Ten minutes ago. Hurry up." "Okay, okay, we’re going." Isaac headed to the door. "Hey Ike!" He stopped and looked back at me. "Are you and Darling okay? I know you guys had a tiff."
"She was just angry. She’ll be back to herself by the time we get to Atlanta."
"I don’t think so," I said, sitting up. "She’s pissed off, Ike. You better listen to her when she talks to you."
"Who are you anyway?"
"I’m the new girl."
"You came with Darling, right?" I nodded. "Well, to let you know, Darling’s about ready to leave here and never come back."
"I’ll talk to her."
"You do that." He left. I looked over at Zac.
"He’s upset too."
"Yeah, whatever." Zac got up. "You coming with us to Atlanta?"
"I guess I am. Darling packed my bag and everything,"
"Then let’s go."