“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been waiting! We have to leave, like ten minutes ago!” Michelle said, as soon as they walked into the dorm room. “Move!”
“Michelle, calm down. He won’t care if you’re five seconds late.”
“Go!” Michelle grabbed her purse and pushed them out of the door. “Hi Zac, how are you doing?” she asked, while quickly walking.
“Good. My legs hurt from walking so fast.”
“You were the ones who were late. I was waiting for fifteen minutes.” Kris put her hand over her mouth.
“Oh my God, fifteen whole minutes!” she said, her eyes wide. “That must have been torture!”
“Shut up. I’m just exciting for you to meet him. I guess Zac can come too…if he has to.” She made a face.
“I love you too, Mich,” Zac said. She smiled.
“I’m kidding.”
“I know. So where are we going?”
“The restaurant. We’re meeting him there. I’m sure he’ll be upset because we’re so late.” Kris grabbed Zac’s wrist and looked at his watch.
“It’s 5:05. You said to be here at 5. I’m sure it’s not that big of a deal.”
“No, I said that we had to be there at 5. It’s gonna take twenty minutes to get there!”
“Let me drive,” Kris said. “I’m good when I’m in a rush. It’s my specialty.”
“Yeah, cause you’re always late,” Zac muttered.
“I am not!”
“Yes you are.”
“What about the last time we were both in Chicago? You told me to meet you and the guys at that restaurant and I was there before everyone else.”
“That’s because I told you to get there at seven. I told everyone else to come at 7:30.” She let her mouth drop, looking at him in shock. “What? We all knew you were going to be late, so we just told you to come a half an hour earlier.”
“I can’t believe you.”
“Yes you can.”
“You are such a loser.”
“At least I’m not as bad as the last two people you dated.” She rolled her eyes.
“We’re taking your car, Kris, it’s closer,” Michelle said. “Alright?”
“Sure.” They arrived at Kris’s car, and Kris got behind the wheel. Zac sat next to her, and Michelle went in the back. “Where are we going?”
“Riveted.”
“Okay.” Kris pulled out and drove to the restaurant where she and Michelle usually went to. She knew the route rather well, plus all the shortcuts. Kris pulled out onto the main road and accelerated.
“Woah, you’re going pretty fast.” Kris tapped a black box stuck to her windshield right above the dashboard. “What’s that?”
“Lets me know when cops are around.” She smiled, and cut a few people off, trying to swerve in and out of traffic. Zac put his seat belt on.
“You’re going to kill us.”
“No I’m not. I know what I’m doing.” A horn went off. She made a face. “They just don’t like what I’m doing.”
They arrived at Riveted in ten minutes. Kris parked and got out of the car. Zac got out, coming close to kissing the ground. “I’m not that bad. We’re fine.”
“Yeah, and late. Let’s go,” Michelle said, and briskly walked into the restaurant. Zac and Kris followed close behind, giving looks to Michelle. It was in fun, and it was amusing them both. They laughed, causing her to turn around. “What?”
“Nothing. We’re just being stupid.”
“As usual.” Michelle looked around. “Oh, there he is.” She waved. Kris waited for the love of Michelle’s life, as of three days beforehand, walked up. Kris looked at him, then let her mouth drop.
“Oh my God.” The man looked at Kris and Zac, then immediately took a step back. “Taylor!”
“Kris? Zac? What are you doing here?” Taylor said. Kris tried to compose herself.
“I’m leaving.” She turned around to leave, but Zac grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes I am!”
“You’re making a fool out of yourself, Kris. Stop it,” Zac said. “It’s bound to happen sometime.” Kris sighed and looked at Taylor.
“Hi Taylor.”
“Hi Kris.” Michelle looked between them, confused.
“How do you know each other? All of you?”
“Mich, Zac’s my brother. I’ve told you that.” Michelle nodded.
“Oh…then how do you know Kris? Through him?”
“We used to date,” Kris said. “A long time ago. Before me and Zac started going out.” Michelle turned to Taylor, who had tapped her.
“You never mentioned your roommate is Kris,” he said.
“You never mentioned your brother was Zac.”
“I thought you knew!”
“And you never mentioned your brother was Taylor!” Michelle said, turning to Zac. He shrugged. “I hate you.”
“Don’t worry, I hate you too.” Michelle made a face. Zac returned it.
“Grow up guys,” Kris said, and walked up to the table. “Who’s the reservation under?”
“Me,” Michelle said.
“Ciardi,” Kris said to the waiter.
“Party of three?”
“It’s four now.”
“Okay, we’ll deal with that. Follow me.” Kris signaled to the other three and followed the waiter. Michelle and Zac bickered, Taylor just walked in silence. Kris sat down at the table first. Taylor sat across from her.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” he said.
“Is that a bad thing?” Kris asked.
“No, it’s not. I just can’t believe I didn’t know. Michelle’s been talking about you all day, I’m surprised she never said your name.” Kris shrugged, looking away. “You look wonderful.”
“Thank you.” She looked back at Taylor. “This couldn’t come at a worse time, either.”
“It never does. But, why?”
“Today is Zac’s and my…”
“Anniversary. I know.” He looked at her hand. “You like your ring?”
She looked at her hand, fiddling with her ring. “Yes. Very much so. It’s beautiful. I can’t believe Zac picked it out. He usually doesn’t have any taste whatsoever.”
“He didn’t pick it out.” She looked back up at him. “I did.”
“Why? I’m sure you want nothing to do with this relationship.”
“Zac’s happy. That’s all that matters. Plus, I really like Michelle.”
“So this is going to last more than a week?”
“Yes, it’s going to last more than a week.”
“I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“I’ve kept my tabs on you. Zac tells me everything, I know you haven’t been in an actual relationship since me.”
“What’s wrong with that? You just happened to find something in Zac. You got lucky.”
“How?”
“I made it all happen.” She huffed. “I did. I met you, I introduced you to him. I could have just let you walk by that day, never said a word to you. You would have never known me, or Zac. And then I pushed him to you. When we broke up, he didn’t want to believe that you were in love with him. I told him to go after you, and he was out of the door in a flash.”
“How’d you and Misty go?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Well I want to hear.”
“Too bad.”
“Tell me!”
“Fine.” He sat back. “We went out for a week. She broke up with me. Her excuse was that I was too hung up over you to date her.”
“Were you?”
“That’s enough!” Zac said, and sat down next to Kris. Michelle took the seat next to Taylor. They’d been standing at the table, completely unnoticed while the two chatted, almost as if nothing had happened.
“What? We were just having a conversation,” Taylor said.
“Yeah, and it’s over now.” Kris shrugged and fiddled with her ring.
“You’re not that important anyway,” Taylor told Kris. She pointed at him.
“Hey! I scored you your first Grammy, be happy.”
“No you didn’t.”
“You so wrote that song about me.”
“Well, you’re party true,” Taylor said, smirking. Zac gave him a look, which he ignored. “The song is about you, but I didn’t write it.”
“Then who wrote it?” Taylor looked to Zac. Kris turned. “You wrote it?” Zac looked at Michelle.
“So! Mich! How was your day?”
“Zac! You wrote that about me, didn’t you? And that was just after meeting me once.”
“I did nothing of the sort.”
“Then who wrote it? If Taylor didn’t write it, and you didn’t write it, that leaves Isaac. Did he have a secret crush on me too?”
“No, I wrote it,” Zac said, sighing. “You’re pathetic.”
“You met me once for less than five minutes and wrote the song that earned you a fricken Grammy!”
“So?”
“You are so horrible.”
“I know.” Taylor rolled his eyes. “You stop that. If you’re going to make tonight a living hell we can leave. We came to meet Michelle’s boyfriend/significant other/dude she’s dating, whatever you’re saying you are. Now that I’ve found out that I’ve known you my entire life, I really don’t need to meet you.”
“Mich, where did you pick this guy up?” Kris said, turning to her roommate. “Is he a stalker? Did he stalk you?”
“We met at the mall the other day,” Michelle said. “And no, he didn’t stalk me.” She smiled. “I’m just glad you know him. I’m not quite sure if you like him just yet.”
“I’ll learn to live with it,” Kris said, giving Taylor a smile. He shook his head. “Anyway, did you see the ring Zac got me?”
“Ring?”
“It’s not an engagement ring,” Zac and Kris said together. Michelle laughed.
“We’ve made that very clear,” Kris said, then held her hand out for Michelle to see.
“Oh! That’s so beautiful! I want one! Taylor, give me one.”
“Yeah, I’ll just pull it out of my ass.”
“Ew,” Michelle said, making a face. “That’s disgusting. But I still want one.”
“Maybe for your birthday. If not that, Christmas.”
“Alright. But I want this one.” She put Kris’s hand close to his face. “This one!”
“Okay, okay! I know what it is, I picked it out.” Michelle dropped Kris’s hand and gave him a look. “What? Like Zac would know what to get her. He’d end up getting her a ring from a candy machine.”
“Hey!”
“You would. Or at least one that looks like it.”
“That gives me a little more credential. At least I would pay more than a quarter for it.”
“Okay, that’s great. We all know Zac has no taste,” Kris said.
“I have taste!”
“Okay, Zac has very bad taste.”
“That’s more like it.” Zac looked over at Taylor, who was staring intently at Kris. He knew it was going to happen, eventually. They’d meet again, and they’d fall in love with each other again. Kris knew he was staring at her, but she was trying to act like she didn’t. Zac saw right through it. He was her best friend; he knew everything. But the worst part about it all was he was her boyfriend too.
For three years I’ve tried to prevent this moment. Dammit, I knew it wouldn’t last forever, he thought. Every day for three years, he kept his eye on Taylor. When he was with Kris, he kept his eye on her. He tried his best to keep them apart, but nothing would stop it from happening again.
This was the worst situation, because it was unexpected. Neither knew about each other, neither knew they were going to be here with each other again. But Zac was sure that they both knew the feelings were still there.
Kris had a problem. She had a definite problem with monogamy. It was just something she couldn’t do. Her feelings were always split between two or more people. She did admit to having guilt about it, but it just never seemed to go away. As much as she loved Zac, and as much as she wanted to stay with him and only him for the duration of this relationship, everyone knew that she was going to go back to Taylor. One of these days.
But now it’d hurt more than just her. It would hurt Zac, it would hurt Taylor, and most of all it would hurt Michelle. Michelle didn’t know this side of her. She’d never been faced with it before. She didn’t know much about Kris’s past, before Stanford. All that had been kept away in that shoe box in the corner of her closet. But lately that one shoe box wasn’t enough for her. There was the shoe box for Taylor, and there was the shoe box for Brian. Sooner or later, there would be another shoe box for Zac.
Maybe I could give my shoe box of momentos to Michelle, Kris thought, not even realizing she was thinking the same thing as Zac. Maybe when we get back to the dorm and the guys are gone.
Kris let her eyes flicker to Taylor. He was still staring at her, and wasn’t doing much to hide it. It was annoying to a point, then it was just strange. She wanted to read his thoughts, because maybe she could figure out who he was. Three years was a long time. She could change, and he could too. He looked different, that was one. He’d buffed up. It made her smile, but she had to hide it. He was just as built as Zac now. She found it incredibly, incredibly sexy.
And it scared her.
“Mich, come with me,” Kris said, getting up.
“Okay, where we going?”
“Bathroom.”
“K, we’ll be back.” Michelle got up and followed Kris to the bathroom. Once they turned the corner, heading to the bathrooms, Kris started running. “Kris!” Kris ignored her and kept running. People were staring, but she didn’t care. She didn’t stop running until she was inside the bathroom and stopped herself at the sink. Michelle came in shortly after her, and stopped next to her at the sink. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You can have anyone in the world, Mich, why did you have to pick him?”
“Why? What is so wrong with him?”
“He’s the one guy I never got over.”
“What?!!”
Kris looked at herself in the mirror. She felt so horrible, doing this to Michelle. She was Kris’s best friend (a step under Zac, though) and she didn’t deserve the complicated life that Kris and Taylor had gone through. Kris pulled herself up onto the counter and leaned against the mirror. “Remember when we went to the beach and I had those scars on my back? You asked me what they were from and I wouldn’t answer?”
“He did that?”
“No, but he was the cause of them. I dated someone a long time ago, and he was a super jealous freak and beat me because he thought I was still in love with Taylor. I was, and I was actually dating Taylor while I was dating him, but the only reason he would ever lay a hand on me was when the name Taylor was in the conversation.”
“It wasn’t Taylor’s fault. It was the other guy’s fault.”
“Yeah, but the whole thing was horrible. Taylor and I dated for a few months, then I broke up with him. Then he came back and I dated him for four days and left him for Zac.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Taylor and I broke up three years ago today.” Michelle pulled herself on the counter and sat next to Kris. “I don’t want any of this affecting your relationship with him, okay? Cause I’ll feel extra super bad if you guys don’t turn out. But Taylor hasn’t kept a steady relationship since me and I know you really like him. He says he really likes you too, but I just want you to really work at it. Whatever you do, don’t double with me and Zac again.”
“Okay.” Michelle sighed. “Don’t you wish you could start today over?”
“Yes! I don’t want to see him again. Bad stuff happens when we meet. I wonder what I’m in store for this time around.”
“Hopefully not much involving me.”
“We’ll see.” Kris looked over at Michelle. “What do you think? Will me and Zac survive this one?”
“Yeah, of course you will. I know you and Zac, and you are so great together. He’s your best friend, you two can go through anything and still love each other.”
“He’s so wonderful.”
“Eh…” Michelle smiled. “Yeah, he is.”
“You want him? It’s been three years, I have to trade him in for a new one.” Michelle laughed.
“Nah, I got his brother.”
“I wouldn’t trade him anyway. I’ll put him on a lease for another three years.” Something dawned on Kris. “Oh shit!”
“What?”
“Remember the guy I just talked about? The one I said that beats me?” Michelle nodded. “That’s Brian. But anyway, his restraining order is off tomorrow.”
“So that means he can come back?”
“Yup. I wonder if he’ll find me.”
“I doubt it.” Kris got up. “Ready to go back?”
“Yeah. If you see Taylor staring at me, hit him.”
“Okay.”
“Really hard too. So he doesn’t do it again.” Michelle smiled. “Okay, let’s see how they’re doing. I know Zac doesn’t like Taylor all that much anymore.”
“Why?”
“Cause he’s changed, yet again. Zac hates change so much. Zac’s been secretly trying to keep me and Taylor apart. He thinks I don’t know, but I do.” They walked out of the bathroom. “You know, I could at least have put some makeup on while we were in there. Goes to show you how incredibly stupid I can be.”
“Oh well, they don’t care.”
“Zac hates it when I have makeup on. He hates any girl that has makeup on. He says it doesn’t look natural.”
“Well it’s not. That’s the whole point.”
“He likes the whole natural woman type person. I remember he saw this one girl, skinny as a rail and had all this makeup on. I looked at her, and I immediately think she’s the epitome of perfection. She’s got boobs, I can fit my hand around her waist, and her body is flawless. Zac takes one look at her and says she’s ugly.”
“Oh my God.”
“Of course, I ask why. He says she’s way too thin, she’s disproportional, and the only reason she looks flawless is because she spends an hour putting on makeup. Then he’s going off on how she’s probably anorexic, she’s had surgery, and she’s so fake he could barf.” Michelle’s mouth dropped. “That’s when I found out I really loved him.”
Michelle laughed. “Yeah, well Taylor looks at everything with boobs.”
“Oh, I see he hasn’t changed at all.” Despite the smile that struck her face, Kris still felt like shit.
“Are you going to be okay with this?”
“I don’t know.”