I woke up in the morning the same way I wake up every morning. I'm awoken from another dream that startled me enough to wake me up, however wasn't important enough for me to retain. Sitting up, the chick I am currently sleeping with slides off of me and back onto the pillow. I always wake up first. It's not hard to imagine why�it's five o'clock in the morning. I don't know her name, nor do I care, because in about an hour she's going to be gone and I will never see her again.
Grabbing my robe, I put it on and sleepily walk to the bathroom. I'm the only one awake in the house. It's surprisingly how lenient my entire family is when it comes to my (to speak frankly) whorish behavior. They usually don't see any of it, though. I come back with the girl when everyone's asleep and she leaves before everyone else gets up. After a quick shower, I walk back into my room and get dressed. With a nudge to the chick, she stirs and I leave the room. I go downstairs and make myself some coffee. I live for coffee. It's the reason I wake up. I can't function without it. Zac can go all day without any caffeine, but he's still a kid. He's only seventeen. I'm nearly twenty and I'm too dependent on my coffee.
To think about it, I haven't heard Zac's whiny ass voice for a while now. Did he even come home last night? After my coffee had percolated and I could pour it in a mug, I went back upstairs and walked to Zac's room. He tends to take care of my little girlfriends in the morning when I disappear around six o'clock, but I hadn't heard anything from him in a while. His door was closed. I opened it and peered inside. God knows what that kid could be doing in here.
Glancing in, I found the room to be empty. "What the fuck?" I said, opening the door and stepping inside. Not only was Zac not in there, it looked like he had cleaned before he left. Behind me, I saw the chick who had been in my bed sneak by and leave. I waited for her to go before I walked back out of Zac's room and went back to the kitchen with my coffee. As I walked, the front door opened again, this time very carefully and slowly. Standing in the doorway to the dining room with my cup of coffee in my hand, I waited with a smile on my face. Zac walked inside, completely missing that I was there, and quietly made his way to the stairs.
"How was your night?" I asked. He jumped.
"Jesus Christ, Taylor," he said. He looked completely disheveled. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Just about since you came in," I told him. "So? Where have you been that you're sneaking back into the house at�" I looked at the time. "5:27 in the morning?"
"I was out." I gave him a look. "Am I going to get the third degree from you or what? Frankly I don't really need it right now. I'm tired and I'd like to get at least an hour of sleep before we have to work." He started up the stairs.
"Fine," I said, taking a sip from my coffee. "If you can't tell me I'll just have Mom grill it out of you later."
"I'll just have to inform her about your girlfriends. What's her name? Did you catch it or did you just call her baby the whole time?" He shook his head. "I think I'm allowed one night without questioning." I shrugged and walked back into the kitchen as he went upstairs.
My mother woke up not long afterwards, just in time for Zac to appear like he'd been in his bed all night. When she came downstairs and into the kitchen, I was on my second cup of coffee. "Good morning, baby," she said, kissing me on the cheek as she passed by. Now that I'm the oldest kid in the house she started to call me baby. I suppose she's just having a hard time facing the fact that all of her children are getting older.
"Morning, Mom," I said. She poured herself a cup of coffee and stood across from me.
"What time do you boys work today?"
"Seven," I told her. "If Zac gets up on time."
"Go easy on your brother, dear," she told me. "As it is he didn't get home until about twenty minutes ago." A broad smile crossed my face. My mother just took a sip of her coffee and didn't gloat in her cunning.
"How did you know?"
"Oh, honey he's been doing it for almost a week now," she said. "He thinks he's fooling everyone but he's just as predictable as you are. When did your little girlfriend leave?" My smile dropped. "Come on, as if I don't know it all. You forget I'm much older than you are."
"Well you never say anything, Ma. How am I supposed to know I'm not fooling you?" She shrugged.
"I figure one of these days it'll come back to you. I know you boys. If I tell you not to do something you're just going to do it anyway. I might as well let you get away with it under my roof where I can tell what you're doing."
"So do you know where he goes?"
"Zac?" she asked. I nodded. "No. I can only suppose it's a girl, because I sincerely doubt he's sneaking out of the house to go play Dungeons and Dragons with his buddies." I laughed. "He'll come around. He'll tell you before he tells anybody."
"Well when I asked him about it he completely dismissed me, so I doubt he's going to come around any time soon." My mother started to make breakfast as I sat, watching and waiting for Zac to stop feigning sleep. He did, eventually, and strolled downstairs as if nothing had happened. My mother gave me a look so I wouldn't clue him in that she was aware he'd been going out every night for the past week.
"Good morning, dear," my mother said. "Would you like some breakfast before you two go?"
"Nah, I'll just have some OJ," Zac said, opening the refrigerator. "Taylor, are we going to go?"
"No, Zac, I thought we'd just sit in the kitchen all day."
"There's no need for sarcasm," Zac said, giving me a look. He had a to-go bottle of orange juice in his hand. "I'm ready."
"You sure? You don't want to go back to bed for a little bit? You look exhausted." His looked remained. "All right, all right, I'm ready." I downed the rest of my coffee and my mother took the mug from me to wash it. "We'll be home later, Mom."
"Yeah, see you later, Ma," Zac said. She said goodbye to the both of us, giving me a particularly knowing grin, and we left. I figured I was taking Zac to the studio, although he had his own car now to take. He got into my car and waited impatiently for me to get behind the wheel.
"You know, Zac," I said, starting the car, "you act as though we're going to be late."
"Well you know what happened last time. Ike nearly bit my head off."
"You were an hour and a half late!" I said. "But now I finally understand. You've been sneaking out at night. Who are you seeing?" Zac didn't say anything. "Oh, come on, Zac. I know you've been seeing someone. I highly doubt you've been sneaking out to play Dungeons and Dragons with your buddies." Zac gave me a horrified look. "What?"
"You're starting to sound like Mom!" I shrugged. "All right, all right. I'll tell you. I've been seeing someone."
"What's her name?"
"Why do you automatically assume it's a girl?"
"Oh I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know you were gay." He gave me the same look he'd been giving me all morning. It was starting to get annoying. "So what's the name of the person that you've been seeing, then?"
"Ginger."
"So it is a girl!" I told him. He looked out the window. "What kind of name is Ginger?"
"It's not her real name," Zac said.
"So what's her real name?"
"�I don't know. She won't tell me."
"That's some girlfriend you've got there, Zac."
"She's not my girlfriend."
"All right, she's not your girlfriend. All I know is that for the past week you've been spending the night out and that sounds an awful lot like a girlfriend to me. Unless, that is, you're just fucking her and nothing else."
"I am not!" Zac said, immediately growing defensive. He looked appalled that I used such a vulgar term for sex, so I knew right away he had something for this girl and that he was having sex with her. "I really like this girl, Taylor."
"How long have you been seeing her?"
"A few weeks." His face lit up. "This girl, Taylor, I don't know what's with her. She's a writer and apparently she's absolutely amazing. I don't think I've ever met someone like her before. She's not from around here, though. She was just passing through town on her book tour but after I met her she pushed it back so she could stay for a while."
"Sounds like she really likes you."
"She's absolutely beautiful," Zac said, continuing as if I hadn't spoken. "She's got this bright red hair and these eyes like you wouldn't believe. They're violet! I had no idea people could naturally have violet eyes, but she does. For a while I thought they were fake but I asked her about it and she told me they were real. It's breathtaking." I leaned my head against my hand. Maybe I shouldn't have pressed on about this.
"So when am I going to meet her?" I asked.
"What?"
"You're obviously in love with this chick," I said. "I'd like to meet her."
"I'm not in love with her�"
"Okay, Zac, because I yap like that when I'm just randomly hook up with a hot chick." Zac huffed.
"What about Heather?"
"That was different," I said. "I wasn't in love with her, she just was awesome in bed." I sat back, thinking about her. She brought back memories. She could do things I didn't think chicks could do and she did them without thinking twice. She was one of the few girls in my history that I've asked out again. "I mean, she would do this thing with her tongue�"
"I don't want to hear it, Taylor!" Zac said, cutting me off. "It's bad enough I had to hear it once."
"Fine," I said. "But I definitely did not go on and on about how beautiful she was. Face it, buddy you are in love."
"Well it's not like anything's going to come from it," Zac said. "She's leaving tomorrow. We already decided that it wasn't going to go any further than this. It can't! I mean, we're both busy and she's already taken three weeks out of her tour that she wasn't supposed to. She had her editor tell everybody that she was deathly sick and couldn't travel."
"How old is she?" I asked.
"Eighteen. Well, she's seventeen but her birthday's in a few weeks." Seventeen seemed awfully young for someone on a book tour. "I doubt I'll see her again." I looked over at Zac. The thought of not seeing her again completely crushed his spirits and I almost groaned, but I didn't. Zac fell in love often, that was true, but I hadn't seen him like this before. He'd never been this serious about anything before.
"Well, Zac," I found myself saying, "If you really like this chick then you shouldn't let this be the end of it. There are ways of getting around the whole long-distance thing, especially since we travel a lot."
"I don't know�"
"Think about it. If you really like this�"
"Ginger."
"This Ginger chick, then you'll find a way through it." Zac shrugged and looked out the window. I soon found out that Ginger was a name I wouldn't be forgetting anytime soon.
"Are you going out tonight?" Zac asked that evening after we'd returned from the studio. We'd been home for about a half an hour and I was set in front of the television watching Friends. Unfortunately I'm a sucker for Friends and I never miss an episode. Zac's made quite a few jokes on my part but I always get him back for it in the end.
"No, Zac," I said, glancing up at him.
"Oh, excuse me. It's Thursday night, you don't want to miss any of the Must See TV shows." I gave him a look. "Whatever. Ginger and I are going out; I'll see you later." I looked up.
"Am I going to get to meet her?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"You know why not." Zac put on his jacket. I did know why not. I've been around a lot of ladies in my time and they have some sort of attraction to me. If I find someone I like there's not a whole lot that's going to keep me from getting her. I've taken girls from Zac before�not intentionally, of course�but it happens. My reputation when it comes to women is quite simple. I tend to not take people out more than once, no matter how much they might be interested. I'm just not interested. I'm nineteen years old and I'm a rock star. I'm having my fun while my success lasts. When I get older I can deal with settling down. Right now I'm just having a good time, well, many good times.
"I'm not going to hit on your little girlfriend, Zac," I told him.
"Nothing's ever stopped you before," he said. "I really like her and I don't want to risk you fucking things up like you always do."
"I understand," I told him. "I'm irresistible to women. They can't get enough of me."
"You keep thinking that, Taylor," he said, walking out of the room. "I might be back tonight. Don't wait up."
"I won't," I told him. I heard him go out the front door. If this is the last time he sees Ginger, hopefully it'll be the last time I have to hear about her. He didn't shut up about her today! Every time we got a free minute, it was Ginger this and Ginger that� Frankly I liked it better when he was just sneaking around.
"Taylor, come and do the dishes! They're not going to get themselves washed!!" My mother yelled from the kitchen.
"Can't Jessica do them?"
"No! Get your ass in gear!" I need to move out of this house.