“We’re going to be doing one more concert back in Tulsa and then either we’ll take a break or we’ll just quit the music business,” Zac was telling Alex at dinner. The four sat in a quaint little restaurant not too far from home. Zac sat next to Ginger and Kris sat next to Alex, who was dressed in some of Zac's clothes. He turned out to be thinner than Ginger had expected, so he looked a little out of place in the clothes, but nothing to arouse any attention to it.
“When’s the concert?” Ginger asked, taking sudden interest in when Zac would have to go home. He said he'd stay here until Ginger let him leave, but she knew he wouldn't be able to do that. She hadn't minded—she actually found it rather amusing.
“I think next Saturday. I’ll probably go for the day and come back when the concert’s over. Unless you’re planning on coming back with me, then we’d probably stay the night.”
“I don’t know Zac,” Ginger said.
“You better come along, cause my mother would make me come back and get you.” Ginger smiled, taking a small bite from her salad. “I’m telling you Ginger, they love you.”
“They love me?”
“It hasn’t happened before but it’s happened now so I find it odd too. My mother loves you and she doesn’t even love me!” Kristina started cracking up. Zac gave her a look.
“Stop it, Zac. It’s not often Kris finds something funny enough to laugh that hard.” Ginger glanced at her sister and her head was in her arm on the table. Her whole body shook with laughter as she tried to settle, to contain dignity in the nice restaurant.
“I feel loved now! My future sister in law is laughing at me.” He turned to Alex. “You won’t laugh at me, now will you?”
Alex looked at Ginger and at a hysterical Kristina before turning back to Zac. “Yeah, I think.”
“That just makes me even more upset.” He let his head fall on my shoulder. “Ginger, can I count on you?” he asked. Ginger smiled and ran her fingers through his hair.
“You can always count on me. I love you very much, unlike your so-called friends around the table.” Kristina suddenly picked her head up and looked at him.
“We love you Zac, just not in the way Ginger does. And if we did, he’d have a lot to explain and she’d whoop my behind.” Zac smiled, but kept his head on Ginger's shoulder. Kristina started animatedly talking about something directing to all of them. Zac and Ginger grew lost in their own silence. They hadn't had much time alone together and she didn't think it was going to happen soon, so they had to make the most of it.
“Excuse me, you two have the rest of your lives to do that,” Kris said. Ginger sighed. They did have the rest of our lives to hold each other and look into each other’s eyes. A whole life, but only God knows how long that would be.
“That’s a beautiful necklace,” Alex pointed out, his eyes towards her neck. Ginger glanced down and fingered the diamond-studded heart. It had shocked her, because it wasn’t like a man to comment on a necklace.
“Why thank you!” she said, looking to him. “Zac gave it to me a while back.” Alex studied it for a long period of time before conversation continued.
“So, are we ready to get out of here or what?” Zac asked. The bill had been paid and everyone was shuffling with boredom. Ginger took his hand as he stood so he could help her up. Alex and Kristina followed behind, and they walked outside.
“Rather cold out here,” she muttered. “Considering yesterday it was ninety degrees.” Zac immediately took his coat off and stuck it on her. “Thank you.”
They stood there in silence, waiting for someone to make a comment or at least move. Ginger looked up at the sign and started laughing. Zac turned to her. “What?” Ginger pointed to the sign, and he quickly read it. “Mario’s. That sounds familiar.”
“Do you remember or will I have to walk out on you again?” He looked up at the sign again.
“We came here?" he asked. She nodded. "That was about two years ago, I believe.” She nodded again. He pulled her into a hug, leaving Kris and Alex bewildered, to the point of them scratching their heads.
“Clue us in, you know you don’t do everything with us,” Kris said. “Poor Alex over here just joined us today.”
“Second date,” Ginger said, and then put her head on Zac’s shoulder.
“Let’s get out before they get mushy,” Kris said, and took Alex down the road.
“I think they left without us,” Zac whispered. She put her hands in his, her head still against his shoulder. “But obviously we’re not caring.” She closed her eyes, still silent. The Mario’s sign flickered in the darkness, the old restaurant badly needing a new lighting system. The full moon directly above the restaurant shone down on the couple below, smiling. Stars speckled the sky, dotting light here and there. And there was silence.
After they got home, Alex left and everyone else went to bed. Ginger wanted her brother to spend the night, but he insisted he had to leave and they parted ways. Ginger changed into her PJ's and climbed into the top bunk of the bunk bed. Kristina had already fallen asleep by the time she'd said goodbye to her brother and gotten up the stairs. Immediately she began to shiver. The house was normally cold to begin with and because it was now cold outside, she was freezing. Her sheets and comforter did nothing for her and she curled herself into a little ball. It didn't help.
"Shoot," she whispered and got out of the bed, carefully climbing down the ladder so she wouldn't disturb her sister. She walked to the dresser to get a sweater but as she passed by the open door, she saw Zac's door across the hall. It was slightly ajar but the light was off so he was obviously sleeping and hadn't shut the door completely. She forgot about her sweater and walked across the hall to his room.
She opened the door a bit so she could slip in and shut it behind her. The house was way too cold for a sweater to do anything—she got the sneaky idea that another person's body heat would help her very much. Besides that, this was the first time she'd seen her boyfriend in two years and he'd just proposed to her anyway, so there was no question that she wanted to spend all of her time with him. She knew herself and she knew him; they wouldn't do anything stupid.
She quietly padded across the room and slipped into the bed beside him. He wasn't asleep yet but he was definitely close to it. When he felt her slide into the bed, he turned to her and put his arm around her. She smiled and kissed his cheek, putting her hand on the back of his neck. He jumped and woke up.
"Oh my God your hands are freezing!" he said, then opened his eyes and looked at her. "What are you doing here?"
"I was cold…"
"Obviously." She took her hand off the back of his neck.
"…and I realized that before today I hadn't seen you in two years. I don't want to be away from you for a second." He smiled.
"Isn't it going to be weird when Kris wakes up tomorrow and you're in here with me?"
"We'll just have to wake up before her, then."
"All right." She kissed him and he took her hand, warming it up a bit before he let it go and allowed it to reach the back of his neck again. He kissed her back, laying on his back so she was on top of him. He put his arms around her waist and not before long he'd slid them down to her ass. She giggled lightly. "What?" he asked, stopping.
"Your hands are on my ass."
"So?"
"They've never been there before."
"Do you want me to move them?"
"No, it's okay. It's just kind of weird," she said, giving him a smile. "Just kind of weird." She kissed him again and he took his hands off her ass. "Hey."
"What?"
"You took them off."
"Yeah, I did."
"Well put them back on!"
"No, it's too weird."
"It's not weird, it's just new. Come on, put them back on my ass." He shook his head. "Zac!"
"Shut up, you might wake up your sister."
"She's dead asleep. Come on, just grab my ass again."
"No, it's weird," he said.
"Zac, if we're going to be married by the end of the year, you should at least be able to grab my ass."
"Hey, I did it. You were the one who said it was weird."
"It's just something new. You haven't done it before. It was slightly awkward at first but it's fine now." He shook his head again. "Come on, Zac, stop being such a baby."
"I'm not being a baby. You think it's weird, so I stopped, that's all."
"Oh, that's it," she said, taking his hands and putting them on her breasts. "Is that better for you?"
"Yeah, that's good," he said, smiling. She kissed him again. They made out for a little while, his hands eventually finding their way around her body, until she thought of something and stopped.
"Zac?" she asked, laying her head on his chest.
"Yeah?"
"If I said it was okay, would you have sex with me?"
"Where did this come from?" he asked.
"I'm just saying. If I said let's have sex, would you do it?"
"Right now?"
"Yeah, like tonight."
"Yeah, I would."
"Really?" She rested her chin on his chest, looking up at him. "You would?" He nodded. "We're not going to, you know."
"I know. I know you wouldn't do it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I know you wouldn't have sex with me right now. You're not ready and I know you want to wait. But if, by some weird reason, you did, I would."
"Why?"
"I'm a horny eighteen-year-old male, Ginger. All you have to do is say the word and I'm ready to go, anytime, anywhere." She gave him a strange look. "What does that look mean?"
"Seriously? If we went shopping tomorrow and we were in the diary section of the store, and I said I wanted to have sex with you, you would take me right there on the floor?"
"Well, probably not on the floor in front of everyone. We'd get kicked out before we got any of our clothes off, but yeah. I'd find a bathroom and I'd do it." She giggled. "What?"
"I find it cute, that's all. I'm sorry to leave you in limbo like this."
"You're not. I know you're not. I know you won't ever do that."
"You never know. I might want to go grocery shopping tomorrow." He rolled his eyes. "You never know!"
"You won't."
"I will."
"You won't." She gave him a look. "You won't. I know you, Ginger. I know you won't. I'm not expecting anything anytime soon." She put her head down on his chest. "Are you staying here all night?"
"Yeah."
"All right. I'm tired."
"Me too."
"Goodnight." She kissed him.
"Goodnight."
Ginger managed to wake up the next morning before Kristina (which was a first, because that never happened) and sneak back into the room before she was caught. Nobody suspected a thing and they made it through the morning without any trouble.
“Ginger, can I borrow this?” Kristina asked. Ginger glanced over from the computer. She was holding up the necklace Ginger had been wearing the night before.
“I don’t know…it’s rather important to me. Are you sure you won’t lose it?” She asked, turning away from the computer and looking at her.
“I swear I wouldn’t lose anything this precious to you.” A twinge of guilt flickered through her.
“All right. Just for today though. Why do you need it?” she asked and got up to put it on her sister.
“I’m going to a job interview today. This would go great with what I’m wearing. Only for an hour or two, then I'm coming right home. I won’t even be having it all day.”
“Okay. It’s just that I love it so much and Zac gave it to me. I couldn’t bear telling him that I lost it.”
“I’m a responsible little girl, Ginger. I won’t lose it.” Ginger sighed, finally getting it clasped on her neck. “Why is it so precious? Zac gave you a lot of things that you wouldn’t care about.”
“Zac gave it to me right before he introduced me to the world at the Grammy’s. Not many people know it’s me that he’s going out with but they all know that he has someone. It just reminds me of when I wasn’t a label.”
“You’re not. People still don’t know it’s you.”
“Yeah but one of these days they will. I’m still waiting every day for death threats and thousands of chicks screaming at me.” Kristina rolled her eyes and quickly got changed before walking out the door. Ginger strolled down the stairs into the kitchen. She'd gotten hungry, for the first time in ages, and she decided since it was still early, she could make her and Zac some pancakes. She opened the pantry and pulled out the pancake mix, then opened the fridge and groaned.
"Of course we have no eggs and no milk," she said, shaking her head. "I'll just have to get some." She walked back up the stairs and grabbed her purse from her room. As she searched through it for her keys, she walked into Zac's room. "Honey, do you want to come with me to the store?"
"No!" Zac immediately yelled. She was taken aback.
"Okay! Sheesh, you don't have to yell at me," she said, turning around and walking out into the hallway. She paused. "Oh…no, no honey I don't mean anything like that! I just need some stuff for pancakes."
"What do you need?" he asked coyly.
"Milk and eggs."
"A-ha! Dairy! You were going to take me there and as I reached for the milk you would have jumped me!" Ginger rolled her eyes. "I'm too wise for you little tricks, Ginger. I have the upper hand."
"Zac, I wasn't even thinking about that. I wanted to make some pancakes. If you don't want to go, I'll just do it myself."
"That's disgusting," he said, giving her a look.
"I'm not talking about sex! I need to go to the store!" she yelled. "And…wait a minute. You said no."
"And?"
"You told me if I asked you'd say yes." He thought about it. "But you said no. What the hell is that?"
"So, where are we going?" he asked, standing up. She stopped him and gave him a look. "Okay, I said no. Even if you were talking about sex, I know you're not ready to do it and I'm not going to let you lose it in the back seat of a steamy car if you've waited this long."
"You're so good to me," she said, standing on her toes and kissing him. He put her hands over her eyes.
“Don’t look,” he said. She kept her eyes closed, waiting for whatever he was to do while she couldn’t see. He took his hand off her eyes and told her to keep them shut. “I just have to find what I want to give you.”
“So it’s a present?” she asked.
“Yeah.” She heard him shuffling around. “Here it is.” He sat down on the bed again, and put something in her hand. “K, you can open your eyes now.”
After adjusting to the light once more, she looked in her hand. A silver bracelet sat there, gleaming at her. After studying it, she found that her name was spelled out in six separate blue stones, and 'Love Zac' engraved inside.
“Oh, honey…" she said, pausing briefly to kiss him "It's beautiful! Why did you give this to me?” He took it from her and put it on her wrist.
“Well I figured I’d give you something blue. You can wear the necklace you were wearing last night as something old, your dress will be new, and Kristina’s lending you the shoes so you’re set.”
“Set for what?” He shook his head.
“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” he chanted, smiling.
“You are so prepared, Zac. I swear I would be running around an hour before the wedding looking for those four things. When exactly are we getting married?”
“What day would you like your wedding to be on?” he asked.
“Well it has to be after your birthday, and I want it this year. December's too cold in Chicago, so in November sometime. How about November 22nd?" She waited for him to recognize the date.
"That's the day we started going out." She nodded. “So we’re getting married in Chicago?” he asked.
“Yes we are, at the Church of the Holy Innocence. That’s where my real parents got married and that’s where their funeral was. It’s my sanctuary and I’m not getting married anywhere else.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been there.”
“Well you’re going to be. My parents already made arrangements for a wedding, we just need to tell them a date now.” He nodded, and a sudden silence fell.
Zac decided to break it. “Where’s Alex?”
“He went home last night. I really don’t know where that is, or when he’ll be back, but I know he said he’ll be coming back later today.” Zac glanced to the door and out in the hall, then back to her.
“I hate to say this but he’s rather strange.” She raised an eyebrow. “Well he doesn’t talk much, which is completely different then you and you always said the two of you had always been alike. He seems to have an attraction to Kris but it’s different that between you and me or even you and her. I didn’t appreciate the way he was staring at your necklace last night either. He seemed to admire it a lot.”
“I don’t know what to say about him, I haven’t seen the boy or even spoken to him in thirteen years.”
“Do you even know how he found you anyway?” Zac asked. She shook her head. “That’s weird.”
“Apparently he’s been in town all these years and he never left. I mean I run into everyone around here, and he recognized me right off the bat so I don’t understand how I couldn’t of run into him before.”
“Maybe he’s a homicidal maniac and is just after your money.” She laughed. “But seriously, do you think there’s something to worry about with him?”
“Well it’s too big of a coincidence to be a coincidence. I know he found me somehow. Have you seen my face in any magazines or something like that? He may have found me that way.”
“But how did he know you live here?” Zac asked. “I don’t think they give more than a face and a name in a magazine.”
“That is true. I swear my life is just one big soap opera. I woke up this morning and found out that I'm sick again.”
“Sick? What do you mean sick? You can’t be sick again.”
“Well Zac for the past week or so I have been feeling like crap and I’m starting to worry,” she told him, sitting up. He gazed at her with concerned eyes.
“Are you sure it’s not the flu or something? I really don’t want you to go through all that again, hun.” She closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall.
“I don’t want to go through all that again, but it's not just a normal sick. I know what the flu feels like and this is not it.” She suddenly grew very upset. She could feel the tears welling and the all-too-familiar feeling of a shiver running down her body when she's about to cry. “I can’t be a human pin cushion again. I can’t go through the emotional pain either. I’ve always been concerned about how I look and all that, and if I get sick they’ll stick me back on chemo which will make me lose my hair again. I’m going to get married to you as a bald freak.”
“Honey, you won’t be a bald freak. You may have no hair but you’ll be beautiful.”
“Stop saying that!” she said, her head snapping in his direction. “Stop saying things like you’ll know how you’ll respond. You’ll just be like everyone else who thought they knew how to react. Then I come around and they run away. The only reason Kris didn’t run is because she didn’t have anywhere to go.” Zac sat up.
“You only think that because you have nothing else to think. Kristina loves you for who you are, not what you look like. I’m the same way. I love you for you and nothing is going to change that.”
“Get bent,” she muttered.
“I can bend my toes in a whole bunch of different ways!” he said. A small smile came to her lips, but I quickly tried to hide it. “Sorry, hun, but I saw that. Admit it, I can make you happy.”
“Even when I don’t want you to.”
"Even when you don't want me to."