"Where are you going?" Diana yelled after Zac as he walked towards the door of the hotel room. She was in the back room and had just caught him on his way out.
"Out," Zac said, turning around, his hand on the doorknob of the door. "I'll be home later."
"Where is out?" Diana asked again, finally appearing in the room. Zac huffed.
"Mom�" She gave him a look. "I'm showing Ginger around town." Her look turned to confusion.
"Who is Ginger?"
"The chick in the poster in my room," Zac explained, knowing that would be the only way his mother would connect the name to a face.
"That girl? She's a whore!"
"Mother!" Zac yelled. "She is not a whore! They do that in photo shoots. They make you look like that, it's not like she was one hundred percent consenting to do that particular photograph." Diana opened her mouth but Zac cut her off. "She's not a whore." He opened the door and left.
Ginger, as it turned out, was staying at the hotel across the street. Zac almost kicked himself because he was the one who made the family stay at this one instead of the one, which was just as nice, across the street because he wanted a balcony that overlooked the ocean. It turned out he didn't even care about the ocean and that other hotel had Ginger in it.
He left the hotel and crossed the street, digging in his pocket again for the room number he'd written down on the napkin Ginger had given him the previous day. It hadn't left his sight since he got it and he promised himself he'd never go anywhere without it. She was in room 325. He darted towards the elevators as soon as he'd gotten in the hotel and was more and more nervous as he got closer and closer to her room.
Stopping in front of 325, he raised in fist and froze. He'd been waiting how long for this to happen and now it was? All of a sudden? It seemed too good to be true. There had to be some kind of catch to this and as he paused to think of one, gravity was fighting against his fist.
"Whatever," he muttered to himself and knocked on the door.
"Just a minute!" Ginger's voice yelled from inside. He waited and a winded Ginger opened the door. "Sorry," she said. "Come on in." He stepped inside her hotel room and was surprised to see everything in perfect condition. His hotel room was trashed in the first five minutes he'd gotten there and she'd been here for at least a day, having been home most of today, and it was completely clean. He was surprised. "I just have to put on some makeup and we can leave."
"Why?" he asked. He actually thought she was already wearing makeup, but obviously she was just naturally that beautiful.
"Well I'm not going out like this!" she said, turning to him. "You're lucky I even let you in! I don't let anybody see me without makeup."
"Why didn't you just put it on before I came?" Zac asked.
"You gave me, like, five minutes to get ready, Zac. I was sitting in bed, in my PJ's, my hair ratted and the room a mess when you call and say 'Oh, I'm right across the street. I'm coming over now.' Thanks for the notice!"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think you needed all the time in the world to get ready."
"I'm a girl, Zac, I need more than all the time in the world to get ready," she said. "But I think I did pretty good for five minutes, don't you?" She posed.
"I think you look absolutely beautiful," he said without thinking. She dropped her pose.
"Oh my God, thank you!" she said, a smile on her face. "I still have to put on makeup, though." She went into the bathroom and Zac plopped down in a chair. The hotel room was just like his, only cleaner. Besides the view, it was exactly the same as the hotel across the street. It probably would have been better to stay here, but he couldn't change that now. He looked around, rather bored, until Ginger came out of the bathroom with her makeup on. She didn't look that much different, but Zac decided not to tell her that. Her eyes seemed to be lit up now, but he didn't know if that was from the makeup or not.
"Ready?" he asked, hopefully.
"Yes, I'm ready. We can go," she said. She grabbed her purse from the table and he stood up.
"Is your friend coming?" he asked. Ginger shook her head.
"No, she was supposed to, but she bailed out on me because she had some work to do or something. She never tells me where she goes or what she does. I think she's in the CIA or something."
"Anything's a possibility," he said, smiling.
"So it's just you and me, then." He opened the door and let her walk out first. "It's like a date," she suddenly said. He paused. It was a date, wasn't it? He hadn't even thought about that. "I'm sorry, does that scare you?"
"What?" he asked. "No! No, I just hadn't thought of that."
"I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm terrible at this dating thing. But we don't have to consider this a date if you don't want to. Completely up to you. I'm sorry."
"Ginger," he said, shaking his head and smiling, "Let's just go." She let out a breath and he put a hand on the small of her back, pushing her along. They'd gotten to the elevator when she turned to him.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well what?"
"Is this a date?" He smiled.
"Yes, Ginger, it is." She matched his smile.
"Good."
It was quiet. It was a comfortable quiet, though, and for the first time in his life, Zac actually felt completely comfortable. They waited in silence until the elevator doors opened again, and out of habit Zac took her hand and led her out of the hotel. Glancing back at her, he noticed how terrified she looked.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, swiping away some hair that had blown in her face. "Just fine." He paused.
"When was the last time you were on a date?" he asked. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, and took a moment to answer.
"Wow, I wasn't expecting you to ask that," she said. "Um�a long time ago. Long, long time ago. I think I was freshman."
"And what are you now?" he asked.
"I finished," she told him, looking up at him. "I just graduated in May." He looked over her and nodded. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life and she hadn't been on a date since she was a freshman in high school. That was at least three years beforehand. That was a long time ago. No wonder she looked so terrified. That was probably her first boyfriend as well. He thought of something.
"Are you a virgin?" he asked, leaning into her and speaking lowly.
"Zac!"
"What?"
"Oh my God what the hell kind of question is that? You don't even know me," she said. He backed off.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "It's just�"
"Stop it," she snapped. They walked across the street to his car. He would be driving them around instead of taking public transportation like normal. He opened the door for her and she got inside. When he got behind the wheel she spoke up. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten so defensive."
"No, it's my fault. I don't even know you and I'm asking a very personal question," he said. "Entirely my fault." She paused briefly as he started the car.
"In answer to your question, though, I'm not a virgin," she told him. "It's just a touchy subject."
"All right," he said, nodding. He didn't expect her to tell him so quickly.
"I'm guessing you're not either," she said.
"No, I'm not," he said. The comfortable silence returned and Zac was happy for it.
Around eleven-thirty Zac and Ginger were getting along beautifully and Zac found out how incredibly witty Ginger was when she allowed herself to be. Of course Zac had made a fool out of himself right away by tripping and falling flat on his face about ten steps away from the car. Ginger laughed at him but a few minutes later she'd broken her heel and fell on her face, making it even.
They headed back to the car, Ginger holding her shoes in her hands as she continued to walk barefoot through the streets of LA with Zac by her side. "So when are you supposed to be in the studio tomorrow?" she asked, looking up at him. They'd been walking all night, quickly abandoning the idea of a car to get around, and Ginger was having the best time of her life.
"Six o'clock in the morning," he said. "Studio work is so brutal." She looked at her watch.
"We better be heading back, then," she said.
"If you want," he said. "I'm used to it. Being in this business as long as I have, you begin to learn how to live without sleep." She nodded. "I'll take you back to the hotel. I might as well try and get some rest."
"All right." They were at the car and Zac opened the door for Ginger. She gave him a smile and got into his car. She couldn't get over how incredibly polite he was. Her stomach growled faintly at one point during the evening and he immediately insisted on taking her to dinner. He paid for it all and was so nice she began to wonder where he was raised. He didn't seem like the type.
He parked at his hotel and walked Ginger across the street to her hotel. He was going to leave her at the elevator but the gentleman in him wouldn't let him do that and he followed her up to her room. She opened the door with the keycard and went inside, throwing her purse on the table in the still dazzlingly clean room. He could almost hear the windows ping they were so clear and shiny.
"I had a wonderful time," she said, looking up at him. "Seeing the city is always better with someone who knows his way around." He shrugged.
"I've been here enough times, I might as well share my knowledge of interesting facts," he said, giving her a killer smile he'd learned from Taylor just recently. It made her blush. "I should probably get back across the street. I have to get up in the morning."
"Yeah, you probably should," she said. There was a silence but this time it wasn't comfortable. She was waiting for him to kiss her and he knew it. He also knew if he kissed her he might like it too much to go home and she was in this room all by herself. He might not leave. His mind told him to just go home but the rest of his body told him to go in for the kill and his mind was always getting the better of him as of late. In one swift moment he'd pressed his lips against hers and she was responding just as hungrily as he was. He'd thought he'd heard a gasp from her when their lips made contact but that was in the past now and he was concentrating too much on tasting her than to think of anything else.
She'd made the first move after that, moving her hands from the sides of his face, down his chest to the hem of his shirt. She didn't do anything but hold onto it, waiting for a sign of approval, and he gave it to her by working on the buttons on her shirt. He took the first step in the general direction of the bed, his shirt off, hers almost completely open. He took off her shirt and threw it on the floor before he pushed her down on the bed.
"Are you okay?" Zac asked. Ginger was in his arms and he could feel her shaking. She nodded.
"Yeah," she whispered. "It's just been a while."
"I'll be careful," he breathed before he put his lips back on hers. With those few words, Ginger was at ease and didn't seem to have a problem around Zac for the rest of the night.
Zac woke up early the next morning still in Ginger's bed and looked at the time. "Shit," he muttered. He was supposed to be in the studio in a half an hour and the studio, with morning traffic, was much more than a half an hour away. He got up and took the quickest shower of his life before putting his clothes back on. He was about to leave, Ginger still asleep, when he paused. He couldn't just leave her like that, could he? She was leaving soon and he wasn't entirely sure if he'd see her again before she left. He looked around for something to write on. She was a writer, she had to have something he could sprawl a quite note on!
He found the hotel pad of paper and pen in the drawer next to the bed. He wrote a quick note, leaving his cell phone number and promising to call as soon as he got a chance, then ran out of the hotel room, down the stairs and across the street. He got into his car and drove off to the studio, making it there about ten minutes late.
"Where the hell have you been?" Taylor asked as soon as Zac walked in the door.
"Don't even start," Zac said. He collapsed into a chair. He knew better. He was out on the town until late, and then he was up for another hour or so when he and Ginger got back to the hotel, and because of all of that he didn't get as much sleep as he needed. It was obvious and everyone seemed to notice. Everyone also seemed to notice that he hadn't changed his clothes.
"Where did you go last night?" Taylor asked in a bit more civilized manner about ten minutes later.
"I went out," Zac said. Taylor raised an eyebrow. "With Ginger."
"Really?" Taylor asked. Zac nodded. "Did you score?"
"Oh yeah," Zac said. "Yeah, I scored."
"Well, at least you had fun, because as soon as you get home Mom's going to kill you." That was a comforting thought.