Walking into the house a few days later, Zac had his cell phone pressed up against his ear, a suitcase in his other hand. He headed immediately to the stairs. "You should come out to see me when you get a chance," he said to Ginger, who was on the line. "I want you to meet the family."
"I don't know, Zac," she told him. "Meeting the family is a big thing."
"No it's not. You already met Taylor."
"Well Taylor's different," she said, giggling a bit.
"How is he different?" There was a long pause and for a moment he thought he'd lost her. He checked the connection and it was still counting away. "Ginger?"
"Well, Taylor's, like, your best friend along with your brother. It's not like meeting your parents or anything."
"Whatever, Ginger." He went into his room and flicked on his light. The first thing he saw was the large poster of Ginger hanging on the wall. He turned away from it.
"Think about it! Doesn't it seem like a big thing? What if I randomly said to you, 'Hey Zac, why don't you come out here today? I want you to meet my family.' "
"I want to meet your family." She sighed.
"You're such a good boyfriend, Zac." He turned around to look at her poster. It wasn't her at all. He'd been away from home for so long that he almost forgot about it. He didn't expect to meet her when he went out to LA. He didn't expect to fall in love with her like he was, but now that he was, the poster had to go. "Zac?"
"I gotta go, Ging," he said. "There's something I have to take care of. I'll call you later."
"All right." He paused, three words rolling through his mind. I love you, he thought. He thought about saying it, pausing even to think about it, but then he moved on.
"Bye."
"Bye."
He hung up the phone and threw it on his bed, looking over at the poster. It was behind glass, stuck in a frame with sunlight hitting it, gleaming off. It seemed to be glowing in his room, like it was meant to be there, but it wasn't. She was meant to be there, not an airbrushed 2-D image.
He walked over to it and took it down off the wall. He was bringing it back to his bed to take it out of the frame and put away when Taylor passed by. He stopped at the doorway. "Hey," Taylor said. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm just taking this poster down." Taylor looked at it.
"Why?"
"Well now that she's my girlfriend it doesn't seem right having a large, sexy poster of her in my room." Taylor gave him a questioning look. "It makes sense to me." Taylor shrugged.
"Whatever. Can I have it?" he asked. Zac was skeptical. "Oh, come on. You're just going to throw it out, anyway. That is my frame, you know." Zac sighed.
"All right." He handed the poster over to Taylor. "Don't be all falling in love with my girlfriend now that you can stare at her every day."
"Whatever, Zac," Taylor said after a pause. He shook his head and walked out of the room with a breath that sounded something like "paranoid." Zac had every reason. Taylor had that way with women; no matter who she belonged to, no matter how committed she was, if Taylor really wanted her (be it for a one-night stand or a long-term relationship) he found a way to get her. He never failed. It scared the hell out of Zac. Ginger meant a lot to him, and if Taylor showed interest in her, she was as good as gone.
He sighed and plopped down on his bed. Fancy, expensive hotels might have good beds but nothing ever compared to the feeling of his own bed. He let out a breath he'd been holding since Taylor showed up and allowed himself to relax. His brother made him uncomfortable. It wasn't that Taylor ever intentionally stole a girl from Zac�he'd never done anything like that. Taylor had a better sense for family than that. But it was always a thought in the back of Zac's mind that one of these days Taylor would end up screwing him over.
His phone rang and he groaned, not exactly wanting to talk to anybody. He ignored it for two more rings until he gave up and picked it up. "Hello?" he asked.
"Zac! Hey! I heard you're back in town!" Zac sat up.
"Vinnie! Aw, man, I haven't talked to you in forever! How are you doing?" Zac asked, his voice going from subdued to upbeat in a matter of moments. Vinnie was his best friend who used to live a block away, before Zac moved early in his career. Since Zac was so busy, seeing or talking to Vinnie was a rare luxury that he never took for granted.
"I'm great! I'm just great. How long are you guys in town for?"
"Oh, a few weeks," Zac said. "But I'm working just about every day. We're finishing up the album and everything, it's just we're going to do it at the studio here so we're not away from home."
"That sucks, though, that you're home and you still have to work."
"Not really. It's better than doing it somewhere else. At least here when we're done we get to come home. We're not working all the time, either. It's only until about six o'clock every day and we get days off and stuff."
"I guess that is better," Vinnie said. "Anyway, I have a reason for calling. Do you know what next week is?" Zac looked over at the calendar. The next Friday he had circled in blue Sharpie marker. He smiled.
"Your birthday, perhaps?" he asked.
"Hey, you remembered!"
"Of course!" Zac said. "I have it circled on my calendar. So are you doing something?"
"Of course!" Vinnie said, mimicking Zac. "Yeah, I'm throwing a rather large party in honor of me becoming legal. You and your two brothers are invited."
"Great," Zac said. "When?"
"Around sevenish, my house, on Friday."
"We'll be sure to be there. We might be a little late, depending on how studio work goes. But we'll be there."
"Perfect!" Vinnie said. "I have a question."
"I have an answer."
"Shut up," Vinnie quipped before continuing. "What's this I hear about you dating that Ginger Stevens girl from that movie?"
"News travels fast," Zac said. "How'd you find that out?"
"My sister saw a photo of the two of you in People magazine and she showed it to me. You were all holding hands and being all lovey like I know you're not like." Zac rolled his eyes.
"Whatever, Vin."
"Well you're not! With Gwen you were�"
"Let's not talk about her, okay?"
"You're not still bent up about that, are you, Zac?"
"I said we're not talking about it, Vin."
"All right, all right�anyway, so are you dating this Ginger chick?" Vinnie asked. Zac sighed and fell back on his bed.
"Yeah," Zac said. "Yeah, I am. I met her when we were both on Leno back in May. You know I had a big crush on her since her movie came out."
"I stopped by a while ago and saw that poster in your room. She's hot, I can give you that," Vinnie said, a laugh in his voice. Zac groaned. "Sorry, man, but she is! Don't worry, I'm not going to go after her or anything." Zac rolled his eyes and sat up.
"Wait a minute, there was a picture of us in People?"
"You're so quick, Zac�"
"Zac?"
"Hmm?" Later that week, Zac was on the phone with Ginger again after a grueling day in the studio. She was off in Greece and it was early the next morning where she was. It was midnight in Tulsa and Zac was falling asleep, but Ginger was wide-awake and ready to do Greek radio in about an hour.
"Um�I was supposed to go to Germany the end of next week but they called Kris last night and apparently they double-booked David Hasselhoff and me at the same time, so they cancelled. I have a few days off."
"So�what? Do you want to come out here?" Zac asked, yawning. "I'd love to have you."
"Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at but I didn't want to just invite myself over," she said.
"Don't worry, honey, you can invite yourself over any time you want to. I don't mind." He could hear her smile. "When would you be here?"
"Um�Thursday to Sunday I'm off, so anytime in there. I can stay all four days, but I don't have to," she said.
"You can stay all four days," he said. "But on Friday I'm going to my best friend's birthday party, if you want to come. I'm sure nobody would mind that you were there, you big star, you."
"I'm not a big star, Zac�"
"Yes you are and don't think otherwise. You're a huge star. You were important enough to get into People Magazine," he said.
"When was I in People Magazine?" she asked, her voice raising a notch as she spoke. He rubbed his temple. It was too late for a squeaky, excited voice.
"Vinnie, my best friend, apparently saw a picture of the two of us in People a few weeks ago. That's how he found out we were dating." Ginger grew silent. "Ging? Are you okay?"
"What? Yeah, I'm fine. I was just unaware people knew we were dating. Not�not that it's a bad thing or anything like that. I'm glad people know, it's just, I�I don't know." He sat up, confused.
"Did you not want to tell anybody about us?"
"No!" she immediately said. "It's nothing like that. I just�I just kind of wanted to say it. I didn't want anybody to find out and put it in a magazine without me even knowing about it. I haven't told my parents yet and they read that magazine all the time, well, at least my mother does. She can't really get a hold of me and I'm sure the minute I talk to her she's going to bite my head off for not saying anything to her."
"Why haven't you told your parents yet?" he asked.
"It's not like we're getting married or anything!" she told him, her voice rising again. "We're just dating! You act as though it's something more serious." He fell back on the bed, crestfallen. To him it was something more serious, but if she didn't feel that way, he didn't want to say anything about it. "I haven't spoken to my parents since before I met you. They're just not as important as they used to be. I don't talk to them as much as I did before my movie. They didn't like that I was going out to LA, all the way across the country, by myself, to make a movie. It was a big risk and they don't like to take risks."
"All right," he said, his voice nearly a whisper.
"Are you okay? Did I say something not good?" she asked immediately.
"No," he lied. "No, you didn't. I just don't really understand it. My parents have always been involved in my music career. I mean, hell, my dad's one of our managers and has been from the beginning. They've been so supportive, I don't really understand how your parents can't be. I don't understand how it can be nearly two months now and you haven't even spoken to them."
"My family is a lot different from yours, Zac," Ginger said. "Mine isn't as important. Kris is the only one I've got who's been with me the whole way. She's my only real family right now."
"Oh."
"But, anyway�I'll talk to Kris about Thursday. I guess it'll be fun to meet your family. Are they like you or are they relatively normal?" Zac grinned.
"It's a mix. Some of them are normal, like me," he jokingly spat at her, "but some of them are rather weird. Isaac can have his moments where he's a big dork and you're embarrassed to be around him, and the little kids are plain wild, but all in all it's a pretty calm house." Just to contradict his statement, a loud crash was heard down the stairs and Diana suddenly began to yell at Avery for kicking a soccer ball around in the house. Ginger could hear it and began to laugh. "I promise that doesn't happen often."
"Sure, Zac�"
"No! You'll see! You'll be here and you'll be surprised how quiet it can get. Little kids are always generally loud, but if you stick them downstairs in front of cartoons, then it'll be calm," Zac said. "I'm glad you're coming, Ginger. I want you to meet my family and get to see me with my friends. They can tell embarrassing stories and accidentally speak of ex-girlfriends in your presence."
"Oh, gee, Zac," Ginger said, "that sounds like fun!"
"You know what I mean, babe. You'll like them. They're like me."
"I'm sure I will. I don't know�I don't necessarily like meeting new people now. Everyone knows who I am and everything and they just treat me different now," Ginger said, sighing.
"Ging, it happens. It's a price you gotta pay when you try to make it big like this. But you don't have to worry about that with my friends. They know what it's like to be around people like us because they're around me all the time. It's not like you're going to a random party with people who don't know how to control themselves around celebrities. These are my friends."
"Yeah, yeah�but I still don't think I'm in the clear. They are your friends. They spend their time hanging out with you," she said, a twisted smile in her voice.
"Hey!"
"I have to go now," she said. "We're leaving."
"All right. I'll call you later about coming down here."
"Okay," Ginger said. This was the awkward part of the conversation. Zac bit his lip, waiting for Ginger to say something else. "Um�I'll see you later, then."
"Right," he said. "Later." She hung up the phone.