"Where's the phone?" Zac asked, walking into the kitchen the next morning. Of all the phones there were in the house, Zac couldn't find a single one that worked. It was probably his fault that all of the cordless phones weren't recharged, and thus were unusable, but he'd never admit to it.
"I saw your brother run off with it earlier," his mother said. She was cleaning off the counters; it was an endless chore.
"Which brother?"
"Taylor, of course," Diana said. "Mackenzie could care less about the phone and you know that." Zac shrugged and ran back up the stairs to find Taylor. They were home for lunch and now that Zac actually had the time for a quick phone call to Ginger, Taylor was on the phone. Figures. Zac knocked on Taylor's door.
"What?!" Taylor yelled impatiently from inside.
"Do you have the phone?"
"Yes!"
"Get off, I have to call Ginger!"
"Call her on your cell phone! I'm busy."
"Taylor, give me�wait a minute. Are you talking to Kris?" Zac asked, realization hitting him. He couldn't help but smile, even though he still didn't have the phone.
"Yes I am, now go away!"
"No, I need the phone!"
"Ginger's busy anyway!" Zac huffed and walked back to his room and plopped face down on his bed. He grabbed his remote and turned on the stereo, and in a few minutes Taylor walked into the room. Zac looked over. "I'm sorry about that, but she only had a few minutes to talk and I didn't want to lose any time or anything�" Zac smiled again.
"It's weird seeing you like this, Taylor."
"Like what?"
"You're, like, in love with her." Taylor rolled his eyes.
"I barely know her, Zac."
"So? Sometimes that doesn't matter. Sometimes all that matters is that you're there and she's there and that could be enough to last a lifetime."
"When did you become so profound?" Taylor said. Zac only smiled. "You're right, though. Sometimes that doesn't matter. But that doesn't mean anything. I don't know when I'm going to see her again."
"Probably when I see Ginger again," Zac said, sitting up. "But let me ask you this, Taylor. Say it's, oh, a month before you see Kris again and sometime next week you meet this really hot chick, which you most definitely will, are you going to throw on the Taylor charm and sleep with her?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"It's actually quite appropriate. You seem to meet hot chicks wherever you go."
"�No."
"No what?"
"�No I wouldn't sleep with her."
"That's it," Zac said, getting up. "You're in love with her."
"No I'm not!" Zac rolled his eyes and brushed past Taylor. "I'm not!" Zac left the room and went down the stairs. Since he couldn't call Ginger, he might as well have lunch, being that he was on lunch. Taylor followed Zac down the stairs and when Zac opened the fridge he spoke again. "So what if I'm in love with her?"
"No reason, Taylor, it's just not like you."
"Come on, Zac. I'm only twenty; I'm allowed to play the field for a while. Not all of us meet the girl we're going to spend the rest of our lives with at seventeen." Zac gave a look to Taylor. "What?"
"I don't know if I'm going to spend the rest of my life with Ginger, Taylor."
"Oh, right. This is the guy who, upon only seeing the preview for her movie, said 'I'm going to spend the rest of my life with this chick.' " Zac sighed. "Is there something wrong with you and Ginger?"
"No," Zac said. He closed the refrigerator door and sat down at the counter. "Well, yes. Sort of. Something's different between us and I don't know what it is. She's been like this for a while and I have a suspicion, but�I don't know."
"What is it? What do you think it is?"
"I don't know." Taylor gave him a look. "All right, all right. I don't know why this is, and I don't have any evidence whatsoever, but I have this nagging suspicion that she's seeing someone else." Taylor was frozen in shock.
"What would make you think that?!"
"I told you, I don't know!" Zac said. "I have no idea why I feel this way but I do. I don't know who it could be; it could be anybody! It could be that Anthony guy that she made her movie with. It could be some random guy that she met while running around. I don't know!"
"Zac, I think you're being a bit ridiculous here."
"I know, I know. It's just I have that feeling and I don't care for it."
"I'm sure it's nothing, Zac." Zac sighed and looked away. "I mean, come on. I see the way she looks at you. She doesn't look at anyone like she looks at you. She loves you to death and just walking together down a random hall everyone can see that." Zac's eyes rolled back towards Taylor. "It's true. You know they're going home for a few days in about two weeks. Maybe we can throw a fit and go see them."
"�What kind of fit?"
"Over-worked having a stress-attack kind of fit. Something a couple of days in Florida wouldn't cure. I'm quite good at those," Taylor said. Zac smiled. "All you have to do is play along."
"All right. I'm in."
After clearing it with Kris and Ginger, Taylor pulled a freak-out at the studio and Zac suggested that a couple of days in sunny Florida as a vacation would help. At that point, everyone was so scared that Zac could have asked for the rest of the year off and it would have been approved. The only hard part was allowing Zac to go with Taylor to Florida. Taylor insisted on having his brother along, and before they knew it, they were on a first-class flight to Tampa, Florida.
"Oh man, that was the greatest," Zac said on the plane as Taylor stretched himself out, a conniving smile on his face.
"I told you I could do it," Taylor said. "Unfortunately, I can never play that card again. This better be the best couple of days we ever had."
"Hey, don't worry," Zac said. "It will be. So, who's picking us up?"
"Um, Kris, I think. Ginger will be doing some writing thing all day, and we'll get there at three, so she'll be busy for a while." Zac sighed. Things with Ginger weren't going as well as he had hoped they would be. He kind of figured it would turn out like this eventually; the picture-perfect relationship in his mind didn't match the actual relationship he was having. That was one part. The other part was the nagging feeling of infidelity. He ignored it.
"You okay, Zac?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"You're not still thinking about that crap that Ginger's cheating on you, are you?" Taylor asked, cautiously. Zac nodded. "Zac, you're just paranoid. Ever since you found out Gwen was cheating on you, you think that every girl you date is going to do the same thing! Ginger loves you."
"Gwen loved me."
"Gwen doesn't know what the word love means. She doesn't know any of that crap. She's a skanky whore and you yourself said that. She was only dating you for who you were." Zac turned away, annoyed. "I'm only telling you the truth, Zac. Ginger isn't Gwen, and she never will be. They're two completely different people, all right?" Zac didn't say anything. "All right?"
"All right," Zac said.
The rest of the ride went smoothly. Zac listened to his CD player and Taylor wrote, not bothering one another. They arrived in Tampa a few hours later, and Kris was waiting for them without Ginger. Zac smiled when Taylor cautiously kissed Kris, then took her hand.
"How are you doing, Zac?" Kris asked, giving him a kiss on the cheek as a hello.
"Just great. Where is my girlfriend?"
"She's working," Kris said, rolling her eyes. "I told her the point of coming home for a few days, when she asked to begin with, was to get away from work for a while, but she never listens to me. She's been working all day and we just got in this morning. She's been at my house since we got in, too. She refuses to go home."
"I swear, sometimes�"
"Maybe you can persuade her to go home," Kris said. "She doesn't have to stay there the whole time, she's perfectly welcome spending the next few days at my house, but she should at least say hello to her parents before leaving town. And her being out of the house will give me and Taylor some time alone." Kris looked up at Taylor and gave him a smirk.
"I'll talk to her," Zac said, shaking his head. Taylor was never like this, but he seemed to be taking her affection with good terms.
"When I left she was on the phone with her publisher. If she's off when we get home, maybe you can also persuade her to stop working and take a break. She looks so overworked but God forbid she listen to me. I don't know what's best for anybody!"
They arrived at baggage claim and Taylor and Zac each found their suitcase quickly. Kris took them out to the car, which was actually Ginger's car for when she was at home in Tampa. It was an electric blue Toyota Camry. "I didn't know they made this car in this color," Zac said. It stuck out like a sore thumb, but it fit Ginger quite well. She was the kind of person who would drive a car like this.
"They don't," Kris explained. "She had it painted. I told her they didn't make this car in this color for a reason, but she wanted it in electric blue, so here you go. I don't even see a reason for it; she's never in town, but when we are we kind of share it." Zac shrugged and put his suitcase in the trunk. He got in the back seat and looked around. The car looked like it was shared between Kris and Ginger. The steering wheel cover was specialized for the both of them, the both of their names written on it. There was a CD-holder on the driver's side visor, and Zac recognized all four of his albums up there. He smiled. "Let's see if Ginger has anything good in here," Kris said, looking through the CD's. "Crap, crap�"
"Hey! That's our stuff!" Zac protested. Kris gave Zac a smile, but passed by his albums anyway.
"I'm sure you don't want to listen to yourself, so we're going to listen to a little Tool." Kris pulled out a CD and put it in the player after starting the car.
"Tool?" Taylor asked. "You like Tool?"
"Of course," Kris said. "I'm not entirely square."
"Which album is it?" Zac asked.
"Lateralus," Kris said. She pulled out of the parking space, singing (rather flatly) along with the music. The music was loud enough to drown out her voice so it didn't exactly matter that she was so off key. Taylor noticed and was obviously dying to tease her about it, but when he looked back at Zac, Zac could only shake his head. Taylor sighed and looked out the window.
Kris's home was a little thing in a cute neighborhood. All the houses had basically the same design, with an average of three cars per house, one in the street. Kris pulled in front of her house; it was one-story and had pink trim, but was basically white. It had two cars in the driveway�a green minivan and a green truck.
"Looks like everybody's home," Kris said, turning off the car. She got out and went off to the front door, leaving Taylor and Zac behind. Taylor paused.
"Are her parents home?" Taylor asked.
"Whose parents?"
"Kris's."
"Well, considering she said 'looks like everybody's home,' I think so. Why?" Taylor froze.
"I'm going to meet her parents."
"So?"
"She's going to introduce me as her boyfriend. I'm going to meet her parents, Zac! What are they going to think of me? We've only been dating, like two weeks and�" Zac smiled. Taylor looked scared out of his mind.
"Taylor," Zac said, shaking his head as he closed his door, "Don't worry about it. I've heard of these people before. They're cool. You have nothing to worry about. I'm sure they don't know about your sleazy past. That's not something that everybody knows about and that's not exactly something Kris would tell her parents. Relax."
"Are you guys coming or not?" Kris asked.
"We're coming!" Zac yelled. He pushed Taylor ahead and walked behind him towards the front door. Kris went inside, Taylor following behind her. Zac trailed behind, closing the door behind him.
"Ginger's in my room there," Kris explained, pointing towards her room. Kris took Taylor's hand and brought him in the living room to meet her parents as Zac walked back towards Kris's room. Ginger was walking around with a cell phone up to her ear. She looked up and smiled when she saw him.
"�I'm not doing a damn thing about it and you can say what you want, but�hi, baby�" Ginger gave Zac a quick kiss. "I'm not getting rid of it. It's an integral part of the story. I can rework it a bit but it's important." Ginger sat down, putting her hand against her forehead and closing her eyes in frustration. Zac sat down next to her. "Of course you don't know why yet; I haven't written it yet. You'll find out sometime near the end�chapter thirty-something." Ginger put her head against Zac's shoulder. "Janine, no. I'm not taking it out."
"Ginger, are you going to introduce us to your boyfriend or what?" Kris's mother yelled from the living room.
"Hold on, Janine. I'm on the phone with the publisher, Mom!" Ginger yelled. "Just a minute! Sorry, Janine. Where were we? Right, I'm not messing with it and, you know what, if you don't fucking like it, then I'll find someone else to publish my book!" She hung up the phone and sighed, looking up at Zac. "Hello, honey. You don't know how glad I am to see you."
"Sounds like you've had quite a day," Zac said.
"Yes, I have. I've had to deal with her crap all day long and, frankly, I'm getting sick of it. They hate my book."
"I'm sorry."
"It's just�it's one of those books where you don't understand everything until you've read the entire book. You catch everything at the end, and if you don't read it all at once, then you're confused. I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. I hate having to write something and then have to get it critiqued chapter by chapter."
"You need a break," Zac said.
"Maybe you're right. Do you want to meet Kris's parents? They're like my parents only better," Ginger said, standing up.
"All right." She took his hand and led him into the living room where Taylor was, looking a lot less scared than he had been a few minutes before. He was talking with Kris's dad about music. The both of Kris's parents looked like enjoyable, fun people. Already Zac could tell that they liked Taylor, which was Taylor's biggest fear. He just wanted to be liked. He'd never gone off and met a girlfriend's parents before. He'd never really had a girlfriend before.
"Mom and Dad," Ginger said, sitting down. "This is Zac." Zac smiled and gave a small wave.
"Hi."
"So you're Taylor's brother?" Kris's mom asked. Zac nodded. "Well it's nice to meet the both of you. When Kris called and said she was bringing home two rock stars, I was kind of worried, but you both look all right. Although I have heard Taylor's a bit of a whore." Taylor's eyes widened and everybody laughed.