"Are you and Taylor sharing a hotel room?" Ginger asked. It was a bit later; Kris and Taylor were in the kitchen talking while Ginger and Zac were back in Kris's room. Kris's parents were cool; they joked around a lot. It made Taylor a bit nervous upon finding that Kris's mother did know of his past, but all of them knew this relationship was different.
"No, we're not," Zac said, lying down on Kris's bed as Ginger remained sitting up. "It's just easier that way, just in case either you or Kris wanted to spend the night or something." Ginger nodded.
"I was kind of wondering if I could stay with you," Ginger asked. Zac raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, we're leaving the same day as you, and as much as Kris says I'm welcome here, I don't want to stay here and sleep on the floor the whole time. I'd rather spend all my time with you. I see Kris every day. I hardly ever get to see you."
"Why don't you go home?"
"I'm not going home, Zac, and you know that," Ginger said, giving him a look.
"Have you seen your parents since you've been back?" Ginger shook her head. "Are you even planning on seeing them?" Ginger shook her head again. "Ginger�"
"They're not important to me, all right?"
"But Ginger, you're important to them. As much as they don't say it or show it, you're still important to your parents. You should at least see them while you're back. I'll go with you."
"Zac, no."
"Oh come on, Ginger," Zac said, sitting up. "It won't be the end of the world. I want to meet your parents." Ginger sighed. "Please? We won't have to stay long, and then from there we can go to the hotel and you can stay with me the rest of the time you're in town. It would mean a lot to me."
"All right."
"Good." Zac got up.
"Whoa, right now?"
"If you do it right now you won't have any time to talk yourself out of it," Zac said. Ginger relented and got up, walking to the door.
"Where are you going?" Kris asked from the kitchen table where she was with Taylor.
"We're going to my parents' for a little bit," Ginger said. Kris smiled. "Shut up, you. We're only going to be there for a short time, so don't even start. I'm introducing them to Zac and then we're leaving." Ginger opened the door and walked out. Kris gave a thumbs-up to Zac, who smiled and followed Ginger out of the house. She walked to the car and got behind the wheel, huffing. "I can't believe you talked me into this."
"Hey, I didn't do anything. I think you actually wanted to go, you just needed an excuse to get you there."
"Whatever, Zac." She started the car and began to drive. He was happy. Of course, he was more nervous than anything else, but he was happy that she was going to see her parents again. Apparently it'd been forever since she'd seen them, and a visit would do her good. He really didn't know what her parents were like, but meeting them would at least give him insight in where she was coming from. She wasn't the type of person who would hate her parents for no reason.
"Let me just warn you," Ginger said, "my parents aren't exactly loud and vicious like I make them seem to be. They're nothing like that. They have that subtle, disappointed feel to the way they talk that just makes you feel guilty. They don't like my decisions for a career or anything that has to do with it, so they're probably not going to like you."
"That's okay, Ginger."
"That's okay?" she asked, glancing over at him. "Are you sure?"
"If you don't like them, I don't understand why I should. And if they don't like you, then why should they like me? It doesn't really matter to me, Ging. I just want to meet them."
"And they call me Laura. Just so you know."
"That's fine." Ginger sighed. "It's fine, Ginger." She didn't say anything and they went the rest of the way in silence. It wasn't far to her house, and when Ginger pulled up into the driveway, both of her parents' cars were in the driveway.
"Well, at least we know they're both home." Ginger took in a deep breath and got out of the car. Zac did as well and he followed Ginger to the front door. She unlocked it and went inside. "Hello? Mom, Dad?"
"Laura? Is that you?" Her mother appeared. Now it was obvious where Ginger got her hair. The woman was tall and skinny, like Ginger, but had dark eyes. Ginger had said before her eyes came as sort of a mystery to her family. No one they knew of had violet eyes, but somewhere along the line there must have been someone. "I thought you were in Europe."
"No, we're home for a little while," Ginger explained, walking into the house. They were in the living room now and Zac felt a little bit out of place. Ginger gave her mother a tense hug hello. "I thought I'd stop by and introduce you to Zac."
"This is your boyfriend?" Ginger's mother asked.
"Yeah�"
"Nice to meet you. Zac, is it?"
"Yes it is," Zac said. "Nice to meet you as well."
"It would have been nice to meet you earlier, but I didn't even know Ginger had a boyfriend until I read it in a magazine. Imagine that! A magazine knows more than I do," the woman said, giving a pointed look to Ginger.
"Don't believe everything you read in those magazines, Mom," Ginger said, softly.
"Well�John! Your daughter's stopped by to visit."
"Told you," Ginger whispered to Zac. Zac didn't say anything as a larger man with brown hair and a moustache walked into a room and gave his daughter a hug. Ginger seemed more at ease with him than her mother. "Dad, this is my boyfriend Zac."
"Nice to meet you," John said, shaking Zac's hand.
"You too." There was an awkward silence after that.
"Um, well, Zac and I just came over to say hello. I'm going to pick up some things from my room and we'll be on our way," Ginger said. "Come on, Zac." Zac didn't have any time to retort before Ginger had pulled him out of the room and to the stairs. They started to go up quickly.
"That wasn't so bad," Zac said.
"Shut up." Ginger went into the first room on her left and Zac followed. Her room was just as shocking as she was; it was painted a bright blue, while everything else, including the carpet was white. She had a faux wood desk with a full computer on it, a large bed and two dressers, one with a stereo on top of it. "It's not much, but I'm never here, so I don't really care."
"It suits you."
"I'm just up here to rummage for something I can take along with me. I thought it was just too rude to come here, say hi, and then leave," Ginger explained. "Because that's all we're doing. I don't want to even begin to discuss my career with them. My mother will guilt me until I'm about three inches tall."
"Ging, I don't think�"
"Find what you're looking for?" Ginger's mother said from the doorway. She'd just opened the door and, from the looks of it, hadn't heard anything they were talking about.
"Just about," Ginger said, opening her closet. She went inside and sorted through her clothes. She threw a pair of jeans onto a chair to take with her.
"It's nice to see you again," the woman said. "With your career you're so busy we hardly get to see you. You've changed so much�" Ginger paused, cursing under her breath. The dreaded C-word had been mentioned. "But you chose that path�"
"Mother, do not even start!" Ginger said, bitterly. She opened a drawer. "Dammit, where is it?"
"I'm just saying, Laura, that you probably would have been happier if you hadn't gone off to LA and made that movie." Ginger closed her eyes.
"Every time I come here you say that," Ginger whispered. "Mom, I'm happy. I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life and it's because I made that movie. It was really successful and I get to do what I love now. I'm publishing a book! They're paying me money to do something I do every day of my life for fun. I know you don't like to take risks, but I took one and I got lucky. I'm happy doing what I'm doing."
"Laura�"
"This is why I didn't want to come here," Ginger said, slamming her drawer shut. She took the clothes from the chair and brushed past her mother. The woman walked away and Zac followed Ginger out the front door and to her car. When Zac got in Ginger was close to tears. "I hate it when she does that! Every single time I talk to her she tells me I've made a mistake, but I haven't! This is the only thing in my life I've been one hundred percent sure about since the start and she can't even support me on that." Ginger put her head against the steering wheel and began to cry. "I don't know what she wants me to do!"
"Ginger, baby, I'm sorry."
"Can I stay with you at the hotel?" Ginger asked, her voice soaked with tears.
"Of course you can." Ginger looked over at him, her eyes red and her cheeks wet. "Come here." She allowed herself to fall into his open arms. "I'm sorry, Ginger. I didn't know it would be like this."
"It's not your fault," she said. "You just wanted to make everything better. But at least you got to meet them."
"Yeah�"
"Do you want me to drive?" Zac asked. Ginger was still shaking and upset. She nodded. "All right. We'll go back to Kris's first and get your things, then we'll go to the hotel. You look like you need to rest." She nodded again. He got out of the car and went around to the driver's side while she scooted over to the passenger's side. He started the car and pulled away from the house. "You're going to have to tell me where to go." She gave him directions back to Kris's house.
When they walked back into Kris's house, her parents were gone and Kris and Taylor were making out on the couch in the living room. Kris sat up immediately, surprised. "That was fast," she said. She got a glimpse of Ginger's face before Ginger walked back to the bedroom. "I'm taking it didn't go well."
"No, we left pretty quickly. Her mother�"
"You don't have to say anything more," Kris said. "I was actually hoping her mother wouldn't be there. When it's just her father everything's fine, but her mother has a tendency to make her cry. Is she all right?"
"I'm fine," Ginger said, walking back into the living room with her suitcase. "Zac and I are going to go back to the hotel. Tell Mom and Dad I said bye."
"You're going to stay there?" Kris asked. Ginger nodded.
"Yeah. I'm going to be there all the time anyway, so I might as well just stay the whole time." Kris nodded.
"All right. Sounds like a plan," she said. "You are going to come back for Taylor, aren't you? With you gone we have no car."
"Yeah, I'll send Zac for Taylor later on," Ginger said. "When are the 'rents coming back anyway?"
"They're at a game, so they won't be back until late tonight," Kris explained, giving Ginger a knowing look. Ginger smiled.
"Oh, well, excuse me," Ginger said, "I didn't mean to interrupt anything. We'll be at the hotel. I have my cell if anybody calls for me, but if they do, I don't want to talk to anybody."
"All right," Kris said. "Have fun."
"You too," Ginger said. Zac and Ginger left. Ginger had a bright smile on her face, which was very contradictory to what she had upon entering the house.
"What're you smiling about?" Zac asked.
"It's just so good to see them together," Ginger said, looking up at Zac. "Don't say anything, but Kris's been in love with him since your MMMBop days." Zac shrugged.
"Figures."
"Almost about as long as I've been in love with you." Zac paused and Ginger laughed. "Oh, honey, you're so easy."
"Have you seriously been 'in love' with me for that long?" Ginger shrugged.
"Not really. I've had a little crush on you since then, nothing much. I just thought you were hot. I didn't really love you or anything like that. I didn't know you well enough." They got to the car and Zac was driving again. "But, come on, you liked me before you met me too."
"Yeah, that is true," Zac said. "The first time I saw the trailer for your movie I was like 'Oh my God I'm going to marry this girl one day,' " Zac said, then immediately quieted. "I mean, um�"
"You really said that?"
"Yeah," Zac admitted. "I told my entire family. I made them sit through the movie a million times and everything�"
"Zac?" He looked over. "Do you really feel that way?"
"Well�yeah." She sighed.
"Zac�"
"Listen, Ginger, I understand that you're not as sure about this as I am. I'm fine with it. You don't have to feel like this. I'm just letting you know that I do. I've always felt this way. It's just how it is."
"But I don't know, Zac. I don't know how I feel about that," she said. "I'm only eighteen. You're only seventeen! We have forever to think about this."
"Then take forever," Zac said. "Don't feel rushed into anything by me. If you don't want to think about the future, then don't. If all you want to do is live life day by day and see where it goes, fine. It doesn't bother me." She sighed.
"I just feel bad�"
"Don't," he said, giving her a smile. "I love you. Right now, that's all that matters."