The next morning Zac woke up to a crying Jenny. He got out of the bed in the swanky hotel room he and Ginger crashed for the night and walked across the room to tend to his daughter. Ginger woke up as well and sat up in the bed. "Good morning, sweetheart," Zac said to her. She gave him a sleepy grin.
"Morning, baby." Ginger looked at the time. "You know, I don't think we need an alarm clock anymore. Jenny wakes us up early enough."
"Yeah, but what happens when she gets older?"
"We'll have the new baby for that," Ginger said. Zac smiled. Ginger's expression suddenly changed. "Oh God." She ran into the bathroom. Zac sat down with Jenny to calm her down while Ginger puked in the bathroom. He heard the water running and the sounds of Ginger brushing her teeth before she appeared again.
"Better?" he asked.
"A little," Ginger said. "I'm just going to lie down for a bit." She crawled back onto the bed. "I have an appointment with my ob-gyn tomorrow. I'm sure everything's okay, but it's routine. Kris is going when she comes back from Sydney."
"I thought you were going to do this together?"
"Come on, Zac, if Kris and I went together then we wouldn't be able to see each other during the examination. Geez!"
"Ooh, sorry, I figured you'd just schedule the appointments back to back so you wouldn't have to go for a second trip." Ginger thought about it.
"You know, that sounds more feasible. We'll do that next time." A smile came over Ginger's face. "Wasn't that just a beautiful wedding? Everything went so smoothly�"
"Except for the fact that neither of them had their shoes."
"Yeah, but that was before the ceremony. Everything else was just so nice. I can't wait to get married. I want to be Mrs. Hanson."
"Yeah, you mentioned that yesterday."
"Baby, let's get married."
"Ging, we are getting married."
"No, I mean right now. Let's get married right now." He raised an eyebrow. "I mean we can still do the whole ceremony thing later but I want to marry you now. I want to be your wife."
"Ging, you're just impatient because you saw Taylor and Kris get married."
"I'm serious, though." She sat up carefully. "Don't you want to marry me now?"
"Of course I want to marry you now! I just�"
"Then let's do it. Right now." She stood up. "I feel better, we'll get dressed, go down to the courthouse and get married."
"You're serious, aren't you?" he asked. She nodded. "All right. We'll do it. I'll drop Jenny off with my mother and we'll go."
It turned out it took them longer than they had expected to get out of the room. They both slept considerably late and they figured by the time they got back from the courthouse they'd miss checkout. After two showers and a lot of rushed packing, Zac and Ginger were out the door. Zac stopped off at his mother's room first.
"Zac, are you leaving already?" Diana asked, seeing Zac's suitcase on the floor next to him.
"Yeah. Um�Taylor and Kris want us to take care of some things for them and we probably won't be back in time for checkout so we might as well just do it now. Do you think you could watch Jenny for a while?"
"Sure, honey. I love spending time with my granddaughter," Diana said, taking Jenny from his arms.
"We'll be back in a few hours. Be good for Grandma, Jenny." Zac kissed his daughter and left quickly. Ginger had already checked them out downstairs and they were free to go. "This is insane," Zac said, starting the car.
"I know," Ginger responded. "But I'm glad we're doing it." She sighed. "Kris is going to kill me when I tell her."
"Don't worry, I'll protect you."
"Fat chance."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
"We are on our way to get married, aren't we?" Zac asked. "I don't think we should be talking like this."
"Whatever, Zac." He gave her a smile and it caught on to her face. "I love you." That only made his smile grow.
"I love you too."
Zac and Ginger walked out of the courthouse a few hours later, a marriage license in their possession. "Oh my God I can't believe we just got married!" Ginger said and kissed Zac. "Kris is going to freak out." She took the license from Zac and looked at it. "I'm Mrs. Zachary Hanson."
"You sure are," Zac said. As they walked to the car Zac's cell phone rang. He picked it up and put it to his ear. "Hello?"
"Zac! Where are you?" It was Jess.
"Oh shit," Zac breathed. "Jess, I'm so sorry. Me and Ginger had something to take care of. Where are you now?"
"At your apartment, but you're not there."
"Listen, wait there. We'll be home in a sec."
"Whatever�" Zac hung up the phone and Ginger gave him a questioning look.
"We were supposed to meet for that video shoot today and I completely forgot about it." He got in the car with Ginger. "I hope nobody gets too mad."
"You're not massively late, are you?" Zac looked at his watch.
"No. Not yet. Let's see how fast we can get home." Zac drove home and got there in about fifteen minutes. "Jess and I are probably going to be gone all day. Can you go to the hotel and pick up Jenny?" Zac asked as he parked and got out of the car.
"Yeah." They went inside to find Jess waiting on the couch in the front room of the apartment building. She stood up.
"I'm sorry, Jess."
"Whatever, we're late. Let's go." Jess brushed past him and went to the door. Zac turned to Ginger.
"Bye, baby," he said to her and gave her a kiss. "We'll be back later."
"Bye," Ginger said. Zac left with Jess, who had her own car. She drove while Zac gave her directions to the studio where the video was going to be shot.
"So?" Jess asked on the way there.
"So what?" Zac asked.
"What were you and Ginger doing that you forgot about me?" Zac didn't answer. "Oh come on!"
"We were just�we were just doing something."
"You're going to have to lie better than that, Zac. I'm your sister. I know you a little better than you let on." Zac sighed.
"You can't tell anyone, all right?" Zac asked. "Not your boyfriend, not Taylor and Kris, definitely not Mom�" Jess nodded, eager to know. "We got married." Her mouth dropped.
"No way!"
"Yeah�we decided this morning that we just wanted to do it. You just can't say anything because Taylor and Kris will find out and they'll think we're stealing their thunder. We tend to do that a lot." Jess shrugged.
"All right. I won't say anything." She smiled. "I'm so happy for you, though. Congratulations."
"Thanks," Zac said. "I have a question."
"Oh no," Jess said, sighing.
"What?"
"Every single time you say that you ask me to do something I don't want to do. Whatever it is, no. I'm not doing it."
"I want you to perform with me at the Grammy's." She paused. "You can still think about it, but I want�"
"Okay."
"Okay?" he asked. "I thought you were going to say no."
"Well you're going to make me do it anyway, aren't you? You always get your way so I might as well just save my breath and agree with you now," she said. "Anyway, it might be fun."
"It will be fun. You can take that boyfriend of yours."
"Oh, so I get to bring someone?"
"Yeah. I'm not taking you." She nodded. "Turn right here." She turned into the studio parking lot and parked. Today was a run through of what the video was going to be about; shooting wouldn't begin until the next day. Zac was happy for that. Video shoots usually started much earlier and he would have been much, much later. Jess was obviously dying to tell his secret, but he kept a close eye on her as they went into their meeting.
"Oh my God I can't believe I'm actually doing this," Jess whispered to Zac as they walked into the room.
"Shut up and smile," he told her, then led her into the room. He couldn't believe he was doing it either.
When Zac got home that evening Ginger was waiting for him. "Honey, I'm home," he said from the front door, then laughed. Ginger walked into the hallway. "Damn, you look good." A big smile crossed her face.
"Thank you, baby," she said. She walked up to him and kissed him. "So how was everything today? Jess didn't give you any trouble, did she?" He shook his head. "Good. Did you ask her about performing with you?"
"Yeah," he said. "She's going to do it. I didn't even have to prod."
"Really? Wow." Ginger led him into the dining room where she had dinner finished. "Where's Jenny?"
"She fell asleep already," Ginger said. "And she's in her own room." Ginger had decided to turn Taylor and Kris's room into Jenny's room, leaving the room Isaac and Roni were staying in as the guest room. "Ike and Roni are spending tonight at the hotel. We're all alone."
"Really?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "How long has it been since that happened?"
"Not since we were dating the first time."
"Wow." Zac sat down in front of a place setting across from Ginger. "You know, we could even have dinner naked."
"No."
"Aww, man�"
"You always want to be naked, Zac, I swear," Ginger said, shaking her head.
"I don't always want to be naked," Zac said. "I want you to always be naked." She smiled. "You know, it is our wedding night."
"That's why I did all this, Zac," Ginger said. "I made this fancy shmancy meal, put Jenny down in her room, and told Ike and Roni to stay at the hotel another night. They were going to come back here today but I convinced them to stay so we could be alone. I went to a lot of trouble today."
"And I really, really appreciate it, baby. Thank you." He picked up his fork. "By the way I told Jess we're married."
"What?! I thought we were going to wait to tell people!"
"She kind of cornered me into it." Ginger gave him a look. "Okay she asked twice and I can't lie to my sister. It's impossible. I told her not to say anything and I know she won't. She's much better at keeping secrets than I am."
"Good, because if she were as bad as you half the world would know by now."
"Shut up."
"Well it's true! You told Taylor I'm pregnant when you weren't supposed to!" Zac sighed. He just didn't like keeping secrets. "But we're not supposed to be talking like this. We're supposed to have a nice, romantic evening."
"All right."
"Can you believe we married?" she asked, propping her head up with her hand.
"Yes," he said. "I knew this was going to happen before I even met you."
"You did, didn't you?" she said, more of an observation than a question. "Maybe I should listen to you more often."
"Nah," Zac said. "I may have been right about us, but I've been wrong about everything else." He opened his mouth again but she knew what he was going to say.
"Don't," she said. "All that matters is that we're together now."