"Well, here we are," Zac said in the car. He had pulled up to what looked like a two-story townhouse on the beach in Los Angeles. The first the Ginger did was let out a low whistle. "If you do that every time you see things like this you are definitely going to get smacked."
"Sorry," Ginger said, looking up at the house through the window. "It's just unbelievably huge for a townhouse. I mean on the way you told me 'Oh, its just a little townhouse on the beach'�this is not a little townhouse."
"I must have been lying, then," Zac said. "Sorry." She gave him a look but before he could do anything about it she turned to the backseat where Jenny was in her car seat. She had fallen asleep so Ginger couldn't exclaim that they were at their new home.
"Oh, she fell asleep," Ginger said. "I had a feeling that would happen." Ginger got out of the car and carefully got Jenny out of the backseat, while Zac opened the trunk and pulled out their suitcase. Ginger looked at her watch. It was only six o'clock in the afternoon, but to Jenny and Ginger, it was much later. They left Tampa at six o'clock. The one thing she didn't like about being in California was that it was a three-hour difference from home. Tulsa wasn't bad; it was only an hour, but Ginger knew that many times she would end up calling Kris and wake her up in the middle of the night.
With Jenny in her arms Ginger followed Zac into the house and looked around, wandering aimlessly through her new home. Zac must have had his mother out here for quite some time because Ginger knew he wouldn't have been able to decorate a home this well. The furniture was all homely and beautiful. It was the kind that made Ginger think of her home when she was a kid. The colors were neutral but made everything stand out even more. The thing that stood out was the couch in the living room that looked drastically familiar.
"Um, Zac," she said, keeping her voice down because she still had Jenny in her arms, "that couch�"
"Yeah, it's the one from my parent's house. They gave it to me."
"Really?" she asked, looking back at it. "That was nice."
"Well I complained that when Ike moved out they gave him the grandfather clock and they didn't give me anything, so they gave me the couch." Zac smiled. "I have so many memories with that thing. Everything else is brand new and it's so beat up and old, I'm surprised I even kept it." Ginger looked at the couch. She never realized how Zac had a childhood like she did, with memories and nostalgia like she had whenever she saw something that reminded her of home. She never really got over how different Zac was from her, and although she never told him about it, she felt guilty every time she realized how much better his life had been.
"Where are we going to put Jenny?" Ginger asked.
"Well�until her things get here I really don't have a place to put her besides our bed." Ginger nodded. "You don't have a problem with us sharing a bed, do you?"
"No," Ginger said, smiling at him. "We are living together, aren't we? Isn't that what people do when they move in together?"
"I wasn't entirely sure if you knew this was us getting back together," Zac said. "I mean I kind of rushed it and I never said anything about you and me."
"No, I kind of realized that when you said it," she said. "And I don't have a problem with it."
"I can't help but question how quickly you're getting back into the rhythm of things," he said. "It's like we never broke up."
"Zac, it'd be nice to think that we didn't," Ginger said. "That is one thing I would really like to do."
"You do realize that if we never broke up we'd still be engaged," Zac said. She had forgotten about that. She thought about it, then nodded.
"That ball is entirely in your court."
"I want to wait a little bit," Zac said. "Until we're settled." She nodded.
"Good call. So, lead the way to our room." He turned and began to walk to the stairs. She followed, rubbing Jenny's back, and went up the stairs. They turned around and went down a hallway that was parallel to the stairway into the largest master bedroom Ginger had ever seen. It was also a complete mess. That would be the first thing to change.
"Sorry about the mess," he said, "but I live here."
"That will change," Ginger said. She stopped in front of the unmade king sized bed that was much bigger than any bed she ever had of her own. "That is a fucking huge bed for one person."
"Well it's no longer for one person, now is it?" Zac asked.
"No, I guess not." She laid Jenny down in the closest to the middle that she could reach. "I don't expect her to roll around because she usually doesn't, but just in case, I'm putting all the pillows around her."
"Go right ahead."
"I hope she doesn't wake up. She'll be freaked out. She's never seen this place before." Ginger pulled up the sheet over Jenny, then kissed her and walked out of the room with Zac. "She should be fine."
"She will be." Ginger followed Zac down the stairs. "You want me to make dinner?" Zac asked.
"You cook now?" Ginger asked. "Since when?"
"Since I started living alone," Zac said. "You can't eat out every night." Ginger shrugged.
"Well it doesn't hurt to try. We'll see who ends up being the cook in the family," she said. Zac shook his head. "What? Do you not think I can cook? I make dinner for Jenny and me every single night and she loves it."
"That's because she doesn't know what real food tastes like," Zac said. Ginger gave him a look and sat at the island counter of the large kitchen. It'd been a very long time since Ginger lived in a house, and she'd never been in a house this large. There was a door by the breakfast nook where a kitchen table was set up leading to the balcony that overlooked the beach and the ocean. Ginger, upon seeing this, got up and immediately went out onto the balcony. Zac followed her.
"Zac," she said, feeling his warm arm around her waist, "this is so beautiful."
"I know," he said. "That's why I got the place." She shook her head, in silent awe of her view. The sun was just setting on the ocean and the sky had turned fantastic shades of pink and orange. "I knew the house was too big for just me. I wasn't going to buy it because it was so huge, but then I came out here and I couldn't let this slip away from me. I don't care how big the place is and I don't care how hard it is to keep it clean. After a hard day's work I come out here and everything suddenly makes sense."
"Jenny is going to love it here," Ginger said.
"What about you?" Zac whispered, sliding behind her and burying himself in her neck. She shied away a moment, but instead of the unwelcome tickling sensation she normally got, it just felt right. She arched her neck to the side and allowed his lips to brush by her neck.
"I don't matter any longer," she responded. "It's not about me anymore."
"It's a little about you," he told her. "You can take a little time for just you. Just for Ginger. Don't worry about Jenny for five minutes." She closed her eyes and allowed all her worries, all her thoughts about her daughter float away from her and disappear with the setting sun. Zac held her tightly around the waist and she almost cried.
Later that night Ginger was getting tired so she went up the stairs back to the bedroom. Zac had made her the most beautiful dinner she'd ever had, and it turned out he definitely was the cook in the family. Jenny had been so used to her food that she really didn't know what a good dinner tasted like, and Ginger was sure once Zac cooked that Ginger would never be able to again. Jenny was still on the bed asleep, and Ginger let out a sigh of relief upon entering the room and realizing that.
She went into the master bathroom and for the first time she realized how dissuaded Zac must have been when he bought the house. The bathroom was built for two people. There was a large bathtub (big enough to fit two people), two sinks, two separate closets, and another smaller room for the shower and toilet. Ginger looked in the walk-in closets; one was full of Zac's things and the other, the one with the door shut, was completely empty. Ginger smiled. "This will do," she said.
She went back into the bedroom and opened her suitcase that was on the floor. Zac, who was downstairs, had mentioned that she could stick her things in his dresser until she got her own. She started unpacking and opened up a drawer to put her things it in. As she started putting clothes away, she couldn't help but notice a box in the corner. Curiosity getting the better of her, she opened it right when Zac came in the room. She looked at him, then back at the box in her hand.
"You kept my ring?" she asked.
"�Well, yeah," he said, slightly embarrassed. "I couldn't return it because the store went out of business, and I didn't want to get rid of it. I couldn't even believe you gave it back to me, I wanted you to have it. I was going to give it back to you before you left, but you were gone before I could find you."
"It's better that you had it," she said. "I would have pawned it for money at the very beginning when I didn't have any."
"You would have had a lot of money to start out with, though," he said. She looked at her ring. She had never figured out the math of how much the ring actually cost, and she couldn't even remember what the percent the markdown was, or how much Zac paid for it to begin with.
"How much?"
"Ten thousand dollars." She would have fallen over if she hadn't been holding onto the dresser. She looked at him blankly, her eyes wide. "I know," he said. "I really lucked out with that one."
"Holy shit," she said. "That's insane."
"You can have it back, if you'd like." She looked at him. "But that won't mean we're engaged. Not yet. I don't know if I'm quite ready yet." She nodded and put the box back in the drawer.
"It'll just stay in here until you're ready," she said, then closed the drawer. A thought hit her and she paused. David said he didn't know if he was ready yet and she walked out on him. She wasn't going to walk out on Zac. It was different, though. Zac still had the ring, and he said they were getting married in the future, but he wasn't entirely ready to be at that stage again. They had only been together for a day. A little over twenty-four hours ago she had a completely different outlook on life. He wasn't around and she was perfectly content living her days with just her and Jenny. And then suddenly here she was, in a house all the way across the country, living with him. He was almost a stranger to her. He looked completely different and his attitude was different. He was a father. She was a mother. Everything was different�but it didn't feel different.
"Are you tired?" Zac asked.
"Very," Ginger said. "But I want to unpack before I go to bed. I don't want to be stuck with it in the morning."
"I have to work in the morning." Ginger nodded.
"What time?" she asked.
"I tend to leave at eight," he said. "My schedule's usually pretty regular, but sometimes when I'm at crunch time and the due date's approaching I spend a lot of time in the studio. I usually leave at eight and get back about six, but when crunch time comes around, I can leave as early as four o'clock in the morning and get back as late as�well the latest I've been was eight o'clock the next morning."
"Wow," she said to herself. She went back to her suitcase and took some more clothes out.
"Yeah, it can be pretty harsh. But that doesn't happen often. Then there's a week here and there when I have to travel, but I'm not gone more than a few days. If it's somewhere cool I might bring you and Jenny along so you could hang out and have fun while I'm working."
"All right."
"So it's almost like a regular job." She smiled. That was a lot better than his previous job, seeing home every now and then and constantly traveling to different cities, not spending more than three days in one place for years. "So what are you going to do around here while I'm gone?"
"Well," she said, stopping and turning to him. "Tomorrow I'm cleaning the house because I won't be able to live like this for very much longer." He smiled. "After that I'll probably start memorizing the streets so I know where I'm going."
"Are you serious?" he asked. She nodded.
"I cannot handle not knowing where I am. I have to be able to know everything about where I'm going or I don't go. I'll get a map and study it for a while until I know where everything is and how to get there, and what's the shortest way to get there and such. These first couple of days is going to be hell on me because I won't know where anything is, but I'll get over it. After that I'm going to start looking into day care for Jenny and then see if I can get a job."
"Whoa, whoa," he said, "Who ever said you were getting a job?"
"What else am I supposed to do around here?" she asked. "Sit on my ass and watch TV? I need something to do!"
"Get a hobby!"
"Zac, I'll be bored�"
"I don't want you to get a job. We discussed this a way long time ago. I was going to get the job and you were going to stay home with the kids and everything. If you really want Jenny in a day care, that's fine, but I don't necessarily think I want you having the whole job thing."
"Zac, this is not 1950."
"Yeah, but I make plenty of money for the both of us and for Jenny. We're going to be fine the rest of our lives. You don't need a job."
"Things have changed, Zac, no matter if you don't want to believe that or not. I don't think I can handle not working! I have a long weekend and I pull my hair out because I'm so bored."
"All right�all right, you can do what you want. I just don't like it." She smirked.
"You don't have to like it. You're not going to be here anyway." He shot her a look. "Don't worry about me. I won't work full time. I'll get a little part time job somewhere with flexible hours so I can be available for Jenny. This is strictly for fun." She walked over to him and put her arms around his neck. "I love you."
"There was a time," he said, putting his arms in return around her waist and pulling her up against him, "that I never thought I'd hear those words again."
"Well I do."
"I love you too."