One Day At A Time
For the next four days, Zac stayed at my apartment, and we didn’t talk much more about our future… or even our present. We just fell into a little domestic routine that seemed perfect until I remembered that it was really just a farce.
Still, we couldn’t resist playing our parts, even on the day that Kate was due to come back and I was supposed to go work for Taylor. We stayed in bed late that morning, just relishing being near each other. After fooling around a bit, we fell asleep again, and didn’t wake up until Zac’s phone buzzed to alert him of a text message.
“It’s you-know-who,” he mumbled. “She just wanted me to know they’re at the airport.”
“Good to know, I suppose.”
He shrugged. “It means I probably shouldn’t stick around here much longer… I should probably be at our house when she gets back.”
“I suppose you should,” I replied. With a little bit of a sigh, I added, “Anyway, I kinda have to get up and go to work soon.”
“Odd time to go to work. In the middle of the day?”
“Actually… I’m helping Tay out with a radio thing for Tinted Windows,” I admitted. Just as I said it, my phone buzzed, and sure enough, it was a text from Taylor reminding me of when and where the appearance was, along with a long list of things he needed me to pick up at 3CG first. “And speak of the devil.”
“You haven’t, actually,” Zac replied. “I thought you weren’t working for us anymore?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I mean, I am. But just for Tay, just today. I don’t know if I should… if it’s a good idea for me to come back to the label.”
Zac sighed, then nodded. With a loud groan, he rolled over and sat up. “Well. If you have to work, you have to work. I guess we should get up.”
“Are you mad?” I asked. “I mean, I get that maybe I should have mentioned that I was helping him out, but what does it really matter? With every other problem we’ve got, is it really that important?”
“No,” he said, standing up and pulling his dirty t-shirt over his head. “I’m not mad. It’s not about that… not really. It’s just, you know, we’re going back to the real world now. Today. And I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either,” I admitted, throwing the covers back and standing up. “But we don’t have a choice, do we?”
“I guess we don’t,” Zac replied. “I’m not sure we ever really did.”
The last few words were mumbled, but I still made them out. I didn’t understand them, though. Not fully. I supposed he was talking about our relationship, and he wasn’t wrong. It was a mess of our own making, but now we were too far in it to ever try to get out or pretend it wasn’t happening. We couldn’t stay in this fantasy world we had created. We had obligations, and in his case, a family. We couldn’t stay here playing pretend for the rest of our lives.
And so, I stood up, and began to get ready to face the day.
An hour later, Zac and I had gone our separate ways. We didn’t talk much as he cleaned himself up and gathered up the things he’d scattered around my apartment. His clothes were everywhere, and I was sure that even after he was long gone, I would find traces of him in everything, from the golden brown hairs in my shower to the dirty plates and cups in strange places. Of course, he wasn’t leaving for good, but it felt very final somehow.
Things had gone so well over the last few days. I wasn’t sure how they had come to such a bittersweet ending, but they had.
By that afternoon, I seemed to be in a different world entirely. I was back in the fast paced world of the music business, although Zac was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I was tagging along behind Taylor and trying not to look too awestruck when he introduced me to James Iha. I almost succeeded. At least I didn’t drop Taylor’s coffee, since being the designated coffee girl was apparently part of my job for the day.
The whole thing went by quickly enough, though. I wasn’t even sure why I was there. The biggest part of my task for the day was just fetching things and carrying equipment, which really weren’t difficult at all. Who could complain about a job that involved getting to watch Tinted Windows in action, performing live for a radio station?
After the radio show, we headed over to a café where Taylor gave a one on one interview for some artsy magazine. I couldn’t keep up with all the music and arts magazines that seemed to crop up daily in New York. With the rest of the band and entourage gone, Bex and I ate our meals quietly while Taylor chatted with the little hipster guy interviewing him who reminded me way too much of Asher.
Asher… I didn’t think about him much. Our relationship had been so strange and such a thing of convenience. It was the opposite of my relationship—if one could even call it that—with Zac. The latter shouldn’t have ever been and was potentially ruining everything but neither of us would let it go. Should I have tried harder to stay with Asher rather than keep going back to Zac? I didn’t have an answer for myself.
I drifted off in my own thoughts for long enough for Taylor to finish the interview. I didn’t even notice that the interviewer had left, but I did notice when Taylor’s wife and kids walked in. He didn’t seem all that surprised to see them, so I assumed them joining us for lunch must have been mentioned at some point when I was dazed and in my own world.
“Umm, Taylor?” Natalie raised an eyebrow and let her glance flicker to me for a split second before turning back to Taylor. At least I wasn’t the only one surprised.
“Oh, right,” he said. “I figured we’d get a bite to eat after the radio thing. She was helping us out today. Colby, you know Natalie; Natalie, you know—“
“Yes. We’ve met.” Her tone was terse but not as hateful as I might have expected. It could have been worse; I had already dealt with one surprise Hanson wife appearance in the past week. But right then, it felt pretty damn bad. I wondered if his kids could feel the tension, but they all seemed distracted by each trying to tell Taylor about their vacation all at once.
Taylor cleared his throat, patting his youngest child, who had crawled into his lap, on the head almost mechanically. “Well, anyway, did you eat on the plane? The coffee is good here, if you’re not hungry. I didn’t order for you, because I didn’t know…”
He trailed off, Natalie’s stare obviously expressing that he was an idiot for talking so much. Even I wanted to crawl under the table at the sight of it. “Tay, you’re lucky I trust you, because you are acting seriously guilty right now.”
“You know there is nothing happening here but friendship, but I do seem to recall somebody running off to Kate to gossip the last time I spent some time with this particular friend of mine,” Taylor replied, his tone surprisingly casual and not at all bothered by Natalie’s mood.
“Well, now that you mention it…” She began, her posture softening some as she turned to me. “I spent the whole cab ride here on the phone with Kate, hearing about how she knows Zac wasn’t at their place while she was gone. She’s a smart one, you know. But it wouldn’t take a lot of work to notice the backpack he hadn’t even unpacked yet. And since he wasn’t with Taylor, well…”
I sank down in my seat, wishing I could just crawl under the table and disappear.
“I’m not judging you for it,” Natalie said. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t care; I don’t want to get involved any more than I already am. I just thought you should know that it’s not a secret, and you two are only making things worse for yourselves.”
“I don’t… I… thanks?” I managed to stutter out. “For the warning or whatever.”
Natalie just shrugged and sat down, snapping her fingers to herd her children. Suddenly, the room felt very, very crowded. I didn’t understand what had just happened, but even though Natalie had issued a somewhat friendly warning, I got the distinct feeling that I was no longer welcome.
Gathering up my purse and keeping my eyes averted from everyone present, I mumbled, “I think—I think I should probably go.”
“Will you at least come by the office later this week or next week?” Taylor asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Maybe.”
Before he could resort to begging or his wife make any more strange comments, I stood up and walked out. I had no clue what had just happened at all. All I knew for certain was that things between Zac and I weren’t going to get any easier—but why did I think they would?
Later that evening, after I had picked up Layla from Avery, fixed us both a dinner and put her down for a nap, I settled into the couch for a nap of my own. Of course that wasn’t meant to be. I should have known. My phone started ringing from somewhere in the room, and I finally managed to track it down in my purse, which had evidently fallen forgotten by the door when I arrived home.
It was Zac. Of course it was. Once again, my lack of surprise at the awful twists my life took constantly only frustrated me further.
“Hello?” I mumbled enthusiastically into the phone after sliding my finger across the screen to answer the call.
“Hey,” he said. “You actually answered.”
“You actually called,” I shot back, finding it impossible to resist flirting with him, even when I was acutely aware of how much we were ruining our lives.
“I just… I had to get out of the house,” he replied.
“Please tell me you aren’t on your way back over here.”
“No, I’m not,” he chuckled softly. “I’m outside on the little patch of grass and brick that apparently passes as a yard in New York.”
“Hey, you knew what you were getting into when you moved here,” I said. “If you wanted winds and plains and shit, you could have stayed in Oklahoma.”
“But then I wouldn’t have been near you,” he said softly.
I sighed. “Is that really such a good thing?”
“I think so,” he said. There was a long pause and a loud inhale and I began to suspect that he was smoking again. I had only seen him doing it a few times, but it wasn’t hard to see he was stressed out enough to take it up again. After what felt like forever, he spoke again. “Kate knows I was with you this weekend.”
“Yeah, I know,” I admitted. “Apparently Taylor forgot to mention that his entire family was coming to lunch with us. And for whatever reason, Natalie saw fit to tell me that she had been talking to Kate. I mean, do those two do anything but gossip? I’m sorry, that’s—I shouldn’t have—“
Zac cut me off. “No, it’s fine. Trust me, I could and have said far worse about both of them. Anyway, she knows that I was there. That’s all she knows. I can’t—I don’t know how to tell her—you know, how I feel about you. I don’t think she needs to know. It’s not her damn business.”
“It kind of is, Zac,” I said. “She’s your wife. It’s her business that you’re with me at all, and it’s definitely her business if you… if you love me.”
“When did you get so smart, huh?” Zac teased. “I know you’re going to say that—even though you won’t ask me for it—there’s an easy solution to this situation I’m stuck in. And I know there is. But you know even though it’s easy, it isn’t simple. And right now, I just can’t see any way to make any of this work. I’m just barely hanging on here, Colbs.”
I wanted to tell him that it could be that simple and that he was only creating his own problems, but I knew that was true of myself, too. And there was no reason to fight with him even more. All the fighting just needed to end. I knew that was an impossible goal, but it was what I wanted.
“Go back inside,” I said softly. “Put your cigarette out and go back inside. Just… just try to get through tonight.”
“Yeah, okay. One day at a time, huh?” He sighed.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Goodnight, Zac.”
“Goodnight, Colbs. Love you.”
I whispered the words back, but I was fairly certain he had already ended the call and didn’t hear them.
One day at a time.