The Future
“Remind me again how long you’re going to be gone on this tour?”
Zac placed his empty plate and glass in the sink, then turned to face me. He scratched his chin for a moment, probably trying to remember said tour schedule. “Two months, more or less. We’ll get back not long after my birthday.”
I pouted pitifully. “So I don’t even get to spend your birthday with you?”
“Colby,” Zac said softly. “You know you could still come with us, right?”
I shook my head. We had talked about this a million times. I could come with them, in the sense that it was physically possible, but I couldn’t really do it. This tour was Zac’s chance to prove himself now that he was clean, and it wasn’t really that I thought I would ruin his chances, but I didn’t want him to have any distractions. God knows I would be a big distraction, especially since there was no way around bringing Layla with me.
And then there were the fans…
By that point, all of them knew about me, of course. They also knew about the divorce and Zac’s stint in rehab. Whatever precious little hadn’t been splattered all over the tabloids… well, they could fill in the blanks easily enough. None of it painted either of us in a good light, but of course most of them would stick by Zac’s side no matter what. They would forgive him his wrongs and make misguided attempts to defend him against the woman they thought was ruining his life—namely, me. Knowing that Zac didn’t see it way made me feel better, but it didn’t change the scorn I had to face from his fans. Some of them were warning to me, though. It still didn’t seem wise to throw myself into their paths again and open us all up to their criticism.
And so I wouldn’t be joining Zac on tour, no matter how much I wanted to. When our relationship—our real, no longer clandestine relationship—was still so new, it seemed unwise to be away from him for any length of time. Still, I didn’t see that I had much choice.
“No,” I finally said. “I really don’t think I can. You know how fast that would get the rumor mill spinning. Haven’t we had enough of that over the last two years?”
“Has it really been two years?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It was your last fall tour, in fact. God, I had no idea what to expect, going with you guys. But I can safely say that whatever I imagined was nothing like the reality.”
“And would you change it? If you could?” He asked, looking surprisingly vulnerable.
“That’s a loaded question,” I replied. “Would I erase all the trouble, all the pain we’ve been through… erase our daughter… just to save us that pain? Of course not. We couldn’t have one without the other, so I don’t see any way it could have all happened any differently.”
“Me either,” he said softly. “But you know I wish we could have gotten here on some easier path.”
“You think the two of us, stubborn as we are, would have actually taken an easier path? No matter how smooth, if anyone had tried to push us down it… we wouldn’t have gone.”
Zac chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s that stubbornness that almost destroyed us, you know. But it’s what held us together, too, somehow. Made us fight for each other. Made me fight for my life.”
I nodded, knowing he was right. “I love you, you know. I love you, you stubborn bastard.”
“I love you, too,” Zac replied, then leaned in and kissed me.
Gently, but insistently, he backed me against the kitchen counter. I collided with it with a gentle thud, but I didn’t mind. With the band gearing up for a new tour and Zac technically still living with Taylor and Natalie, we hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to spend alone over the last few weeks. Layla was already settled into bed, so there was nothing to stop us right then.
I let Zac lift me up onto the counter as he continued to kiss me, his lips leaving mine and trailing down the side of my face and neck. He pushed my t-shirt off my shoulder and kissed it as well.
“Right here?” I asked as his hand slid under my shirt and found the edge of my bra.
Zac pulled back and gave me a grin. “Why not?”
“Fair enough,” I replied, tugging my shirt over my head. It wasn’t the best argument, but who was I to really debate it? We were finally free to be together, whenever and wherever we wanted. How could I say no to that?
We weren’t exactly graceful as we stripped out of our clothes, but I didn’t really care. At least I didn’t fall off the counter and nothing landed in the sink. That was good enough for me. What really mattered was being right there in that moment with Zac. He fell to the floor in front of me and gently spread my legs, giving me a grin before leaning in.
“Oh, god,” I moaned, my head falling back as I felt Zac’s tongue working its magic.
I was weak in the knees and hanging onto the counter’s edge for dear life when Zac finally returned to his feet and stood between my legs. He kissed the corner of my mouth as he stepped in closer and closer, finally closing the distance between us entirely.
This was it. This was home. I knew as soon as I thought it that it was the cheesiest thing possible, but it was true. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere but with Zac now. After so long, after so much happened between us… and to us… we were finally home. Okay, so my apartment wasn’t the greatest home in the world, and Zac wasn’t even technically living with me; he was still crashing with Taylor and Natalie for the time being, although most of his time was split between here and there.
But being with him was home.
Things were never particularly slow and tender with us, and even less so when pressed up against the kitchen counter. This was hard, fast and as loud as we dared to be so as not to wake Layla. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t labor under any delusions that we ever would be.
Still, it wasn’t long before I was digging my fingernails into Zac’s back and calling out his name. He followed suit, his body pressed flush against mine as he gave a long, low moan that sent chills from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.
He had barely even begun to pull away from me when I heard muffle ringing of his cell phone. I recognized the song he used for Kate’s ringtone—it was some old Maroon 5 song, while mine was (of course) Layla—and rolled my eyes.
“Perfect timing, that one,” I mumbled, hopping down off the counter and grabbing my discarded clothes. While Zac fumbled to find his phone and answer it, I hurried off to the bathroom.
It wasn’t that I was jealous. They were over. The divorced had been finalized for a few months now and it was clear that they were nothing more than co-parents now. It was a relationship I had dreaded having with him and one I could see that they were still struggling to figure out. I didn’t envy either of them at all.
“Yeah, okay,” he was mumbling as I walked back into the room. “Yeah, I’ll be there as soon as I can. No. It’s fine.”
Maybe a tiny bit of jealousy bubbled up in me at his words. But only a tiny bit, because those words were tinged with frustration.
Zac turned back to me and sighed, already completely redressed. “Apparently she and Junia have come down with a stomach bug, and I’ve been volunteered to get Shep and Abe away from the scene of the crime before they’re infected, too. We’ll get a hotel or something, I guess; I don’t wanna risk you and Layla or Tay and Nat’s kids picking this up.”
“And what about you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ll survive. And anyway, don’t you start recording tomorrow? You’ll be too busy to even miss me.”
“No, tomorrow is my therapist appointment,” I replied. “I go into the studio next Wednesday.”
At the encouragement of Zac and Doc Holliday, I’d finally started seeing someone. I wasn’t sure how much I was really benefiting from sitting in an office spilling my guts to some stranger, but if Zac wanted to try it, I was willing. It obviously helped him.
“Well, either way, you’ll enjoy it,” Zac said. “I know you need your music just as much as I do. And you’ll play the best heavy metal violin anyone has ever heard.”
I rolled my eyes; he wouldn’t let go of the fact that it was a heavy metal band that had somehow gotten my information and contacted me to play on a few songs. “When you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous. But you’re right. I do need music, even if it isn’t really mine in this case.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll still have so much fun you’ll barely even notice that I’m gone.” He stepped in closer and kissed my forehead as if to punctuate his statement.
“I doubt that,” I replied. “But just go before I change my mind and refuse to let you. Or tell you to bring the kids here. I mean, I don’t see the problem, other than lack of space…”
“Maybe we should get a bigger place,” Zac said softly, almost absent-mindedly, as he checked to make sure his wallet and phone were in place and grabbed his keys from the counter.
“Yeah,” I replied softly. “Maybe.”
He gave me another kiss, this time on the lips, and promised to call as soon as he got the kids settled in to whatever hotel they ended up in. Our goodbye was fairly brief, because there was really no need to draw it out when I knew I would see him in a few days. Any insecurity I’d had about our relationship in the past was gone. I didn’t need to cling to him for dear life to know he was mine.
After he was gone, I thought about his little comment. Our own place. Was that really what he wanted or was it just a little slip? I didn’t know and I wasn’t sure I was ready to ask, even if I was more secure in our relationship. The future was still a question mark, especially with him leaving for tour soon and recording a new album after that. We were together. That was a fact that wouldn’t change, I thought. But the details of what being together meant for us were something I tried not to concern myself with.
I was learning that it was better for my sanity to take things one day at a time and not try to micromanage everything. It seemed that the harder I clung to things and tried to control them, the more they slipped from my hands entirely. But there was no way I was letting Zac slip away this time… and no fear in my mind that he wanted to slip away.