chapter seven: this is just between us

Before I left Philly, I had spent a night online with Janie while Billy was sleeping on my bed with his head hanging off the side, and the two of us searched far and wide over the Internet for guitar tabs to print out and keep me busy while I was away. I couldn't find some of my favorite songs, so I was left with having to learn them by ear. That frustrated the hell out of me, so I usually failed.

I was in the back of the tour bus giving a Rocking Horse Winner song a try shortly after a pit stop on our way to Louisiana. I had two empty cappuccino cups in front of me. One was even rolling around on the floor as the bus moved. So I was very awake and restless, overly-energized and stuck in a bus. It sucked.

The day before was long and boring for me. I was rushed around place to place following my brother for a few hours, until I finally got annoyed with all the chaos and decided to just stay on the bus rather than follow him to radiostations, get lost in multiple seas of teenaged girls following the Hansons, and have to sit outside quietly while he did interviews. I didn't see any of them much all day because the guys did all of this and a show in San Antonio while we were still in Texas and I was told it was one of the rare times that they'd be doing a show two nights in a row, so everyone basically had off for the next twenty-four hours as we all endured six or so or less hours on the road as we made our way toward either Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

Roman had told me the schedule, which was incredibly wacky. After the Louisiana date that was right after everyone's day off, we'd be heading straight north and then turn to the west in the direction of Washington and California, completely skipping the east coast. It would be another month or so before we came back this way and actually got to the east coast dates and it made me wonder what would happen when we reached Pennsylvania for the Philly show. I wasn't sure about what would happen then… I mean, would I go back home, or continue with the tour? I guess it all depended on what month it was. When I thought about that, I realized how long I'd be gone, because it was still June and I wasn't expected to return until late August, before school. I wondered if I'd end up feeling homesick at all… but I doubted it.

Along with a TV/VCR with surround sound, there was a big stereo in the back lounge of the bus and it had a remote. I played a CD while sitting on the floor, my back facing the curtain that led to the bunks. I tried the playing by ear thing but I was extremely frustrated within the first minute.

"Grrr!!" I cried, wanting to throw my guitar down onto the floor. I managed to contain myself, grabbing it tightly. I leaned down and roughly flipped through a few pages in the tabs book I made, and once I found a Weezer song I knew well I stopped and stared at the page for a moment as I lined up my fingers on the strings.

I strummed a bit and then mumbled, "Hip, hip," before making a tiny error that made me want to tear the damn strap off and throw the guitar out the window of the moving bus. Instead, I threw the strap off my neck and set the instrument gently on the floor before grabbing the cap on my head and falling over sideways, rolling onto my back. My cap was on backwards, so it fell off my head when I rolled over. That's when I threw a fit, banging my fists and feet on the floor for a few seconds.

I let my arms drop around my head and when I looked up I yelped in surprise and clutched my chest as my heart jumped. Zac was leaning in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. His hair had fallen around to frame his face. His eyes looked tired, but a smirk played on his lips.

"Everything okay?"

Glaring at him, I said, "Bitch. You have to stop doing that."

"Doing what?" he chuckled.

"Scaring me like that."

"Scaring you? You're the clumsy chick who likes to walk around… bumping into people, and sing weird songs about… what trouble to get into when you're legal-"

"Twenty-one."

"Whatever."

"And anyway, you're the one who bumped into me," I said in a slightly snobby tone.

"I did not!" he cried, acting shocked. "I had somewhere to be and you weren't even watching where you were going."

"Fine. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted."

I giggled. "Now you say sorry."

"What? I didn't do anything!" Zac laughed, walking into the lounge. He fell down onto the couch that was opposite to me, sinking down into the cushions as far as he could go, legs spread.

"You called me clumsy. That's just rude."

"…But you are clumsy. You said it yourself. 'Oh, clumsy me,'" he imitated.

I thought about that for a moment… oh, he was right. That was what I said the second time I bumped into him. Or rather, fell into him. "Oh, right." I nodded.

He snorted quietly, rolling his eyes.

"Yo, dawg!" I said, suddenly.

Zac cocked an eyebrow at me. "Yo."

"Yo, bitch."

He frowned, his eyebrows furrowing. "I don't enjoy that." I could tell by his tone that he was just playing along anyway. He must have been in a good mood today, and I was grateful for that, because he was very cool this way. He made it comfortable for me to be around him. That was weird for me, though. I don't normally trust new people very easily at all. He just gave off this warm vibe, and he was so easy to read. At least, he was for me.

Plus, I was pretty jacked up on cappccino. I was actually twitching a little bit.

"You should feel honored when I call you my bitch. That means I like you a lot. And since I rule and all," I struck a 'sexy' pose, as well as I could since I was still on the floor. "Yeah, it's an honor."

Zac refolded his arms and bit his lip, trying to stifle laughter. "Uh-huh…"

"Oh, my tiny wittle ego," I mumbled, and then yawned, stretching.

"Hey, I liked that pose."

"Of course you did," I smiled at him, putting my hands behind my head.

"I'm not a bitch, though."

"No, you're not a bitch." I paused. "You're just my bitch."

He gave me an odd look. "Oh, I see. Big difference."

"Hell yeah," I giggled again. "I mean, yes."

"And I've only known you for… three, four days… High one, aren't you?" Zac laughed.

"Actually, at the moment, I am sober… I've just had too much cappuccino." I stared at him. "Hey, when did you get here?" I asked when I realized he wasn't on this bus earlier.

"I was getting bored so I decided to come over here during the pit stop and see if you wanted to… hang, I guess," he shrugged, smiling shyly.

"Oh, thank God," I groaned. "My stupid brother is being a bum, still sleeping and not entertaining me, so I'm bored, too. That bitch."

He smiled at me. "You're still on the floor."

I looked to the side and remembered that. "Oh, heh…" I sat up and grabbed my hat, pulling it on backwards. Crossing my bare legs, I pushed myself to my feet, and then bent down to grab my tabs book and my guitar. I tossed the book onto the other couch and put the guitar on it's stand under the shelf where the stereo was. I stared at the buttons on it for a moment, and then pressed a random one and it switched to a different CD. It made weird noises when it did that, so stepped back and said, "It's possessed!"

"You're so weird," he said, leering at me as I clumsily pulled my cropped jeans down a little bit, so they were tighter around my hips.

"Why thank you," I nodded my head along as a song began to play. "Who is this?"

"Uhh… Train."

"Ahh, yes." I started singing along, "Well, this is just between us, but between us, let's get hiiiiiiigh."

"Wait a minute, you just asked me who this was, but you know the song?"

"Mmhmm. I can never remember the artist, but I love this song." Zac just looked at me with his eyebrows raised. "She's on fiiiiiiire," I sang.

I fell onto the other couch, sitting like Zac, deep in the cushions with my legs out. We were quiet for a moment, staring at each other. He looked at my folded arms and unfolded his, letting them fall to his sides. When I mimicked his actions, he folded his arms again. I did the same and he laughed before turning in his seat to face the doorway so he could easily glance out the window.

I stared at him for a moment, wondering if Roman was wrong about how old Zac was. "Dude. How old are you?"

He looked at me. "Sixteen. You?"

Guess he wasn't… "Sixteen. My birthday's on November twenty-second," I said, suddenly a bit shy about it.

"Did you say November?"

I nodded.

"Oh." He paused. "I'm exactly a month older than you."

I grinned as he flashed me a half smile and looked out the window again. Absent-mindedly, I dug my hand down into the couch cushions and came up with my camera, which I'd spent a good fifteen minutes looking for that morning. I sighed at myself and turned it on, and as I folded my legs under me I noticed Zac watching. Grinning, I held it up. "I haven't gotten a picture of you, yet." He just smiled at me, and I took the picture. I stared at it for a few seconds afterward. He looked so relaxed in it.

Things were quiet for a minute as I racked my brain for something to say, after putting the camera down. I thought of the first conversation I had with him, on the phone over a week ago, and I decided it would be fun to tease him about it.

I opened my mouth to do it, but I was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing. I looked at him, assuming it was his phone, but he immediately said it wasn't his. Then I recognized the ring tone-- 'Answer the Phone' by Sugar Ray. That was mine.

I jumped off the couch and looked around for my phone, and found it hidden behind my guitar after I knelt down to look for it. Sitting up on my knees, I held up the phone and stared at the number. Leon's name wasn't there, but it was his number that I recognized. I sighed grimly and I wanted to just turn it off for the rest of the day, but I didn't want to miss any other calls I could have gotten from Billy or Janie. So I just took the phone and roughly shoved it into my backpack, then got up to go lay back down on the couch as it continued to ring.

Zac had been watching me the whole time. "You're not going to answer that?"

"Nope. I have this very strong dislike for the idea of holding a conversation with a complete asshole."

"…Oh."

"So," I finally sighed, sitting up. The phone stopped ringing. I hugged my knees and asked, "had any Jolt lately?"

Zac's eyes widened for a moment and he laughed again. "Yeah, last night before the show actually… oh man. I was so crazy that night," he yawned. Seems we all were still pretty tired. "Sorry if I scared you… I even freaked myself out. I've been known to say and do a few crazy things but… that was really random."

"It was funny. Hyper people are always so amusing."

He smiled at me and turned to look out the window, watching the outside world fly by. His smiled never faded. I chewed on my lip for a moment and glanced around the lounge, trying to think of something to say. But when I eyed my foot, I forgot about that for a moment because half of my sock was hanging off. I leaned over to pull it back on, and fell over onto the couch while doing so. I got comfortable, crossing my legs in the air, and then I looked over at Zac to see that he was looking at me.

"So," I said again. "You dig music?" I asked, and then quickly said, "Oh, wait, you're in a band. Of course you do. What music do you dig?"

"Um… rock, mostly… pop is okay, I mean as long as it's not Britney Spears or N*SYNC or something like that, you know?"

"I detest Britney Spears."

"Yeah. She's damn sexy, though. Like whoa," he grinned deviously. I rolled my eyes. "But she annoys the hell out of me. I really like rock music and oldies and stuff."

"Yay for music," I said.

Still smiling, he nodded. "What about you? My sisters said you had good taste…"

"Um… I like these guys. What were they called? Bus?"

He laughed. He had such a bright laugh, and it seemed very contagious. I found myself giggling, as he said, "No, not Bus. Train, you weirdo. These guys are Grammy winners, man."

"Grammy for best what?"

"Can't remember. Best song or something. Not sure. But seriously… what kind of music do you dig?"

"Well… I guess I listen to emo, mostly." Zac's eyebrows rose curiously, so I added, "And kind of, um… more… modern punk rock. I don't know. I just listen to a lot of stuff most people haven't heard of."

"Jimmy Eat World," he said. "They said you had one of their CD's."

I turned over and pulled the end of my red t-shirt down to show him the Jimmy Eat World logo on it. When Zac flashed a quick grin at that I said, "I have all of their CD's except one. You like them?"

"Yeah, I saw them on MTV once… earlier this year. The video for 'The Middle.' Sounded good, so I decided to check out their latest album."

"'The Middle' is my favorite song," I told him with a little smile.

Zac returned the smile. "Yeah, it rocks."

We stayed there in the lounge, comfortable with our conversation, which continued on as the wonderful topic of music. Though he was obviously rather sleepy, his eyes seemed to light up at the mention of a song or band he liked. I didn't ask much about the actual music business. I never really thought about that. But somehow, I later felt… or simply knew that he wouldn't really want to talk about that, because he already gets enough of it. And he looked really tired.

At some point he was laying down on his couch, his head at the end that my feet were sitting on my couch, his hands behind his head. The conversation slowly faded comfortably, and I watched him in silence as he lay there, staring up out the window, slowly blinking his tired eyes as he listened to the music. Zac fell asleep shortly after the eighth song began to play. I listened to the music, and the lyrics slowly but surely began to dim my bright spirits because of who the words reminded me of.

"I just opened up my eyes and let the world come climbing in. It's all better now, things are going to work somehow... if I just sleep another hour. Tried to reach you at your mom's... hey baby, why you trying to keep away for so long?"

I sighed and stared up at the ceiling. It's almost funny how my moods can swing so fast. So warm and smiling one second, and falling into a cold and bitter hole the next. I felt so much aching… hatred in my heart for Leon, for the thought of him invading my happiness. It was why I hated being alone with my thoughts, with nothing to do.

"I stopped feeling good. Somehow I just knew I would.... I guess I'll sleep another hour. Feels like I'm wasting my time hanging on this same old line. Got to get you off of my mind… there's nothing left for me to find."

I glanced over at Zac, who was still sleeping. I felt just as tired, so I decided that I'd try to do the same. A nap did sound nice… yawning, I stretched a bit before leaning over and picking up the remote for the stereo off the floor. I turned the volume down a bit, but I didn't turn the stereo off just yet…

"And all the more I want, all the more I need... all the while you want something more. All the more I want, all the more I need, all the while you want something more…"

Those were the last words I heard before I drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty!" he shrieked.

"What the… God… fucking… damn you, Roman!" I stuttered. "Fuck off."

"Ooh, grouchy today?" He started tickling me and I started smacking him, none too lightly. "Ouch! What's up?"

"You're invading my personal bubble of space, that's what's up. Go shave off that ugly mess on your chin or something," I yelled as I turned away from him, putting my arm over my eyes.

I heard laughter in the background. "It's not ugly!" Roman whined. "…Ike said he liked it."

"He has the same thing. You copied him. I think he pulls it off better… doesn't suit you much," I heard Abby say. I moved my arm and looked up at my brother. He was looking over at her, biting his lip lightly. He looked down at me, thoughtfully. His eyes were so big and wide, like a child. An annoying child.

"Well, anyway… get up, you."

"Go away! I just want to sleep for a while, okay? Is that too fucking much to ask?"

"Dude, you just slept for like three hours. We're in N'Orlean's now!" He cried in a really bad accent. He poked my shoulders. "We've got a hotel for the night and everyone's heading up to get their rooms and stuff. We're all thinking of going out and seeing the sights and getting dinner at a nice restaurant tonight… 'cause it turns out that the other guys have off, too… hey, come on…" he said when I rolled over onto my side, groaning again as I hid my face in my arms. "Why so grumpy?"

"I'm not grumpy, jackass!"

"Well you sure seem like it…"

"I'm not grumpy, I'm depressed and I have a headache, okay? You're annoying me. Leave me alone."

Things were quiet and I heard him whisper something, and I felt one less presence in the room. I guessed that Abby left because soon he was sitting on the couch next to my legs, patting my side lightly. I sighed. I didn't feel like talking about it…

"What's wrong?" he asked, quietly.

I turned over, putting a hand behind my head. I looked up at Roman who stared down at me, seemingly expectant and sympathetic. "Nothing… I'm just thinking too much."

"Thinking too much? You've been asleep for a while…"

"Before I fell asleep I was thinking about Leon and that got me down. I'd hoped a nap would make me feel better, but… blah."

He opened his mouth to say something, but the ring of his cell phone interrupted him. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered quickly. "Hello?" A pause… "Hey. Yup, hold on." He held the phone out to me. "It's for you. Janie." I took the phone from him, and then he said, "I'll meet you in the lobby, okay?"

I nodded. When he left the lounge, I put the cell phone up to my ear. "Hello?"

"Hey, Reg!" Janie greeted cheerfully, bringing a smile to my face. "What's going on? You haven't been answering your phone."

"Sorry. I've been asleep for the past two hours and Roman just woke me up 'cause we're in New Orleans, apparently." I sat up and turned to face the window. I looked out to see that there were a lot of buildings around, but I could see the sky and it was a nice mix of orange and pink. I looked at my watch to see that it was going on seven in the evening. "The sky is prettyful."

"Really bright blue?

"Yup."

"Ooh, so pretty. That's how it is here. Except its kind of darker probably, 'cause it's later over here. Or something."

"Time zones are crazy."

"They confuse the hell out of me," she laughed. I smiled again. I'd only been talking to Janie for a few seconds and she was already cheering me up. "So, what's been going on?"

"Well, like I said, not much… oh, but Zac is nice to me now. We had a very amusing conversation earlier about how I was declaring him my new bitch."

"Damn, girl. You move fast."

"I couldn't help myself. The boy is too sexy for his own good," I joked. I was half serious, though.

"Oh, God. I'm so jealous of you, Regan!" she whined.

I laughed. "Why? I thought you had a big crush on Taylor?"

"Yeah, well… I couldn't resist the fine piece of meat that Zac is."

"Haha, I'm going to tell him you said that. Taylor, too."

"Oh, my God, Reg if you do that I swear I'll kick your ass."

"Right… you, still in Philly, will kick my ass which is sitting in a tour bus in Louisiana. I'm shaking in my hi-tops!"

"I'll find a way."

"Heh. How's Billy?"

"Working."

"Eh."

"Yeah… his job is so boring, yet so tiresome. I wonder how he does it…"

"Maybe we should yell at him to get a new one?"

"No, see… he likes his job, he just hates the customers."

I nodded. "Oh, I hear that."

"Oh, oh! Guess what! I just remembered something funny."

"What's that?"

"Well, last night, I had a dream. And you were there."

"Ooh, I feel special."

"But basically the dream was about Hanson."

"Hanson?" I started laughing. "But you haven't even met them."

"I know, but I've been listening to them a lot lately, ever since you said you were touring with them."

"So, what happened in the dream?"

"Well I went on tour with them."

"Okay, now you're just copying off of me."

"I'm serious! They came to our school for a concert on ice--"

"A concert on ice?"

"Yeah."

"Like, Hanson On Ice or something?"

She giggled. "I don't know, but that's a really funny image. Anyway, during the concert they picked like five people out of the crowd to show off a talent they had. And I was like 'alright, going to throw out the big guns,' and apparently I used to be a famous gymnist, and I started to do all this crazy shit. Only I wasn't doing it myself? But everyone else was like 'ooo' and 'ahh.'"

"You really used to be a gymnist?"

"Yeah, when I was younger. Down in Florida. So I did my thing, and then Isaac gave me a pencil. And then their Mom asked me to go on tour with them. And then you were there! And then I woke up."

"And then?" I asked again, making fun of all of the 'and then' sentences she kept huffing out of her mouth.

"No and then!"

"Annddd theeennn?" I asked, giggling. We were quoting Dude, Where's My Car?

"NO AND THEN!"

I was laughing so hard now, rolling around on the couch. She was laughing too, just as much as me.

"So, um," she finally choked out when she began to regain her composure. "Listen, I need to tell you something."

"Sure. What's up?"

"Leon's been asking about you."

I was not expecting that.

But at the same time, it wasn't surprising. I sighed. I didn't want to hear about this… I mean… there were those two parts of me there again in this situation. One part didn't want t have anything to do with it. I didn't want to hear about Leon, I didn't want to talk to him, and I didn't want to see him. I just wanted to go on for the rest of my life hating him and knowing that he lost the chance to be with the one person who would do absolutely anything for him, and it was his entire fault.

The other part wanted to talk to him, wanted to see him, wanted him back in my life. And for the past week, I was forcing myself to ignore that part of me and just go on ignoring all of my feelings, though it was almost like there was a big sign in my mind that said I wasn't coping with this loss correctly. But, like I said before, I didn't want to cope with it or accept it or anything like that. I just wanted to pretend that Leon never happened because it made things easier, somehow.

I started to tell Janie that he'd tried to contact me twice, but I stopped myself. I didn't want to talk about it for some reason.

"Oh," was all I could think of to say after that.

"Yeah… he followed me around work yesterday, bugging the hell out of me, asking how you were, where you were, stuff like that. I flipped him off, but yesterday I was at the mall with Billy's sister and we ran into him. He wouldn't leave me alone again, but he said he called your house and your Mom said you were away on vacation."

I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Wow… what did you say to him?"

She began to speak, but she stopped when I suddenly jumped and yelped loudly. Someone had just stomped into the back lounge. Startled, I grasped my chest where my heart was pounding once again, like the two times before two days in a row. When I turned around, I groaned when I saw who it was.

"God damn it all to hell, Zac, you're going to end up giving me a fucking heart attack if you don't stop doing that!" I cried. Narrowing my eyes at him, I added, "And that's my hat…"

"Yes, I know. You wear it a lot. You were even wearing it earlier. Duh." He flashed a cheesy grin. I couldn't see his eyes because he had the bill of the cap pulled down so low. "Who are you talking to?"

"My friend Janie. She says you're--"

"Regan if you say it I swear I'll murder you!"

"Try it!"

"I will!"

"Haha. Well, she says she normally has a crush on Taylor, but she couldn't resist the fine piece of meat that is you," though I didn't think it was possible, Zac's grin widened and turned devious. It was one of those moments where it was contagious, and I found myself a mirror to his smile as I added, "I don't think I could, either."

"That's it. You're dead," Janie told me.

Still grinning, Zac fell down onto the other couch and sat there, spreading his legs wide as he sunk down into the cushions. Putting his hands behind his head he said, "You know it, baby…" and winked.

I laughed with Janie who had managed to hear his words. I rolled my eyes at him as he pulled my hat off his head and tossed it aside so it landed on my guitar case. Then I turned my attention back to the cell phone when Janie spoke again. "Hey, I have to go soon, I have a dinner date with my Dad, he's in town for the week… so unless you don't want to hear about this Leon thing…"

Wow… I had forgotten that we were talking about that. When Zac came in. He was a good distraction. I sighed. "No, um… what happened?"

"Well, he called your house and your Mom said you were on vacation. When he bugged me about that, I didn't go into specifics, I just said you were on a road trip with your brother, because… well, that's basically what you're doing."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"He looked really bad, Regan. Like, really sorry, and unhappy, like he really regretted what he did, and what happened. He looked like he hadn't been sleeping too well."

"Are you trying to imply that I should feel bad about that stuff?"

"Well… I just--"

"Oh, come on. What he did… Janie, it was the worst thing he could have ever done."

"I know…" she sighed. "It's just that, I sort of do. Feel bad for him."

"Well, you shouldn't… just remember what that fucker did to me. If he's suffering, then let him suffer. Better him than me, that's for damned sure."

"…Are you over this already? I mean, it's only been..."

"I'm just trying not to dwell. You know what that does to me."

"Yeah. Hey, I'd get more into this subject with you, but my dad just got here, so I'm going out to dinner now."

"Isn't it kind of early for dinner over there?"

"Nah."

I grinned. "Okay then. If you see Billy, give him my love, okay?"

"Sure thing. Love you, Reg."

"Later dude."

Sighing, I hung up a second after she did. I wasn't sure about what to think. If Leon seriously felt bad about what happened… what would happen now? What had he been trying to call me about, anyway? To grovel? Was he going to try to crawl back to me?

I rubbed my eyes. If I were at home, this would be when I'd make a big wish out of the longing to get away, to run away from home. But that's basically what I was doing out there on the road with my brother. To me, it was running away. Running away from Leon and Terra, from Billy and Janie, from Mom and... all of Philly. That's where the drama was -- back in Philly. And I was a thousand miles away from there. Too far to be bothered with. So I decided not to let it bother me.

I dropped the cell phone into the couch beside me. Running a hand through my short, wavy hair, I looked over at Zac. He was staring off into space as he pulled his hair out of the ponytail it was in, snapping the rubber band around his fingers. I swung my legs over the side of the couch and leaned back and that was when he looked up at me. He smiled immediately.

"You seem somewhat chipper this afternoon," I said.

"You seem somewhat somber this afternoon," he said. "Roman said you weren't feeling too well. What's up?"

I leaned over and grabbed my shoes that were sitting on the floor next to the couch I was sitting on. "It's nothing. Just stupid crap from back home that doesn't really matter. Not worth mentioning. Nobody needs to hear about it. It's really just stupid." I gave him a little smile, casually, without looking at him.

I began to pull my shoes on, glancing up at him once as he spoke.

"Perhaps… that's how it is for you. But I wouldn't have asked if I didn't care."

I was reaching for my laces to tie them when he said this to me. I stopped and stared at him. He stared back at me like it was normal, though it didn't feel normal. I'd always said that before whenever I'd begin to ramble on about my problems, which I had a bad habit of doing sometimes. But whenever I'd say that… no one would ever reply with words like that. Usually it would be silence or a change of subject or a roll of their eyes because they never really cared anyway… but he said he did.

I had to look away, so I stared down at my shoes. I decided that I didn't want to have to put in the effort of most likely having to retie them all day, so I kicked them off and got down on all fours, crawling around to look for my flip flops. When the silence began to bother me, I said, "So what's up with your good mood today?"

When I looked at him again, he was grinning. "I have permission to get away for a few hours on my own, so long as I let someone like Greg or whoever follow me around so I don't get into trouble or lose track of time. But I want a break from my brothers, and I can't find anyone else who wants to come with me…" his brown eyes seemed to be pleading with me a bit.

I stopped and sat up on my knees. Slowly, I smiled at him. "You want me to go with?"

Zac leaned forward in his seat and looked down, chuckling. He looked kind of nervous. It was so cute. "I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to or something…"

"I'd love to. I don't have much else to do and I'm sure my brother would probably like to spend some time flirting with Abby. I need to get Roman's cell back to him first, though."

Zac nodded and got up. Seconds later I found my flip flops under my backpack and stood so I could step into them, and I grabbed Roman's phone right after. I started on my way through the bus to leave, but stopped when I remembered my own phone in my backpack so I hurried back to dig it out. When I got it, I went through my messenger bag and got my digital camera and my wallet out. Zac was waiting for me in the bunks and when I caught up with him, he lead the way out as I put my camera and my cell phone in my front pockets, my wallet in my back.

After he stepped off the bus, I jumped off behind him and stumbled to catch up. He just smiled at my actions and we walked in silence for a little while as we approached the hotel. It was so hot out there, and the heat hit me almost immediately.

"So what do you have planned for this outing?" I asked, huffing to blow some of my hair out of my face.

"I want to go explore New Orleans," he said. "I didn't get to see much of the French Quarter last time we were here."

"I've never seen any of New Orleans." I kicked a rock away across the ground. "I've never been west or south of Pennsylvania, actually. I suck. Oh, except I've been to California."

"Then this'll be your lucky summer. We're going everywhere."

"Including New York? I love New York."

"I think we're going to be there in either late July or early August."

"Awesome!" I chirped, skipping a little. I was so upbeat suddenly.

He laughed. "Are you excited?"

"It would seem so," I said, and we shared a grin. He opened the door of the hotel and let me go in first.

We split up so that I could run it by Roman and so that he could let his parents know he was heading out, and also to reluctantly recruit Greg as our babysitter. It was kind of annoying that we couldn't go without someone like that, but it did make sense that we weren't to go out alone around a city that we didn't know very anyway. But Zac found it much more annoying than I did, and so I figured that he probably just didn't get along with Greg very well or something.

Roman was very distracted by Abby when I found him, so he just took his cell and told me to have a good time. I huffed and returned to the lobby, where Zac and I had agreed to meet up again. I leaned against a column and pulled out my cell phone to mess around with it out of boredom. I sent Billy a silly text message and just told him where I was. But after that, I noticed I had a message on my voice mail and when I checked it out, I saw Leon's number again. He'd left a long message when I didn't pick up before.

I stared at the number that was there with my two options: play or delete without listening. Between the two I couldn't choose. I was thinking, maybe I should hear what he has to say now, because Janie said that he'd been asking around about me. Maybe he really had something inspired to say, some magical words that could take away some of my pain and make something a little better.

It all sounded like bullshit. Like him. He'd try to do something like that. But he'd screw it up.

"Okay, you ready to go, Regan?" I looked up when I heard my name, and couldn't help but smile at Zac's excited face. I decided that I liked the way he said my name. It wasn't really anything special about how he said it, I just loved his voice wrapped around it. There was a little twinge in it, but I wasn't really sure what kind. Probably something mid-western or southern, since he was from Oklahoma. I was thinking way too much about his voice. "We're walking down the street to the Ferry port, and taking it across the river over there."

"Oh, that's cool. I've never been on a Ferry before."

"Then, let's go!"

I gave him a little smile. "Hold on a sec. I'm just about ready," I said. I looked at my cell phone again and lifted my other hand to press a button. I hesitated, my finger hovering over the buttons. I bit my lip so hard for a second that I thought I tasted blood for a second and then-- I deleted the message without listening to it. I sighed loudly and put the phone away. "Okay. I'm ready to go."

With an eyebrow raised, Zac smirked and offered me his arm as Greg called to us from the door, saying to hurry up. I looked at Zac shyly, and when I didn't take it he just shrugged, smiling. We started walking together, and when we were out the door, I decided to take a bit of a leap and linked my arm through his. A big grin came over his face and he jumped forward, making me stumble after him. Then he took a very fast giant step, which may as well have been a normal step since his legs were longer than mine. I was laughing the whole way, so much that I nearly fell down. He pulled me along and smiled at me, and as he smiled it was like nothing else existed but the two of us and New Orleans.