“Yeah, don’t even bother.” Bridget closed the door and walked back into the room as Zack knocked again, this time even louder.

Trevor answered next, but he blocked the doorway and sighed heavily. “Zach, dude, go to bed.”

“I just want to talk.” Zach leaned against the doorway and felt as if he was going to keep leaning. Luckily, the wall rushed in to meet him and he stopped. He thanked it and smoothed his hand over the wallpaper.

“Yeah, when you can stand on your own and think clearly, we’ll talk. Right now, you need to go to bed and sleep it off.”

“But, Dude…”

“Tomorrow, Zach.” Trevor patted his shoulder and started closing the door.

“Did you have to ask her now?” Zach whined. “In front of the world?”

“Tomorrow, Zach.” He finished closing the door, leaving Zach in the empty hallway void of sound. These were the kinds of hotels he hated.

In the beginning, they stayed at the Motel 6’s and maybe a Radisson, and when they were in the hallways, their voices echoed. He could hear footsteps, and doors closing, and people. He and Trevor would race down the hallways, hide in the doorway alcoves and jump out at each other, and steal things from the housekeeping carts.

As the group became more popular, they started getting stuck in hotels like this. Padded carpeting, and empty, soulless hallways that sucked the sound out of anything. Granted, the walls somehow were never any thicker than those at the Motel 6 but he had a feeling that if he rammed his fist into the wall just outside their door, neither of them would hear it. The hallway would absorb the noise and he’d be stuck with his hand in the wall until someone came along. If he waited in the doorway alcove to surprise them, he knew he’d be waiting all night, too. No one was any fun anymore.

It was up to him to find someone that was going to be fun, and he wasn’t going to find them outside Trevor’s doorway. He headed to the elevator and found his bodyguard standing by, not looking particularly happy about being on duty. “Come on, Jeremy, it’ll be a blast!”

Sometime during the night he ended up at a plain old, regular guy bar. He tried the fancy nightclubs, but just felt crowded by everyone wanting to watch him drink. But at the other bar, there were just regular people, drinking plain old boring drafts, watching basketball on TV and talking about the Jets game. He wasn’t a Jets fan, but he did at least see highlights of the game and knew what they were talking about.

“You from around here?” he asked the waitress brining him a pitcher. She was cute, blonde, and filled out her tee shirt well enough.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t see a nametag anywhere…” He checked out her chest again and grinned with a wink.

“That’s because I’m not wearing one,” she answered with her own smile and headed back towards the bar.

Half an hour later, he went over to the bar and leaned in, curling his finger for her to come closer. When she did, he kissed her on the cheek and pulled back. “I’d really kind of like to have your name. My name’s Zach.”

“I know precisely who you are,” she answered with a nod, eyeing him up and down, “and I think your music is crap.”

He shrugged with his own scanning of her, stopping at her breasts. “Baby, your taste in music isn’t what interests me.”

“I should slap you silly,” she laughed.

“Yep, you should. Instead, why don’t you let me buy you a drink at my place. What time do you get off?”

“About half an hour ago.” She leaned forward and curled her finger for him to do the same, this time turning her head to receive his kiss, opening her mouth to his. “And I’m pretty damn fond of champagne.”

“Luckily for me, I have that back in my room.” He reached his hand out and led her around the bar, then trailed through the bar stools, leading her to the waiting car.

“Miss?” He got in the car and Jeremy stopped her before getting in. “I’m going to need you to sign this, please?” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, taking a pen from the driver’s pocket.

“What’s this?” She peered at the paper in the streetlight.

“A non-disclosure agreement. Once you sign it, I can be out of your way.”

“Jer!” Zach groaned from inside the car. “Come on.”

“Just doing my job, Zach.”

“Give me the quick rundown – what am I signing?” she asked, skimming the words.

“It says you’re not going to sell your story or talk about what happens for money, profit or publicity of any kind.”

“Dude, do I look like someone that…”

Jeremy held his hand up. “Most people don’t, no. But there are those that manage to sneak by. You can come along, and that’s fine, but I’ll just be joining you as a witness to everything that happens.”

She climbed into the car and Jeremy slid in next to her. The driver closed the door and headed to his seat, pulling away from the curb.

Before hitting the next traffic light, Zach turned to her and began kissing her, sliding his hand up her torso to her chest. She pushed his hand and pulled back, glancing over to Jeremy staring out the window. Zach continued to kiss her neck and slide his hand along her thigh, just slightly under the black denim mini skirt.

By the time they made it back to the hotel, she signed the form leaning on the leather seat and let herself be led up to his room alone.

Jeremy turned to the driver and rolled his eyes. “I’m going to have a really fucking long day tomorrow.”

Bridget lifted her head and squinted at the doorway, hearing the loud thumping and giggles in the hallway. Trevor came into the bedroom, furrowing his eyebrows at her and looked at the clock. “2:30…sounds like a hook-up to me.”

“He’s got to be kidding,” she grumbled. “For who’s benefit is this one? He drank so damn much, I doubt he’ll be able to get it up.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Trevor shrugged. “If she got this far, she’s signed the agreement and for her own ego, she’ll say it was good because no one will believe the great Zach Angel is anything but an amazing lay.”

She sat up and laughed. “Is that what they say about you?”

“They who? You – and you tell me I’m a great lay every time, don’t ya, baby?” He fell onto the bed and leaned over for a kiss. “I guess we don’t need to be concerned about him anymore, or need to worry about having that talk.”

“At this time of night? We wouldn’t be having that talk anyway. Is that what you were waiting up for? Him?”

“I wasn’t tired, anyway.”

“Forget tired.” They heard more loud thumps and laughter from the room next door. “We could be doing precisely what they are – but a little more discreetly. You can make me scream tomorrow when we’re home.”

“Is that a promise?” he asked, arching his eyebrow with a playful grin. “’Cause I like making you scream my name.”

“You can tempt me now, since I’m awake anyway.” She slid the blanket down and herself up just slightly, exposing her naked skin to him. “Go ahead, Baby, make me scream – I dare you to try.”

“You’re such a tease.” He laughed deeply, sliding up the mattress, covering her body with his, lowering his mouth to her breasts as he did so. “But I’m pleased to take that dare.” He pulled delicately on a nipple with his lips and flicked it with his tongue several times until she whimpered lightly, taking a shaky breath beneath him. His hand brushed against the outside of her thigh briefly before she spread her legs, letting him settle between them.

His fingers found her folds, sliding them in and out of her wetness. When he slid his erection inside her slowly, making her moan softly, he asked playfully, “how’s that, baby? Who makes you feel this good?”

“You do,” she answered, her voice low and seductive. “Who feels this good to you?”

“Only you, baby, only you.” He thrust deeper inside and closed his eyes to the warm wetness greeting him. “Damn, you’re always so ready for me.” Lifting up onto his palms, he was able to plunge deeper inside, biting his lips together to keep from making too much noise.

She pulled at him before sliding a leg up the back of his thigh, raising her hips to him. “Tell me how good this feels, Tred. Tell me…” He breathed deeply, thrusting again as he bit his bottom lip. She met his hips again, her leg binding them together as she pulled his waist to her. “Harder, Tred,” she whispered, her breathing quick and shallow. “You feel so good. I just…I want to…”

He lost all rhythm and control of his body, pounding deep and hard against her until he exploded in orgasm, burying his head quickly into the pillow next to her head with his grunts and groans of release and pleasure. Before he could even catch his breath, though, she was moving beside him, taking his hand, and settling it between her legs, whimpering softly. “Please, baby…I’m so close.”

His fingers slid along her clit, dripping with their juices as her breathing became quicker and her moans higher pitched. He slid his finger deep inside quickly, sliding it out slowly as his mouth found one of her erect nipples. He sucked hard on her nipple as he slid inside her again, feeling her body pulse around his two fingers and she cried out, lowering the sound to a whimper. He lifted his head to suck on her earlobe, chuckling devilishly. “We suck at being quiet and discreet, don’t we?”

“Oh, but trying can be so much fun,” she answered, still breathless, but turned her head to explore his mouth in a kiss.

Watching Trevor walk through an airport always amused Bridget. She didn’t think he even noticed how easily he stood out when he tried to blend in. He tugged his ball cap lower in an attempt to cover his eyes, and he somehow became very interested in his cell phone, keeping it to his ear and making plans and whatever arrangements he needed to make for the other end of the trip.

He wore his usual sweat shirt, racing stripe down the sleeves and zipper up the middle, baggy jeans because he ‘wasn’t about to sit six hours with denim sticking in my crotch,’ and even though he wore the same exact clothing as the regular guy that sat a few seats over, Tred somehow still looked like a star. He paid no attention to anyone staring at him, trying to place him, or those that knew who he was immediately, which might be why he drew attention to himself. Somehow he never saw that he wasn’t any different than anyone else, but anyone else would be looking around at other people.

She came out of the bookstore and stood in front of him, and he lifted his head up, still speaking on the phone. “Yeah, but Ken…we don’t like the direction, that’s the whole point.” He smiled easily to her and started walking towards their gate again, slipping his hand into hers easily as she looked around for the right gate.

Thankfully, Rik had the forethought to over-ride Tred’s ‘regular person’ identity and at least had them wait in the VIP lounge until boarding. Perhaps Rik’s luminous presence kept them from being stopped in the terminal, too. Another reason no one bothered him might be the fact that there was a bodyguard two steps away to protect him, even with too many people, not enough seats, and Tred thinking he wouldn’t be bothered or noticed.

“One of these days, I’m gonna let them mob you,” Rik teased once they reached the plane. “Then maybe you’ll stop fighting me about the VIP lounge.”

“No one bugged us,” Trevor argued, clapping his phone closed and sticking it into his pocket.

“You were on the phone the whole time,” she said. “No one was going to bug you on the phone. You don’t even notice that you try to be incognito anymore, do you? It’s just habit at this point.”

“No one would mob me anymore even if I wasn’t on the phone. Being mobbed is over. Asked for a few autographs, yeah, and I can handle that. I really wish you two would stop being so over protective.”

“Okay, Mr. Regular Guy. Look, we made a few headlines,” she giggled, showing Tred the entertainment segment of the morning paper after they settled in their seat. “They all think you’re romantic. And according to this one? ‘A splashy proposal on yesterday’s Today Show…’ Look, Baby, you’re splashy!”

“I still say it was about time,” he said, kissing her quickly as the stewardess came through the cabin with juice and champagne. She paused a moment as they took a juice and said congratulations to them before moving on. “You haven’t seen Zach yet today, though, have you?”

“He’s a big boy. If he misses his flight, too bad. He said I needed to stop taking care of him. He had the wake up call just like the rest of us. I sincerely doubt he slept anyway.”

“I’m just going to give Jeremy a quick call,” Trevor said, flipping out his phone. “Hey, we’re boarded. Is Zach on his way?” He paused and glanced to Bridget. “Oh, alright. Sure, talk to you later.” He turned his phone off. “He changed his flight.”

“He…what?” She rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone, mumbling ‘oh for Christ’s sake…’

Trevor put his hand over the phone and lowered it. “Bridge, don’t. That’s exactly what he wants. Let him pout. If he can’t face us like an adult with his questions and concerns, than fuck ‘im. We don’t need the drama about it.”

“Hey, Z, the flight’s just about to take off and you’re not on it. Hope you’re not stuck in traffic or something. I’ll call you when we get back and maybe we can arrange to talk like grown ups, huh? Bye.” She closed the phone and sighed in exasperation. “I don’t care what anyone says. He may have been born first, but he may never stop being twelve.”

He settled down in his seat and pulled the cell phone back out of the pocket, turning it off for the flight and handing it to Bridget. Without asking, she automatically put it into her bag and slid it under the seat after taking a book and a few magazines out and sticking them in the seat pocket in front of her. It was all second nature at this point and she didn’t stop to think about their habits until they were at their flight altitude and settled in for the next four and a half hours.

The first flight she’d been on had been with her mom and Zach, Trevor and his mom, and a whole crew of tour folk and their previous manager, Joe.

At first she sat in her seat as she had been told. She didn’t kick the seat of the nice man in front of her, or play with the tray that came down when she flipped the little lever. She didn’t push the window shade up and down. Her mom gave her her chapter book and she sat and read until they were speeding down the runway, picking up speed. The cabin shook around them, things rattled all over and she was certain the whole plane was going to fall apart around her. It kept rumbling and shaking as they picked up more speed and she felt pushed back against her seat slightly as they left the ground. When she turned and looked out the window everything she recognized was dropping away, and the violent rattling stopped. It was just loud with the rumble of flight and it wasn’t until she sat back in her seat that she realized that Zach had been holding her hand and that was why she wasn’t scared.

This time, as the plane rose into the air, shaking and rattling around her, she flipped easily through a magazine and glanced without a thought out of the window at the world dropping beneath her feet.

She remembered some flight, her mother wasn’t there, and she, Zach and Trevor were racing up and down the aisle in business class until the stewardess scolded them and made them sit down. That time, Trevor sat in front of her and she kicked the seat hard a few times just to annoy him and stood up on hers to lean over, pull off his baseball hat, and pulled his hair. He leaned up on his chair, leaned back and tugged on her pigtail, hard, and she screamed, disrupting the whole section of the plane – and they all got yelled at again, this time by Trevor’s mom.

That had been a hellishly long flight to sit in her seat like a nice young lady and read her books. Her feet would fall asleep dangling off the edge and none of the books were ever that interesting for a full flight. Zach and Trevor were always more fun to play with – until they were pulled aside to do their homework, or go over their itinerary. They would just get stuck sitting there being talked over and about without anyone checking with them or seeing what they wanted to do. Eventually they’d end up kicking each other under the table, or folding one of the papers in front of them up into a triangle to play ‘football’ seeing who could get the paper ‘ball’ between the finger goalposts the most.

Bridget would always want to play, convinced she could get the most goals, but she had to sit in her chair and ‘be quiet.’

The worst was the time she had the flu and stuck in the window seat, feeling miserable. She didn’t care about the paper football, or taking Tred’s hat, or even reading her book. She wanted to get up and go to the bathroom, but the adults were doing their round-up and every time she tried to interrupt, she was told to be quiet and sit still. She didn’t know what to do, though, because her mouth was getting all watery, and she tasted that weird thing in the back of her throat which always meant she was about to be sick. She tried again to let her mom know, but even before she got a word out, her mom scolded her to quit interrupting. Then it was too late and she ended up getting sick in her lap, all over the seat and floor in front of her.

Trevor turned around his seat and she thought for sure he was going to make fun of her and laugh. Instead, he just handed her one of the tiny square napkins he’d been saving to make spitballs out of and gave her a silent, apologetic look. It only succeeded in making her cry harder for reasons she still didn’t understand. Even now, if anyone was kind to her when she was sad, she cried harder.

She didn’t remember what her mother said, only remembered that she was angry and carried to the bathroom to clean up and get out of her wet clothes. She could barely stand on the toilet seat, and her mother held her arm as balance as she cleaned her up with wet napkins. It felt good on her feverish skin, and when the blanket wrapped around her, her mother held her tight and apologized for getting angry quietly.

The rest of the flight she sat on her mother’s lap, wrapped in the airplane blanket with her clothes bundled up in a plastic bag. She slept against her shoulder and she’d wake up to see Zach and Trevor playing paper football. Trevor looked up and winked at her and right then she thought maybe boys weren’t gross after all, and maybe Trevor might hold her hand someday.

She put her magazine down and looked over to him now, nodding his head to the beat of one of the songs on his iPod with his eyes closed. He wasn’t shaving back then, and now she could trace his whiskers around his chin and side burns. His lashes were probably just as long, though, and his eyes were just as brown, dark and clear like looking through black coffee in a glass mug.

He sensed her watching him and opened his eyes turning to her, questioning her silently. “When did you notice me?” she asked curiously.

He pulled the earphone out and she repeated the question. Closing his eyes a quick second with confusion, he asked, “What?”

“When did you notice me? I was just remembering the day I figured out I had my first crush on you and it dawned on me that I never asked you that.”

“When you had your first crush? There was more than one?”

“I had my phases. Most little girls do.”

“When was your first crush?”

“Remember that time I got sick all over the airplane?” He kept a blank look and shook his head with a shrug. “I had the flu and mom wouldn’t let me get up to go to the bathroom so I got sick all over myself and had to wrap a blanket around me?” she prompted. He just shrugged and shook his head again. “Whatever. Either way, that was when I had my first crush on you because you didn’t tease me about it. You looked over at me and winked and I thought you were the sweetest thing ever.”

He kissed her quickly with a laugh. “I am the sweetest thing ever.”

“Now. You lost your status a few times, but lucky for you, you redeemed yourself.” She stuck her magazine back in the pocket. “So? When did you notice me?”

“No, see, it’s all different for guys. There was no ‘noticing.’ It generally was you were Zach’s kid sister, and we teased you and we made fun of you and then one day, you weren’t and that’s when a boy’s mind goes directly to sex and bad, dirty thoughts. There’s no ‘noticing’ or crushes. Crushes end for boys in like the 4th grade, I think. Girls go from ‘ew, cooties’ to well…girls. I don’t know.”

“That’s so not true. If that was true, why do y’all get flustered and tongue-tied and embarrassed…”

He leaned over with a mischievous grin. “Because we want to touch your boobies and don’t want you to know that we want to touch your boobies and are embarrassed by the fact that, well, we want to touch your boobies,” he teased. “Then, after a while, suddenly, we kind of like having you around, and we like asking you things sometimes. Then we want to show you off to all our other friends and don’t like it when our friends look at you like they want to touch your boobies and that’s when it dawns on us that we could possibly, maybe, in a way, be in love and when that happens, it’s all over. So, maybe, that’s when I noticed you. When one of my friends thought you were hot and I realized that I didn’t want you to think he was hot and not me.”

“And they say girls make things complicated?” she asked, dropping her chin slightly and arching an eyebrow at him. “It really was just a simple question, you know.”

“See? That’s why guys don’t like to talk about this stuff because you never like the answer you get.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Does it really matter to you?”

“I’m just curious. I don’t know why all of a sudden you paid attention to me.”

“Because one day I looked up and saw you and you weren’t Zach’s kid sister anymore.” He slouched down in the seat. “You were standing by the elevator in the Bonaventure and the fountains were loud, but you were laughing louder, wearing a yellow tee shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans with black boots that had some kind of fringe or something up the side? You were on your cell talking to someone in the band and suddenly, you just weren’t Zach’s kid sister. You were someone cool and interesting, with a great body, and an amazing laugh that echoed in my head more than it should have. And when I talked to you later that night, you were that other person, but Zach’s kid sister and I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do, so I pretended nothing was different. Okay?”

“Are you making that up?”

“No!” he protested. “See?”

“No, I’m asking because that was a long time ago. I remember those boots. I lived in those boots and I couldn’t have been more than fourteen.”

He nodded. “Probably, yeah. And I was 17 and too old and too cool to actually admit that you were cute, but you asked when I noticed you and that was when I did.”

“We didn’t stand a chance, did we?”

He kissed her gently, letting it linger between them. “Thankfully, no.”

When they landed, Bridget checked her phone, finding several voicemails waiting for her, most of them from Zach.

‘Hey, Bridget, yeah, didn’t make the flight. I’m just going to catch a later flight. Try not to sound too disappointed I’m not there, huh?’

The next message came an hour later, but this time all she heard was someone giggling and the TV blasting in the background. The next message after that he sounded a little angrier, a little drunker. “Yeah, know what? Screw it, I’m not coming home. I’ll be in touch.”

She looked at the phone oddly, then to Trevor. “He’s not coming home now. Isn’t he too old to run away from home?”

“Obviously not.”

She deleted the message and listened to the last one, this time from a female voice she didn’t recognize. ‘What’s her name?’ it started and she could hear Zach tell her. “Hi, Bridget, Zach wanted me to meet you. He just proposed.” She burst into laughter and hung up.

“Check your messages,” she told Trevor,

He turned his phone on, shifting his fight case strap back up on his shoulder. She didn’t want to call Zach if he was trying to get even, or playing some kind of practical joke, but if he was serious, she’d simply pack her things and move in with Trevor immediately and let him live in the mess he was creating.

“He’s kidding,” Trevor said, handing the phone to her. He repeated the message he had. “Tell Bridget to unpack and chill. I didn’t propose. But now maybe you know how I felt.”

She texted a message to him quickly. ‘U R N ass’

‘Btr thn stpd’ came a reply.

‘Grow up.’

‘Y don’t u 1st?’

‘Lead by xmpl, Z.’

‘Y, B? u pay no attn N-E-way.’

‘Not doing this. Come home. Talk to me.’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Still an ass.’

‘Still stpd.’