Chapter 2

Zach pulled into the parking spot and glanced around the lot. So far, it was just him and the managers. Trevor slid into the spot next to him and waved, slamming the door closed in time with Zach and hanging back for Zach to catch up to him. “Call your sister about some insurance thing,” he said easily, lighting a cigarette.

“I just talked to her half an hour ago!”

“She said you’ll forget.” He smiled and blew smoke over his head. “And I’m pretty sure you will and when they take your car, I’m going to be the one that has to drive your ass all over L.A. trying to get it back, so call her.”

“Screw that, I’d just use Bridget’s car.”

Trevor laughed as they headed up the sidewalk towards the door. “I’d like to see you try. You wouldn’t get out of the driveway. And if you did, I’d have to drive her ass all over L.A. trying to get your car back so she could have her car back, so call her.”

“You wouldn’t mind driving her to Maine if she asked you,” he said. “You’re completely whipped when she asks you to do something. Honey, scratch my ass! Oh, okay…”

Trevor punched his shoulder and tossed the remainder of his cigarette into the bucket by the door. “And if you ever find someone to have a 2nd date with you, you’d be the exact same way, Loser!”

“Ain’t my fault all the ladies in this town are scared of my lovin’!” he laughed, following Trevor inside. “Cuz once they go Zach, there ain’t no goin’ back!”

“Dude, please, not before breakfast,” Trevor said plainly, barely lifting an eyebrow, “and maybe, hold off for after breakfast.”

“Is that like no swimming for ½ an hour after you eat? Would you get a cramp, Tred?”

“No, I’d yack all over your slimy bare feet. Dude! Do you actually use soap when you wash them?”

Zach looked down to his feet before looking back to Trevor. “Wash my feet?” He sniffed loudly. “Is that what I smell?”

Trevor walked into the office, shaking his head. “You’re hopeless.”

“Ken, he said I was hopeless!” he teased, turning to their manager.

Ken nodded and looked at him calmly. “Well, Zach, some days you kind of make us wonder.”

“I want a new band!” he laughed, grabbing Ken’s hand and knocking his shoulder against his. “How’s it goin’?” he said in his usual greeting. They sat down on the couch, sinking into the soft black leather, feeling cold air blow from the air conditioning vent overhead.

“We need a new album,” Ken said frankly. “What needs to be filled in? What’re you waiting for?”

“You could have just said that over the phone,” Trevor said, stretching his arm across the back of the couch and crossed his legs casually.

“Yeah, and you’d still be in bed and I’d probably be talking to your girlfriend instead of you,” Ken answered. “And I’m paid to tell y’all when you’re getting lazy and, guess what guys! You’re getting lazy. Get off your collective asses and get to work. Studio time needs to be booked, we need songs, we need…work, guys. We need to get back to work.”

Zach turned and looked at Trevor, and Trevor looked at him nonplussed. “I have about six, maybe seven, songs. You?”

“I have about ten, some need a bit of work, but most of them are in good shape. My home studio will be finished next week.” He looked at Ken. “Does that qualify as studio time if its still in my house?”

Ken chuckled easily and slowly shook his head. “You guys are killin’ me, you know that?”

“We’re pros, Ken. How many times do we have to tell you that before you’ll believe us?” Zach laughed. He knocked Trevor’s shoulder and shook his head. “Dude – what’re we going to do with him?”

“Give him an album?”

“Sure. Next month?”

“I think I can fit that into my calendar.”

“Go!” Ken pointed to the door. “Get the hell out of here and bring me an album.”

“Anyone’s? I think K-Fed’s got something coming out. It’ll suck, but we can get it for you…” Zach started. “Or, the Duran album?”

“Now, really, dude, Trevor added, “be glad you’re not their manager! They go something like five years between releases!”

“Get the hell out of my office!” Ken pointed to the door and laughed.

“Testy—testy!” Zach said, pushing himself up from the couch.

“Next time, I am just calling Bridget,” Ken promised with a shake of his head. “Punk ass kids.”

Zach walked in the house and kissed Bridget’s cheek. She was sitting at the counter with the phone to her ear and rolled her eyes at him, pointing to the phone and shaking her head. “I understand that, and we don’t have an issue paying the extra fees for the one car, but its been put on the two and we’ve been trying to have it removed and put on the correct vehicle for three months now. If you don’t want to figure this out, I’m sure we can find an insurance company that can….thank you.” She smiled. “Now I get to talk to a supervisor. My God this is a pain in the ass. Speaking of, what’re you doing home?”

“Nice!” Zach laughed, closing the refrigerator.

“Tred with you?”

“I’m family, remember? You’re supposed to like me.”

“Oh, I do, but I don’t want to sleep with you and after…yes? Hi, yes…” She turned back to the phone conversation, sliding her hair behind her ear and looking back to the notes she’d taken. Zach leaned against the counter watching her.

Somehow, in the last two years, she wasn’t just his kid sister anymore. She changed a lot after rehab. He heard her voice, or her laugh, and she was a grown up, taking care of things, and not relying on him to do it all anymore.

He wondered what her life would have been like if he was a lawyer or basketball coach or some other normal occupation. She wouldn’t have grown up on the road like she did. She’d be a normal twenty year old, probably poolside in Florida, working as a waitress as she went to college. He would have been around a lot more for her so when things turned ugly, he would have seen it earlier. Instead, she lived with him in the Hollywood Hills and took care of all the things he knew he’d never figure out. Normal life was always going to be part mystery to him. Hell, it was a mystery to both of them, but she managed to learn some of the nitty-gritty details better than him.

“Okay, so they said they fixed it, again,” she announced, putting her phone down. “And why are you home so early? I thought you had your big meeting?”

“They want an album,” he said with a shrug. “We have about 15 songs between us right now and Trevor’s studio will be done next week so we’ll have another 20 the following week. We could go. And thanks for taking care of that.” He motioned to the phone.

“Not that you would have noticed you were paying anything extra, but you’re welcome.”

“No, I probably wouldn’t have. My accountant would have eventually and then they’d have to reimburse me and I would have gotten one big check at some point.”

“That you wouldn’t have noticed or seen it because your accountant would have invested it,” she finished. “And then charge you a huge bill for doing so. And you never answered me, where’s Trevor?”

“I’m not his keeper. We had lunch and went our separate ways.” He sipped some water from the bottle he grabbed from the fridge and leaned against the counter. “What have you done today?”

“Took care of your insurance problem,” she said sitting up straighter knowing the lecture was starting.

“Did you find a job?” he asked, taking another sip and keeping his blue eyes directly on her.

“I took care of your insurance problem,” she repeated. “And don’t start.” She waved her hand at him and slid off the stool.

“You’re not even dressed,” he said following her out of the kitchen. “It’s two in the afternoon and you’re not even dressed yet! Come on….we talked about this!”

“No, you nagged about this. And you’re nagging now. Could you just leave it alone for five minutes, Zach? You think it’s easy to just go out and---find a job? Why don’t you try it for a day and see what’s out there for the real people on the planet!” She moved over towards him lifting her hand up, popping an imaginary bubble as she said ‘pop!’ “My God, Zach, you sit there thinking I don’t do anything all day, but if I wasn’t here to clean up after you and straighten out your mess, you’d figure out soon enough what I do all day.”

“That’s not the point! I don’t want you cleaning up after me, B. That’s not what you should be doing. You’re supposed to go have your own life.”

She headed into her room, tilting her head side to side and he knew she was rolling her eyes. “I’m not complaining about my life! You’re the one that thinks it need to be fixed.”

“You can’t just go around doing stuff for me. What would happen if something would happen to me?

“Don’t say that!” She stopped folding laundry on her bed and turned to glare at him.

“I don’t mean that way, I mean—I decide to go live on a mountain and give up my music.”

“That will never happen, and why do we have to fight about this every Goddamn day? You’re not giving up music this week and in the meantime, things have to be taken care of. You rely on me, Z. You know you do. You rely on me, and I’m good at knowing what needs to be taken care of, so can you just leave me alone and stop having this stupid argument?”

“I don’t want you to work for me! I’ll take advantage of it.”

“And so will I, so we’ll even out!” She put her weight on one foot and tilted her head. He was so damn stubborn sometimes she wanted to hit him. She’d have to remember to write that in her blog. He was stubborn to the point of never giving in even if it was for his own good. He’d be lost without her. She knew it. “Look, I’ll make a bet with you. You go three full days without asking me where something is, how to work something, what your schedule is like, what anyone’s phone number is—I don’t do anything at all for you for three full days. If you can make it, I’ll go find something else to do. Is that a deal?”

“It’s a deal.”

She smirked. “That was awfully quick. Don’t you want to think about it for a minute or two? You can’t ask me to do one thing for you. Not one thing.”

“It’s a deal, I said.” He crossed his arms across his chest and held her gaze. Stubborn. “I’ll be fine.”

“Sure,” she laughed. “Time starts now.” She picked up the laundry basket on her bed and walked over, handing it to him. “These are yours.”

“Hang on…” he protested.

“I asked if you wanted a minute to think about it. If I get a real job, I’m not going to pick up, or clean up after you.”

“When was the last time you emptied the dishwasher?” he scoffed.

She turned and faced him. “This morning. When was the last time you did your own laundry?” She tilted her head again in question. “Grocery shopping?”

“Tuesday!” he answered quickly, shifting the laundry basket and pointing at her. “I bought dinner.”

“That wasn’t grocery shopping, Zachary. That was picking up take out from Ralph’s. I’m talking staples. Needing a cart and everything. Multiple trips from the car to the house with bags of things.” He chewed his lips together and looked at her. “So, ha!”

“That doesn’t mean I can’tdo it.”

“Sure, right.” She picked up her cell phone and pressed Trevor’s number. “Hey, Baby, where are you? I’ve got the afternoon free and Zach says you’re done with your meeting.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and headed onto the patio. “Let’s play.”

And stop centering your life around Trevor, too!

Watching her walk around the pool, he dropped the laundry basket on the floor and sat at the kitchen table, slumping down in the chair. On the outside she was all smiles, but she made him nervous and he hated being nervous about her. There was always going to be part of him that would look twice, or closer than others would, only because the last time he wasn’t paying attention, he almost—

He had to remember that when she did all that, she was a kid and she wasn’t a kid anymore. She changed, came out the other end, moved on, and grew up all at the same time. He knew she was going to struggle sometimes, but trying to figure out when she was struggling, and when she was in real trouble still eluded him. Was he reading too much into her mood swings? Her quick flashes of anger? Her unwillingness to face any kind of change and fight it so fiercely?

Her laughter filtered in through the sliding glass doors and he peered out. She lay back on the lounge chair and ran a hand over her leg, phone still pressed to her ear. She’d always be his baby sister and he would always have that image of her stuck in the back of his head; dark room, pitiful sounds of tears, tiny, whimpering voice asking him why he came home. I wouldn’t have to do this if you just stayed out like you usually do. Why’d you have to find me, Z? Why’d you come home?

He had to be responsible for Bridget before he knew how to be responsible. She explained that to him when he kept apologizing to her in rehab. She understood that he did the best he could, why couldn’t he? How did she end up in rehab at 17 if he did the best he could? He was supposed to take care of her.

He had to be responsible before he know how to be responsible. For a long time, he woke up repeating that, went to bed repeating that, and he was pretty sure repeated that in his sleep. He just didn’t believe it. He was getting better at it with some distance, but he also stepped up his game and made sure he paid attention to the details now. He was never going to give her that chance again.

“Later, Loser!” she called into the door.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

She scoffed at him. “Where do you think?”

“Hey, B?”

“You wanted me to get out and do things, right? It’s 3 in the afternoon and what have I done all day?” she teased.

“No, seriously, B?”

“What?” she asked, her smile freezing in question.

“Nothing. Never mind. I’m just—I don’t know. Have fun.”

“You’re already freaking out about having to do everything for yourself,” she laughed. She came in and threw her arms around his shoulders, kissing his cheek loudly. “You can figure it out. You’ll screw it up because you don’t have the slightest clue how to juggle these kinds of things, but you’ll figure it out.” She squeezed his shoulders and stood up. “In a few months.” She giggled. “You’re in such a mood, Z.”

“I’m not. You are though.”

“I don’t have to do laundry, or the dishes, or pick up dry cleaning.”

“Oh, shit!” he exclaimed, sitting up. She raised her eyebrows as his mouth open slowly. Can’t ask—can’t—ask. “Does it count if I ask you which dry cleaners my stuff is at?”

“The one that always does your dry cleaning.” The smile spread across her face and she waited expectantly. “All you have to do is ask,” she sang. “Admit defeat, Z. That’s all. I’ll pick it up.”

“No taunting!” he whined. “And you’re just trying to make me lose so you don’t have to find something else to do!”

“Fine by me.” She shrugged before starting down the hallway towards the front door. “Later.”

“You coming home tonight?”

She leaned her head on the brick in the hallway with a knowing smile. “I’m a big girl now. You don’t have to wait up for me anymore.”

“It has nothing to do with that, B. I worry, alright?”

She pushed up from the wall. “You worry? Like hell, you worry. Since when?” Cocking her head to the side, he could see her temper flare, her eyes narrow. “You think something’s going on, don’t you?” she accused. “You know, sooner or later, Zach, you’re going to have to trust me.”