Chapter 13 – It’s All About Mandy Moore
"When did he call?" Zac asked.
"Yesterday." Taylor replied.
"Are you sure? He didn't call me." Isaac said.
"Look, I'm not joking. Roger really did call." Taylor informed.
"So, where are we going to tour before we start to record the new album?" Zac asked.
"I think Europe or Australia. But he said we’re going with another artist." Taylor replied, stretching from his bed.
"Who?" Isaac asked.
"He said, Christina Aguilera, M2M, or Mandy Moore." Taylor answered
"I go for Mandy." Zac quickly answered, smiling.
"Me too." Taylor agreed, looking at Zac.
"I don't really care who." Isaac replied.
Isaac picked up his guitar and started to play a song. Zac looked at Taylor who was staring on Isaac's bunk on top of his. He rolled over to the other side and grabbed a pillow and threw it directly at Taylor's face.
"What the-? Zac!" Taylor said, sitting up.
Zac laughed.
"The bet is still on... uh?" Zac reminded.
"Of course. Now that we get to tour with her, I'm sure this will be easier." Taylor answered.
"$100.00 I say, I can beat you to it." Zac challenge.
"Double the amount." Taylor challenge back.
"Better yet, if you win, you get $200.00 plus my journal. But if I win, I get your journal and $200.00." Zac said, extending his hand for Taylor to shake.
"What are you guys talking about?" Isaac asked, setting his guitar aside.
Taylor and Zac laughed.
"We made a bet. You wanna join us?" Taylor invited.
"What's it about?" Isaac asked.
"Who gets to boink Mandy first gets $200.00 and gets to read the journal." Zac informed.
“Are you guys crazy?” Isaac exclaimed
Zac and Taylor laughed.
“No, we’re just horny teenage boys.” Taylor answered for the both of them.
“Zac, don’t you have a girlfriend?” Isaac asked.
“Who? Nicole?” Zac questioned.
“Who else?”
“She’s not actually my girlfriend. We just date & kiss.” Zac informed.
“It’s the same Zac. I’m sure she’ll be pissed off if she found out!” Isaac said.
“She won’t find out, Isaac.” Zac replied very surely.
“Whatever Zac. Don’t come crying to me.” Isaac said, leaving his brothers in their bedroom.
===================
“We’re leaving in two weeks you know.”
“Two weeks? That soon…?” Ashley questioned.
Taylor nodded.
“Where you guys headed?”
“English Land or maybe Down Under.” Taylor informed as he opened another pack of jellybeans.
“Again?!” Ashley exclaimed as she changed the CD on her stereo.
“I love these!” Taylor defended hugging the bag of jellybeans.
“Not the jellybeans! I mean the tour!” Ashley said, laughing.
“Oh. We’re touring with another act this time. Not just by ourselves.” Taylor explained as he sorted the red jellybeans from the rest on his hand.
“That’s interesting. Who will you guys are touring with?” Ashley asked, grabbing the bag of jellybeans from Taylor’s grasp.
“HEY!” Taylor immediately reacted as soon as he noticed that his jellybeans were taken away from him.
“Gimmieeee that!” Taylor said, jumping from the bed to Ashley.
Ashley jumped from her position and tried to escape from Taylor’s attack. But before she knew it, Taylor flew on top of her causing the bag of jellybeans to fly to the air. Taylor quickly tried to grab Ashley’s hand to retrieve his jellybeans.
“Where are my jellybeans?” Taylor said, starting to tickle her.
“I don’t know!” Ashley managed to reply between laughs.
“Get of me!!!!” Ashley screamed at Taylor’s ear, pushing him off of her.
Taylor gave up, and got off the bed. And made his way to the Ashley’s stereo, he was walking towards her CD rack when he stepped on something soft.
“Yuck... what’s this?” Taylor exclaimed, examining his right foot.
Ashley looked at Taylor who was looking at his socks, and walked towards to where he was standing. She herself examined his foot, and once she realized what it was, started to laugh uncontrollably.
“Jelly… Beeeenss!” Ashley said, between laughs.
“Ah man! Ash... that was my last bag!” Taylor said trying to remove the crushed jellybeans stuck on his right sock.
“Who are you guys touring with?” Ashley asked, changing the topic.
“Mandy Moore.” Taylor replied flatly, not looking at Ashley.
Taylor picked up a CD of Mandy Moore and held it up in the air, waving it in front of Ashley. She rolled her eyes as she acknowledged his gesture. He took out the CD from the case and played it on her stereo. Pretty soon, ‘Crush’ was playing.
“Why are we playing this song again?” Ashley asked, but Taylor didn’t answer. He was too concentrated reading the lyrics of the song.
“Is it dork day today?” She asked herself.
“TAYLOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” She screamed, causing Taylor to jump.
“What?” Taylor replied a bit distracted from his lyrics reading moment.
“Change the fucking CD!” Ashley said, throwing a pillow directly at Taylor.
“Hey do you think she’d go for me?” Taylor asked, walking over to bed to where Ashley was lying down.
“Who? Mandy chick?” She asked.
“Yeah. Since we’re touring with her, I figured I could ask her out on a date.”
“You know she’s probably your height right? That girl is at least 5’11.”
“I know. But who cares? She’s hot, and I want her BAD.” Taylor informed, with an evil grin spreading across his face.
“Then after the tour, what will happen? You’ll just leave her?”
“I don’t know. I’ll just go with the flow.”
“Whatever.” Ashley replied, picking up the magazine that was lying on her night stand and started reading it.
“Come on Ash. I need help here.” Taylor whined.
“What? You need my advice on how to make another girl cry?” She suddenly snapped.
“I do not make girls cry.”
“Ok, so you sleep with them and act like nothing happened the next morning?” She added.
“Are you ok? Why are you acting like your mad at me all of a sudden?” Taylor asked, sitting closer to her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” She replied, in a much more calm voice.
Taylor smiled at her.
“Well then, what was that about me making girls cry after screwing them?” Taylor asked, positioning himself behind Ashley, placing his head in her shoulder.
“I don’t know, I was just wondering if you’ll ever settle down.” She answered.
“What do you mean?” Taylor asked, getting lost in the conversation.
“I mean, when will you ever settle with one girl? For a girl that you’ll love and love you back? For the past 4 years, you’ve dating girls on and off. Sure you act like the sweetest guy around them, but after like a month you break it off.”
“Maybe I haven’t found the right girl yet.”
“Maybe you’re just not looking hard enough.”
“Hey! That’s the reason I date girls you know. To get to know them.”
“You don’t even talk to them. You just kiss and smile the whole time.”
“I happen to enjoy kissing girls… thankyouverymuch!” Taylor said defending himself.
“You’ll never learn.” Ashley said, laughing at her best friend.
===================
Zac was walking around the neighborhood with Nicole, it was 8pm and they were headed to the park. Nicole was playing with her belt that hanging from her jeans while walking. Zac just simply watch her fiddle with her belt. He smiled to himself.
“What are you doing?” Zac asked
“What?” Nicole said, looking at him.
“Is there something wrong with your belt?”
“No. I’m just figuring what to do with this.” She answered, holding up a portion of her belt that was hanging.
“It’s too long.” She added.
“Let me fix it.” Zac suggested, trying to fix Nicole’s belt.
Zac slowly un-buckled Nicole’s belt and began to fix her it. He looked at Nicole was staring off his shoulder. He started to buckle her belt again, tying the end with a neat knot.
“Zac hurry up. People are staring at us.” Nicole said, placing her arms over his shoulders.
“Uh?”
“People are starting to think that were trying to have sex on the side of the road.” She informed, pointing to the old couple staring at them.
“Let them think what they want. I don’t care.” Zac said looking at the old couple then to Nicole.
“Come on lets go sit by the benches.” Zac said, grabbing her hand pulling her to where the benches where located.
Nicole sat beside Zac on the bench. She watched the children playing on the playground in front of them. She watched them chase after each other with big smiles on their faces. She sighed and rested her head on Zac’s shoulder.
Zac took her hand. “Nic, you know how you’re important to me, right?”
Nicole looked at him. “Yeah, why?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you know.” Zac answered.
“I do care about you, you know?” Zac added.
Nicole turned to face Zac. She had no clue where he was getting at. Zac was just being so nice to her today. She knew something was up.
“Zac, is something going on that I don’t know?” Nicole asked with a concerned look on her face.
“You know me too well.” Zac smiled, and kissed her hand.
“So, what is this all about?” She asked.
“How’d you know something’s up?” He asked.
Nicole laughed. “Zac, first you bought me flowers. Which you never do. And you keep kissing my hand.”
“You don’t like me giving you flowers?” Zac asked, with a hurt expression on his face.
“I do Zac. But... uh... It’s different.” She tried to explain.
“You get what I’m saying?” She finished.
Zac laughed and nodded. He really did understand what Nicole was talking about. He was really acting extra nice to her that day. He didn’t know how to tell her that they were leaving in two weeks, and he was trying to bring it up.
“Listen Nicole, me and my brothers are leaving in two weeks. We have to tour somewhere before we record out new album.” Zac half-whispered, half-mumbled.
“Two weeks?” Nicole repeated what she heard looking at Zac.
“Yeah. Then a month after that, we’ll be going to LA to record our new album.”
“I’ll miss you.” Was all that Nicole could say.
“I’ll be back before you know it.” Zac said, kissing her lips lightly.
“You better be.” She smiled and kissed him back.
“You better behave yourself Zac. If I catch you fooling around with other girls, you’ll get it from me.”
“What will I get from you?” Zac asked, kissing her neck.
Nicole smiled and took Zac’s hand and looked at him. She smiled at him and kissed his lips. Her hands slowly caressing Zac’s thighs. She opened her eyes and looked at him. She kissed him once again.
“You know what I’ll do to you if I catch you fooling around?” She said, between kisses as she slowly unzipped Zac’s jeans.
Zac tensed up as he felt Nicole’s hand slowly stroke him outside his boxers. He slightly moaned, feeling himself slowly getting a boner.
“What?” Zac managed to say between gasps.
“This times ten.” Nicole said, gently squeezing his testicles.
“Ah!!!” Zac suddenly opened his eyes and stood up, re-buttoning his pants.
“Nic… that hurt like hell! You’d really do that to me?” Zac asked, trying to hide the pain in his eyes
“If I caught you fooling around... YES.” She sweetly said, lightly kissing his lips.
“God, if you keep doing that... I’ll never have kids!” Zac gasped bending over and closing his eyes trying to make the pain that Nicole caused go away.
“Funny Zac.”
“Hey Nic... what do you think about Mandy Moore?” Zac asked, changing the topic
“Candy singing-long legs Mandy?”
Zac nodded.
“She’s pretty. I’d kill for those long legs.” Nicole answered
“Wait a minute… why are you asking?” She added.
“Nothing… She’ll be touring with us.”
“You think she’s pretty Zac?” Nicole asked, looking at Zac with a worried look on her face.
“She’s ok.” Zac answered, lightly kissing her lips.
“You better keep your horny hands off her… little boy. Remember the punishment…ok?” Nicole said, pushing Zac’s hair behind his ears.
“You better be a good boy.” She added.