Chapter Four: Bad Rash

Zach’s POV:

Our first interaction with each other was blown up.

We had said zero words to each other, and yet the name Zoey Michael was all over social media by the following day.

Vince wanted her and me to be a done deal.

Vince: The rumors are out there now; make it happen.

I did not respond to his text messages. If you scrolled to the start of our text conversation, you would see a total of zero replies from me.

Her reaction to me was not what I was expecting.

My reaction to her was not what I was expecting.

I was tongue-tied. It would have sounded like a mash-up of words if she had asked me a question. This woman had me speechless, almost as if I was star-struck by her.

Was this how my fans felt when they meant me?

She had walked into the apartment lobby with a zipped-up sweatshirt hanging open and showing a hot black crop top showing off her abs underneath. One thing was for sure, Zoey worked out a lot.

She made eye contact with me, her eyes going a little big, and that was all. No screaming. No pictures taken of me with her phone. No autograph asked for. Her dark blue eyes looked over at me, we paused for a second since she was coming in and I was leaving, but that was all.

That one encounter with her left me replaying it all night over and over.

It had me replaying it over, and over that, I turned my side lamp on in the middle of the night and did something I had not done in nearly two years.

I wrote down a melody.

The melody came easily; once you wrote a song, it was like riding a bike, something you never forgot how to do.

The lyrics came next, spilling out of me.

It was as if the floodgates had been opened, and the words could not escape me fast enough. If I knew all I had to do was board a plane and move in next door to my muse, I would have done it sooner.

The next morning I ran into her by the elevator, destiny being on my side.

“Argh,” Zoey bellowed out as she ran into me, her head concentrated on her phone. She had this determined look in her eyes, and I knew she was reading the blogs about us.

I grabbed onto her shoulders to keep her upright.

“Easy there.” At least the first words I spoke to her came out as words and not a jumbled mess.

She placed her hands on me briefly before I put a little bit of space between us. I wanted to grab her hips pull her into me, and kiss those pouty lips of her. I had never wanted to kiss someone as much as I wanted to kiss her.

When was the last time I found the thought of kissing so sexy?

“Zoey, right?” Smooth, act like I kind of know her name.

“That’s right. And a very late Zoey if I do not leave now.” Her phone had chimed four times since I had bumped into her. She was walking away from me.

“Wait,” I yelled louder than I intended to.

She turned around as she kept walking. “Look, my life is kind of blowing up due to being in one picture with you….”

My head tilts to the side; holy shit. “You do not want to be seen with me?” It felt like a gut punch.

Her hand tapped the elevator button behind her. She smiled at me as the doors opened, and she stepped back into it.

“Exactly.”

I stood there frozen as she smiled at me as the doors closed.

And for the first time, I texted Vince. I had to know.

Zach: Does she have a boyfriend? Vince: Dog Groomer? Zach: She has a name. Vince: Zoey, the one true magical princess….. Vince: Not from what we can tell.

I did not care to know who “we” was. I just wanted to know why Zoey acted like I was a bad rash that she did not want anyone to see.

What was wrong with me?