"Kel! You're back!" he exclaimed happily, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"Zac, I -"
"C'mon," he said, taking her hand.
To Kelsey's astonishment, he dragged her out to garage.
"Good, you have your helmet. Hop on," he said, putting his own helmet on and sitting on the bike.
"No," Kelsey replied. "No, I'm not going until you, you... you give me my bikes and tell me who that woman is. Your latest girlfriend?"
Zac considered this as Kelsey struggled to keep back the tears.
"Well, you can't get an explanation from me if I'm not here," he said, starting the motorcycle and starting down the driveway. "Come and get me!"
Kelsey stared for a long moment, then hurried over to her own motorcycle and followed. She kept behind Zac, although where on earth he was leading her she had no idea. At last he pulled up. She got off her bike, pulled off her helmet and looked around.
"Where are we?" she asked.
Zac smiled at her and pulled some keys out of his pocket.
"I had planned on showing you this when it was finished, but something came up that kinda made me change my plans," he replied, unlocking the door of the building.
They walked in and Zac turned on the lights. Kelsey looked around.
"It's a bar," she said, a little confused.
"Well, not quite yet. I still have some work to do before it's finished. And I wasn't sure how much of the managerial duties you wanted, but we can always hire someone to help you."
"W-what?"
"You do like it don't you?"
"I... I... I... y-yes. I... oh my gosh," she stammered. "I... I need to sit down."
"Hmm, well, we don't have any seats yet, so you're just going to have to sit on the bar," Zac replied, picking her up and placing her gently on the bar.
"W-why? How? When?"
"Oh Kel," Zac said, tucking a lock of stray hair behind her ear. "Kel, too many times I have looked at you doing work around the house and I... I have never seen you looked so trapped. We used to go bar-hopping all the time and riding on our bikes and stuff and then you got pregnant with Kitty and after awhile we just had to stop except for the occasional bike stuff we've just started doing during the few off weekends we have."
Kelsey saw tears glistening in Zac's eyes.
"It kinda began to feel like I caged you somehow, Kel, and I never wanted to do that. I mean, you did all the household stuff because you're really the only one available to do it. Avie has her acting jobs and when Sarah and Hope aren't at school, they have homework or band practice or gigs to do. And I'm always working on either the show to the label. So that leaves you to do all the domestic stuff, and I'm really sorry."
"Zac..."
"No, please, let me finish. The woman you saw in the house today, that was Jacqueline Maguire. I hired her as a housekeeper, so she's gonna do all the cooking and cleaning and stuff. I've bee looking into adding on a couple more bedrooms to the house. One for Jacqueline and well, we can always use spare bedrooms with this family. This... this bar? Organising this for you was what I'd been doing with those supposed extra hours at work. And the disk, oh Kel, if I had known it would hurt you, I'm so sorry Kel. I was... a teenage boy, and that should be all the explanation required."
Kelsey managed a laugh.
"Serious, I was twelve and I met this girl on tour, and then I met another one and figured, hey the first one'll never know. And I used the same logic on the next ones and by the time we finished the tour I had twenty-odd girlfriends. But when I wanted to date Cassie I dumped them all for her sake. And I haven't cheated on anyone since. I promise you, Kel. I promise!"
Kelsey wrapped her arms around him.
"Oh Zac, I'm so sorry! I, I found the disk and I asked Isaac about it. I never really believed you'd cheat on me until..." she started crying, "until I left and you... you never came for me."
"I, I didn't know what to do Kel," Zac admitted. "But, but I knew you'd have to come back to the house sometime. And I knew you had to talk to me again sometime. So I thought, I thought I could try and have as much of this done as possible for you by then. So I could show you. Oh man, Kel, I have never been so scared in my life. I was so scared I was going to lose you, Kel. Please, never leave me again."
"I won't," she promised. "I won't. And, and I won't even consider pulling something like that again. I'm sorry, Zac."
"I'm sorry too."
And the apologies led to kissing. And the kissing led to... well, I'll let you use your imagination (or not if that paints bad mental pictures).