Chapter One
Zac
He tugged at the door handle. It stuck a little. They all do in winter, Zac thought, glad that some things never changed. A cold wind whipped around the corner of the building and Zac tugged harder, opening the door and blowing inside with the wind.
As the door closed behind him, he took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scents of fabric softener and lint with just a hint of unwashed socks. Zac smiled. He loved laundromats. New towns, same old places. He did a quick sweep of the customers - an older lady in a green housedress and worn canvas tennis shoes, a tired-looking woman with an untidy ponytail who was watching a soap opera on the laundromat's black and white television, and a little boy with curly brown hair. The boy was about three, Zac guessed, and the pony-tailed woman was probably his mom. The little boy wandered over to the foggy windows and started drawing loops on them with his fingers. "Michael!" the pony-tailed woman hissed. Michael reluctantly stopped drawing and slowly wandered back to his mother. Zac felt sorry for the little guy.
Neither lady was the least bit interested in Zac, which is exactly what he wanted. He took off his coat and settled down in a big vinyl-covered armchair far from the television. The chair's seat was sprung, and really lumpy, and the whole thing was probably being held together with duct tape, but it was surprisingly comfortable. Better than the hard plastic ones, anyway. Zac swung his legs over one arm of the chair, grabbed an old magazine from the wire basket next to him, and started flipping through it. Woman's Day, Zac laughed to himself, there's one I don't get to read often.
The warmth and humidity of the small laundromat wrapped around Zac like a favorite blanket. From a nearby dryer came the rhythmic thud-thud of someone's shoes going around, and Zac's foot twitched along instinctively. Pretty soon, the magazine slipped to his lap as he nodded off.
Jillian
I really don't want to have to wake this guy up. I guess I really don't have to, how much of a hurry am I actually in? Jillian realized she was biting her fingernail and yanked it out of her mouth, annoyed at herself. She stood there, rocking back and forth on her heels for a second, trying to decide how important this whole thing was. She had made up her mind not to bother him, and started to turn away again, when his body sensed the person standing next to him and he woke with a start.
"I'm really sorry," she said quietly. The guy sat up and started to push his long hair out of his face.
"I didn't want to wake you," she continued hesitantly, "but I was wondering...if those were your clothes over there." She pointed towards the object of her anxiety.
The guy's head came up suddenly, startling her. His eyes blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the light. Jillian quickly decided that he was about her age. Judging by his size and build, she had figured him to be older, but then again, he had been sleeping with hair all over his face. His gaze followed her arm to where she was pointing - a dryer across the aisle, full of clothes, but no longer running.
"No, they're not mine, sorry," he answered with a shrug.
Jillian's face fell. "Phooey!" she said quietly.
"Excuse me?" he said with a chuckle.
Did I just say 'phooey'? she thought, horrified that she actually sounded like her mother. "Well, it's the only dryer that's not broken or already running, and I really need a dryer," she sighed.
The guy motioned towards the other two women. "Did you ask them?"
Jillian gave a small disappointed shake of her head, sending her long brown hair swinging. "They said to ask you."
"Well," he said, absently scratching the tip of his nose, "I've been asleep, so I don't know if anyone besides them has been in here lately, and I'm not doing laundry anyway, so they can't be mine."
His comment caused an alarm to go off inside her head. Oh, no, not another one of them, not here! Jillian eyed him suspiciously. But something about him caused her gut instinct to overrule her brain, and she decided he was not one of them.
"Did you say you're not here doing laundry?"
"Yep." His legs were swinging slightly, his feet making a hollow thumping sound as they hit the side of the chair. He looked amused.
She leaned in a little closer and peered at him. She was sure she didn't know him but he did look slightly familiar. Maybe he was in one of her lecture classes.
"Then..."
"...why am I sitting in a laundromat?" He sounded like he was almost expecting her to ask it, as if he got asked that question a lot.
"Yeah." She hopped up onto a nearby washer, her earlier desperate need for a dryer forgotten as her curiosity got the better of her.
The guy grinned and tucked some stray hairs behind his ear. "Do you want the long or the short version?"
She looked at her watch. "I'm free," is all she said.
He swung his legs to the floor and leaned back in the lumpy chair. "I'll give you the long version, then. But first," he said, leaning up again and holding out his hand to her. "I'm Zac."
"Jillian," she replied, shaking the offered hand. He had a nice handshake.
All of a sudden he stood up. He was an awful lot taller than he looked. "Hey. I say, since no one's claming those clothes," - he pointed at the stopped dryer - "we should take them out. Standard laundromat rules!" He crossed to the dryer in one long stride, yanked open the dryer and started tossing the unclaimed clothes into a big wire basket that was standing nearby. Jillian protested, looking around nervously - but she did need it, so she slid off the washer and put her stuff into the newly-emptied dryer. She'd seen people do that before but had never had the guts to do it herself.
The guy - Zac - fell back down onto the chair, which creaked in protest. "OK, here's the story. I'm traveling with my brothers, we're musicians..."
Ah ha! That's where I've seen him before!!! Her mind flashed an image of a poster on the back of her younger sister's bedroom door. Jillian reclaimed her previous seat on the washing machine. Strangely, she actually felt more relaxed now that she knew who he was, even though he was someone famous. This should be interesting.
