| Elite Fan
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 26,845
|  New thread!  Thanks for opening Taylor! 
There are sooo many new people over here so I'll say a blanket hiya! 
Sooo sorry for the long wait. RL ftl today and if I posted yesterday the update would have looked like this... Quote:
Vanellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll, etc. for a whole page.  | Ehh, nothing special.  Quote:
She couldn’t get the paint out of her hair. She’d been trying for the past couple of hours and while it was no longer Pepto-Bismol pink, there were still bits and strands to which the paint stubbornly clung. She was methodically running a comb through her hair, attempting to work some of the paint out that way, hoping to avoid a trip to the salon, when her doorbell rang. She tensed at the sound, her first thought that it was Zac coming by to start round 2. Hesitantly, she approached the door, standing on her tiptoes to reach the peephole. Falling back on her heels she breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Ashley and quickly opened the door.
Ever the observant one, Ashley took one look at Vanessa’s paint-speckled hair and glowy (author’s note: Carrie FTW  ) features and said, “Oh my god – you totally had sex with him!”
Vanessa could feel the blood rush into her face; on second thought, maybe having Zac at the door would have been less mortifying. Trying to brazen it out, she stepped aside to let Ashley in, saying, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “Oh please – you have the biggest love bite known to mankind on your neck, your face looks like you rubbed sandpaper all over it, your lips look like you overdosed on collagen and your eyes have that droopy ‘I’ve been well-sexed’ look about them. I don’t know what’s going on with your hair though.”
Instinctively, Vanessa’s hand moved to the tender spot on her neck before she clenched fistfuls of hair at either temple, shaking her head in dismay. “I don’t know what happened. One minute I was angry enough that I threw paint at him, and the next thing I know I’m jumping on him, we’re tearing each other’s clothes off and rolling all over the drop cloths…” Vanessa said, completely chagrined by her actions.
“That sounds so hot!” Ashley commented, fanning herself a little with her right hand.
“Oh god, it was!” Vanessa let slip out as she remembered the feeling of pure lust that had overtaken her when she’d heard his uttered, “You’re beautiful.” But it didn’t take long for the guilt to rear its ugly head. “What the heck was I doing?! He’s a lying son of a bitch, an egotistical Hollywood playboy who has some of the hottest women in the world falling all over him. There’s no way he means the things he says,” she trails off, feeling a twinge of pain at this voiced supposition. “I hate him…don’t I?” she finished weakly, utterly and completely confused.
Ashley took her friend by the shoulders and guided her towards the family room’s sofa. “I guess that’s the million dollar question, huh?” Ashley stated sympathetically. “The guy you got to know – ‘David’ - was none of the things you hate about ‘Mr. Hollywood.’ So who’s the real Zac Efron – and don’t you think you should find out before you throw something potentially wonderful away?”
Leaning her head against the sofa’s backrest, Vanessa heaved a weary sigh, “I don’t know, Ash, I just don’t know anymore…”
&&&&&&
An hour later, Ashley exited Vanessa’s house, pulling her phone out as she walked to her car. As she settled in the driver’s seat, she waited for her call to be answered.
“Hey, do you have a second?” she said as soon as the person came on the line. “We need to talk about V…”
&&&&&&
Chris really didn’t want to be here. To begin with, he was pretty sure he and his two friends were the last people the owner of this particular house wanted to see, considering that they did their best to maim him the last time he saw them. Secondly, he still didn’t know if he trusted the guy after the stunt he pulled. But it was either do this or risk getting nagged to death by a blonde tyrant; to Chris’s way of thinking this was the lesser of two evils.
Reluctantly he rang the doorbell and waited for it to be answered. When the door swung open, he took one look at the house’s owner and couldn’t help the smirk that formed on his face. “Pink’s a good color for you.”
Zac ran a hand nervously through his paint-speckled hair and stared cautiously at the man currently darkening his doorstep. “Can I help you?”
Chris had scrambled for a reason why he showed up after regular working hours, and the only thing he could come up with was pretty lame, “I…uh…need to mount your flatscreen TV to the wall.”
Perplexed and a little suspicious, Zac peered behind Chris. “Where’s the rest of the goon squad?”
Trying to suppress the irritation he could feel building up, Chris took a deep breath and said, “It’s just me. Mr. Efron, it’s HudCon’s policy to get the full job done – from breaking down to putting everything back together again. Since we had to take the TV down to treat and re-paint the walls, we need to put it back up. Unless you like having to look down at the screen while it sits on the floor? In which case I can just leave it for another day or 5…” Chris hoped Efron didn’t pick up on the fact that he was talking out of his ass.
Reluctantly, Zac stepped aside to let Vanessa’s right-hand man in, thankful to see neither the crowbar nor mallet in sight. He followed Chris into the family room, forgetting what he had stored in there when he had gotten home earlier.
Chris let out a whistle of appreciation at the surfboard leaning against the wall. It looked more like a piece of artwork than a functional piece of sports equipment. It had a deep blue base with subtle blending of reds and oranges. It reminded him of a typical California sunset.
Zac noticed what had caught Chris’s attention and again ran his hand nervously through his hair before grasping the back of his neck. “Think she’ll like it?”
Surprised, Chris turned back to Zac. He had no doubt in his mind that Vanessa would love a board like this. “You got this for V?!?”
He enthusiastically stepped forward, taking the surfboard from the wall to better show it to Chris. “Yeah, I had it made for her and helped with the graphic design. I thought it would be safe to go with blue and orange because that’s what she used for the company logo. I also went with red because she seems to favor that color with her clothing choices, and it’s the color of her truck. I didn’t want to go too abstract with the design, but since she loves the ocean at sunset I wanted the graphic to capture that as best as it could. I think it turned out awesome! I can’t wait to show her.”
Chris looked at Zac, who was standing there with a cheesy grin on his face as he talked about the surfboard – something he’d obviously put a lot of thought into creating. He couldn’t help but be impressed by how much Zac had been able to pick up about Vanessa in the relatively short amount of time they’d known each other. Maybe Ashley was right, and there was more to both of their feelings than V seemed to realize. Deciding to trust Ashley’s instincts, and realizing the present conversation was the perfect lead-in, he pretended disinterest as he said offhandedly, “It’s a nice looking board. If she’d accepted it from you – and that’s a big if considering – she might have been able to test it out today. Heard there were going to be some great afternoon swells again.”
Zac’s head perked up at Chris’s last statement. She’d be out there again today – if he hurried, maybe he could catch her and a few waves in the process. Leaning the board reverently back on the wall he glanced at over at Chris, who had just started pulling out the necessary tools and hardware to mount the flatscreen. “Umm, I just remembered an appointment I have to keep in town. Will you be able to handle this on your own if I take off?”
“Pfft, I’ve seen you handle tools, so your absence is more a blessing than a loss.”
“Riiiight,” Zac said, rolling his eyes. He ran to grab the spare key out of the kitchen and handed it to Chris. “Just lock up if you finish before I get back and take this with you. You can return it to me when you’re onsite next.
“A little trusting, don’t you think?” Chris inquired.
“Nah, I know you’d never do anything to hurt V or her company so I consider it a calculated risk. Plus, Vanessa trusts you, and I respect a man who’s willing to stand up for a friend. Loyalty’s something I value highly,” Zac finished, a serious light briefly entering his eyes at this last statement, which Chris caught nonetheless.
Then, throwing a quick “See ya,” over his shoulder as he took off in the direction of his bedroom to change for the beach, he left Chris standing there, a slight smile beginning to crack on his lips.
&&&&&
There was nothing riding the perfect wave couldn’t cure, Vanessa thought as she leisurely paddled back out beyond the break to eagerly await the next set of oncoming waves. She’d been out here for 45 minutes, and in that time she’d been able to completely blank her mind of everything except catching the perfect ride. Thoughts of Zac and her mixed feelings for him were finally banished after a week of mental debate.
Unfortunately her newfound mental bliss was to be short-lived, for when she reached the conclave of other waiting surfers she noticed one with a telltale speckling of hot pink paint in his hair waiting on the outskirts. Without a second thought, she paddled over to him, and sent her guns blazing.
“What are you stalking me now?!” she whispered viciously, ever mindful of the couple of other surfers nearby. “Can’t you leave me alone for one afternoon? God, just when I’d finally succeeded it getting my brain to stop going round and round about you, you have to show up and start it up all over again. Ooo, you make me so mad…”
Zac had known the moment she’d sensed his presence and had watched as she paddled over to him. Truthfully as soon as he’d seen her, everything else around him had ceased to exist, his sole focus on her. He even tuned out the words she spoke, completely mesmerized by her physicality. Her eyes, even in a fit of pique, sparkled charmingly; her face was flushed from exercise and now also from irritation; even the way she gesticulated wildly while trying to emphasize her point he found completely adorable. “God I have it bad,” he thought unable to suppress the smirk forming on his face.
“…are you even listening to me?!?” Vanessa demanded, finally noticing the slightly dazed look and smirky tilt of his mouth. “Zac?!?”
“You’re cute when you’re mad,” was all he said before grabbing her shoulders and leaning over to plant one on her. He took advantage of the little gasp having his hands on her elicited by sliding his tongue in her mouth to tangle with hers. The sudden assault on her mouth left little time for Vanessa to rally her defenses so she mindlessly succumbed to the pleasure of his kiss, the hands previously flailing about in anger burying themselves in his hair. But just as quickly as it began it ended, Zac pulling back and letting go.
Sending another cheeky grin her way, he said, “I’m just here to surf!” before lying down on his board, looking back and paddling to catch the next ride.
Vanessa watched him surf the wave – he looked so perfect out there that her heart ached a little seeing him. Shaking her head and completely baffled by the events of the last mere 5 minutes she muttered, “What the heck am I going to do?”
&&&&&&
She still hadn’t answered that all-important question a few days later, nor was she any less confused. After spending all hours trying to get her to talk to him when his secret was revealed, it seemed that Zac was now content to give her the space she professed to want. Stranger still, there now inexplicably existed an easy camaraderie between him and her “guys,” a fact that left her feeling slightly bereft and abandoned.
To top it off, the house renovations were all but complete. This project was coming to a close, with only the backyard landscaping left to do. She couldn’t bring herself to go back into the bedroom after the paint incident, so he would just have to live with that pink room.
A little over a week ago, she couldn’t wait to be done with Zachary David Alexander Efron and his house. Now, facing the end and all it entailed with a cooler head, she wasn’t sure what she’d miss the most, the house or the man. As much as she loved the house, she had a sneaking suspicion that it was the latter.
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Mel 
