The crowd cheers as we exit the stage. I’m hot and sweaty and I just want to find a bottle of whiskey and call it a night but I know that won’t happen, not yet anyway. We’re only halfway through our set; I hear the crowd scream when Brian starts his guitar solo. Gena brings me a bottle of water and dabs my face with a towel before kissing my cheek.

“You sound amazing out there, baby,” she tells me, smiling.

I return the smile after guzzling down some water. “Thanks,” I tell her.

Gena has been up my ass more than usual since Sheridan appeared at our front door a few weeks ago. I keep telling her she has nothing to worry about but I know with how I treat her, she doesn’t believe me. Hell, sometimes I don’t even think I believe myself.

A part of me wishes Sheridan would have never come back. I had finally moved on, and working on being happy. I stopped looking for her everywhere I went, my heart didn’t stop every time I saw someone with long black curly hair like hers. Even with all the progress I made, though, I knew I would never fully move on. I mean, it had been six years and I still thought of Sheridan every day. She wasn’t my first thought in the morning but she always popped into my thoughts before the day was over. There would be days when I thought of nothing but her, times when I wanted to pick up the phone and tell her about the day I had…

Okay, maybe I haven’t made as much progress as I thought I have, but it’s definitely not as bad as it was six years ago.

“There’s a party tonight after the show. We should totally go!” Gena smiled, nodding. This was a trick she learned a few years ago and I eventually caught on to. She thinks if she nods while suggesting something, I’ll automatically agree with her. Sometimes I do.

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” I agree. My guitar tech hands me a new guitar and I hand him the one around my body. “Where is it at?”

Gena shrugs. “I think one of the other bands is throwing it. He lives here in L.A.”

“Okay, yeah,” I kiss her on the lips. “I have to get back out there.”

“Okay,” she grins and kisses me one more time before I head back out on stage.

Throughout the rest of the show, I can’t help but notice a pretty brunette in the front row that keeps staring and making eye contact with me. I smirk at her and wink as I watch her swoon over me. Between songs, I tell the nearest security guard to fetch the girl after the show and take her backstage.

I know what I'm doing to Gena is wrong and I honestly don’t know why I do it. Other than being completely annoying at times, Gena is great. She’s sweet and caring; she loves me and the sex is amazing. I’m sure, in some sort of way, this is all Sheridan’s fault. I don’t have a way to pin it on her yet, but I’m sure it’s her fault.

“Thank you, Los Angeles!” Matt screams into the mic.

I grab some of my guitar picks and toss them out in the crowd, noticing that the girl that kept eyeing me is no longer in the crowd but is being led backstage with the security guy I spoke with. I can’t help but smile, knowing what’s going to happen in the next hour. I toss the last few of my picks out to the crowd, blow some kisses, take a bow and run off the stage.

Gena is waiting for me backstage. “Great show, baby!”

“It was good! Hey, I’m going to shower before the party, but you go ahead and take my car and I’ll take a cab there,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “Oh, I don’t mind waiting.”

“No really, go ahead. You’ve been waiting on me all night, go have a couple of drinks, dance to a couple of songs,” I tell her, stealing her trick of nodding and suggesting. “I won’t be long.”

“Okay,” she smiles. “I’ll text you the address.”

“Sounds great,” I tell her and begin to head deeper into the backstage area.

I decide to really take a shower before I meet the girl from the crowd. I head straight for my bag and pull out some bathroom necessities before heading for the showers. I strip off my sweaty clothes and turn on the shower. I wash quickly knowing the less time I spend in this shower the more time I can waste on the fangirl. I get out of the shower just as I hear the rest of the guys entering the room and wrap a towel around my waist.

“Damn Zack, you’re ready to get out of here, aren’t you?” Brian laughs as he strips off his shirt.

“Yeah, I’ve got something to do before I head to that party,” I tell them, drying my hair with another towel.

Jimmy laughs. “More like someone to do!”

Matt had just stepped into the shower so he sticks his head out. “Oh, come on, Zack. Don’t.”

“I’m not doing anything,” I tell him, shaking my head but I knew he knew I was lying. I walk out of the room before anyone else can say anything to me and head to my bag. I pull out my post-show clothes, some jeans and a random shirt I pulled from the closet and get dressed quickly. Soon enough I exit the room and head down the hallway looking for the fangirl or the security guard that could tell me where she was.

I turn down the hallway and see Michelle and Val standing there, talking. I turn around, knowing if they saw me they would tell Gena I was already out od the shower but stop dead in my tracks when I hear the name “Sheridan”.

As far as I know, the three of us only knew one Sheridan. I stand there with my back to them for a seemingly long moment trying to decide on what to do. They know that Sheridan came by my house, but that was weeks ago. Why on earth would they be talking about her now? Finally, I turn and reluctantly head in their direction.

“What about Sheridan?” I ask them.

Michelle and Val both look surprised to see me. “Zack,” Michelle starts. “Uh…nothing, no one said anything about Sheridan…we said, uh…”

“Cut the crap, Michelle,” I tell her. “I heard you say her name.”

Val and Michelle looked at each other uncomfortably. “Well, we were thinking about visiting her before we left L.A. but now there’s this party and…”

I narrow my eyes. “You told her? Since when have you two been in contact with her?”

Val shrugs. “She came to Michelle’s house after she left yours a couple weeks ago. The three of us have been texting since.”

“You’ve been what?” I ask in disbelief.

“Don’t be mad, Z. We wanted to tell you but…we just thought it would be best if you didn’t know.”

I was starting to get real tired of what people thought was the best for me. “Have you guys seen her since?”

It takes them a moment but eventually they nod. “We had lunch last week and we met her roommate.”

“You said you were going to go see her, does that mean you know where she lives?”

“Yeah…” they answer cautiously in unison.

I stared at them for a moment. I weighed my options and argued silently with myself. “Give me it.”

“Give you…Zack…”

I shake my head. “Let me have her address. I want to go see her.” I wanted to tell her to stay the fuck away from my friends.

“Zack, don’t,” Val told me. “Nothing good is going to come out of you seeing her again. That’s why we’ve been keeping it a secret that we’ve been hanging out.”

I scoff. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for me, Valary. Just like Sheridan shouldn’t have decided what was best for me. Come on, give me her address so I can go see her.”

“Are you forgetting about Gena? Your girlfriend?” Val asks me sharply.

I roll my eyes. “Gena knows she doesn’t have anything to worry about when it comes to Sheridan. Look, I just want to go tell her to back up and go back to her life and let me live mine.”

“Fine,” Michelle gives in. She grabs a pen out of her purse and writes the address down on a receipt and hands it to me.

I take it from her and without another word, turn on my heel and head towards the nearest exit. Before I get there though, a security officer stops me. “Haley is in dressing room six for you.”

It takes me a moment to think of who Haley must be. “Oh shit,” I say shaking my head. The fangirl! I forgot all about her. “Uh, just give her some merch. Give her like a shirt and, I don’t know, a poster or something. I have to go,” I tell him

I hail a cab and one stops immediately. I hand him the receipt and he nods, starts the meter and begins driving. To be entirely honest, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. Sure, a part of me is headed to tell Sheridan to back off but there is no denying the part of me that is eager to see her again.

I pick at my cuticles as the cabbie takes me to Sheridan’s apartment. I try to think of what I'm going to say to her, but words fail me. Before I can come up with any sort of plan, the cabbie stops. I pull out my wallet and pay him the amount owed for the ride and crawl out of the cab. I shove my hands in my pocket just in time to feel my phone vibrate. I pull it out and glance at the screen. I have two text messages, one from Gena asking if I'm on my way yet and another from Val telling me it’s not too late for me to change my mind.

I stare at my phone, knowing the right thing to do would be to turn around and go to that party with my girlfriend but my feet lead me to the entrance of the apartment building. Without replying to either, I shove my phone back into my pocket and climb the stairs to the fifth floor. According to Michelle, said that Sheridan lives on the fifth floor in room 13E.

“10E…11E…12E…” I count quietly as I pass the apartments. I stop in front of room 13E and take a deep breath before bringing my knuckles to the door. My hands feel clammy and I bring my hand back down to my side without knocking and wipe my hands on my jeans.
Why was I feeling like this? My body is acting like this is the first time I am seeing her since we were in high school when that isn’t the case at all. I shake my head and turn on my heel, and start waking away from 13E. I’m almost to 11E when I stop again and internally groan.

“Get yourself together,” I tell myself. I stand there motionless for a moment, silently cursing myself before walking back to Sheridan’s door. Before I can change my mind again, I knock and then shove my thumbs into my pocket as I wait for her to answer the door.

Instead of Sheridan, the girl she was with at the bar wearing the Freddy Krueger costume on
Halloween answers. “Hi, can I help you?” She asks, scrunching her eyebrows together.

“Uh…” I start, losing the words that were on the tip of my tongue. “Is uh…Sher…um, Sutton home?”

“Oh, sure!” She smiles, then calls behind her shoulder, “Sutton! There’s someone at the door for you.”

“Thanks,” I tell her awkwardly.

She opens the door wider. “She’s just now getting out of the shower, so it might be a second. Go ahead and come on in and wait.”

I nod and walk into their apartment, looking around. The apartment isn’t very big, I’ve stayed in hotel rooms with more space, but it’s homey. I notice there are not very many pictures of Sheridan around the living room, but a lot of photos of the roommate with random people. I realize this must be because Sheridan had been in hiding for so long that she never got the chance to take pictures with friends, or maybe to even have friends.

“My name is Rachel,” the girl smiles, extending her hand.

I take it and smile. “Zack,” I reply. “So, how long have you known Sher…Sutton?”

Rachel shrugs. “About a year or so. I was looking for a roommate and she was looking for a place to live, so I guess it was just fate! How about you?”

“Uh…” I start, unsure of how to answer. “I’ve known Sutton for a few weeks.”

“Oh, cool! How did you guys meet?” She asks. Man, she is full of questions.

I answer with, “At the bar on Halloween.”

“Oh.” Rachel’s eyes get wide. “Oh!” She smiles with the slight hint of a smirk. “I was wondering where she went that night! She claimed she was tired and went back to the hotel to sleep but I knew that wasn’t the case.”

Ah, shit. Didn’t mean to let the truth slip out that much. I open my mouth to reply but before I can, Sheridan walks into the room. Her hair is wet from the shower and she’s wearing booty shorts and a top showing off her midriff. My mouth goes dry and hate myself because of it.

“Zack?” Her eyes are as big as silver dollars. “Why are you…I mean, what are you doing here? How did you get my address?”

“Same way you got mine I assume,” I tell her, attempting to keep my eyes on hers instead of her body.

“Zack here was just telling me that you two met on Halloween! Which means you lied to me about where you went after you disappeared!” Rachel accuses with a grin.

“Oh,” Sheridan forces a laugh, refusing to take her eyes off me. “Yeah, you caught me.”

“I knew it!” Rachel shrugs.

Sheridan ignores her. “Zack, what are you doing here?” She asked me again.

“I thought we could talk,” I tell her. I’m not sure what we will talk about and if I'm being a little honest, I’d love to do more than just talk.

Sheridan eyes me suspiciously but even agrees. “Okay. We can talk in my room.”

I nod. “It was nice meeting you,” I call back to Rachel and I follow Sheridan into her room. Sheridan opens her bedroom door and walks in. I follow closely behind her, shutting the door once we’re inside.

Sheridan’s room is small and bare. There’s a twin-size bed on the floor in the corner with a couple of pillows and a comforter. There’s a dresser on the other side of the room with a jewelry organizer on top of it, and on one of the walls, there’s a full-length mirror hanging on the wall, a bag of makeup sits on the floor beneath it. Compared to the living room, this room looks barely lived in.

“Did you just move in?” I ask, looking around. There were no boxes, but surely she had to have more stuff somewhere.

Sheridan shakes her head. “No, I’ve lived here since Eli was put in jail.”

“Where’s all your stuff?” I ask her.

“This is it,” she tells me. “It’s all I have. I mean, I know it’s not much. I never really thought of buying anything. I knew when Eli got out of jail I would have to leave again, so there was
really no point. I’m used to having everything I own fit in a backpack, so I guess I’m making
progress. I just bought the dresser and jewelry case the other day.”

“Moving on up in the world,” I mumble, still taking it all in. I knew Sheridan told me she was constantly moving around for the last several years, but I didn’t really think she meant like this. Until recently, all the stuff she owned fit in a backpack? Even when I go on tour I bring multiple suitcases plus a backpack.

Sheridan doesn’t reply right away. “So, what did you come here to talk about?”

I still don’t know what excuse to give her, so I tell her the first thing that comes to mind. It’s halfway the truth anyway. “You’ve been staying in contact with Michelle and Val?”

She sighs. “Look, Zack. They’re my friends too. I would have told you but…I don’t know. It’s not like we talk, I don’t even have a way to contact you unless I want to make the drive down to Huntington Beach. Plus, they think it’s best if we stay away from each other and I’ve thought about it and I think they’re right.”

“I’m getting really tired of people telling me what they think id right for me,” I tell her. If this were one of those romantic dramas on television, this would be the perfect time to step towards her and kiss her. But it’s not, this is real life. Hell, I’m a rockstar, so I do it anyway.

“Are you still with Gena?” She asks, stepping away before I could kiss her. This is the second time she’s rejected a kiss from me and I’m not used to it. No one rejects a kiss from Zacky Vengeance.

I sigh and shake my head. “No, I mean…fuck, yeah, I am but –”

“Then why are you here trying to kiss me?” She asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t know why I came here, okay? At first, I was pissed because you were talking to my friends behind my back –”

“They’re my friends too!”

“– But then, I don’t know, something changed.”

Sheridan scoffed. “Did you come here for a booty call?”

“What? No!” I tell her, “I mean…I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to do that but…”

She turns away from me, shaking her head. “God, Zack! You can’t come around here for stuff like that. Not only is it wrong because you’re with Gena but…I deserve more than that. You can’t even have a normal conversation with me, but you want me to fuck you?”

“No, Sheridan,” I pause and take a deep breath. This conversation was not going the way I thought it would. “I came here to have a conversation. I came here just to talk, I swear. It’s just…I see you and you look so damn good and I know it’s wrong but…I’m sorry, okay?”

She looks at me guardedly. “I don’t want you to cheat on Gena on me. I already feel bad enough about the first time…but we can talk; we can be friends if that’s what you came here for.”

I wasn’t sure if that’s what I came here for or not, but I agree anyway. “Okay, deal.”

She nods. “But not tonight…because I a have a date.”

“A date?” I scoff. “It’s like midnight. What kind of dude are you dating?” And what was that twinge I just felt inside my gut?

Sheridan laughs but I don’t see anything funny. “I work at a bar, Zack. I literally just got off work thirty minutes ago, it’s my fault the date has to start late.”

“So, do it on a different night,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “He’ll be here soon, so you should probably go,” she tells me. She grabs a pen off her dresser. “Give me your hand, I’ll write my number down.”

I reluctantly give her my hand and she writes seven digits down on the back of my hand in blue ink. “So, I’ll text you then?” I ask as she closes her pen and puts it back on the dresser.
She nods. “Yeah, sounds great. We’ll come up with a time that we can have that conversation,” she tells me.

I nod, knowing this would be the time for me to turn and leave but I have this theory that if I don’t leave Sheridan won’t go on her date. I don’t, however, have a theory on why I don’t want her to go on that date. “Living on the fifth floor of an apartment complex that only has stairs must suck,” I say randomly. “Especially on grocery day.”

Sheridan looks confused but answers anyway. “Well, there’s an elevator by the office. If you go left when you leave here, you’ll see it at the end of the hall on your right.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling like an idiot.

Sheridan nods. “Anyway, I’ll walk you out. Otherwise, Rachel will probably stop you and question you for the rest of the night.”

I force a laugh and nod, opening her bedroom door. We walk silently to the front door of her apartment. Rachel is nowhere to be seen but the television is on. “Alright. So, I guess I’ll text you tomorrow,” I tell her.

“Yeah, sounds great,” she smiles as I head into the hallway.

“Okay.” Fuck, why was this so awkward? “Bye then.”

“Bye, Zack,” Sheridan replies before shutting the door.

I stand in front of her door for several seconds before walking off. I hate myself for how I feel right now. I don’t know which switch flipped inside of me, but I wish I would switch back. Sheridan is dating around now and I don’t like it. I don’t like how sweaty my palms are and I don’t like this general feeling I’m feeling.

I head to the elevator and push the ground floor button. As the doors close, I pull my phone out of my pocket and find the text from Gena with the address for the party. I repeat it in my head for the remainder of the elevator ride and dial the cab company’s phone number as I exit the elevator. I just had to get to this party. Once I get to this party and get some liquor in my system I will feel better.

“United Cab Company,” the lady on the other end of the phone answers.

I clear my throat. “Hi, can I get a cab from…” as I exit the building I notice a car parked on the side of the street, a car that I recognize immediately.

“Sir? Are you there?” The lady on the phone asks. I ignore her and hang up my phone.

Gena is leaning against my car, facing the entrance of Sheridan’s apartment building with her arms crossed and a sour look on her face. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“Gena, what are you doing here?” I ask.

Gena scoffs. “What are you doing here Zack? You’re supposed to be at the party with me! I was worried about you, you weren’t replying to my texts and so Val finally told me where you were!”

Fucking Valary, she doesn’t know when to mind her own business, does she? “I was headed to the party right now,” I tell her.

Gena scoffs and stomps over to the driver’s side of the car. She doesn’t look at me as she yanks the door open, gets in and slams it shut. I sigh, knowing this is going to be a long ride home and walk over to the car. As soon as I reach it though, I hear the locks engage.

“Gena, what the fuck? Let me in.” I tell her through the window.

Gena rolls the window down. “What are you doing here with Sheridan, Zack?”

“Nothing,” I tell her, putting my hands on the door where the window disappeared into. “I just came here to talk to her, okay? That’s it.”

Gena sniffs. “I know about the fan you brought backstage.”

I hang my head. Am I really getting in trouble for something that didn’t even happen? “Okay, but nothing happened with her. I mean…fuck, yeah, I’ll admit I planned to, but I didn’t okay?”
“I don’t believe you!” Gena cried.

I suppressed a groan. “Gena, baby I swear, okay? I didn’t cheat on you. Not tonight.”

“Oh, really? Then who’s fucking number is that on your hand?” She asked.

I glanced down at my hand and instinctively pulled it away from the door and hid it from Gena’s sight. “No, this isn’t that girl's number. This is Sheridan’s, she –”

“Sheridan’s?!” Gena screeched. “Why the fuck do you need that woman’s phone number, Zack?” She starts the car and puts on the seat belt.

“Oh my God,” I groan. “What else can I do to make you realize that Sheridan and I are only friends?”

Gena puts the car in drive. “I guess you can figure that out on your cab ride home!”

I scoff. “Oh, fuck that! This is my car, Gena! A cab ride will cost a fortune!”

“Well, then I guess you can get Sheridan to give you a ride home!” Gena yells and before I can say anything she speeds off.

Notes

Thank you so much for reading! Thank you vengenz61, Joy1979, MotionlessTragedy for commenting on the previous chapter!

Title credit: Good Charlotte “Beautiful Place”