I couldn't resist this! Just a fun little one-shot. I know everyone wanted another chapter from Proposal Plans, and don't worry. It's coming soon! That story's actually done. I just had to get this one out there! Hope you enjoy it! PS... I don't own anything from this story!

Tires and Dings

It was a beautiful, sunny, typical Wednesday in Los Angeles. Vanessa Hudgens woke that morning to the sun fighting its way through the cracks of the closed blinds and the alarm blaring on the bedside table. On a typical morning, she would let out a groan as she reaches over to hit the snooze button and roll back over to begin the chore of waking her boyfriend of almost five years. The task is one that she has performed almost every morning for close to two of those five years, and was one that she could do in her sleep. It began with gently running her fingers through his hair, which didn't take as long as it used to since he recently cut it the shortest he's ever had it in the time that the young Hollywood actors have known each other. She then would lean over and place a soft kiss to his temple, which was followed up by a whispered "Wake up, Sleepyhead", a phrase for which she usually received a grunt in response. She would then get up to go use the restroom and wash her face, before returning to the bedroom. It would be normal for Vanessa to find Zac laying on his left side, clutching onto her pillow for dear life. It would also be normal for her to then lean down to his ear and try the whispered phrase once more. This morning, however, was slightly different.

When the alarm went off at 7:00, it was Zac who leaned over his dark haired lover to hit the snooze button, only to wrap his arms around her and spoon against her once again, pressing a soft kiss to her exposed shoulder in the process, waiting for the next nine minutes to pass before the alarm sounded a second time. Vanessa let out a soft moan as she snuggled into her boyfriend's arms again.

"I like moments like these," she murmured, as she began to run her hands up and down his arms.

"Shhh," he softly told her. "No talking, more sleeping." She gave out a soft giggle while leaning down to place a kiss to his arms.

A few minutes later when the alarm blared the annoying tone once again, Vanessa noted that Zac had indeed fallen back asleep. She also noted that he was not making any moves to turn it off this time. With a sigh, she leaned over to turn it off herself and thus began the normal morning routine of waking up her boyfriend. This time, when she returned from the bathroom and whispered the normal phrase for the second time, she actually received a response.

"Wake up, Sleepyhead," Vanessa whispered, as she leaned down to press a kiss to the shell of his ear. She then shrieked in surprise as she felt herself being tossed onto her back and looked up to see the blue eyes of her lover looking back down at her, with his arms on either side of her, holding her down on the mattress. "As much as I love Playful Zac, we unfortunately don't have time to be playful. You have a meeting with Jason at 9:00, meaning you need to leave by 8:15. It's now 7:16 and you really need to get up and get ready." She reached up and gently brushed her hand through his hair as she spoke.

"I hate breakfast meetings," Zac grumbled, as he fell onto his back beside Vanessa.

"You're the one who set it up," she pointed out as she rolled over onto her stomach and placed her elbows on the mattress and rested her chin in her hands. "If you don't like breakfast meetings, then why did you set this one up for this time frame?" she asked.

He turned his head just to the right, giving her a slight glare, which caused her to raise her eyebrows in an 'I told you so' fashion in return.

"Thank you, Ms. Sensitivity, for pointing out that I called Jason's office too late and this was the only time available for this week. I appreciate that you're rubbing in the fact that I have somewhere to be at a certain time while you can just go back to sleep if you wanted."

She softly giggled once again in the ten minutes that they'd been awake while she watched him stand up and make his way over to the dresser to grab a pair of his boxer briefs and walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind him in the process.

"I love you!" she called behind him. His response to her was to simply turn on the water to the shower. She rolled her eyes with a smile on her lips and decided to stand up and make her way downstairs to make the coffee and find some form of breakfast for herself.

When Zac got out of the shower and was dressed, ready for his day to begin, he sneaked a peek at the clock, noticing that he only had twelve minutes left before he had to leave to make the drive to the restaurant where he was meeting Jason for breakfast and a business meeting. He made his way downstairs and spotted Vanessa sitting at the bar with a pad and pen. She was still wearing her camisole top and the pair of his flannel pants that she wore to bed with her hair pulled up in a messy bun. She appeared to be writing something. He paused as he watched her lift the red pen to her mouth, chewing on the tip as she thought about something, then brought the pen down and wrote on the paper again. Lost in her thoughts, she jumped when he spoke up.

"What are you doing?"

She turned in the bar stool she was sitting in and looked at him, bringing a hand to her chest. "Geez, Zac, you scared me!"

"I'm sorry," he said with a chuckle as he approached her, placing his hands on her arms and placed a kiss on her right shoulder before running his hands up the sides of her arms to wrap around her shoulders. She set the pen down and reached up to connect their hands, placing a kiss on one of his.

"I'm making a grocery list. I thought we'd make dinner tonight before the game. Is there anything in particular you want?"

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I thought I'd go to Bristol Farms. They have a bigger selection of all the gourmet, organic stuff that you like," she told him, casting a glance at him over her shoulder.

"Yeah, there are a few things that I want."

"Here, write them down real quick." She passed him the pen and pad of paper that she was writing on earlier as she stood up to fix a bowl of cereal and cup of coffee.

He wrote the few items that he wanted Vanessa to pick up and walked up behind her again, wrapping his arms around her middle. He leaned down and placed a kiss on her cheek and she turned her face to his, giving him a soft kiss to the lips.

"You need to go," she told him.

"Yeah, I do," he responded, as he lifted his left arm to check the watch he was wearing.

She leaned up and gave him another kiss, this one longer than the last.

"I'll see you later," she told him as she pulled away.

"Okay. I love you," he said, giving her one last kiss as he pulled away from Vanessa and began walking toward the garage.

"I love you, too," she called after him. When she heard his car pull out of the garage and the door close again, she returned to her grocery list. Once her task was complete, she made her way upstairs to climb in the shower and get herself ready for the day.

As Vanessa completed her grocery shopping at Bristol Farms grocery store and was standing in line waiting to check out, she spotted the latest issue of Vanity Fair on a nearby magazine rack. With a shy smile, she let her mind wander back in time six years, to the day of the High School Musical auditions. The day that changed her life forever. The day that she met Zac. Getting lost in her thoughts, she failed to notice when the person in front of her left and it was her turn to pay. The person behind her captured her attention, startling her in the process.

"Excuse me, Miss Hudgens?" the stranger asked. It didn't surprise Vanessa that, in this town, the gentleman knew her name. "I'm sorry to startle you, but-". He stopped speaking, waving his hand in front of her to show that it was her turn.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she apologized.

"No, it's okay. You were lost in your thoughts. I get that way, too, sometimes. Don't apologize."

"Thank you," she told him with a smile, as she began unloading her groceries from the buggy and placing them on the conveyor belt. As the clerk began the task of ringing up her items, Vanessa and the gentleman behind her struck up a conversation easily. As she paid and turned to follow the bagger, who's nametag read "Brandon" as he pushed her cart to the parking lot, she pulled out her phone to attempt to call Zac, not knowing if his meeting was over yet or not. As she and Brandon approached her black Audi convertible, the young bagger stopped, causing an oblivious Vanessa, who was studying her phone, to accidentally bump into him.

"I'm so sorry!" she said with a hint of embarrassment.

"Miss Hudgens, did you know that you have a flat tire?"

"What?" she asked. Looking at the tire Brandon was pointing at, she let out a slight gasp. As she started walking around the front of the car, she noticed a scratch in the paint job that was about two and a half inches long. "No! Oh, man! What will he say about this one?"

It was a hot topic with her and Zac. After the first scratch job to her Audi awhile back, whenever she told him about something going on with one of her cars, he would just give her a look, as if he were blaming her for whatever had happened. She didn't see how she could possibly be to blame for everything that happened, and made the mistake of telling him so once. The simple comment led to a tiny argument between the two about her inability to- as he put it- to properly take care of cars and, even though it was no big deal in the long run, she still hesitated when it came to telling him about any sort of car trouble she had.

"Oh, man," she said again. Once Brandon was finished loading the bags into the backseat, he turned to face her.

"Miss Hudgens, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, Brandon. I will be. Thank you for your help," she told him, as she reached into her wallet and pulled out some cash to offer him. "I appreciate it."

"You're welcome, Miss Hudgens. I'm just inside if you need any help," he said before walking back inside.

With a sigh, she dialed the number for the AAA insurance company and was quickly reassured that someone would be there shortly. With another sigh, she prepared to hit speed dial one on her phone.

"I can't put this off forever. I better call him so he's not waiting at home wondering where I am." As she pushed send, she held her breath, not sure if she really wanted him to answer or not.

"Hey, you reached Zac…" Letting out the breath that she didn't even realize she was holding, she listened to the rest of his voice mail message before leaving him a message.

"Hey, Baby, it's me. I just wanted to let you know that I got a little tied up. Everything's fine, don't worry. It'll be maybe another half hour or so before I'm able to leave, but I'll give you a call when I'm on my way. I love you and I'll see you soon!"

She hung up just as the AAA employee showed up. When the mechanic approached her, holding out his hand, she noticed the name Ted embroidered on his shirt. She took his offered hand and greeted him.

"Hi, Ted. I'm Vanessa."

"Yes, ma'am. I know you and all three High School Musicals very well. My thirteen year old makes sure of it."

"Well, given that fact, this is a little bit more embarrassing than it started out being. Please ignore the photographers on the other side of the parking lot. It's me they want, not you," she joked.

"Don't worry about a thing. You're not the first celebrity I've helped out."

"Well, that makes this just a little bit easier to handle, I suppose."

The two fell into a comfortable conversation while Ted worked to put the donut tire on Vanessa's Audi. Once the task was complete, he informed Vanessa of a few instructions.

"Now, Miss Hudgens, make sure you take your tire as soon as possible to be repaired. It's possible that you may need to buy a new tire, but they can tell you that when you take it in."

"Thank you, Ted. I appreciate all of your help," she told him, shaking his hand once again. As she climbed into the convertible, she reached for her phone to call Zac once again. This time, he answered.

"Van, is everything okay?" he asked upon answering.

"Hello, it's so good to talk to you, too. I've missed you today. I can't wait to see you," she told him sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, Babe. I've just been worried about you ever since I got your message. How are you?"

"Everything's fine, I'm fine. You don't need to worry. I just wanted to let you know that I'm on my way back."

"The car's okay?"

"Why do you always assume that there's something wrong with the car?"

"Because I know you, Van, and 'got a little tied up' is Vanessa-talk for 'something's wrong with the car and I don't want to tell Zac'."

"Fine," she said with a sigh. "But can we just wait until I get home and we can talk about it then?"

"Yeah, we can do that. Be careful on your way home. It was a long, tedious meeting and I'm frustrated."

Great, she thought to herself. Now he's not going to be in a good mood when I tell him about the scratch.

"Oh, I'm sorry you're meeting didn't go well. I'll be home soon and we can talk about it."

"Okay, I love you," he told her.

"I love you, too. Bye."

"Bye, Babe." The two hung up and Vanessa continued the drive to her home, mentally psyching herself up for breaking the news of her damaged car to an already annoyed Zac.

The first thing she noticed when she walked in the door from the garage into the kitchen were his keys, phone, and the loose change from his pockets haphazardly thrown on the kitchen counter. She had bought a dish to put on the counter and had even "trained" him to put his stuff in said dish, but occasionally, if he wasn't having the best of days, he'd still just drop them wherever they landed. She took note of this, with only one thought in her head.

Great. Keys on the counter equals an annoyed Zac. Maybe if I joke it up, the news won't seem so bad.

"Zac?" she called out. "I'm home. Where are you?"

"In here," she heard in response. She took a deep breath, setting her own keys in the dish and her phone next it with her purse on one of the bar stools. Making her way toward the den, she spotted Zac on the couch with a game controller in his hand. She sneaked a glance at the screen and saw him engrossed in a game on the Xbox. Turning back to him, he felt her deep brown eyes on him and glanced up at her.

"Hey, Babe. Give me just a minute to get to a good stopping point and I'm all your's."

"That's fine," she said, as she sat down on the couch next to him, watching his movements in the game. Finally after a few minutes, he hit pause and turned to properly greet the love of his life.

"How was your outing?" he asked, after leaning over to give her a kiss.

"I'll tell you about it in a minute. Give me another kiss; I missed you." He obliged to her wish, giving her the kiss that they both have been needing after their equally frustrating days. When they finally pulled apart, she grabbed his hand and stood up, pulling him up with her.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"You," she said, turning to poke a finger in his chest, "are about to teach me how to change a flat tire." She turned back and continued walking through the kitchen in the direction of the garage

Zac came to a stop, forcing Vanessa to do so as well. When she turned to face him, she cringed slightly at the look on his face.

"What do you mean? What are you not telling me about the car?"

"That there's a spare tire on the driver's side front," she almost whispered.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Care to say it again?"

She repeated the sentence, just slightly louder this time, still causing him to strain to make out what she's saying.

"Vanessa-" he began in a warning tone.

Crap. The full name. She took a deep breath before repeating herself once more.

"There's a spare tire on the front of the driver's side. There, happy? I messed up yet another car," she admitted, suddenly finding interest in the patterns sketched in the tile on the floor, tracing the one in front of her with her foot. She sneaked a glance up at her boyfriend's brilliant blue eyes only to see him standing with his arms crossed across his chest and looking at her face as if he were studying it for signs of more.

"Is that it?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, slightly confused.

"Is that all that happened to the car?"

"Yeah, why?" she said softly, hoping the shaking in her voice didn't give away her slight fib.

"Van, you wouldn't be this antsy to tell me about flat tire. Flat tires happen to everyone. There's nothing to be embarrassed about if it's just a flat tire. What else happened to the car?" he asked.

She bit her lip, trying to figure out how to tell him about the mysterious scratch. As Zac watched her chewing on her lip- a sign of anxiety for her, and he knew this- he gave out a sigh and took her in his arms, giving her a comforting hug. She wrapped her arms around his middle in response.

"Baby, what ever it is, it's just a car. As long as you're okay. That's all that matters to me."

She pulled back from the hug and took his hand and started leading him once again to the door of the garage, opening it slowly. She stepped aside, finally revealing the driver's side door to him. She stood in the corner, chewing on her thumbnail as she watched him examining the scratch. He walked closer to the door, and she kept watching silently as he fingered the scratch. Finally, letting out a sigh, he turned to look at her and signaled for her to come closer. She approached him slowly and looked him in the eyes. He took both of her hands in his and gave a slight smirk.

"I'm buying you a Hummer."

"What? Why?" she asked, baffled.

"Because those things are tanks! They can be flipped and still walk away without a scratch. That's exactly what you need," he joked, laughing, and ducked her playful slap to his chest. He pulled her into another hug and placed a kiss to the top of her head before continuing.

"It's fine, Babe! It's just a scratch. We'll talk about how it got there later. Now, about this flat tire…"