"The ground trembled"

I didn't react other than to stay still. I felt like a true Californian in that moment. Earthquake? Who worries about earthquakes? Movie posters swayed on the wall of the theater, and I lost my insouciance. "Earthquake!" someone shouted. Several people screamed. I turned and saw the large temporary platform sway. Weird. Only a few hours ago, Zach had been standing on top giving an interview. One of its large corner metal poles bent as if it were made of something other than steel. Zach grabbed me and yanked me away from the falling structure. The horrible sound of crashing metal and the sharp crack of splintering wood filled the air. Screams got louder. I tried to lift my head, but could only see Zach on top of her. He said, "Are you okay?" Wriggling, I eased from beneath his weight and pulled myself into a seated position with my back against the exterior brick wall of the auditorium. On the other side of Zach, half the fallen platform squatted like a crumpled metal spider, and half balanced against the side of the auditorium, trapping them in a debris cocoon. Pieces of the metal structure had ripped through banners advertising the premiere, and other pieces broke off, clanging through the night. Zach had thrown me clear just as the structure fell. Oh god. I was finally registering what happened and I looked him over, noting dust in his hair and tears on the sleeves of his jacket.

"I'm fine, the real question is are you okay?" I asked, my heart pounding with adrenaline.

"Just a normal evening for me." Zach struggled to sit up beside me. The space was a tighter fit for him. The outer framework formed a small haven amid the debris. He had the sarcastic ability to underplay situations when he wanted to use it. I put a hand over my heart to feel its beat ease and put a tense hand on his arm. Zach pulled me close and I curled onto his lap. I felt safer. He rubbed a hand across my back, "We can crawl out through there." I let my gaze follow his fingers. There was a significant gap between the platform and the ground. Yells and sirens sounded, adding their noise as a backdrop to the slide of additional debris and indistinguishable yells from the event-goers.

I turned toward the rubble as a terrible thought hit me, and I screamed, "Dad!" My parents! My mom! The baby! I tried to stand but Zach's hand pulled me back down.

"Don't scream. There's dust. Your dad wasn't near us. He's okay. Your mom wasn't near us either, they're all okay." He brushed a hand over my arm and pointed toward the crawl space. "Let's go through."
"We can't. The architect told me about that on set when we talked about different state regulations." I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. "You can't build permanent things with that metal here in California because it won't withstand earthquakes. And there could be aftershocks."
Zach looked ready to argue, but my tense grip and whatever concern was in my eyes made him agree.

There wasn't room in our nook for me to stand. The sensation of being trapped and the creaking of the metal around me made my heart pound. I can deal with people on top of me during missions but I can't deal with earthquakes. "It's going to fall again. We're stuck. I can't see my dad." I peered through the darkness. "Dad!" I screamed again.
Zach pulled a cell phone from his jacket. "Try him." I tapped in his number with shaking fingers. A busy signal beeped on the other end, I let out a sigh and hit the end key and typed again. This time I pinged a text and sent an email. Beep. The response was immediate. Dad's response read, "Hold tight. Fire crew on it. All okay here."
Thank God, I slumped against Zach, his hand covered mine and he read the text over my shoulder. I buried my face against his neck, trying to stop trembling.
"When you're an architect you could construct us a better platform." My arms tightened on his shoulders, that was funny and sweet but I was too shaken to give an appropriate answer. "Okay." I whimper out.
Crash. The small tunnel Zach suggested we crawl through collapsed completely, stirring up more dirt and debris. We lowered their faces away from the projectiles and pluming dust and I felt Zach's arms tightened around me in protection. "Good call."
"I hope everyone's okay."
"Me too." Zach said as he stroked my hair trying to make everything calm. He sent a few texts out and shared the replies with me. "Garrett's gone to the bar. He'll hold us a seat. Not that I really could give a shit about a drink at the moment."
I melted deeper into Zach and we clung together a long time, waiting to be helped, not talking until my jumbled thoughts turned to their fight; not that any of it mattered now, but the thoughts ate at me. I sat up a little and looked into his eyes. "May I ask you something?"
"Anything."
"How can you be so friendly with people you know used you or tried to, like some of these people from the studio? But when it was Garrett and me, you wrote us off."
His hand stilled against her face. "I don't give a shit about the others."
I toyed with his hand out of awkward nerves, my fingers trembling a little.
His hand slid into my hair, and his voice took on a serious tone. "Hey, Cam, I'll believe you next time. Always. I swear. I'm sorry."
It wasn't until he rightfully apologized did I feel a bit more calm and completely comfortable with him. That's all I needed. An "I'm sorry" made everything better.

While we waited for the rescue crew I told Zach about seeing Ashley with the pill bottle and overhearing her talk to Tina about pregnancy that first day on set. Although Zach absorbed the story and rolled his eyes at the mention of Tina's name he didn't take away what I thought he would from my story. He looked disappointed and said, "So you didn't like me? Have a crush on me? The box wasn't an invitation?"
"What? I was saving you from a lifetime of being someone's baby-daddy. You should be thankful."
Zach shook his head. "No. I was hoping you liked me."
"Well I like you now." I brushed at some of the dirt on his sleeve. "Well, I do when you're not so dirty." I looked directly into his eyes. "Thanks for saving me from the earthquake." He brushed a strand of my off my cheek. "Maybe your dad will let you date me now. I saved you from my shitty mom and her circle and now an earthquake."
I laughed a little, "Yeah...Probably not." "Yes! Well I can't see why not, plus then I could really show you how to kiss." He smiled.
Hands broke through the rubble. "Zachary, give us your hands." Zach pushed me forward. "Get my girlfriend out first." I was too surprised at the suddenly help to really stomach he finally called me his girlfriend.

I tried to stay as still as possible while they pulled me free, worried about knocking more rubble down onto Zach. The metal creaked and dust flew up. Arms lifted me and passed me across the heap to a firefighter on the edge of the rubble. He lowered me down on the pavement and started to wave the EMS over to check me out. I sat and waited while I was looked over and turned to look back for Zach. Another firefighter and EMS lady appeared at my right elbow, the firefighter hanged an oxygen mask over the woman EMS and she placed it over my face and pulled my arm. "You have to get out of their way and let them work." The EMS lady led me over to an ambulance and another paramedic finished checking me out and had me sit in the edge of the ambulance to go over some things. Dad ran through the crowd and grabbed me in a hug, I pulled the oxygen mask down. "I'm okay."
He pushed the mask back in place. "We'll see what the doctor says. I'm just so glad to hold you."
"Where's mom?"
"She was at the opening seating lounge outside, thank god she's completely untouched, not around any debris but she is just stressed and worried about you. I told her stressing and worrying isn't good for the baby."
Another firefighter walked up with Zach, pointing at the ambulance. Zach, covered in dust, coughed and shook his head, "I'm fine." He coughed as he was brought over to my ambulance. I grabbed him in a hug.
"Gallagher Girl" he said as his arms wrapped around me. A paramedic pulled him off and gave him an oxygen mask as well.
"You're going," Dad said to me as he nodded to get into the ambulance. He looked at Zach. "He can stay if he wants. The press probably wants to talk to him." Zach frowned, and coughed into his mask. "I'm going with Cammie." The paramedic that put an oxygen mask over his face took Zach's dusty jacket off and said he should get on an ambulance himself.
"I can take care of my daughter." Dad said abs brushed a hand against my hair. "We need to call your mom before she sees anymore of this on the news, she should be back at our villa at the hotel property now. The hotel was untouched, thankfully."
"Mr. Morgan..." Zach started to step forward. Das put his hand up to stop him. "I don't hate you, but I don't care too much for you. You did protect my little girl from the metal and debris so I can't thank you enough for that." He shook Zach's hand and patted his shoulder. "Now come on and get in the other ambulance, you both need to be checked out and you have a little explaining to do." Zach nodded his head yes and climbed into the ambulance next to the one I was sitting in.

I stood with my back against the column at my business academic building. My Georgetown campus classmates hung nearby, too giddy at having completed finals to go through the usual post-exam second-guessing. This is it, my fall freshman semester was complete. It was something, I tilted my head back and smiled at the arch above me at my friends, and reached in my backpack to turn my phone back on since I was out of the testing room. A few texts vibrated through, Dad: "How'd your accounting final go?Was your fighting/boxing practical for your spy pathway go well?" Then mom's texts came through too, "Are you done? Congratulations on freshman first semester being done! Eggplant parm tonight if you come home! If not, brunch tomorrow? love, Mom."
I swiped out of that one to see "You better not be wearing sweats. I don't care if it is finals, love you! I gotta call you this weekend!" With a red heart emoji signed by no other than Macey.
I was, in fact in sweatpants, navy ones, Macey would at least be happy to know they're Tommy Hilfiger jogger sweats and matching Tommy navy and white sneakers.
"Going out with us to celebrate?" I looked up to see Megan, Claire, and a few other friends walked over to me, one of the guys asked and stepped closer. I shook my head no head. Another classmate said, "Let me guess, your boyfriend is out of town for work again?" One of the girls rolled her eyes. "You know Cammie only says she has a boyfriend so you'll stop hounding her to go out with you." A Porsche 911 pulled up, and my boyfriend did in fact get out. Wearing dark aviator sunglasses and walking with a movie star persona, Zach headed straight up the brick path toward them. I couldn't help but grin. I missed him when he went on location, he went to Georgetown this semester but most of it was on line due to his filming. Zach's arm went around me, and he took the backpack off my shoulder and put it in his before leaning down and kissing me in a fast hello kiss. I relaxed against him then introduced my friends. After the dropping jaws and greetings, Claire and Megan shooting me silent smiles because they already knew Eve that if and met him way back at their sorority formal. Zach and I walked hand in hand toward his new car. "I missed you. My assistant on set did not compare." I laughed at his comment. "Well that's good, I hope they'll never compare!" I grinned even bigger and hugged him. I took a deep breathe abs let my chin rest on his shoulder for a second. "I missed your cologne. Next time, we'll have to figure out how to visit more on the weekends."
"Yes please!" Zach's smile had my favorite wicked edge. "Did you get your finals complete even though most were online?" "Yeah. And we have how many weeks off until the spring semester starts. I can't remember the last time I had a week off let alone like five weeks off."
I squeezed his hand, "You'll love it."
"I know! I can't wait to spend my favorite holiday with my favorite person! My dad mentioned he and Abby are coming to your parents for New Years?"
"Oh of course! They obviously have the little twins, they're like two, and mom is due beginning of January. I know Abby wants to be there for my mom when she has baby boy."
"I can't believe the twins are already two...I remember dad and Abby telling me they were pregnant then telling me it's twins."
"I know, time flies. I can't believe I'm done my first semester already."
Zach scanned the campus. "One semester on, and one off sorta, on line at least. Your baby brother will be in college before I finish my bachelor's."
I laughed at Zach's comment, "Psh! Yeah right! Plus I know you are so looking forward to next semester being on campus all the time."
"Yeah. And maybe your dad will ease up, now that I'm a student at the same school as you now and not Blackthorne."
"Maybe. You really should be betting he'll ease up when baby boy comes. Oh! Mom and Dad want us to come to dinner tonight. I knew she didn't know my schedule since she mentioned brunch tomorrow. I know Abby is going to brunch with mom at the bistro near mom's house, you and I were invited."
"Ahhh I think just you were invited, brunch with mimosas? Sounds like a ladies invite only!" Zach laughed.
"Nooo they're virgin mimosas! Moms pregnant so she can't drink!"
"Yeah and I heard Abby asking dad to have another one!"
"Huh so virgin mimosas! You down to join?"
"Do I sneak the champagne or do you and you carry a purse to bring it in?"
"Zachary Goode! Doubting my stealthy skills! Spy life has taught me a lot, I bet I could do a better job of sneaking our own champagne in without a purse better than you could!"
"Oh, is this a challenge, Gallagher Girl?" Zach took a step closer to me and had the cockiest grin on his face.
I took another step closer and put a hand on my hip, "Yes sir, Blackthorne Boy, this is a challenge."
"What's the winner get?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Huh, you're pretty cocky. Winner gets a favor from the loser." I gave him a smug look.
"A favor? Oh! THAT kind of favor! Bet. Guess you should get ready to lose, babe!" He said the snapper the elastic hair tie I had in my wrist and walked over to put my backpack in the little trunk of his car.
"God Zachary Goode you are so damn cocky. I can't wait to see your face when you lose, oh wait. I won't be seeing your face!" I said as I climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door in him before he could answer.

This is the last Chapter unless you guys would like more! Thanks for sticking around through the years, I haven't been consistently active but I always appreciate the reads and reviews!