by Kim Desalvo
Lexi pasted on her best smile as she walked onto the stage toward Tony’s outstretched arms, trading the requisite air kiss and light hug before taking her seat on the couch at his right. She soaked in the cheers of the crowd while she tried to settle her heart—she was a lot more nervous than she thought she’d be. She looked damn good though, thanks to the knockout of a dress she’d picked up in a little boutique on her shopping spree yesterday; which helped to boost her confidence a little.
When the “applause” light went out and the audience quieted, Tony smiled and shook his head at Lexi. “Seven months,” he stated with disbelief. “You knew about their relationship for more than half a year, and never told a soul. How hard was it to keep a secret like that?”
Lexi answered with a sardonic grin. “Definitely the hardest one I’ve ever had to keep. One of the first things I said after I found out about her and Dylan was that I couldn’t wait to tell everyone, but she swore me to secrecy on the spot.”
“Take us back to that day,” Tony prodded. “I mean, how do you react to that kind of news? Your best friend…what…calls you up and tells you that she met Dylan Miller last night and that they had a date later that day? Did you even believe her?”
Lexi smirked before answering; she’d rehearsed the questions Tony would ask and how she’d respond with the producers. “Well, that’s not exactly how it happened, Tony, and I’m still kind of pissed about it, actually...but looking back, I guess I kind of deserved it.”
Tony leaned in anxiously and waited; tenting his fingers under his chin. Automatically, a good number of audience members leaned forward in their own seats, mimicking his stance. “I have a feeling this is going to be good,” he grinned.
“It was for her—she really nailed me, that’s for sure. So, the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend was the one-year anniversary of the day Tia’s fiancé died.” Murmurs of sympathy rose up from the crowd. “Tia decided it was time to get her life back on track, and she decided to go to this little dump of a bar; to just kind of be a barfly and get out into a crowd. When she told me where she was going, I pretty much begged her not to go there—it’s kind of a shady place, and she hadn’t been out alone for a long time.” Her mind wandered for a moment as she considered, for the first time now that she’d voiced it, how different their lives would be if Tia had listened to her that night. She took a deep breath before she continued.
“I was worried sick because she said she’d only be out a couple of hours, and she didn’t call until around three in the morning—that’s when she told me she met someone. I started giving her a hard time about it—told her she could do a lot better than some guy who hung out at that dump. Maybe that’s why she didn’t tell me. She just let me figure it out for myself.”
Tony looked puzzled. “How did she do that?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, playing it up for the cameras, “we had tickets for the InHap concert on Saturday night. Tia canceled our dinner plans and told me that she was hanging out with her new guy that day because his band had a gig that night, too. She tried to convince me to come out with them after the show—it was the drummer’s birthday, she said, and they were having a party, but I told her there was no way I was going to be a third wheel on their first date. Plus, I still thought they were some grungy pub band, and had a horrible picture in my mind of how that would play out. Then she told me that this guy had an ‘in’ at the venue and had upgraded our seats—but even while I was sitting front and center of the stage, it never even crossed my mind that her new guy could possibly be Dylan Miller…I mean, how likely would that be?”
“Not very,” Tony agreed.
“Tia met me at our seats right before InHap took the stage, and I told her that Dylan had looked right at me and smiled when he was onstage with the opening band—that he’d noticed me in the crowd…” She stopped for a moment and chose her words carefully, “…and she just laughed at me. InHap played a few songs, and it was like Dylan was singing right to us; I even suggested we try to get backstage after the show. The third song they played was I’ll Pull You Up—the crowd went crazy, because they’d never played it live before—and right then he dedicated the entire show to her in front of sixty thousand people. His eyes never left hers throughout the entire song, and all I could do was stare at them both, my mouth hanging open like a complete idiot. I mean, I was totally blown away! It took pretty much the whole song for it to sink in that he was the guy she met the night before.”
“Wow. And she swore you to secrecy right then and there?”
Lexi nodded. “Oh yeah! She made me pinky swear, and anyone out there who still has a friend from middle school knows that there’s no stronger bond!” The audience agreed with a smattering of applause.
“Why do you think she did that? I mean, most people would want to announce something like that on the evening news, don’t you think? Why the secret?”
“Well, at the time, she figured she’d get to be with Dylan for a day or two at the most—InHap had one more show in Chicago the next night, so it was possible they’d see each other again; but after that they were going to tour Europe, so of course Tia thought that would be it. She was worried about how people would react, and she wanted to keep him all to herself for the short time they did have. So I made the promise. At the time, I figured I’d only have to keep the secret for a couple days, so it seemed doable.”
“But then he invited her to Europe,” Tony said, “and a couple days turned into a couple months.”
Lexi nodded. “You know, it all happened so quickly…it had to. They had an intense connection, and Tia going on the tour was the only way they could figure out if it was real. Dylan wouldn’t be back home for a year between the tour and the movie, and lucky for her she has summers off, so she headed off to Europe, where they obviously decided it was the real deal.”
“Which meant that you still had to keep the secret while Dylan was New Zealand.”
Lexi answered with a smile and a nod of her head.
“And we’ll hear more about that when we get back from a commercial break,” Tony smiled into the camera. “Stay tuned, folks…we’ve barely scratched the surface of this story!” The audience clapped, and the camerawoman indicated “cut!” with the swipe of a finger in front of her throat.
Bo sat fidgeting in his dressing room. The video feed was broken so the monitor was blank, and he was flipping absently through a month-old issue of Rock’s Finest, waiting for someone to come and mic him up for his stint. It had been a fluke that when Granger had called him he’d already been in LA, playing a few gigs with one of his former band mates from the old days. Dylan had more than given him carte blanche to appear on his behalf; in fact, he said he’d be doing them a favor by taking some of the heat off of him and Tia. Finally, the door opened, and a cute little brunette walked in with his microphone.
Tony leaned in and patted the back of her hand. “You’re doing great, Lexi—you’re a natural at this!” He motioned to an assistant who ran up with a cup of water.
“Thanks,” Lexi said, gratefully draining the ice cold liquid. She was really having fun with the whole thing and her heart had settled, but her mouth felt like the freaking Sahara.
“Ten seconds,” said a disembodied voice over a speaker. Tony shifted in his chair and turned on his TV smile as the cameraman counted down and then motioned that they were rolling.
“Welcome back to After Dark,” he began. “My first guest tonight is Lexi Summers, best friend of America’s newest sweetheart, Tia Hastings.” He turned back to face Lexi. “So, Lexi,” he said, “before we went to commercial, you were telling us about how Tia surprised you with the identity of her new beau…”
“Blindsided me is a better word,” Lexi laughed.
“You also said that before you figured it out, you had decided not to join Tia that night for the drummer’s birthday party. Was it really his birthday, and did the fact that you’d be hanging out with Incidental Happenstance change your min
d?”
Lexi hesitated for a couple heartbeats; they hadn’t rehearsed that question, but it wasn’t a hard one to answer. “Absolutely!” she exclaimed. “That was a complete game-changer. I was beside myself going backstage to meet them all—I was still in shock, I think. But they’re all such nice guys; they made me feel completely comfortable in no time. Especially Bo; the birthday boy.”
Tony smiled wide—his surprise question provided the perfect segue into the next segment. “On that note, Ladies and Gentleman, I’d like to introduce my next guest,” he said into the camera, watching Lexi from the corner of his eye and catching the slightly confused expression he had hoped for. In the conversations he had with Dylan, he had heard a lot of little sidebars comments about the quirky and unique friendship that Lexi had forged with Bo Collins. He thought it would be fun to bring them back together for the show, without either one knowing the other was here. Bo was probably bored to death by now in the room with the ‘broken’ monitor and a few old magazines, and he couldn’t wait to see how they reacted to each other. “Please help me welcome one of Dylan’s best friends, drummer for Incidental Happenstance, Bo Collins!”
There was one split second when Tony saw Lexi’s eyes widen in complete surprise; then her entire face just lit up. As soon as Bo appeared from the side of the stage she let out an excited squeal and leapt from her seat, rushing to greet him. Tony turned just in time to see Bo’s realization sink in, and smiled as Bo quickened his step while a grin split his face. Lexi threw her arms around him and called out his name. His mic picked up Bo’s hushed whisper, “Hey there beautiful! Now isn’t this the best surprise!”
Tony watched as the big man picked her up and spun her in a slow circle before putting her down and leading her back to the couch. He stopped for a handshake and man-hug with Tony before taking his place on the couch beside an obviously flushed and flustered Lexi Summers. Bo turned to her and flashed his famous smile, wrapping her hand in his own. Lexi responded by leaning her head on his shoulder and smiling up at him.
“Well, that’s quite the reunion!” Tony smiled.
“I can’t believe it!” Lexi exclaimed. “It’s been ages!”
“It’s great to see you too, angel,” Bo replied.
“So, how long has it been since you’ve seen each other?” Tony asked.
They looked at each other. “It was late September, wasn’t it?” Bo asked.
Lexi nodded. “It wasn’t too long after Dylan got to New Zealand,” she said to Tony. “Bo was passing through Chicago and took Tia and me out for dinner.”
Tony turned to Bo. “So Bo, Lexi was telling us about how shocked she was when she first found out about Dylan and Tia.” Bo smiled, remembering. “How did Dylan share the information with the rest of the band? Was he secretive too?”
Bo chuckled; his deep laughter rumbling in his chest. “Oh no, not Dylan,” he said with a grin. “Quite the opposite, actually. We had a lot to do at the arena that day…it was our first show in Chicago and we’d gotten some new electronics that needed to be hooked up, tested, and adjusted, which was going to take some time. One of the trucks carrying some of the stage equipment had broken down on the way from Indianapolis, and then Dylan had a couple interviews to do on top of it all.
“It was about 9:30, and Dyl’d just finished one of the interviews. He comes practically dancing into the room with this pathetic grin on his face—I’m tellin’ you, it was like that kid in the candy story look, and we all knew something’d gone down. So I ask him, ‘What’s got you grinnin’ like the Cheshire Cat?’ and he says, ‘you’d be grinnin’ too, if you met a gorgeous and amazing woman last night like I did.’
“I tell you, all the heads in that room snapped to attention, and all eyes turned to Dylan. I mean, it’s pretty hard not to notice that most women find him fairly easy on the eyes, but he’s always seen it as kind of a curse. I mean, the man could have pretty much any woman he wanted, but he didn’t want any of them because he couldn’t trust that they would be in it for the right reasons. He’d been burned more than once, and it had been a long time since I’d seen him smile like that. But the look on his face that day was like nothing I’d ever seen before, and I’ve known the man—hell, I’ve lived with the man—for a lot of years. He had it bad already, and he’s not the kind of guy that falls hard for anything so easily.”
“Are you saying it was love at first sight?” Tony asked.
Bo pressed his lips together and nodded his head. “He told me a little bit about what happened the night before; how they met, and what they did. He said it was like they went through six months in one night—they’d connected in a way that threw him for a loop, and he was like a schoolboy with a crush. He pranced around the whole morning. That grin never left his face, and when we’d tease him about it, he’d only smile bigger. He kept looking at his watch, and was pretty much useless as far as the work we needed to get done.
“When Tia showed up that afternoon, and I saw them together for the first time, it was like I could feel their connection. I got a good vibe from her right away, and it was obvious that she was good for Dylan. There was something in his eyes…and hers too…that spoke volumes.”
Lexi sat upright. “I know what you mean! When I saw them together that first night, I said the same thing…I told Tia that I could feel the connection between them like it was a physical thing in the room…”
“Speaking of physical things in the room…” Bo began.
“Penelope Valentine!” they said together.
Tony shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head, indicating they’d lost him. Then, he sat back and let things play out. As Bo was describing the look in Dylan’s eyes and the smile he couldn’t tame when Tia was around, Tony couldn’t help but think he was witnessing a connection between Bo and Lexi that neither of them realized was there. Dylan had said that they had an obnoxious and repetitive flirtation that they all laughed about, but from where Tony was sitting, there was more to it than that. The body language—the way she leaned against him, the way he held onto her hand, the way they looked at each other—said that there was more there than mere flirtation. But who was he to say? God knew he’d been through three divorces…romance wasn’t exactly his forte. He was willing to bet, however, that Lexi wouldn’t be taking the flight she’d been planning to jump on shortly after they finished shooting. Something told him she’d hold off and fly out in the morning.
Lexi deferred to Bo. “That was the first night she came sniffin’ around. She showed up backstage and started demanding to see Dylan, saying she had something important that she needed to discuss with him. He’d just finished playing a song with our opening band, and so we sent out a message that she was on the prowl. Dyl was so wrapped up in Tia, and so confused by how to reconcile the fact that he would have to say goodbye to her in just a couple days even though he was just getting to know her, that they just pretty much hid out in a different dressing room until it was time for us to take the stage.”
Beside him, Lexi started to giggle. Bo took one look at her and his eyes went wide. He joined in, and pretty soon they were laughing so hard they were practically keeping each other from falling off the couch. Tony leaned forward, a smile on his own face. Yup, he’d definitely put down money that she wasn’t flying home tonight.
They turned back. “Tell him,” Lexi prodded, trying to rein in her laughter. “It’s such a great story!”
Bo was busting a gut, and managed to squeak out, “Go ahead…you tell it!”
“Well,” she started, “after the show, Penelope came bursting into the common room. The guys had just left to get cleaned up, and she comes in and confronts Tia, insinuating that she slept her way into getting a show dedication. She was just plain rotten; I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Her face was wrinkled up like there was a bad smell in the room, and she totally looked down her nose at both of us. Tia told her that the guys had gone to shower up and she stormed out of there, determined to find Dylan.
” She glanced at Bo, and started giggling again. “Turns out,” she smiled, “the boys had pretty much anticipated the move, and Bo was actually the one in Dylan’s shower. She walked right into the bathroom and Bo…” she burst into another fit of giggles, and Bo took over.
Tony sat back in his chair smiled. His guests had effectively taken over his show, and he couldn’t have been more pleased. They played off each other perfectly, finishing each other’s sentences, and sharing little bits of stories that wouldn’t have come out in a standard interview. It was like they were suddenly the only two people in the room, and it translated perfectly to television. He could imagine people all over the country feeling as if they were sitting with them in their living rooms. He made a subtle gesture toward the producer that said, Give me another minute…this is too good to pass up.
“She was just so fake,” Bo continued. “Her voice was so sweet, but there was no sugar there, ya know? So I yanked open the shower curtain, and watched all the blood drain out of her face…she was expecting a naked Dylan to be standing there, and instead,” Bo stood and turned in a slow circle. “…she got me. I don’t have to tell you that as soon she was able to breathe again, she ran out of there so fast she was just a blur!”