InHap*pily Ever After

by Kim Desalvo

Dylan contemplated that for a minute, his head cocked. He and Bo were as close as brothers, but he’d never mentioned having anyone “on his mind” at all, much less all the time. He couldn’t help but wonder why.

  “Care to elaborate?” Dylan finally asked.

  “Nope,” Bo said simply as Tammy reappeared and placed a steaming bowl of garlicky cheese and artichoke dip on the table.

  “Well, all right then,” Dylan said, grabbing a hunk of the freshly baked bread and scooping up a generous portion. “I guess that’ll make all four of you flying solo. It’ll keep the numbers even, anyway. Jessa should be thrilled about that.”

  Dylan popped the bread in his mouth and watched his friend for a reaction. He got it in spades. Bo’s ears pricked up, and his eyes widened before narrowing down to slits. “Care to elaborate?” he mimicked, a little too anxiously.

  “Nope,” Dylan replied with a sly smile, sitting back in his own seat and taking a swig of the frosty brew. God, he loved the Pacific Northwest, no one did beer quite like they did.

  “Now come on, Miller,” Bo said, leaning forward. “You can’t lead off with that and not finish the tale. What four of us?”

  Dylan leaned in. Tia hadn’t told him not to tell Bo, and he’d certainly figure it out eventually, so he assumed it didn’t matter if Bo heard it from him. “The whole wedding party,” he said simply.

  Bo cocked his head. “Lexi’s not bringing her fiancé?”

  Dylan shook his head. “Lexi no longer has a fiancé,” he said, dunking another hunk of bread and watching Bo’s eyes widen.

  “You want to say that again?” Bo asked, his voice cracking uncharacteristically.

  “You heard me.” It was really hard for him to keep a straight face when Bo was trying so unsuccessfully not to jump out of his skin.

  “I think you said that Lexi no longer has a fiancé,” he said, “but I’m not sure I’m following. What happened?”

  “That call I took earlier? The one you guys gave me such a hard time for taking? Tia was filling me in on the details. Lexi found out that the bastard was sleeping with someone else, and she’s called the whole thing off.”

  Dylan felt truly bad for Lexi; she was a good person, and he hated seeing anyone played that way. Bo, however, was waging a sudden battle with his feelings, and Dylan sat back, watching a whole range of emotions playing over his features. From where Dylan was sitting, Bo was putting an awful lot of thought into what he’d just been told.

  “He cheated on her?” Bo asked, shaking his head. “On Lexi? How could anyone do that? What did Tia say? How did she find out?”

  “The way I understand it, the girls were at the Intercontinental a few nights ago trying on dresses for the wedding.” He paused, bowing his head. “Wow, it’s probably going to be rough on her being in her best friend’s wedding when hers just got cancelled.”

  Bo held his face with the tips of his fingers and bowed his head. “I can’t even imagine,” he said quietly.

  “No doubt.” They were silent for a moment before Bo motioned for him to continue. “So anyway, they were just coming out of the hotel when Lexi saw Ryan’s car pulling up to the valet at the banquet entrance—he’s got a sweet Mustang with a custom paint job, so it wasn’t hard to spot. The way Tia described it he climbed out of the car and into the arms of another woman. He was supposed to be in New York on some big project he was doing for work; Lexi even helped him pack his bloody suitcase the night before, I guess, and then she watched him pull it out of the boot and hand it to the valet.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Bo growled under his breath as his hands balled up into fists.

  “Lexi immediately called him and stood there watching while he lied to her—he told her he was in The Big Apple, and that he might have to stay an extra night to get the job done.” Dylan pressed lips together. “You’ll appreciate this, though…she’s one tough chick. After she watched them walk into the hotel together, she took her keys and added some of her own “custom touches” to his celebrity paint job. Then, on Monday, she purged both their apartments while he was at work. She followed him to some gym where he met the other woman, dumped all his shit in the boot of his car, hung her engagement ring on the keychain that held her set of keys to his car and apartment, and left them in the ignition.

  “She waited for him to show up at the country club where they both belong and they had it out. Needless to say, she broke it off and says she’s never going back. Knowing Lexi, I believe her. I can’t see her taking back a guy who would do that to her.”

  “No way,” Bo whispered, and Dylan had a hard time interpreting whether he was agreeing with the statement or contemplating something else entirely.

  “So, I guess the whole wedding party will be sans dates,” Dylan said. “Tia told me that Lexi has sworn off men forever. Max is hoping to hook up at the wedding, and I can’t remember the last time Jessa had a serious relationship.”

  “Forever, huh?” Bo asked absent-mindedly as Dylan took a swig and watched the myriad of emotions once again play over Bo’s face.

  Dylan sat back and let Bo absorb it all. The suspicion he’d planned to confirm was that Bo had a real thing for Lexi—not just the innocent flirtation that he made it out to be. He didn’t have any solid evidence of the crush; just a gut feeling, mostly. Tia had told him that Lexi’s fiancé was jealous of the way she and Bo had greeted each other the night they appeared together on After Dark, but Bo had known from the beginning that Lexi was engaged, and he too classy a person to tread on someone else’s territory.

  “So she says,” Dylan smirked, “but who knows? Maybe the right one just hasn’t come along yet.”

  Tammy appeared with their burgers and looked at Dylan with a question on her face when she took in Bo’s stunned expression. Dylan nodded her off, and she slipped away without saying a word. He took a bite and chewed slowly, watching Bo’s eyebrows do a dance as he processed everything. Finally, he leaned his elbows on the table and exhaled a long breath.

  “So tell me,” Dylan said sardonically, “this woman who’s ‘been on your mind all the time…’”

  Bo snapped upright. “Damn it, Strummer Boy,” he said, obviously flustered. “This is like a punch in the fuckin’ head.” He looked at Dylan wide-eyed. “How do you do it, man?”

  “Do what?” Dylan asked innocently, shrugging and turning up his palms.

  Bo slumped his shoulders and rested his chin on his fist. “See right fuckin’ through me, man,” he said simply.

  Dylan leaned toward him and put a hand on his shoulder. “She’s the one, isn’t she?” he asked. He didn’t need to elaborate any further for Bo to understand what he was asking.

  “Hell, it’s been her since I met her,” Bo admitted quietly, as much to himself as to Dylan. In the back of his mind he’d known it all along, really, but he’d managed to push it back for the most part, especially in light of the fact that she was an engaged woman. The first night he saw her, standing there with that doe-like look on her face backstage in Chicago---hell, had it really been almost a year ago?—he’d been flooded with a feeling that he hadn’t experienced in a long time. She lit up the room every time she walked into it, and had started more than a few fires in his dreams over the past nine months.

  That memory was crystal clear, probably because he’d gone over it in his mind at least a thousand times since that day. He’d just walked into the common room; one of his ‘things’ was that he was always the last one to leave the stage, waving to fans and tossing drumsticks to random people in the audience. When he walked in, he nearly ran over Dylan and Tia engaged in a smokin’ hot PDA. He made some comment about how hot their exchange was and turned his gaze away from the spectacle, which then fell on Lexi. She was a bundle of nervous excitement, and he made some sort of off-hand comment about her being his birthday present.

  Dylan and Tia were wrapped up in each other, so he’d made it his personal mission to make sure Lexi was looked after. She’d started out with that doe-eyed look
he often saw in the eyes of their fans, but it didn’t take her long to jump into the game. They’d started flirting almost immediately, and she matched him dig for dig—which was no easy task. He was working out how he’d ask her for a date, but at some point in the evening she’d dug in her purse for a lipstick or something and pulled out her engagement ring. Bo had no idea why she hadn’t been wearing it initially, but the moment he watched her slip it onto her finger, he felt true disappointment. They’d kept up the flirting—in fact, nearly everyone rolled their eyes at the two of them every time they were together during Lexi’s visit to Europe—but he put on the brakes damn quickly and tried to put her out of his mind. Fat fucking chance.

  He’d thought of her so often that he’d made up some sort of lame excuse that brought him to Chicago in the fall just so he could see her again. The hope was that he’d discover that what they had was nothing more than a friendship, and that he’d be able to reclaim his sleeping hours. Unfortunately, it hadn’t had the desired effect. In fact, the moment she walked into the restaurant with Tia, his stomach had started rolling and he found it hard to breathe. And for the next several nights, he’d gotten no sleep at all.

  He finally admitted it to himself the night of the After Dark fiasco in California, when she innocently cuddled up next to him on the little loveseat in the hotel room and pulled his arm around her. He had wondered later if she would still have sat so close to him if she had even an inkling of how badly he’d wanted to ravage her right there on the little couch. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the show, his eyes kept drifting to the way her breasts pushed together as she rested against him and the heat that drifted off her body, consuming him with her intoxicating scent. It affected him to the point that he’d had to pull a pillow into his lap to hide the blatantly obvious tool of his wanton lust, a scenario he’d only recently remembered and still beat himself up over. He’d made a complete ass of himself, and aside from an awkward greeting at the engagement party, they hadn’t spoken since. He wondered if she’d ever want to speak to him again.

  “I think I knew,” Dylan said softly, “but I wasn’t sure if you really did. This sure puts a whole different spin on things, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?” Bo asked, taking an angry bite out of his burger and giving it a more than thorough chewing. “How so?” he asked around the mouthful. He swallowed, and poured himself a second mug of Rainer. “We’re friends, D, and she trusts me completely as a friend,” he said even as he wondered if it were still true. “She sees me as flirty ole’ Bo; life of the party. Not as a potential boyfriend. She’s probably really busted up over the whole situation, and knowing her, she’s not going to be willing to jump into another relationship any time soon. Especially not with someone like me…”

  “Someone like you?” Dylan pressed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and leaned toward Bo. “At the risk of sounding like a bloody woman, I can tell you that you are one of the most honest and decent people I know, and you know I wouldn’t bullshit about something like that. Lexi sees you, my friend,” Dylan said, “and she of all people knows you’re the real deal. I’m not saying you should ask her to marry you tomorrow or anything…I’m just saying that if you were looking for a chance, it seems you might get one. Of course it’s all fresh right now, the whole break-up thing, but in the future, who knows? If you really want something to happen…”

  “The life we live isn’t conducive to lasting relationships, Miller…” He stopped. They’d had this conversation at least a thousand times over the years, but things had certainly changed for Dylan over the past nine months. He believed that he and Tia would make it, and Bo was sure they would, too. They had something incredibly special, and it was obvious to him, as someone who’d known Dylan for a very long time, that he’d found the right person to spend his life with. Could he dare to hope for the same kind of happiness? He spoke again as Dylan raised his eyebrows at him, waiting for him to figure it out for himself.

  “Don’t even say it, man,” Bo warned, taking another bite of the burger and chewing contemplatively.

  Dylan shrugged. “I wasn’t going to say a word. You’ll figure out what’s best for you.” He bit off a chunk of his own burger and let Bo roll things around his brain for a minute. “Oh, bloody hell—I have to say it,” he continued. “A semi-wise man once told Tia, when she was feeling like a relationship between a rock star and an average person couldn’t work, that it was pointless wasting the time you did have worrying about time you might not get later, or something to that effect. Those words helped her put things into perspective, and helped get us through what might have been our last night together.”

  Bo smiled wanly and shook his head. “I said that?”

  “You did.”

  “Ah, shit, man, this is fucked up.”

  “Nothing fucked up about it, mate. You think about it for a bit, work on getting over your commitment issues, and follow your heart. I’ll be rooting for you, either way.”

  “I don’t have commitment issues,” Bo said, but there was no force behind his words. Dylan just looked at him hard, his head tilted to the side, until Bo surrendered. “Maybe a little. But there’s reason behind it. Two ex-wives and a half dozen ex-girlfriends…” He shook his head.

  “Bloody hell, Bo, are you still worrying over the ex-wives? You were nineteen for the first one, and the second one was a money grubbing whore…neither was your fault. God, I’d like to think we’ve grown a little bit over the last decade, I can tell you that. You can’t think that because those relationships didn’t work out that nothing will.”

  “Damn. I don’t even know what to think about the whole thing right now. But I think it’s pretty safe to say that I won’t be sleeping much tonight.” He took another pull of his beer and bowed his head. “I really want her to be OK.”

  “She’s a strong woman,” Dylan stated. “It sucks, but if there’s anyone who can bounce back, it’ll be her.”

  Bo smiled. “Now that, I know,” he agreed, raising his glass for a toast. “Listen, Dyl,” he added, “I don’t need to ask you to be on the down-low about this, do I? I wouldn’t want her getting scared off because she heard I was something different than what she thought before I get a chance to assess the situation…”

  Dylan smirked, and raised one eyebrow. “So it comes full circle, does it? Lexi had to bear the burden of hiding my and Tia’s relationship for months, and now you want me to hide from Tia that you’ve got the hots for her best friend?” Bo looked perplexed for a moment, but Dylan jumped back in. “Don’t worry; I’m just messing with you, BoBo. It’s not any of my business, and it isn’t Tia’s either. You don’t need to worry about me mentioning a word. I just find the whole thing a little ironic, is all.”

  “Yeah. Here’s to fucking irony,” Bo smirked, topping off their glasses with the last of the beer.

  Chapter 36

  He wanted to call her. More than anything, he wanted to tell her that he was sorry and that he was her friend. He’d gone so far as to get her number from Dylan; something he’d not trusted himself to have before. Oh, who the hell was he kidding? What he really wanted to do was to hear her voice, to tell her he was sorry about the way things had gone down between them since that damn television appearance, and find out if she’d see him. But every time he took the crumpled piece of paper out of his wallet and started punching in the numbers, his mind went blank and his fingers started shaking.

  He’d screwed this up in more ways than one. First, the whole fiasco at the hotel that had never been dealt with loomed over him—she’d either left thinking he wanted nothing to do with her, or she noticed his ‘indiscretion’ and had gone running for the hills. Then he had his accident and was out of everything for weeks; and it was even longer before he finally remembered the reason why he felt sad and guilty every time he watched the recording of the damn show.

  Then another thought crept in…what if that was part of th
e reason her fiancé strayed? Thoughts of the leopard print outfit jumped back into his mind. The dude could had been pissed— and after watching back the tape of the show, and the way the mic picked up his surprised and excited greeting, he might’ve been too if it was his fiancé leaping into another man’s arms on national television.

  Dylan kept his word though, and as the days passed, he never asked if he’d gotten around to calling Lexi. He also wasn’t saying much about how things were going with her, except to say that she was still in the dumps, but moving forward. At this point Bo had no idea if she’d even take his call; and he had absolutely no clue about what he would say; ‘So hey, sorry I had such a boner for you—want to get some dinner?’ so he put it off and put it off and before he knew it weeks had gone by and the guys were taking a few days off to let the producers do some mixing while they took a little break from recording. Dylan was meeting Tia in Colorado to finally take her to the house in which she’d soon live, Tommy was taking his new girlfriend to Disney World, of all places, Ty was going to visit his parents in Philly, and Angelo was going to some meditation retreat in Sedona to “get his chakras in balance.” Bo hadn’t really made any plans—he’d spent the last three weeks thinking about Lexi and checking the weather in Chicago. It sucked, as it usually did in March.

  “You should come with me, man,” Angelo said as they were checking out of their hotel. “I’ve never seen you so out of balance, bro. Seriously, you sit in one of those vortexes and you can just feel the positive energy of the planet coursing through your veins. They do Reiki, too—it’ll heal up any residuals left over from the accident.”

  Bo tried to picture himself sitting in a vortex with his legs crossed and palms up chanting a mantra, and laughed out loud. “I don’t need a bunch of hippies trying to balance me. I’m pretty sure it’s an impossible feat, anyway. I’m going to be in charge of my own meditation, thanks.”