InHap*pily Ever After

by Kim Desalvo

  “Good evening, Dylan Miller,” the taller of the two said. Her voice was smoky and had a heavy Swedish accent. “My name is Sonja.” She put both her hands out to Dozer who took them and brushed her cheeks with air kisses. When it was Dylan’s turn, she connected with the kiss and breathed into his ear, “I’ve been a fan for a long time.”

  “Thanks,” Dylan said, shaking the other girl’s hand across the table. “This is Dozer Cane.”

  “Melena,” the second girl smiled, her accent just as heavy. She turned to Dozer. “I know your work. Reggae, right?”

  “Da only true music,” he teased, poking Dylan in the arm. “I also have a clothing bran name.” He tilted his head and squinted at the ladies. “Are ya models? You look kind of familiar.”

  “We are actresses,” Sonja said, tipping her head and looking up at them through thick dark lashes.

  Dozer’s expression didn’t change. “Dat mus be it. What movies?”

  “We make adult films,” Melena smiled, biting the corner of her lower lip.

  Dylan closed his eyes and rolled them behind his lids. He took a sip of his drink while Dozer smiled wide and looked them slowly up and down. “Ya mon I tink I’ve seen you in action. Didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”

  “We maybe can fix that,” Sonja grinned as the girls stepped closer and leaned seductively over the table in almost perfect unison, giving the boys an excellent view of their ample cleavage. Dylan inhaled some of his drink and nearly choked, and Dozer gave him a good slap on the back. He took another slug to ease the cough and shook his head.

  “Oh, wow,” Dozer said, shaking his head. “It’s too bad, but you see, you’re too late for both of us.” He held up his left hand. “See, I’m marry, and he’s engaged, so it’s not good timing right now.”

  “That is not important,” Sonja said seductively. “We fuck lots of married men. Engaged, too,” she added, running her tongue slowly over her upper lip while locking her gaze on Dylan.

  Dozer opened his mouth to speak, but his phone suddenly started playing something that could only be described as a reggae lullaby. His eyes went wide and he yanked the phone from his pocket, staring at it in disbelief. “’Oly shit,” he breathed. “Da baby’s comin’!” His eyes darted around the room, but he didn’t focus on anything; he hopped from foot to foot, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Congratulations, mate!” Dylan exclaimed, pulling him into an embrace.

  “I’m going to be a fadda!” He lifted his drink for a toast, and they both drained their glasses.

  “Best get to it then, eh?”

  “Oh. Oh yeah. I ‘ave to get ‘ome!” He gave Dylan a hug, planted a big kiss on Melena’s cheek, and headed for the door.

  Dylan turned back to the table and gripped the sides for support. A sudden wave of nausea and dizziness took hold of him, and he shook his head to try and throw it off. His brain was suddenly swimming and his eyes refused to focus. He looked at the empty glass on the table—only his third the whole evening. They were making them strong, sure, but still…his knees went weak and he squeezed the sides of the table harder and looked at the girls. “These must be going to my head,” he slurred.

  “You should sit down,” Sonja said, taking an arm. Melena grabbed him from the other side and they led him through the door at the back of the room. “I know just the spot.”

  Dylan looked around once for Bo but didn’t see him in the crowd. He remembered walking through two sets of doors and sinking into a couch, and then nothing.

  Tia was asleep when the text came in. She hadn’t gotten anything from Dylan in a couple hours, the last being a picture of him and a man with long dreads and deep wrinkles in his dark face tapping his glass against Dylan’s in a toast. She reached over in the dark and grabbed her phone, catching the time on the digital clock as she did. It was only past midnight in Seattle, but it was after two in Chicago, and she forced her eyes to focus on the backlit screen as she pulled up the message. It took only a couple seconds for it to register and for her to sit straight up in the bed, her heart pumping wildly and her consciousness at full alert. It was a picture of two women—beautiful women—lips together in a sensual kiss as they looked at the camera seductively. The message beneath the picture read, dude look what I found! She tilted her head and clicked off the picture, her breath catching when she verified that it came from Dylan’s phone.

  She checked her surroundings to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, and then tried to rationalize the photo. Someone probably found Dylan’s phone lying somewhere and took the picture, she reasoned. That had to be it. They must have tried to send it to someone with a name or number close to hers and the phone automatically inserted her as a recipient. Still, panic squeezed at her heart, restricting its beat, and she found herself swinging her legs over the side of the bed and shuffling to the living room to fall onto the couch. No way was she going to be able to go back to sleep after that. It was only a minute before her phone chirped the sound of another incoming text. Tia felt a sense of dread as she tapped on the picture and enlarged it on the tiny screen of her phone. She couldn’t be absolutely sure it was one of the same women, nor could she be sure the other person in the picture was Dylan; although her brain clearly leaned toward both being true. There were no faces clearly identifiable; one was completely invisible, buried between the breasts that filled much of the screen. All she could see was the hair; long, blonde, and wavy. A hand with long manicured fingernails was pushed through it as if holding the face in place.

  She took a deep breath and held it, unable to look away. She stared for what seemed a long time, and then the phone vibrated once again in her hand. She closed her eyes and willed the next text not to be what she feared it might be. Her prayers were not answered. The picture showed the same man lying on a couch with one of the women straddling him. His shirt was open to the waist and her breasts were out. One of the naked breasts was pressed into the man’s face. The message beneath said, between u n me man. obviously! Tia gasped and dropped the phone, hearing it buzz again against the floor. “Oh God,” she breathed, feeling panic rise up to wrap around her lungs and give them a good squeeze. She gasped for breath as the phone buzzed again and she bent down to retrieve it. She didn’t want to look—it scared the hell out of her, actually—but she couldn’t help herself. She clicked on the picture and saw the woman on top of the man on the couch, his hand resting on the place where her dress had been hiked up to expose her buttocks. The other woman leaned over his face, her lips pressed to his. Tia’s eyes were drawn immediately to the Chinese symbol for younger sister tattooed between the man’s thumb and forefinger. She moaned in pain as she sunk to the floor and curled into a fetal position, her breath hitching in sobs.

  “What the hell is going on?” Bo roared when he walked into the tiny lounge next to the kitchen. He flicked on the light, and the women just smiled at him.

  “Want to join in?” one of them asked.

  Bo shook his head in complete and total disbelief. “No, I don’t want to join…I want to know what the hell is going on in here.” He directed the question at Dylan, but there was no response.

  “I think that would be obvious,” a blonde hissed in a Swedish accent. “We’d be happy to invite you to our private party if you want to join, or you can go away. Or maybe you just want to watch?”

  “You’ve got to be trippin’ on something,” he mumbled, pushing his way between the near-naked women and pulling Dylan by his wrists to a sitting position. “Dylan. Are you OK?” The only response was a low moan from deep in his chest, barely audible over the muffled beat of the music that resonated through the open doors. “Dude. Talk to me.” He nudged the women—who still made no effort to cover themselves—aside and yanked Dylan up from the couch. Bo’s eyes widened when he sank right back down without so much as a glimpse of recognition or consciousness. Bo turned him so that he’d fall onto a loveseat away from the women and knelt on the floor in front of him. “Shit. Dyl—look at
me.” He slapped his friend’s cheeks and Dylan opened one eye and looked at him without focus.

  “What the fuck did you do?” he growled, glaring at the women, who shrugged innocently.

  “He invited us to come back here,” one of the women said.

  “Said he would make us sing,” the other smirked.

  “The hell he did.” He lifted Dylan’s chin and tried to get him to make eye contact, but his eyes just rolled back in his head and then closed. “Holy shit,” he muttered to himself. Then he turned back to the women. “Go get me some water from the kitchen—and for fuck’s sake, put your goddamn clothes back on.” The girls looked at him blankly. “NOW!” Finally one of them moved, and brought a punch bowl half-full of water and a towel. He dunked the towel and squeezed the cold water over Dylan’s head, then slapped his face again.

  “Hey Bobooooo…whassup?” The words were barely audible, and Dylan’s eyes were looking in two different directions at once. Bo pressed Dylan’s face with his hands and shook him.

  “What’s going on, Dyl?”

  “My head’s tooooo drunk. They took pictures. Bad pictures.”

  Bo’s head jerked toward the women. “What’s he talking about?” He watched as one of the girls tried to slide Dylan’s phone onto the table next to the couch. Bo reached over and snatched it, tapping the photos icon and gritting his teeth at what he saw. “Was this consensual, Dyl?” he asked, holding the camera in front of his face. Dylan squinted, and then his eyes widened when he finally managed to see it well enough to know it for what it was. He shook his head, and his eyes closed again.

  “Unfuckingbelievable,” he snarled. “You sick bitches. Get the hell out of here right now, before I call the cops.”

  The shorter of the two women flinched just a bit but the taller one just smiled. “Nothing illegal about a little foreplay between adults—now either you want to join, or you let us finish in peace.”

  “I said get out!” Bo grabbed their bags off the couch next to Dylan and tossed them to the floor, sending the contents of one or both skittering across the tile. He watched a lipstick roll toward the door, a packet of condoms slide across the granite, an assortment of pills bounce in all directions, and glass from a compact shatter against the wall, dusting the dark squares of tile with a fine powder. The taller of the two got to her knees, trying to scoop the contents back into the bag as Bo shook with fury. He stood to his full height and glared at them both, clenching his hands into fists and shooting daggers at them from his eyes. “Right. Fucking. Now.” The message finally registered—they left the rest of the contents and ran from the room.

  Bo turned back to Dylan and swung his friend’s legs up onto the couch, trying to make him comfortable, and took stock of the situation. His jeans were unbuttoned and unzipped, but thankfully still on his body. Bo buttoned up Dylan’s shirt and grabbed a blanket off an adjacent chair; tossing it over him. He sat in the chair and blew out a breath, thankful that he’d appeared to have found him before the little orgy had gotten to the point of no return. He’d been looking for Dyl for a while—if it hadn’t been for the flustered waitress who shot him a guilty look as he’d walked past the door that led to the kitchen, he may have been too late. “I didn’t want to do it,” she’d whimpered. “I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.” She rushed off then, disappearing into the crowd. Bo had seen the guilt and the recognition in her eyes and pushed through the door immediately.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered as Dylan groaned, and he fell to his knees and pushed his index finger to his friend’s wrist to get a pulse. The bastard’s heart was beating; at least for now. He was smashed off his gourd, but he was going to live to feel the wrath of what promised to be a very nasty hangover. “Drink this,” he demanded, holding a cup of water to Dylan’s lips and tipping it back. Dylan sputtered and coughed, but managed to get some of the liquid down the right pipe.

  “Sleeeep,” Dylan hissed, laying his head back onto the arm of the couch.

  “Yeah, buddy, you need to sleep it off all right.” He picked up Dylan’s phone and started deleting the photos, gritting his teeth as each new image popped onto the screen. The fury bubbled up in him as he realized how much Dylan stood to lose if these pictures got out, and cursed himself for not smashing the bitches’ phones as they were sliding across the floor along with the rest of their bags’ contents. He’d known Dylan plenty long enough to know that there was no way in hell he consented to any of this. Even if he wasn’t engaged he would never have given those fake trashy whores the time of day. He deleted the last photo, shut off the phone, and hoped to hell that he’d averted disaster. God knew Dylan didn’t look like he was going to remember any of this in the morning. Bo shoved Dylan’s shoes back onto his feet, led him through a back door, and somehow managed to drag him the few blocks to the hotel.

  Chapter 39

  Tia awoke with a feeling of dread in her gut that she prayed was from a bad dream. It was still dark and she shivered under a thin blanket on the couch instead of in the warm cocoon of her bed, which pretty well dashed her feeble hopes that the horrendous pictures that still burned on the backs of her eyelids were conjured up by her own mind.

  No way she was going to fall back to sleep, so she dragged herself off the couch and slipped into her favorite thick robe before stumbling into the kitchen to make some coffee. She sat at the kitchen table with her face in her hands as the pain settled into her consciousness. There had to be some logical explanation; there just had to be. She had complete trust in Dyl—it had taken her a hell of a long time and a lot of concentrated effort to rid herself of the jealous feelings every time she saw a picture of Dylan smiling next to another woman. She had learned to bite her tongue and smile when women flirted with him unabashedly—but she had gotten there; or so she’d believed. Dylan had told her long ago that pictures could be fabricated and doctored to look real, and the Penelope situation had proven it beyond the shadow of a doubt. They’d even had a number of discussions about how she’d have to be more trustworthy than the average girlfriend, and he’d never given her the slightest reason to doubt him. Until now.

  Unable to help herself, she dug her phone out from under the couch and opened the texts, wincing out loud as the first one popped up on her screen. After having seen the final picture just a few hours ago, she could now positively ID Dylan as the man in the previous photos. Although there were at least two different women in the shots, it was the same man—she could tell by the shirt and the backdrop—a plaid couch against a beige wall. A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach as she realized three things. First, they were all sent from Dylan’s phone, most likely from the party where she knew there’d be plenty of willing women. Second, although the texts came to her, the messages attached were directed toward a guy. Did he inadvertently tap her name on his contact list; actually meaning to send them to someone else? Tim, maybe?

  The third realization was the one that made her heart break in two. The texts had come in quick succession—she’d gotten five pictures in the span of less than half an hour. There was no way they could have been doctored. The only conclusion her mind could reach was that she was witnessing Dylan breaking every promise he’d ever made her.

  The coffeemaker beeped behind her and she numbly made her way over to the counter and poured, falling back onto the chair and wrestling with the images in her head. She stared blankly at the rainbow swirls that spun lazily atop the dark liquid until it went cold, and didn’t bother to pour another cup. It was over an hour before she could even process that she needed to go—she needed to get somewhere safe where she could work out what to do next—she was so full of conflict at the moment that she couldn’t even see straight. Once a cheater, always a cheater, she heard Lexi say over and over in her mind. She stood up and paced around the apartment that had only recently become her place of residence; she’d given up her little house and it now belonged to a young couple with a toddler, so she had no place to call her own. God, she’d g
iven up her career, her home, her life... All those years, all that work to become independent—to take care of herself and build a life of which she could be proud, and she’d thrown it all to the wind for Dylan. He was once the man of her dreams, but now she feared he would haunt her nightmares; the man who texted her pictures of himself in various stages of undress with at least two beautiful women at a music producer’s party. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t see another explanation.

  The walls started closing in on her, and she felt cold panic rise up from the ground to swallow her whole. She needed to be anonymous for a few days; to figure things out. Unfortunately, there were precious few, if any, places where she could hide away from it all. No way she was sharing the pictures yet with anyone—she wasn’t about to deal with the pity she’d get from her loved ones, and she didn’t know how long it would be before she’d be willing to hear Dylan’s voice; if he even had anything to say to her. She tossed a few things into an overnight bag and picked up the phone.

  “Hey, it’s Tia,” she said when the familiar voice came on the line. “I really need to get away for a couple days. Can I come stay with you?”

  “You know you’re always welcome here.”

  “I know, and thank you. Could you be ready for me in about an hour?”

  “I just pulled a coffee cake out of the oven. If you get here sooner, it’ll still be warm.”

  Tia let out a long slow breath. “I’m on my way right now.”