Incidental Happenstance

by DeSalvo, Kim

  Tia understood the ‘experience’ part perfectly. “He has so much respect for you, though, Bo—you know that.”

  “I do, and that’s another reason why I love the man. But the point of the story is that Dylan doesn’t put himself on a pedestal like so many other famous people do. He doesn’t think he’s better than anyone else—he’d be just as happy playing in little pubs as he is playing on the big stages. It’s about the music for him, always has been. He’s never gone in for all that Hollywood bullshit. Hell, he lives in Colorado, for chrissake, on a ranch in a tiny little town. He’s never tried to be some hotshot celebrity—he purposely avoids that scene as much as he can. And he keeps us humble, too, knocking us back down to Earth if things start going to our heads. He’s our reality check, in a way. Why do you think he goes out in disguise? He misses being a normal person. It’s just that singing and music are in his blood and he doesn’t have a choice but to do it. The celebrity just comes along for the ride.”

  Tia whispered, “Oh, I know all that, Bo, I do. It’s one of the things I like so much about him; that he’s so down to earth and open. But what does it matter anyway? I’m living in a fantasy world here. He’ll be gone in a couple days and then what?”

  “Listen. I can’t predict the future, but I can tell you that the boy is in deeper than even he realizes. I know I’m the jokester and the prankster of the band, but I’m also kind of the bartender —I hear more of their shit than I care to, sometimes,” he said with a sarcastic chuckle. “Dylan’s my best friend in the world, Tia, and I know him better than anyone. I see the way he looks at you—the way you look at each other. I hear the way he talks about you and see the way he lights up when you walk into the room. He’s never dedicated a whole show to one person, and he played every song you wanted, even the one that was hardest for him play. You’re bringing out all the things in him that he thought he’d lost, and I for one appreciate it. Damn, I don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow or the next day or next month, but I do know that you have to make the most of every minute and let it work itself out. Don’t give up the time you do have worrying about time you might not get later. That would be a waste.”

  Tia hugged him tight. “You’re right, Bo, I know you’re right. I just don’t know what I’m even doing here, and I’m scared.” She looked up into his face and stretched up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Thanks,” she whispered. “You’re pretty great, you know that? I’m so glad I could come to your party.”

  “Me too,” he grinned back, giving her a little squeeze.

  Dylan appeared beside them. “I really think I need to cut in, mate,” he said to Bo.

  “But of course,” he replied, bowing and offering him Tia’s hand. She stepped into Dylan’s arms and he held her close, pressing his lips against the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, Tia, I’m so sorry.”

  “For what? For being you? You can’t apologize for that Dylan. You didn’t do anything.”

  “No, but she hurt you, and that really pisses me off.” She felt him stiffen, and heard his exhale as he tried to tramp down the anger that still coursed through him. “You do know, don’t you, that you’ve got more class in your little finger than she could ever hope to have? She’s got nothing on you. You’re the one I want to be with.”

  Tia sighed wistfully. “I just can’t help but think…”

  He interrupted her. “Don’t think that way. I know it’s hard, it’s hard for me too.” He ran his fingers through her hair and gently pulled her head back to meet his eyes. “Bloody hell,” he said, clearly aggravated. “This isn’t at all the way I wanted to ask you this, but I don’t know how else to…”

  She looked up at him with uncertainty in her eyes as he paused before continuing. “I had Jessa look into something. I wanted to know the latest time I could leave Chicago and still get to Cleveland in time for Monday’s show. It looks like I can catch a private flight at 3:00 and still make it in time for sound checks.”

  Tia looked up at him, not quite understanding. “Damn it,” he continued, glaring over at Penelope who was now perched on the quarterback’s lap. “She’s really fucked this up. Listen. Never once since I met you did I consider you a potential notch in my bedpost, or anything even close to that.” He pulled away slightly and ran his fingers through his own hair, grunting with agitation. “Shit, I don’t know what I’m doing here. This isn’t fair to you, and it damned sure isn’t fair to me, but I really do care about you, Tia. I know I just met you yesterday, but you’ve kind of gotten under my skin.” He cradled her face in his hands and stared deep into her. “I want to spend as much time as I can with you before I have to go. Part of me knows that it’ll just make it even harder, but I really like you, and I want every minute I can get.” She smiled up at him, and he planted a soft kiss gently on her lips.

  “I got a suite at the Hilton for tomorrow night. It’s two bedrooms, and I swear it isn’t about trying to get you into bed.” He kissed her again. “Although I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it. A lot.” He looked frustrated as he glanced over at Penelope again, still blatantly flirting with the quarterback and continually looking back to see if Dylan had noticed. “I just want to spend as much time with you as possible. I want to have breakfast with you and have you be the last person I see before I leave Chicago.” Tia’s eyes widened as she took it all in. He thought about being with her a lot? He got a suite at the Hilton and wasn’t leaving until Monday afternoon? Her stomach was doing flips and turns while her mind imagined what that could lead to.

  “I’m asking you to spend the night with me, Tia. Not in my bed, because I couldn’t bear it that you’d always wonder if that was all I wanted from you from the start, but just to be with me, because I just can’t seem to get you out of my head.”

  Tia breathed deeply and exhaled on a sigh. “You really mean it, don’t you?” she asked, incredulously. She didn’t need an answer; she could read the truth in his eyes.

  “I absolutely mean it,” he answered, stroking her hair softly. “I promise I’ll be the perfect gentleman, but I also promise that it won’t be easy—might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done—but I won’t put you through that.” He buried his hands and face in her hair and whispered, “Will you stay with me?”

  She didn’t hesitate for a second before answering, because even though she knew that saying goodbye to him would be horrible, she couldn’t face doing it sooner. “Oh yeah,” she said, finding his mouth and kissing him. “I absolutely will.”

  Chapter 17

  Tia looked in the mirror one more time, satisfied with the final result. She’d teased up her hair, added some blue highlights that framed her face, caked on heavier than usual makeup, and practiced her scowl in the mirror. Her clothes were leftovers from a Halloween costume a couple years back, punk rock to the core but not over done, and when she looked at the finished product, she figured that even her students wouldn’t quite recognize her. She hopped in her car and went to pick up Dylan at the Hilton; where she’d be spending the night with him in his suite. In a room right next to his. She was thinking about that a lot, spending the night with him without actually spending the night with him. He was worried about overstepping boundaries, but her passion for him kept growing, and when she was with him she always had the feeling that she was standing on a precipice from which she could easily fall at any moment. She didn’t know what to think about it, but she wasn’t afraid of the fall—just the aftermath. Being with him that way might make it harder to say goodbye, but not being with him might fill the rest of her life with regret. She’d always wonder if taking that one more step would have changed the course of her future. But, no matter what Bo and Dylan told her, the spiteful words of Penelope Valentine kept coming back to haunt her. That horrible woman would be spending months alone with Dylan in a foreign place where they didn’t know anyone else; filming intimate love scenes and spending a lot of their time together. Tia didn’t put anything past that woman, and it was obvious that sh
e was hot to get her claws deep into Dylan.

  She slapped her cheeks to ward off the negative thoughts. Bo’s words came back to her over and over too, and his were much more pleasant to recall. He said Dylan was in deeper than even he knew, and that was comforting to some degree. The wisest words, though, were that she had to stop worrying about tomorrow and concentrate on today. It would be hard, since tomorrow would definitely take Dylan away from her, but she was determined to enjoy every minute of her time with him, trying to convince herself that if nothing else ever came of it, she’d still had the most amazing weekend of her entire life and she should be satisfied with that.

  Dylan was waiting in the lobby, slouched against the wall and generally smirking at everything around him. Tia observed people looking at him out of the corners of their eyes, or lengthening their paths through the lobby to give him a wide berth. Repellant was the word he used, but as always, she was drawn to him, and she put on her own best smirk and sauntered over to his side.

  “Hey, good lookin’,” she said in her best British accent, which wasn’t very good.

  “Bloody hell, you look brilliant!” he mused. He held her shoulders at arm’s length and looked her up and down. “I approve,” he said, smiling. “It could be a new look for you. I bet your students would love it. You’d be the coolest teacher ever!”

  “I’m already the coolest teacher ever,” she said firmly, then broke into a grin. “Now are you ready to freak some people out, or what?”

  “I’m all yours,” he smiled, but in the back of his mind and hers, they thought simultaneously, for today, anyway.

  It was an incredible day in the city. The sky was clear, the day was unusually warm, and the constant wind that often bellowed in from Lake Michigan had taken its own holiday. They started with an architectural boat ride down the river, cuddling up under a blanket at the back of the boat and learning about the history of Chicago between stolen kisses. They chased each other around the city on Segways, snacked at little street side cafes, and wandered aimlessly around the Art Institute, where Dylan fidgeted in the Modern Art Gallery. “I just don’t get it,” he said, “it’s just a few colors tossed on the canvas. Maybe I’m in the wrong line of work. I could just throw blobs of paint at a wall, and I wouldn’t have to spend nine out of twelve months away from home every year.”

  “You’re not supposed to always get it,” Tia said. “You’re just supposed to appreciate it.”

  “You forget that I grew up with an artist, someone who created things of beauty—pieces that meant something,” he said, shaking his head. “I get the Monet’s and the Renoir’s and the Degas’s, but this is rubbish.”

  She laughed, and they wandered around the classics before catching a cab to head up to the 96th floor of the Hancock building for a quick drink, where they enjoyed an incredible view of the city. The elevator operator eyed them suspiciously as they ascended, and they got similar looks from the hostess at the bar. Torn jeans and Sex Pistols t-shirts were definitely not the fashion choices of most of the patrons at the bar, but a casually placed bill in the palms of the right people assured they were treated with respect, albeit with an eye of suspicion. Everywhere they went people tended to either ignore them or look at them with sideways glances, and they both enjoyed the reactions. If they only knew.

  “Wow,” Tia said as they sipped martinis next to the large window that looked out on the city, “repellant is a good word. I don’t think anyone’s looked me in the eye all day.”

  “That’s the whole point,” Dylan explained, “we can go anywhere and do anything, and no one wants to look directly at us. It’s the only way I can blend into a crowd—by being completely separate from it.”

  “Yeah, but it’s kind of sad in a way,” she reflected, “because you only get to be on the fringes of it, not really a part of it, you know what I mean?”

  “It’s the story of my life,” he said with sadness in his voice, “if I want any sort of normalcy.”

  They satisfied Dylan’s craving for Chicago deep dish at Gino’s, penning their names on the famous graffiti wall inside a little heart, and then it was time to head to the arena for the introduction of Outcast and the pre-show meeting. Tia sat in the common room with Jessa, and shared with her the fun they’d had that day.

  “It sounds absolutely wonderful!” she said. “I’m glad you two had such a good time. Dylan really does love Chicago, but he hardly ever gets to do those sorts of things. I’m glad he had you to share them with Tia, really.”

  She was riding another high all through the show. It was so incredible to watch Dylan on stage—no matter how many times she’d seen InHap play, it was different every time and amazing to be a part of the experience. She couldn’t help but think though, that in a couple short hours she’d be alone with Dylan in their suite, and that there would be some serious choices to be made. Every time he sang to her from the stage, she imagined his voice whispering in her ear, and felt the little rolls of her stomach that were way beyond her control every time their eyes met.

  When they met up in the common room after the show, the weight of the rest of the evening began to settle in on both of them. Soon they’d be alone in the suite, and they’d both have either some big decisions to make or some huge battles to wage. As the boys wrapped up the evening and gave instructions to the stage hands who were already tearing down the drum kit and backdrops to load them on the trucks for the trip to Cleveland, Tia’s mind and body were waging a battle of their own. Every time their eyes met, the questions hung between them, even from across the crowded room. Would this be the night? Would tonight be enough? Dylan tried to sound light, but his voice was gruff when he finally asked, “So. Are you ready to blow this place?”

  Her answer was barely a croak, “Uh huh.” It was all she could manage when she saw the fire flare up in his eyes. She drove them to the Hilton in silence, her hand resting in his during the short drive to the hotel.

  The suite was incredible. It was all marble, wood and soft rugs that begged to be walked on barefoot. Tia was battling nerves from all directions; if he was going to try and be a gentleman she owed it to him not to push things, and if he wasn’t…well, it had been so long since she’d been with a man that she worried about her lack of practice. This, after all, was a man who could literally have any woman he wanted and if he actually did want her…she just couldn’t help but wonder if she was worthy.

  The tension in the room was intense. It was just past midnight, so they still had a lot of evening ahead of them. Dylan went to the wet bar and pulled a bottle of white wine out of the chiller, motioning to her to have a seat on the couch. She sat, enveloped by the luxurious fabric and soft cushions. Dylan brought two glasses, poured, and then sat a measurable distance from her on the sofa. They raised glasses, and he said, “Here’s to…” the unspoken words hung between them like a chasm. He cleared his throat, and finished, “…a great day.” They drank, and then an uncomfortable silence fell over them. Tia finally broke it.

  “Hey,” she said simply. He looked at her with that one eyebrow look and forced a smile. “Whatever happens, Dylan,” she continued, “I definitely don’t want things to be awkward between us.”

  “I agree,” he commented immediately, relieved that she was feeling it too.

  “You’ve made me feel comfortable every minute we’ve been together—and at times, I know that hasn’t been easy.”

  “Aw, Tia.”

  “Let me finish. When I was dancing with Bo last night, he said something that really made me put things into perspective. He said that it was stupid to waste a single minute of our time together worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow, and I mean to stick to that.”

  “He is a wise man,” he joked, flashing his sideways smirk. “And I agree. I don’t want anything to get in the way of our…” he almost said, ‘last night together,’ but caught himself just in time, “…evening.” He scooted over to her and pulled her in so that her head rested on his chest. There
were so many things he wanted to say to her, but all of them sounded like goodbye, and he wanted to put that off as long as possible. Again, she came to the rescue, picking up their conversations from earlier in the day—light topics; books he’d read, movies he liked, and soon they were laughing and talking again like old friends, their legs and fingers intertwined as they rested easily on the couch. I can do this, he thought, but in the back of his mind he added, I could do this forever.

  After a while, they decided that it was safe, and even important, that they move the conversation to the hot tub that sat on a balcony overlooking the lake. Tia was very aware as she changed into her swimsuit that they’d both be seeing more of each other than they’d seen before. She’d brought a one piece and a bikini, just in case, and opted for the bikini with a cover-up until she got to the tub. Dylan was already soaking when she stepped out onto the balcony, and her breath caught in her throat. He was incredibly sexy, the contours of his body smooth and well defined with just the right amount of light brown hair swirling on his chest and creeping down his flat stomach beneath the water. The lights in the tub illuminated him from below, and she felt a now familiar tingle as she looked at him. He had more wine poured, and she slid off her cover up and perched one leg over the side of the tub. She was very aware of Dylan’s eyes on her as she slipped slowly into the hot bubbling water, testing the temperature. She heard a low sound come from his throat, and he said, “Damn, that bikini sure makes this a lot harder. Literally and figuratively.”