by DeSalvo, Kim
“Tandem Obsession.” Lexi squinted in question and Tia continued. “They’re pretty hot on the Brit scene right now, but they haven’t hit it in the U.S. yet. They’re pretty good though; they opened in Glasgow last week. Kind of punky pop, with a bluesy attitude.”
“I like the name,” Lexi pondered. “Any hotties?”
Tia rolled her eyes. “What do you mean, ‘any hotties’?”
“You know exactly what I mean. I obviously need a new gimme, and this is just the place to find one. I just love the vibe here; I could feel it as soon as I stepped off the plane.”
“It’s called jet lag,” Tia joked, “and you are impossible, Alexis Marie.”
“You know I hate when you call me that. You sound like my mother.”
“Yeah, well I should call your mother and tell her you’re trying to get in a quick lay with a Brit punker. She’d love that. So would Ryan.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Lexi smirked. “So I ask again, any hotties?”
“Definitely none hotter than mine, so I can’t really say,” she grinned.
“Well, duh!” Lexi bubbled. “Only one of us can be dating the sexiest man in the world.” She stuck out her lower lip in a pathetic pout. “I hate that it’s you.”
“I just bet you do.” Tia smiled at her best friend in the world, linked elbows, and led her back to the lobby to catch a taxi.
Ty was still losing his fight with laryngitis when they arrived—apparently honey and lemon weren’t enough to push it back. After rushed greetings and an over exaggerated exchange between Lexi and Bo that had everyone’s eyes rolling, the girls took their seats in the front row to watch the boys sync mikes and instruments. Tia looked forward to introducing Lexi and Jessa, but Dylan’s assistant was busy running errands and getting things together for dinner, and couldn’t join them yet.
“This is so exciting!” Lexi exclaimed. “It’s kind of weird being in an empty stadium.” She looked around the vastness of Wembley, eyes wide. “This place is enormous—how many people does it hold?”
“Ninety thousand,” Tia answered as Lexi whistled through her teeth, “and every one of these seats will be full in a few hours. Both shows sold out in less than an hour.”
“That’s a shitload of people!” Lexi exclaimed. “I’d be scared to death in front of an audience that big!”
Tia laughed. “Are you kidding me? You’d love every minute of it.”
Lexi smirked. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Having that many people chanting your name and screaming for you—it’s got to be seriously awesome!”
“Hey Tia,” Dylan called from the stage. “Can you help get Ty’s mike through sound check? We can run through Lost in You. He still sounds like shit.”
“Absolutely!” Tia mounted the stage and took Ty’s place at the mike. Lexi watched from the floor as they ran through the intro and her eyes widened as she heard how Tia’s voice blended with Dylan’s in perfect harmony. “Wow, you guys sound amazing together!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I’ve heard Tia sing before, but…wow. It sounds great from here!”
The sound guy Neil agreed with two thumbs-up, but Dylan wanted to be certain. “Let’s run through Over the Hills once, just to be sure,” he said into his own mike. And they were off again, their voices rising and falling over the music as if they were one.
“I’ll say it again,” Lexi yelled toward the stage. “Wow.”
Ty was silent during dinner, hoping that resting his voice would be enough to get him through the night. The rest of the guys harassed him relentlessly, well aware that he’d taken a self-imposed vow of silence. At the preshow meeting, however, it was evident that he wasn’t going to be able to sing backup vocals.
“I guess we’ll have to scrap Lost in You and Pull You Up,” Angelo said. “Unless you want to do them acoustic?” he looked at Dylan.
“I hate to scrap them;” he said, “they were both really big over here. And now that we’ve started doing Pull You Up, we’ll hear about it if it isn’t on the set list. They’re not as good without the harmony, but I think we’d better keep them. Acoustic is better than nothing.”
They finished off the meeting and Bo motioned Dylan over to a corner. “A quick word?” he said, and the two huddled for a moment, glancing back at the girls. Dylan smiled, and they nodded to each other. The boys gave each other a pre-show pep talk, and Dylan planted an enthusiastic kiss on Tia before she and Lexi left to take their seats.
They watched the crowd filing in, and were in awe at the number of people packing the stadium. “Damn,” Lexi said, “it looks even bigger when it’s full—I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many people together in one place!” They looked around their immediate area, front and center to the stage, and pointed out all the people they recognized. There were other celebrities, members of Parliament, and even the princes with their dates were just a dozen seats down, surrounded by their entourages.
The crowd rose to its feet immediately when the lights dimmed, the roar deafening. The boys walked casually onto the stage and waved, inciting more cheers from the audience. Tia was, as always, mesmerized by Dylan onstage. He owned the audience, and no matter how many times she watched him perform—twelve, by her count, just on this tour and at least twenty before that—it never got old. Every show was different, unique, and tailored to the audience and the songs that were most popular in that region. They started with a bang, Bo pounding the bass drum and everyone else jumping in with a song that kept the audience on its feet, moving as one and singing along to the familiar tune. Tia and Lexi danced with them, pulled into the common bond that great live music delivered by talented performers forged for an evening. Dylan growled, howled, wailed and crooned into the mike, and delivered song after song in his unique and enthusiastic style. When the fourth song ended, Dylan spoke to the audience.
“Hellooo, London!” he yelled gruffly into the microphone and the audience responded with a deafening roar. “It’s so good to be back in this amazing city—one that I’ll always call home! You’ve been so great to us, and we love you!” More screams and applause met his words. “Thank you very much! Now this next song is one of our absolute favorites to play live…” more screams and hollers, “…but unfortunately, Ty’s voice is a bit under the weather today, and he’s not going to be able to sing for you tonight…” the tone of the audience changed to something that could only be described as collective sympathy, ninety thousand voices sighing, ‘aaaww.’ “But if you’ll be so kind,” he added, “I have a beautiful lady in the audience tonight who knows this song, and if you could help me persuade her, perhaps she’d join us on the stage and grace us with her amazing harmonies…” The roar of the crowd filled Tia’s ears and her heart began to beat a mile a minute as Dylan looked down at her and extended his hand. “Would you help us out, Tia?” he said with a grin, nodding toward the mike that a stage hand had just placed at his left side.
“Holy shit,” Lexi wheezed on panting breath, “he wants you to…”
“Yeah, holy shit is right!” Tia bellowed. “Oh my God, I can’t do this! There’re 90,000 people in this place!”
“Oh yes you can!” Lexi hollered, propelling her forward toward the guard that stood ready to help her mount the stage. Dylan encouraged her with his eyes, and before she could even think about it, she found herself being lifted onto the stage, into the harsh glare of the spotlights and to Dylan’s side. He planted an encouraging kiss on her cheek and slid into the intro.
Time stood still. Tia knew the song inside and out, and had sung harmony just this afternoon at the sound check, plus hundreds of times before that. She took a deep breath and remembered the first night they’d sung this song together—their first night together—at Sing-a-long-Cassidy’s, in front of less than a hundred people. They’d come so far together on this journey, yet here they were, back where they’d started, and Dylan was winding up the intro and starting to sing…Lost in you, don’t know what I’m gonna do, every day is an eternity, every minu
te an hour and I’m searching, searching, for what I lost in you, and Tia fell into the music on autopilot, sliding in at just the right moment, her voice more clear and steady than she could have believed, and there, in front of the sold out stadium, she and Dylan sang together, weaving their voices like a complex net, ensnaring the audience with the words and harmonies. She’d never felt so alive yet so completely vulnerable, but then Dylan was at her side, smiling at her, singing to her as he looked into her eyes and strummed the melody, and it was only the two of them in the whole world as they finished the song, holding out the last note as he coaxed the final chords from the guitar. At once the applause from the audience was deafening, and she was jerked back into reality, thousands of voices screaming their approval and Dylan was stepping back and motioning for her to take a bow. She absorbed the applause like a drug, hardly able to believe it was for her. “Thank you very much!” Dylan said to the crowd, “and thank you, my lovely lady, for helping us out!” The crowd cheered again, and Tia took one more bow. Then, just as swiftly, she was swept back into the audience and back to Lexi’s side.
“Holy shit!” Lexi bellowed as soon as she’d retaken her seat. Strangers around her were patting her on the back and congratulating her on her performance. “You were awesome!” she cried as Tia tried to catch her breath. She looked up and saw Dylan smiling down at her. Then Bo hit the snare in a familiar opening and the crowd exploded again as InHap belted into the next number.
“Oh my God!” Lexi yelled over the crowd. “You just sang in front of 90,000 people! And you rocked it!!”
“Holy crap, I did, didn’t I?” she yelled back elated, unsuccessfully trying to get her heart to beat a normal rhythm. Her breath was still coming in gasps; she could scarcely believe what she’d just done.
“That’s my girl, Tia!” Dylan exclaimed into the mike. “Give it up for her one more time!” Again the crowd answered enthusiastically, and Tia broke into a huge grin. Dylan blew her a kiss, and then added his guitar to the drums and keyboards on stage as the next number exploded from the speakers. But as much as she appreciated the applause, she was even more excited that Dylan had just told ninety thousand people that she was ‘his girl.’
Tia rode the rest of the evening on a high that she couldn’t put into thoughts or words. She and Lexi danced, sang, and high-fived all the spectators eager to get closer to the girl who’d been called up to sing on stage with InHap. She passed on a thought to Nick, who was surely cheering more loudly than all of them, proud of her and what she’d done.
It wasn’t until the encore that Dylan played the first chords of I’ll Pull You Up. He’d played only three notes before the crowd recognized it and went ballistic. He stopped playing, and the crowd quieted immediately, waiting for him to speak.
“This next song is special in my heart,” he said softly. “We’ve only recently started playing it live, and I could use some help with this one too—it isn’t the same without the harmony.” He looked down at Tia and raised that one eyebrow in question. This time she didn’t even hesitate, and she was lifted once again to the stage where she took her place beside Dylan, sharing his mike, as he wound into the intro for I’ll Pull You Up. They swayed together as the music wound around itself, creating an other-worldly sound and as Angelo joined in with the sax, Dylan poured out the first lyrics, “You lie dyin’ and I’m left here cryin’… nothin’ I can do to save you, but who’s gonna save me? Thought that I could be so strong but you’ve been leavin’ me for so long…now there’s nothing left but this hole… Tia joined in, soft and slow, I’ll pull you up, from your darkest fears…when the world’s tryin’ to drown you in your own tears… take my hand, and hold on tight…I’ll pull you through this dark, dark night…The sun’s still shinin’ on the other side…have no fear, I’ll be your guide… through heaven’s pearls or the gates of hell…inside my heart you’ll always dwell… You’ll never be too far from me…don’t lose your grip, we’ll make it you’ll see…When the skies are gray and stormy, I’ll pull you through the clouds, so you can see the sun’s still shining, above the earth’s dark shroud… I can’t you on take this journey, and that we’ve always known, but in my heart I know you have the strength to get there on your own…
They ended the song resting their foreheads against each other, much like they had when they first sang together just over a month ago. Something was so different this time though; they shared the common bond of loss and survival and were both stronger because of it. Their relationship had grown immensely in a short time; spending so much time together over the past couple months had given them a sort of crash course in each other, and they were finding that they were incredibly compatible in all the ways that mattered. There was a comfort that passed between them, and at that moment, there was no crowd, no cheering, no pressure, just a sense of security and connectedness that they both felt strongly. He tossed his guitar over his shoulder and put his arm around her waist and bowed with her, then stepped back and motioned with a sweep of his arm for her to once more receive the adulation of the audience. Reality hit hard when her eyes swept across the crowd and she saw the immense sea of faces there, and her knees went weak, heat rising to her face and her breath was gone again, but Dylan was back, pulling her into an embrace and kissing her before handing her back over to the security guard who helped her back to her seat.
Lexi just stared for a moment, then her whisper was lost in the sound of the crowd and the music but Tia read it on her lips, “Oh my God, Tia, you are so amazing together,” and she pulled Tia into an embrace and said into her ear, “I am so blown away by you right now!”
Tia hugged her back, welcoming the support as she was trying to settle her heart, breathing and body temperature into some sort of normalcy. Again, the people around them were patting her back, rubbing her head, and doing anything they could to get more connected to what was happening on the stage. A big bear of a guy spun her around and pulled her into a hug, and as she laughed, she saw, four rows back, Penelope Valentine, glaring at her with a look that was downright hostile.
Penelope seethed in the fourth row—again. She’d had her agent get the tickets for her and her assistant so she could catch Dylan off-guard after the show and maybe get a little time to get to know him. This time she’d done her homework, and knew the kind of person that Dylan needed her to be, and she had every intention of playing the role like it was for another Oscar nomination. She’d never for a moment considered that he wouldn’t be here alone. The first few songs had her up and dancing with the rest of the crowd, and she was feeling almost giddy watching him on stage. He had such an amazing presence and he couldn’t be sexier, and she imagined that this time, he’d be lonely and glad to spend some time with her. Then her entire fantasy came crashing down around her when he plucked that little bitch out of the audience and had her singing with him on stage.
Penelope found it absolutely pitiful the way she was behaving, craving the limelight one minute and feigning shyness the next, just to get applause. Worse though, was the realization that things could actually be serious between them—Dylan had obviously thought enough of her to bring her to London, and maybe even for more of the tour. She’d hoped that he’d have forgotten about her by now, and that showing up ‘accidentally’ in Europe would jump start things between the two of them. It hadn’t figured into her plans that she might still have competition for his attention.
Patience was never one of her virtues, but she knew when it was time to drop back and wait. This Tia person was a schoolteacher, for chrissake. She’d be back to grading papers and wiping snotty brats’ noses in the fall, and Penelope would have Dylan all to herself. They’d be far from his little commoner and from Hollywood, and then they could take things to the next level. It was all a matter of timing, she told herself, and this wasn’t the right time. She’d just have to kick things up a notch later, have a good plan in place and follow through in just the right order. She was an Oscar nominee—she knew just how to play the part
—and Dylan was part of it. He just didn’t know it yet. There was a positive side to this little encounter, though—now at least she knew there could be another hurdle she’d have to get over, and she could plan for that too. That little girl was deluding herself if she really believed she could hold on to a man like Dylan Miller. She had no idea what she was up against, and Penelope smiled as she leaned over and whispered something to her assistant. They needed to get on this right away; there were only a few weeks left before she’d have him all to herself.
InHap finished off the show with two more rockers and an extended jam that had the audience jumping in unison and singing along. When Dylan gave her the nod, she and Lexi waved to the people around them and headed for the stage entrance. She was sure to flash a smile at Penelope, who had to know she wouldn’t be welcomed backstage.
There was no waiting in the common room this time. Tia threw her arms around Dylan the minute he stepped off the stage, but he spoke before she had a chance to. “You were brilliant!” he yelled. “Thanks so much for stepping in—I knew you’d be incredible!”
“You’re thanking me?” she squealed, astounded. “I can’t believe you did that! I can’t believe I did that! It was so incredible!”
“It was Bo’s idea, actually,” he said, folding her into his arms, “but we thought if we told you ahead of time, you might chicken out.”
Tia recalled the two of them head to head at the pre-show meeting, and the look they’d thrown her way. “I probably would’ve!” she exclaimed. “I would’ve been so freaked out the whole time…oh, but it was so…I don’t even have words for it!”
Ty hugged her next. “You saved my ass tonight, Tia,” he rasped in a voice that still sounded like sandpaper, “and you were nothing short of awesome. I’m sure glad you can’t play bass, or I’d be out of a job!”
“Yeah right,” she exclaimed. “That’d never happen.” She threw her arms in the air and wiggled excitedly. “It was an incredible feeling though—how do you do it night after night and not let it go straight to your heads? I feel like I’m dancing on clouds right now; it was so much fun!”