InHap*pily Ever After (Incidental Happenstance) (41 page)

Wes
shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, buddy. It is what it is, so you’d
best figure out a way to make it work for you. I’m telling you though, you
could really make a lot of dough.”

“Shit,”
Ryan said, “Not only would Lexi kill me, but again, it’s my wedding, and I’m
not filling the reception with a bunch of people that I barely know.”

Wes
shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe by that time the notoriety will die down and you
won’t even have to worry about it. They won’t be in the news forever, and
things might quiet down. It’s just big right now, so it’s on everyone’s minds.”

“That’s
not going to happen. Tia and Dylan just got engaged a few weeks ago, but
they’re planning on getting married before us. Like, a little over a month
before us. So that means that there’ll be pictures of their wedding all over
the place right before ours happens. Plus, there’s the whole Penelope Valentine
thing, and the infamous movie they did in New Zealand will come out…”

“Why
are they getting hitched so quick, and why so close to yours? That seems like a
shitty thing to do to a friend. Is she pregnant, or something?”

“Ah,
he’s going into the studio next month to make a new record, and then his band
is going to start touring in the fall so he needs to be in rehearsals…I guess
they don’t have a big window. Plus, they’re getting married on the one year
anniversary of when they met.” He bit his lower lip and shook his head.

“Pretty
shitty timing for you,” Wes agreed.

“The
thing is? I don’t really fault Miller for anything,” Ryan sighed. “He seems
like a nice enough guy; he doesn’t seem all full of himself like you’d expect a
big rock star to be. And I understand wanting to get married on the
anniversary, and that he has to work—there are other guys in the band, so he
doesn’t call all the shots…but still. This is really sucking on the tit of
every part of my life. I can’t stand going to my country club anymore—I’m sick
of people asking me if I know when he’s coming back in or if I can get an
autographed picture for their sick grandmother or something—and now I’m
starting to get the same shit at work? It’s a bunch of crap!”

Wes’s
eyes squinted and he nodded his head slightly. “Seems to me like maybe it’s the
timing that’s all wrong, Ryan.”

“That’s
the understatement of the year,” he grumbled.

“What
if you postponed your wedding? If you got married while the band is on tour,
maybe he wouldn’t be able to make it—or you could just tell all the would-be
wedding crashers that he can’t make it and have a legitimate excuse. Then you
wouldn’t have to worry about any of it.”

Ryan’s
eyebrows rose as he considered it for a moment, but then his face fell just as
quickly. “How am I going to get Lexi to go for that? First of all, she has her
heart set on a July wedding—she always has. She’s got a goddamned fireworks
display planned for the reception, for chrissake. Second of all, Tia might be
on the tour with Dylan, and she’s Lexi’s best friend, not to mention maid of
honor.”

“I
think it’s matron of honor if she’s already married.”

“Whatever,”
Ryan said, waving his hand in dismissal. “The point is, Lexi is going to want
her to be there for all the showers, parties, fittings…all that girl shit that
they love so much. And, she really likes Dylan too. She spent a couple weeks
over in Europe with them on the tour and really got to know the guy. She thinks
he’s a fucking prince. She’ll want him there, and would be pissed if I even
suggested having the wedding during the tour. She’s probably going to want to
invite the whole goddamn band. God knows she’s gotten chummy with the drummer…”
He closed his eyes and tipped his head toward the ceiling. “It sounds good in
theory, but I really don’t see any way to get her to agree to that,” he said,
defeated.

“What
if it wasn’t your fault?” Wes suggested. Ryan cocked his head in question and
Wes continued. “What if you don’t
want
to postpone the wedding, but you
have to because of say…work?”

“I’m
not following you, Wes.”

“What
if you suddenly got a “big project,” he said, making air quotes with his
fingers, “and it was going to keep you incredibly busy for the next…oh, I don’t
know…six or seven months?”

“How
am I going to pull that off?” he asked.

“Listen,
Ryan. It’s no secret that we’re all considering you for partnership, but
between you and me, the decision has pretty much been made.” Ryan smiled
wryly—how ironic to get this bit of news when his life seemed to be tanking
around him. “There are still some loose ends to tie up, and then a whole lot of
paperwork and legal mumbo-jumbo before it becomes official, but we were
thinking of springing the news on you around the end of the year. Kind of a
Christmas present, if you will. So, if you were to say that this ‘project’ is
so important that it could make or break your partner status, you’d have no
choice but to work on it for the good of both your futures, right? And no one
would know except for you and me.”

Ryan
started nodding; slowly at first, then faster as a smile spread across his
face. “That could work, you know? She’d be pissed at first, but she’d get over
it, right? Especially when the partnership was announced—she’d know that it had
all been worth it!” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “You’d do that
for me? Keep the secret so she’d never know the truth?”

“I
could…” Wes said cooly. “…but at the risk of sounding cliché…I hate to even ask
right now, but if I do this, you’ll kind of owe me, so…”

“What,
Wes, you want to sit next to him at the wedding too?”

“Not
me, but if he does show up for your wedding, can I bring my niece? She’s a big
fan—she’s got a freaking poster of the guy hanging on the wall in her bedroom.
You wouldn’t have to feed her or anything, she’d just love to come to the
reception and meet him…”

Ryan
smiled. “Consider it done,” he said. “It’s a small price to pay to avoid this
little shit storm. I’ll be sure to put her on the formal guest list—hell, she
can sit in his lap if she wants to. Fuck these primadonnas who think they can
bribe or coerce me into bowing down to their every request!”

The
two men shook hands to finalize the deal, and Ryan headed back to his office,
feeling better than he had since he first saw Dylan Miller with his arms around
his fiancé.

Ryan
worked on the story he’d tell Lexi most of the rest of the day. She was going
to be seriously pissed off, there was no doubt about it, but the whole
situation was pissing him off as well, and this was the only way he could keep
his dignity as a man. He laughed at himself then. He was dreading telling her,
if he was to be honest, and he’d have to tell her soon as he was tasked with
picking up wedding invitation samples so they could go through them together
over the weekend.

One
thing he knew about lying, however—and his experience as an attorney had taught
him well—was that you had to keep it simple and consistent. You told everyone
the same story, and then you never had to try and remember who knew the truth
and who didn’t. That was why when Jace called, he decided to set the
foundations of the story with him.

“Hey,
what’s up man?” Jace said when Ryan picked up the call. “Long time no see, my
friend. Sorry I haven’t been around the club lately…”

“I
haven’t noticed,” Ryan replied. “I haven’t been there either.”

“Why
not?” Jace asked, and then at the same time, they both said, “Dylan Miller.”

“Oh
man, he got you too?” Jace laughed. “What happened?”

“Long
story,” Ryan said.

“Well
hey; I’d love to hear all about it. I’m glad I’m not the only one who isn’t
bowing down at his fucking feet. Want to join me for drinks tonight? I was
thinking about going to
Skin Tones
, blowing off a little steam.”

Skin
Tones
was a strip club not too far
from the office. It was classier than most, seedier than some, but they had a
decent selection of top shelf liquor, and Ryan decided he could really go for a
drink. He could test out the story on Jace, and avoid telling Lexi about
postponing the wedding for at least another day. He accepted immediately, and
wrapped up only what was absolutely necessary before calling it an early day.

It
felt good to hang with Jace, anonymous in the dimly lit bar, girls working the
poles and delivering drinks clad in nothing but tiny g-strings. Jace relived
for him again his encounter with Dylan in the locker room. “He knew exactly who
I was, man,” he said. “He was just fucking toying with me. But because I wasn’t
a hundred percent sure at the time, I had no choice but to sit there and take
it.” Ryan  voiced his sympathy, and Jace continued. “Then, Bitsy fucking broke
up with me. I’d already promised to meet her for lunch, and I grabbed a table
that was out of view so he wouldn’t see me and have Tia confirm who I was, but
Bitsy kept begging to go over there and meet him, and she just wouldn’t let up!
I said I didn’t give a shit if he was God, and she got real bitchy and started
saying I was just jealous that I could never measure up to him and that I had
to give up my fantasies about Tia.” He pursed his lips and shook his head.

“That
sucks, man,” Ryan said sympathetically, but he knew that Jace deserved it. He’d
treated Bitsy like shit in his quest to get Tia to date him. 

Jace
shook his head. “Wait—it gets worse! I told her she didn’t know what she was
talking about, and she told me to go to hell.  She actually said that…” his
voice got high and whiney as he did a pretty good imitation of Bitsy, “’…having
Dylan Miller say my name and shake my hand would give me more pleasure than
you’ve
given me over the past year.’”

“Unfuckingbelievable,
man. Really,” Ryan said, “but you did kind of treat her like shit, you know.
Especially about the Tia thing.”

“Yeah,
I know,” he agreed. “And it’s not like I even miss her or anything—she was a
pain in the ass most of the time, but now I can’t even go to the club anymore,”
he moaned. “Everyone freaking knows how many times Tia shot me down, and they
probably know about me and the Miller thing, and I don’t want to deal with the
bullshit.”

“I
know what you mean,” Ryan agreed. “I’m not going because everyone suddenly
thinks he’s my best friend, and that I can get them autographs, pictures,
private meetings…I’m sick of it, to be honest, and it just isn’t worth it anymore.”

“I
hear that, brother,” Jace agreed, tucking a fiver into the tiny shred of fabric
on a stripper’s hip. “It’s like no one else exists whenever he’s around,” he
said.

Ryan
shook his head and tucked a bill into the g-string of a particularly buxom brunette
that kept wriggling seductively in front of him.

“Well,
I got some news today that’ll keep me away from the club anyway. It’s great
news, but it’s going to get me in a lot of shit with Lexi.”

“Yeah,
what’s that?” Jace asked.

“I
talked to Wes today,” he started, “and he’s got a real big project for me. One
that could be the deciding factor in my getting a partnership with the firm.”

“That’s
great man! Congratulations!” Jace said.

“That’s
the good news,” he said, taking a deep breath before dumping the lie. He knew
he could trust Jace, and that he’d be completely sympathetic of the situation,
but he’d made his decision to keep the truth in as few hands as
possible—meaning none. He threw back the last of his beer and motioned to the
topless waitress with the pierced nipple for another. “The bad news is,
unfortunately, it means I’m going to have to postpone my wedding—I’m going to
be up to my neck in work for the next few months, and it’s going to consume
pretty much all of my time—Lexi’s going to be so pissed, and I have to admit
that I’m deathly afraid to tell her.”

Jace
exhaled with a whoosh. “Oh yeah, I’d be afraid to tell her too. She’s going to
kick your ass, bro.”

“Yeah,
but I’m doing it for our future, right? She has to understand that.”

“She
doesn’t have to understand anything, dude. She’s a woman. She’s planned her
dream wedding, and you’re going to tell her that she has to wait for what,
months?”

Ryan
just nodded.

“Sucks
to be you,” Jace said matter-of-factly, tossing back the last of his vodka
tonic.

“Yeah,
and I’m supposed to pick up the freaking wedding invitation samples before the
weekend, so I have to tell her soon.”

“You
have to tell her soon anyway,” he said. “She’s going to have to cancel a whole
bunch of shit. Don’t you have deposits down on churches, flowers, limos, food…”
Ryan nodded miserably. “Man, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that volcano
when it erupts!”

Ryan’s
phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out, checking the display. He saw
Lexi’s name and let it go to voicemail. He’d call her later and tell her he was
in a meeting about the project, or something, or maybe he’d wait as long as
possible before telling her. He still wasn’t sure what the hell he was going to
do.