InHap*pily Ever After (Incidental Happenstance) (67 page)

            “I don’t
agree,” Lynne said. “I think it’s another case of a man who couldn’t keep it in
his pants and never even considered the consequences.”

            Tia felt as if
a giant hand was squeezing her heart.

            “I know that’s
what people
say
it looks like,” Dottie argued, “but really. I did some
research last night, because I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. I’ve been
rooting for him and Tia since the word go, and I couldn’t make myself believe
that he’d really do that to her. The man’s been in the spotlight for a lot of
years, and never once has there been a situation where he’s been caught in such
an insanely inappropriate scenario. He’s kept his life pretty private, and
hasn’t even dated extensively. I know a lot of people are saying he’s a
complete idiot for getting caught like that, but a lot of people are coming to
his defense, too; some of them are ex-girlfriends who say that Dylan was not
only faithful and trustworthy, but also devoted and much too classy to mix it
up with a couple of low budget porn stars.”

            “Well, he
obviously did, or we wouldn’t have the evidence,” Abigail chimed in.

            “I think
someone threw him under the bus.” Her co-host opened her mouth to protest, but
Dottie cut her off. “You’ve seen him with Tia; you’ve heard the way he talks
about her and seen the way he keeps her close. He loves that girl, but there
are an awful lot of people who aren’t happy about that, and I’m not just
talking about ‘
My Bloody Valentine
.’”

            “You can’t argue
with the proof, though, and the fact remains that something went on between him
and those women.”

            “But did you
actually see the pictures? Does he look like a man who’s enjoying himself? Most
men, if put in that same situation, would have huge grins on their faces and
would be hamming it up for the cameras—Dylan just looks out of it.”

            “I’m going to
need more proof than that,” Lynne said.

            They moved on
to other topics and Tia turned off the TV and sunk into the couch, wondering
how her life had come to this.

*****

            “We need to
have a talk,” Lilly announced on Thursday when she got home from work.

            Tia had been
expecting it; in fact, she’d already come to the conclusion that it was time
for her to take her life back. She’d spent the past couple days weighing her
options, and realized that she couldn’t make a final decision until she’d heard
Dylan’s side of the story, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. No matter
how many ways she turned it in her mind, she was sure that Dylan loved her and even
more sure that she loved him. Life without him wasn’t something she could even
consider at the moment, but until they talked, she would be stuck in this
limbo. She knew that she was hiding from the possibility that he’d decided that
a life with her wasn’t worth his time, but in her heart of hearts, she just
couldn’t believe that to be true, and what Dottie had said kept tugging at the
back of her mind. “I know.”

            “Listen,
darlin’. I know you’re still hurting, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot.
I was watching
Chit Chat
on my break today and that woman, Dottie Miles,
made some good points. Have you seen the show?”

            “I saw it
today. I was afraid to see what they would say before and I...”

            Lilly took a
deep breath and pulled her carry-all bag onto the table. “Tia, have you seen
the pictures?”

            She looked
down at the floor, afraid to look at what Lilly was pulling out of her bag.
“They were texted to me.”

            “I know, but
have you really seen them? After the show, I couldn’t get them out of my mind, and
I had to go buy the magazine.”

            Tia’s stomach
churned instantly. “No Lilly, please. I don’t want to see them. Absolutely
not.”

            “Answer me
this,” she said, looking deep into her eyes. “Do you love that man, Tia?”

            She hitched in
a breath and a tear spilled from her welling eyes. “More than breathing.”

            Lilly put her
arm around Tia and gave her a squeeze. “Do you believe that he loves you?”

            “Yes.”                    

            “People aren’t
perfect, Tia. Sometimes they fuck up, plain and simple. Hopefully they learn a
lesson from it and go about making it right. Do you think Dylan would want to
make it right?”

            Tia was
transported to the day Dylan came back for her, the day he walked into a staff
meeting and told her he had never stopped loving her. He hadn’t done anything wrong,
but the hurt on his face and the pain in his eyes nearly broke her heart. She
remembered the way he looked at her hard when he insisted on apologizing for
not seeing through Penelope’s lies; how sorry he was that she was hurt because
of him, even though he wasn’t the one who caused the pain. God, the love she
saw in his eyes was almost too much to bear, and she thought her heart would
explode with the sheer intensity of his sincerity. She did believe that he
wouldn’t intentionally hurt her—had to believe it before she made the decision
to make a life with him.
You have to have a lot more trust than the average
girlfriend,
he’d told her on more than one occasion,
they try to
fabricate relationships, try to sensationalize the simplest things to sell their
rags. It might get hard at times—really hard.

            She cried out
then, breaking down completely and sliding to the floor, pulling her legs to
her chin and curling up as small as she could get. Dylan had never once given
her a reason not to trust him—and at the first sign of something hard, she’d
run away and not even given him a chance. She hadn’t once considered what her
leaving may have done to him; the thought that he might be hurting, too. She
hadn’t given him a chance to do anything.

            “I’ll take
that as a yes,” Lilly said, pulling Tia’s head into her lap and cradling her
while she sobbed. “Dottie said that no matter how much evidence there appeared
to be, she couldn’t believe that he’d do that to you. She said that she could
see how much he loved you, and that she believed someone had thrown him under
the bus. I love how she uses that expression. I had to see for myself if what
she said could be true, and I think it is. You need to look at the pictures,
Tia.”

            “I can’t,” she
whimpered.

            “Dottie said that
most men in the position of being with two porn stars would be loving life;
hamming it up for the camera and smiling big. Dylan doesn’t look like that at
all. He doesn’t look
anything
, baby. It’s almost like he doesn’t even
know what’s happening. I can see it, and I’ve only met him a few times. I think
you’ll know when you see them that he didn’t make it happen. I don’t even think
he was a participant.”

            She didn’t
want to. God, she just wanted to crawl back into last week and make the whole
thing not happen, but if what Lilly was saying was true, it might settle her
heart just a bit. Being drunk was never an excuse for bad behavior, but maybe
she could find a way to live with it. She nodded, and Lilly reached into the
bag and pulled out the magazine.

            She tried not
to see the whole picture; whether Dylan was out of it or not, she didn’t want
to see the man she loved in the arms of another woman. Her whole focus was on
his face, and she could see instantly that the face she was looking at wasn’t
Dylan…at least not the Dylan she knew. There was no expression whatsoever; not
pleasure, not victory, not disgust; just a kind of noncompliance that really
did indicate that perhaps he wasn’t fully aware of what was going on. His eyes
were closed and his mouth was open slightly like he was asleep. Looking closely
at one of the pictures, she could actually see manicured fingers holding him at
the wrist in what appeared a way to keep his hand in place. Oh God, Lilly was
right and so was Dottie Miles. Dylan wasn’t any more present in the scene than
she was was—physically he was there, but there was no awareness in any part of
him. She felt the guilt pour over her like a waterfall and knew instantly that
he was here, in Chicago, waiting for her to come home; hurting and suffering
once again for her pain that he hadn’t intentionally caused.

            His first text
of the evening flashed in front of her eyes.
Looks can be deceiving
,
he’d said,
especially in this case
. 

            “Oh God Lilly,
I’m such a fool. I have to go to him.”

            “I knew you’d
see it, too,” she said. “I just knew it. For what it’s worth, my money’s on you
two making it.”

            Tia planted a
kiss on Lilly’s cheek. “Do you have a phone book? I need to get a cab.”

            “I’ll drive
you. I would be happy to.”

*****

            The elevator
door opened, and he was exactly where she knew he’d be; sitting on the long
black couch in the living room waiting for her to come home. Her heart nearly
melted when she saw him—his eyes were red and rimmed with dark circles and a
shaggy beard shadowed his face. His normally silky hair hung limply over his
eyes and he looked gaunt and tired, but his eyes widened with surprise and
relief when she stepped off the elevator and into the dimly lit room. She
thought she’d never seen him look so beautiful.

            For a moment
they just stared at each other, and then he slowly got off the couch and made
his way to her, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around her legs and
burying his face in her stomach. She could feel the shaking of his sobs and he
fought to keep his voice steady as he whispered, “I’ve never been so sorry
about anything in my life, Tia. I know I don’t deserve you, but I’m dead
without you, baby girl, and I hope to God you’ll find a way forgive me. You are
my whole world, and I love you more than I can ever tell you. Please…” He
nearly choked on the last word, and he clutched her with his whole being.

            Tia fell to
her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. They cried together like that
for a few moments, each desperately holding on to the other, before Tia was
even able to form words. “I’m so sorry I ran away, Dyl. I’m sorry I didn’t even
give you a chance to explain. I love you more than life, and we’ll get through
this. I can’t live without you, either.”

            The hitch of
his breath was enough to tell Tia that she’d made the right decision; that no
matter how hard it was, they’d come out on the other side of this with their
love intact and maybe stronger than ever.

            “Oh God, baby
girl, I was so scared I’d lost you again. I was worried that this time I
wouldn’t get you back.”

            Through her
tears, Tia said, “I told you, Miller, you aren’t going to get rid of me that
easily. You’re stuck with me forever.”

            “I wouldn’t
have let you go, you know. I would move heaven and earth to keep you in my life.”

            They held each
other for a long time, holding each other like life rafts in stormy seas. Dylan
stroked her hair and wiped her tears, and she wrapped her legs around him so
she could press against him with as many cells as possible. They cried together
and whispered mutual sentiments of relief, forgiveness and love.

            They both
jumped when they heard the buzzer, and looked at each other with confusion. No
one knew Dylan was here, and Tia hadn’t told anyone but Lilly that she was
coming home. “I’ll get rid of them,” Dylan whispered, pulling Tia to her feet
and walking over to the intercom. “Yes?”

            “Dylan, thank
God. It Lexi. I have to talk to you right now—it’s an absolute emergency. Buzz
me up.”

*****

            Tia and Dylan
stared at each other for a few moments as the elevator door closed on Lexi,
heads reeling from the information she’d just given them. Finally, Dylan took
her hand gently and pressed his lips to the back of it. “You forgave me before
you knew,” he whispered. “When you believed I’d betrayed your trust.” He leaned
over, putting his head in her lap.

            Tia pressed
her lips together in a thin smile. “No, Dylan, no.” She fisted her hands in his
hair and gently pulled him up to meet her gaze. “I just had to realize that
there was nothing to forgive.” He raised one eyebrow in question and she
pressed a kiss there. “I have to believe that you would never betray
me—otherwise we’ll never make it. I know you love me…”

            “More than
you’ll ever know.”

            “…and that
you’d never willingly do something to hurt me. I’m sorry it took me so long to
figure that out; but I promise you I’ll never forget the lesson I learned. It
just hit me like a truck, and then I worried about what other people would
think of me…I still have to work on that one, I guess.”

            “That’s the
hardest one to get used to,” he admitted. “It doesn’t matter how much you tell
yourself it doesn’t matter; it still hurts when people who don’t know you pass
judgments without knowing even a fraction of the truth. I wish it wasn’t that
way, baby. I wish you never had to hurt because of me.”