Incidental Happenstance (10 page)

            “So how often do you get out to Chicago?”

            “Never often enough, that’s for sure.”

            “I hear that, brother.” Sean had to get up to take his turn, and Dylan breathed a small sigh of relief. So far so good, but this could get tough. He and Tia obviously hadn’t come up with any matching stories ahead of time, and he was confident that she wasn’t going to give away his identity, so he had to stick as closely as he could to the truth so she wouldn’t unknowingly dispute anything he’d said. He’d try to turn the conversation in a different direction, and hopefully learn something about Tia in the process.

            Sean returned after hitting a trip twenty and two eighteens.

            “Nice shot,” Dylan said admiringly.

            “Thanks man. So, what do you do?”

            Dylan tried to sound casual, and to be vague. “I work in the entertainment industry mostly, on the business end.” He was on the business end of the industry alright.

            “Yeah? That sounds interesting, what kind of entertainment?”

            “Different stuff, you know, music, film, awards shows; things like that.” He hoped Sean wouldn’t ask for specifics.

            “That sounds pretty cool. Do you like it?”

            “Mostly, I love it, but I have to travel a lot, so I don’t get to be home much. That part sucks.”

            “I can imagine,” Sean replied.

            Thankfully, it was Dylan’s turn to throw. He stood and took aim, and hit the bull on his first shot. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” Sean exclaimed, high-fiving him. His next shot hit double seventeen, and then he nailed another bull.

            “Damn, I picked the right man for my team!” he said, taunting Dave and Tim, who were now more than a little behind. 

            “Always glad to help out,” he said modestly, but with a sheepish grin on his face. Sean turned to him again.

            “Listen, you seem like a stand-up guy…”

           
Oh crap
, Dylan thought,
here it comes
.

            “I just want to get this out there right away. Nothing personal or anything.”

            “Shoot,” Dylan replied, casually taking a sip of his beer.

            “Tia’s like a little sister to me,” he began.

            Dylan exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He was afraid that Sean was going to tell him that he and Tia were an item, or had been, and tell him to keep his distance.

            Dave added, “She’s like a sister to all of us.” Tim nodded his agreement as well.

            “We just really care about her and all. I just want you to know we’ve always got her back.”

            “I can see that. She’s lucky to have you.”

            “We’re lucky to have her. She’s pretty amazing.”

            Dylan nodded. “I agree.”

            “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you—if you’re just friends or more than that—and it’s none of my business,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying that I couldn’t stand to see her hurt again, and I hope that you’ll keep her best interests at heart.”

            Hurt again? Dylan thought. He felt bad knowing she’d been hurt, and the way Sean said it, it sounded like it was a guy who’d hurt her. But since he didn’t know anything about her personal life, he couldn’t really ask for more details. “You got no worries there,” he answered honestly. They didn’t know each other well enough to cause the other pain.

            “Glad to hear it,” he answered sincerely, patting Dylan on the back. “But if you don’t mind my asking—and you can tell me shut the hell up if you want to—how do you feel about Tia?”

            Dylan looked across the room and saw her sitting with a group of girls at a round table. As if she knew he was looking at her, she turned and met his eyes and sent him a smile that set his heart to beating a strange rhythm. Returning the smile and without taking his eyes off her he said the first thing that came to his mind and no one was more surprised than he when the words rolled out. “I think I could get lost in her, man.”

            Sean slapped him on the back. “She has that effect on people, doesn’t she?”

            “She certainly does on me.” The simple truth of the statement was like a smack on the head.

            Dylan closed out the game with a trip 20 and an 11, much to Sean’s delight. In that short time, it was like Dylan had made three new friends. They laughed and joked around, and the talk didn’t come back around to him and why he was here or what he did for a living. He didn’t get any information about Tia, though, either, so when they asked him for another game; he politely bowed out, saying that he wanted to spend some time with her. They let him off the hook easily, but not before they extended him an invitation to their weekly Tuesday night poker game. “We play every Tuesday, and switch off houses. The host buys the beers and everyone brings junk food. You’re welcome anytime—even this Tuesday, if you want,” Sean added.

            “I’d love to, absolutely, but I’ll have to take a rain check,” he said. “I’m going to be out of town on Tuesday.”
Playing a concert in Cleveland
. “I’ll definitely keep it in mind, though. I’d love to get in on that.”

            “Rain check, absolutely. Tia can always find out who’s hosting.” He jumped up from the table. “Well, ladies, I’d love to stay and shoot the shit, but I think it’s almost time for me to take the stage. Gotta set up some of the equipment.”

            “Are you playing tonight?”

            “Yeah. Some of Nick’s favorites and some of the stuff we used to play together.”

            “Tia was telling me she sang with you sometimes.” Finally he could make a comment that eluded to him knowing her more than a few hours. 

            “Yeah. She’s got some pretty tight vocals. I would have asked her sing with me tonight, but I really didn’t think she was coming. I got Danny on backup.” He nodded over his shoulder to a dark-haired guy messing with some wires on the stage; hooking up amps. “Anyway, the offer for the poker game stands. Hope to see you there sometime.”

            They shook hands again. “Thanks for making me feel so welcome.”

            Sean shrugged it off. “If Tia likes you, you must be a good guy.” He headed for the stage, and Dylan set off to collect Tia, and to hear her story.

            They finally made their way to a corner table, and everyone seemed to respect that they wanted to be alone. Dylan pulled her chair out for her before sitting down across the small table.

            “Finally,” he said. “I was wondering when I was going to get to talk to you again.” He smiled at her warmly. “You seem so happy here. These are really nice people, and they obviously all love you. They’ve been vying for your attention all night.”

            “Well you’ve certainly made a good impression on them. You wouldn’t believe the comments from the girls. They all give their approval, by the way, but they insist I get you to cut your hair,” she smirked.

            “Well, mullet or not, I’ll have you know that I have a standing invitation to the Tuesday night poker game,” he said slyly.

            “You mean the Tuesday night drinking fest?” she said sarcastically. “I don’t think any of them even owns a deck of cards.”

            “Yeah t I’m still invited. Too bad—it would probably be fun. You know, it’s been pretty awesome just being one of the guys tonight. I can’t even remember the last time I felt like I fit in at a place like this.” A shadow covered his eyes, and he looked at her intently. “But you didn’t want to come in here at first—actually you looked like you were going to pass out when we walked in the door. What was it, Tia?”

            She looked down at the table and started wringing her hands nervously. “I really do owe you an explanation, Dylan. It’s just that tonight, with you…it wasn’t supposed to happen…”

            “I don’t know what you mean.”

            “God,” she sighed. ”You’ve been so incredibly nice to me tonight. You’ve given me exactly what I needed to get through what I thought it would take months to accomplish. Once again, you’ve come to my rescue; this time just by being yourself.”

            He shrugged. “Now you’ve really lost me.”

            She took a long deep breath. “Just give me a minute to explain, then if you want to run away and pretend like this night never happened, I’ll understand completely and try not to hold it against you.”

            He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up her hand, and continued.

            “Nick—he wasn’t just some guy…he was my fiancé. We were supposed to be married last June. 

            “Holy shit.” The pieces of the puzzle started falling into place, and Dylan could finally start to see the big picture.

            “We dated for over five years,” she continued.  “Nick was an engineer.” She drew a long breath and her eyes wandered over his shoulder for a moment before she continued. “He was supervising at a job site, and there was this crane hoisting some big heavy beam, and the cable snapped…he was killed instantly.”

            “Oh, Tia,” he said softly.

            “Tonight is the one year anniversary of his death.”

            “I’m so sorry…” He reached across the table and cradled her hand in his.

            “Thanks,” she choked for a moment, but quickly regained her composure. This night had been spectacular, and she was glad that she’d come and laid the last of her fears about Nick to rest. She could honestly envision being able to go on with her life now, keeping him close as a warm and beautiful memory. 

            “But it’s OK, see?” she continued. “That’s what tonight was about for me. I spent the past year completely shutting myself off from the world—I spent the entire summer—I have summers off, remember—hardly ever leaving the house.

Fuck
, he thought, doing the math.
He died a month before their wedding
. He squeezed her hand tighter, and found her eyes. She smiled thinly, and continued.

“When fall came, I got up and went to work; forced myself through the motions. My best friend Lexi pulled me out to the country club—tried to get me back among the living. She included me in everything, and I felt like the eternal third wheel between her and her boyfriend. Again, I went through the motions, but I was always pretending to have fun, so she wouldn’t worry so much about me. But when I was alone, which I tried to be as much as possible, it was your music that slowly brought me back. I’d listen to you constantly, loving the soothing sound of your voice and the way your words told me exactly what I needed to hear.

            “In the beginning, it was mostly the sad ones, and the ones that Nick and I listened to together. And of course the ones he played on the guitar and sang with me. But in the past few months, it was especially your song,
I’ll Pull You Up
. I know the old cliché; that it was like you were singing right to me, but that’s exactly what it was like. I
felt
your words, and Nick was there pulling me up; or trying to, anyway. Those lyrics were always just what I needed to face the next task, to put on a normal face and deal with the outside world. ‘
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 tell you how many times those words got me out of bed in the mornings. And the last line—‘
I can’t 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?
That was the one that finally got me living again.”

            He pressed her fingers to his lips and felt his heart go out to her. He knew the feeling of hopelessness when someone you loved was taken from you; knew the grief and how long and hard it was to heal; to wonder why you still deserved to be living when someone you loved couldn’t. He tried to convey that with his eyes, his touch; because he knew it was hard for her to continue. She took a few deep breaths before going on.

            “So tonight was about me joining the world again,” she continued. “I had done my mourning; probably way more than I should have, and I knew Nick would be really pissed that I’d taken so much time. He would have wanted me to go on, and to be happy. I chose this night as my ‘getting back into the world’ night. I thought I needed to do it on my own, and I didn’t know where to start.” She looked straight into his eyes. “I’m a complete mess, Dylan. I don’t know how to date anymore, or how to flirt, and I feel so far removed from the single life—I don’t know what people do anymore. So I wanted to be a fly on the wall, to watch people, to see how they reacted to each other. I wanted to be far from my usual hang-outs so I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew—I didn’t want to be social, I just wanted to be
part
of something social, do you know what I mean?”

            Dylan nodded and squeezed her hand to show he understood, his eyes never leaving hers. He knew exactly what she meant—it was precisely what he himself had been after tonight.