InHap*pily Ever After (Incidental Happenstance) by Kim DeSalvo Page A

fingers and muttered through
the gap, “You’ve got some ‘splaining to do, though—and I’m all ears.”
    Tia
sighed, and pulled Sean into a hug. “I owe you an explanation and an
apology,” she began, “and I need to get the apology out of the way first. I’m
so sorry I lied, Sean,” she said sincerely. “I hated not being able to tell
anyone the truth.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  “No one except
for Lexi knew about me and Dylan before today. The night you met Dylan? That
was the first night I met him, too.” A look of confusion crossed Sean’s face.
“I have a big confession to make, Sean,” she said sadly, looking down before
continuing. “I was so afraid to come to the memorial that night. So scared, in
fact, that I had no intention of coming.  I was so worried that you’d all be
mad at me for not being around, or even worse that you’d pity me…just when I
was feeling like I could actually move on.” She caught the look on his face,
and spoke before he could. “I know it was stupid,” she said quickly. “I
should’ve known then, too, but it was all so much…” Sean pulled her to him, and
gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I was convinced that I had to do it alone, and
that’s how I met Dylan. He was at this other pub in disguise, trying to have a
normal night for a change, and through a crazy bunch of circumstances we ended
up hanging out together and kind of accidentally ended up here…” 
    “Wow,”
Sean said, bewildered. “I had no idea, guys.”
    “Of
course you didn’t,” Tia said. “And neither did we. At the time, I didn’t think
I’d ever see Dylan again after that night; and certainly not after the weekend.
He was only in town for two shows, and then he was doing the summer tour in
Europe…I knew that if I told everyone who he really was, I wouldn’t have the
chance to get to know him. We were getting on so well, and I was completely
blown away because I thought it would take so much more time before I felt that
comfortable with another guy…and so I kept him to myself. Plus, his original
plan was to have a normal evening out, and he was having so much fun just
hanging with everyone without the celebrity thing getting in the way…”
    Sean
turned to Dylan, who quickly agreed. “I don’t get too many chances to just hang
out with people, as you might imagine,” he said, “and it’s one of the things I
miss most about having a normal life. I really appreciated being able to do
that. I couldn’t remember the last time I was just able to blend into a
crowd—to play some darts, have a couple beers, and let someone else play the
music…” 
    Sean
blushed, remembering that he’d played some of the band’s music that night, and
that Dylan had complimented him on his performance and his song choice. He
smirked as the memory sharpened. “Shit. I asked if you were a fan of InHap, and
you said something like you’d followed them from the beginning. How did I not
figure that out?”
    “Guess
you’re not terribly observant,” Dylan joked, inciting another smirk from Sean.
    “Or
maybe the mullet just looked so natural on you…”
    Tia
put her hands on her hips and addressed the boys sternly. “Can we get on with
this, please?” They both snapped to attention, facing her and trying to tamper
down their sarcastic smiles. When she was sure she had their attention, she
pushed back her own smile and continued. “Truth is, I kept the secret from
everyone—Dylan just met my parents for the first time earlier today. But now
that he’s back, we’re going public with our relationship. We leave for
California tomorrow, and—holy crap, this scares me to death—we’ll be on all the
talk shows and radio shows and God knows what else.”
     “That’s
awesome, really! Congratulations!”
    “Thanks
mate,” Dylan said. “But before we go tell the whole world, we wanted to make
sure we told our friends. We want them to be the first to know. I just got