11
THINK FAST
Eric sat in his trailer, perched on a narrow stool, trying his best not to scratch. There’d be hell to pay if he gave in to the maddening itch that burned across his chest. Wardrobe and grooming had just completed prepping him for his music video shoot, and they’d used some especially foul concoction to cover all the scratches—a thick, Crisco-like glop that smelled like motor oil and stung like iodine. Eric had to give them credit though. It left his chest looking smooth as a plastic Ken doll’s.
He had to find a distraction. Anything to keep his hands busy…and keep his mind off what had happened last night in Seattle.
He’d taken his private jet back to LA after the concert. Most nights, he slept like a rock after the physical exhaustion of a big show, but not yesterday. Not even in his Italian leather, fully reclining, heated airplane seat. Every time he tried to close his eyes, he felt those wiry fingers closing around his gullet once again.
“Code Del—correction. Code Charlie. Code Beta…”
He’d only remembered what the codes all meant after the fact. Code Beta: suspect armed and dangerous.
He hadn’t turned fast enough. The fan jumped him from behind and put her hands around his neck. He managed to shake her off, and he heard the faint sound of something metallic clattering to the floor as they met eyes beneath the blaze of the concert lighting. Green eyes. Brown hair. Tall… From the look on her face, he knew in an instant that she’d completely lost touch with reality.
The words she kept screaming didn’t help much either.
I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!
He’d somehow kept his wits about him. His mind remained clear and focused, almost like an onlooker watching the whole scene unfold from out in the audience. Only after the guards led his attacker away had he felt his knees start to buckle.
The whole incident was over in a matter of seconds, but it felt like an eternity at the time. He could still hear the girl’s shrill yowls of protest as the guards removed her. “No, no! Let go of me. Stop it! Eric! Wait! He knows me! I’m telling you—he follows me on Twitter! He’s followed me for years…”
A shiver coursed through him. He should have asked the wardrobe girl for a robe earlier. Eric flicked his eyes toward the trailer door, considering whether to stick his head outside and call for one.
Not now, he thought. He’d rather enjoy a few more minutes of precious solitude. He didn’t need a robe anyway. What he needed was to get that shrieking voice out of his head. Eric picked up his phone, pressing his lips together in a grim line as he typed out a direct message.
Taylor: Hey sweet pea. You there?
A shadow fell over his shoulder, just as he hit Send.
“Think fast!”
Eric’s back went ramrod straight. He swiveled on his stool, but his reflexes weren’t quick enough. An all-too-familiar hand darted out and ripped the cell phone from his grasp. Eric looked up to see his manager eyeballing the screen.
“What the hell?” Eric lunged to grab it back, but not before he was blinded by the phone’s camera flash. “Goddammit, Maury!” Eric blinked, shielding his eyes. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! Try to have an ounce of sensitivity, would you?”
“Sensitivity to what?”
“I’m a little jumpy today, OK?”
“Oh, give me a break. Are you still hung up on the concert last night?” Maury cracked a broad grin. “Nice moves, kid. By the way, Dancing with the Stars called—”
“No!” Eric stood up from his stool with a lurch. He couldn’t believe that his manager would joke about this. The incident the night before was a wake-up call. The current security procedures had utterly failed to protect him. Anything might have happened if he hadn’t been so quick on his feet. “Maury, this is serious,” he said. “I want a twenty-foot perimeter between me and the fans. No more touching people’s hands. No more general admission either. Reserved seating only. Everyone in the first five rows has to provide a photo ID—”
Maury interrupted with a dry cackle. “Eric, you know that’s not feasible.”
“Somebody tried to assault me!”
“Assault you? She tried to hug you.”
Eric gave his head a violent shake. “She had her fingers around my neck. What if she had a knife? She could’ve slit my throat before—”
“You handled it just right, Fred Astaire.” Maury waved away Eric’s worries, gesturing with the cell phone in his hand. “That was a gift from the heavens last night. The videos are going viral. We couldn’t have staged a better PR stunt if we tried.”
Eric took a step back and leaned heavily against the dressing table. He cast a suspicious glance at Maury’s face. A PR stunt… That was just another of his manager’s bad jokes, right? The publicists would never go quite that far.
Eric couldn’t help but wonder, though, about the press release this morning. Not a knife in the girl’s hand? Some kind of metallic pen? He remembered the sound as it fell from her grasp and clattered to the stage. It hadn’t sounded like any pen he ever encountered before…
Eric fisted both his hands. Paranoia. That’s all it was. Maury would have told him if she’d really had a knife. The publicists might lie to the press, but not to him. They had his back. He looked at his manager again. “We’re pressing charges, right? Why haven’t the police come by to take my statement?”
Maury rested a hand on Eric’s shoulder, wrinkling his nose at the sticky makeup residue. “Listen to me, kid. Relax. Your fans love you. They don’t want to hurt you. That one just got a little overexcited.”
“You didn’t see the look in her eyes!” Eric brushed his manager’s hand away, frustration welling in his chest. “What if she tries to do it again? Maury, I danced with her. I put my arms around her.”
“You did what you had to do to get her off the stage.”
“I know, but I totally played into all her sick fantasies. It’ll only encourage her more!” Eric’s voice rose with emotion, but his manager wasn’t even paying attention. Maury had his eyes cast down instead at Eric’s cell phone.
The sight of it struck Eric with a new wave of dread. Crap. He just remembered which Twitter account he’d been using when Maury grabbed it.
“Not half-bad,” his manager said. “A little washed out, but you kinda got the Greek god marble statue thing going on. It’ll work.”
“What’ll work?” Eric snatched the phone and looked at the screen, sending up a silent prayer of thanks that he didn’t see Twitter. Maury must have closed it when he opened the camera app. No way his manager could’ve noticed the username on the account.
Still, Eric chastised himself for his carelessness. He needed to keep his wits about him. Talk about a near miss.
“Social media wants you to tweet a selfie,” Maury said.
Eric eyed the photo that his manager had snapped. Maury had caught him in profile, with one eyebrow raised in surprise, and the muscles of his bare chest and shoulders rippling as he turned. The tacky layer of grease on his skin reflected the light from the flashbulb like a sheen of sweat after a hard workout. Not an unflattering look, Eric had to admit. The makeup people knew what they were doing.
“This? They want me to tweet this?”
Maury nodded. “Sure. Show you survived unscathed, and keep the buzz going for the music video.”
“Oh great.” Eric rolled his eyes. “Hey, I have an idea! Run this by the label, why don’t you? Maybe we could get some buzz going for the video by—I don’t know—releasing the song? There’s going to be a song involved, right? Or is this video just silent footage of me getting molested by evil fangirls?”
Maury glowered back, all trace of humor fading from his face. He glanced at his watch impatiently. “You know what, Eric? Don’t worry about it. I’ll tweet it for you.”
The manager reached for the phone again, but Eric saw him coming this time. He jerked the phone away, out of Maury’s reach, perhaps a bit more violently than necessary. “Don’t touch my phone, OK? This is my personal cell.”
“Whoa!” Maury put up his hands in defense. “Just trying to help, big guy. You got something on there that I should know about?”
Eric ignored the question. He prayed that the pancake makeup would cover the guilty flush of color prickling his cheeks. “I’ll send the tweet,” he said, turning his face away. “Just give me a little space, please. Like three inches of personal space. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Sure,” Maury replied. He waved an arm expansively around the six-foot-wide trailer. “You got the whole place to yourself, kid. Just send the tweet and get yourself ready to start shooting. The director’s going to call for you in five.”