It was midday, Crow and Ethan were lounging naked in the bedroom as the bus rolled on through Pennsylvania on the way to New York. The blinds were half shut, letting them see out the darkly tinted windows at the vast countryside they were cutting a path through. They had planned a day filled with Netflix and chill (emphasis on the chill part). Crow couldn’t have been happier. It was paradise. He could have been told he’d just won a million dollars and still not feel as happy as he did just laying naked in his man’s arms, watching old Friends episodes and stealing kisses whenever he felt like it.

“Wait, I don’t think we’ve even discussed this yet,” Crow said, propping himself up on an elbow and pausing the episode. “Who’s your favorite friend?”

“Uh oh,” Ethan said. “This could be a deal breaker, couldn’t it?”

Crow arched an eyebrow. “We’ll see.”

“Phoebe, obviously.”

Crow nodded, his lips pursed. “Ok, ok, I can respect that.”

“What?! You mean she’s not yours?” Ethan sat up on the bed, looking more shocked than Crow’s grandmother when she found out he was gay. He couldn’t hold the face as long as she could though, his breaking down into a smile.

“I’d have to throw my vote in for Rachel.”

Ethan shook his head. “You think you know someone.”

The phone rang from the bedside table. Crow leaned over Ethan, stealing a kiss from him on his way, and grabbed it. The number was unknown. Crow considered silencing it and getting back to cuddling with a very handsome and very naked Ethan, but he pressed answer anyway. It could have been the police calling to say they found something.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Crow! This is Deena, the manager over at The Raging Saddle.”

“Oh, hey, Deena. Listen, thanks for understanding about canceling the show. Angela said you offered the deposit back but we felt terrible about taking it.”

“Don’t even worry about it. I was just calling to see how you’re feeling?”

Crow took a breath. Ethan was looking at him with a questioning glint in those blue eyes of his. “Better,” Crow answered. “A little shaken but every day is getting better.”

“Ok good. Angela scared me a little when she was talking to me.”

“I can’t even imagine what you must have felt.” Crow rubbed his brows with his fingers. “It was your venue.”

“Don’t even think about me. You’re the one going through it.” A child’s voice could be heard in the background, asking for the remote control. “Sorry, the little guy is begging to change my Bones marathon.”

“Turning him into a detective?”

“He’s says he wants to be a veterinarian, so fingers crossed.”

“I’m rooting for him,” Crow said with a chuckle. “Thanks again for calling, you really didn’t have to.”

“I just got a little nervous, that’s all. My husband actually just went through the same thing.”

“He did?” Crow sat up straighter in bed. Maybe this was somehow connected to his situation.

“Oh yeah.” Deena huffed on the other end of the phone. “Worst week of our lives.”

“What happened? Did they find the stalker?”

Silence on the phone. “Stalker? No, no, my husband came down with a terrible strain of the flu… what do you mean stalker?”

“A flu?” Crow was thoroughly confused. Ethan could probably read it on his scrunched up facial expression. Ethan sat up in bed, putting a hand on Crow’s thigh, searching his eyes for an answer to what was going on.

“Yeah… Angela said you had caught the same thing. She told me there was no way you’d be able to perform.”

Crow wasn’t computing. He could literally see his brain going into the ‘blue screen of death’ mode. The one there was no recovery from. What the hell was Deena talking about?

“Deena… was there ever a threat against your club the night I was supposed to perform?”

She huffed on the other end. “A threat? No, thank god, everything was fine. We had a backup performer lined up, although the crowd was definitely disappointed you couldn’t show up.”

Crow felt a pang of disappointment at failing his fans, but it was clouded by the intense confusion he was feeling.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” Crow said, shaking his head as if it would clear the daze over his head.

“Yeah, of course. Good to hear your well.”

Crow hung up the phone and dropped it on the bed, his jaw falling along with it.

“What happened?” Ethan asked.

“Angela canceled my Denver show, saying I had the bird flu or some shit.”

Ethan shook his head, clearly as confused as Crow felt. “Maybe she knew something that she didn’t tell us? Or maybe Deena’s the one that’s confused?”

Crow shook his head. One thing was certain, he wasn’t going to get any answers by sitting around and staring at Ethan’s handsome face all day. He got up, threw on a pair of gray shorts and a tank top and started walking right to the living room. Ethan got up behind him, “Whoa, where are you going?”

“To ask the one person who can clear this entire mess up.”

* * *

“I can’t believe this.” Angela’s face matched the shade of her blouse. Red. She was angry. They were in the living room. The bus had been parked and so the rest of the crew was out exploring the city. Crow was standing across from a steaming Angela, her arms crossed against her chest. “You honestly think I’m somehow involved in all this shit?”

Crow shook his head. He wasn’t sure if approaching her out of the blue and asking her if she was the stalker was the right approach, but he was so caught up in the moment, he had to get it out. Crow knew Angela, or at least he thought he knew her, and he was sure that throwing her off balance would be the best way to figure out if she was actually involved in all this. To her credit, she didn’t seem to act like someone who had just been called out on some twisted shit. Crow expected a guilty person to stammer and become nervous, trying to find immediate ways out of the conversation. Angela just seemed pissed. Hurt. And Crow could understand why. They were close friends and now Crow was accusing her of being a psycho stalker.

For a moment, Crow wondered if he had gone too far.

“We just want to have a few questions answered, Angela, that’s all.” Ethan spoke in a tone meant to calm a rabid dog backed into a corner. “There are some things that smell a little fishy.”

“How dare you,” Angela said, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, threatening to well up over the dark eye-liner. “All I’ve done is try and keep Crow safe while turning him into a household name.” She looked to Ethan, waving a hand in his direction. “What have you done, Ethan? Besides keeping me awake with your grunts, I don’t think you’ve done much to help Crow. Yes, you’re here because we need you, but that’s it, Ethan. I can fire you just as quick as I hired you. So maybe reconsider the next time you want to accuse me of stalking Crow. Calling me fishy.”

Crow stepped in, feeling like this was about to spiral out of control. The last thing he wanted was to turn this into a fight over who got a piece of Crow.

“But why did you cancel Denver? Why weren’t you honest with anyone involved? You lied to me and to Deena. Was there ever a threat?”

Angela took a heavy breath out her nose. “You won’t get it.”

“Try me.”

“I had a nightmare, ok? A really bad one. The premonition kind. Looking back, it might have been extreme paranoia, but I just had a really bad feeling about that night and I knew I had to do something. I knew we would make up the show in the future, and I balanced all the books to make sure any hits to our ticket sales were doable. I thought that if we needed to stretch, I would have added money in from my own pocket. It would have been fine, my choice, my consequences. At the time it felt like the right thing to do. I couldn’t, nor would I ever, fake a threat so I had to tell Deena that you had gotten sick.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what got into me, but that was my fault. I’m sorry.”

Angela sounded sincerely pained. The look in her big brown eyes looked like that of a fawn staring down a wolf, just before it takes off running. “I’m sorry,” she said again, dropping her head. Crow looked to Ethan, who didn’t seem as affected by Angela’s apologies. His face was stone-cold, like he was about to deliver some kind of terrible diagnosis. Crow could empathize with Angela a little more, though. He knew how influenced she was by those mystical type of things. If she did have a vivid nightmare, he could see her acting on it out of fear.

“What about that one girl?” Ethan asked, pressing on. “Tricia? The one from the beginning of the tour? She went to Crow and said you were harassing her? Why are you harassing a teenager?”

Angela’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?” she turned on Ethan. “You still don’t get it. I’m doing this to protect Crow. That girl has been to juvenile lock-up twice. Once for beating up a classmate until he couldn’t breath and another for stealing her neighbors Lexus. She’s bad news, and with everything going on around Crow, the last thing he needed was more bad news. You know how I found out about her past? Because her mother reached out to me. She knew that her daughter was chasing Crow around the country, and she wanted me to intervene. Jesus. I stopped her at one of Crow’s earlier shows and told her to leave him alone and go back to her mother before I get the cops involved. Whatever else she told you two is a complete lie.”

“What the fuck,” Crow said, starting to feel like he had made a huge mistake in confronting Angela. All she had done during this entire tour was try and keep things running smoothly without having Crow offed by some crazy stalker fan. “I’m sorry, Angela.”

Ethan took a step back, giving Angela some space. She turned back to Crow, who opened his arms and took her into a hug. She was stiff at first, but soon warmed up, her hands coming up to Crow’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Crow said again, feeling terrible for accusing one of his friends of something so terrible. “The pressure of this is getting to me.”

They separated, Angela’s eyes moist and pink at the corners. “No, it’s ok. I understand. I should have been honest from the beginning. Things will be different,” she said, managing a smile. “I promise.”

“Ok,” Crow said, taking a deep breath, feeling like he avoided a crisis. The last thing he wanted to do was lose a good friend because of a bad bout of paranoia.

I just need to chill.

He looked over Angela’s shoulder, catching Ethan’s sapphire eyes. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. They still had two hours before Crow had to be at rehearsals for that night’s show.

I know something we can do for two hours to help me chill.