Baffled, my face twitched with confusion.
“Oh yeah, you heard me,” he continued. “It seems as though you and I are going to have
a lot
of time getting to know each other.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You see, I can be pretty funny, too,” he continued without answering me. Smiling to himself, I mean really smiling this time, he added, “I think you’ll agree.”
“Okay, you realize that you’ve been having a conversation with yourself for the last five minutes, right?” I glanced over my shoulder at where I had just come in. “Would it be better for you if I walked back through that door and we can try this again?”
“See, right there…” He waggled his finger at me again. “They just can’t teach that. You want to know what else they also can’t teach, Joie?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.” Muttering under my breath, I glanced over my shoulder at the exit again.
“Class.”
Whipping my head back around in shock, thinking no, he did not just go there.
“They just can’t teach it,” he emphasized, dropping the sinister smile from his face.
“And I’m leaving now,” I said, pushing off the wall to go.
“My record company,” he said sharply which stopped me.
“
My
record company…” he repeated like he was still trying to wrap his head around it. “Would like to pay you double whatever you’re making now to trash me.”
So this was the private joke, which I now understood wasn’t a joke at all. Judging by his behavior, it didn’t sound like he had much say in the matter. Clearly waiting for my response, I blurted out, “But…I’m not doing this for the money.”
“No?” Narrowing his eyes into slits, he hissed. “So you’d do this all for free?”
“It was a mistake.”
“That just keeps happening?” He scoffed.
I went to explain, but he interrupted me.
“Don’t even answer.” He held up his hand. “You’re only making this worse.”
“Anyway, you’ll have free access to me so the details will be even more convincing. Your friend, Miss Hot Pants, will remain my muse.” He suddenly looked revolted by the idea. “And you will continue to blog about me because, as you so nicely put it,” he forced a smile, “I need all the coattail riders I can find if I want to continue having a tour this summer.”
“This is not what I want,” I confessed. It hadn’t been that long since Jake had publicly humiliated me on YouTube. It seemed like I was setting myself up for another round of public humiliation.
“Oh, come on, it’s going to be so much fun.” He pushed off the wall and approached me.
“Why are you trying to convince me to do this?” I asked him with my chin up while imagining that it gave me at least one more inch of height as he towered over me.
“I’m looking forward to our little meet and greets because as of today when you posted your blog,” clearly trying to contain his anger, he muttered, “
It’s on
.”
He held up the phone and I reached out to grab it, but he pulled it back. “You are expected to be backstage after tomorrow’s concert with Miss Hot Pants,” he snarled. “For your protection, someone will be waiting there for the two of you. They will drive you to the destination of my choosing.”
“What do you mean for my
protection
?”
“I told you that now wasn’t a good time to be around the band, but
no,
you were insistent.” He pushed the phone at me. “Now leave before I have someone show you out.”
Instinctively, I grabbed the phone.
“Sorry, I can’t even stand the sight of you, right now,” he snapped.
“What if I say no?” I crossed my arms. “Honestly, what could be in this for me?”
“Does your friend like writing reviews of
my
shows for
my
official website?” he asked, but it was more of a threat than a question.
“Maybe if your follow up CD had been more successful then none of this would be happening?”
Before I knew it, Harrison was carrying me over his shoulder all the way to the parking lot as I kicked and screamed. Riley lingered behind while looking thoroughly shocked by the turn of events. Harrison finally put me down and I straightened out my shirt. I held my head up high as I walked over to the van. Riley drilled me with question after question, but I wasn’t ready to tell him what had happened, not yet.
5. REVENGE
The next day it was raining so hard that each drop resonated like a loud whapping sound against the metal roof of the van. On the way to pick Lizzie up, the van was stopped by security at the hotel’s entrance. We explained that our friend was inside with Warren. A dripping wet security man in a clear poncho radioed someone in the hotel while reiterating the embarrassing story. It only sounded worse with all the official communication.
“Okay, you can proceed,” he confirmed while narrowing his eyes to block out the rain. A line of security dressed in clear ponchos pulled back the barricades from the entry to the hotel. After rolling up the window and ignoring Riley’s laughter, I passed the line of security into the parking lot. Uselessly, I tried to tell myself it wasn’t that bad, but then Riley started jokingly mimicking the security man’s voice. “Do we have a ho with Warren?” he said into an invisible radio.
“Roger, that’s affirmative, over and out,” he said in the same gruff voice before we both lost it.
“What’s up with all the security?” I asked him when the laughter finally subsided.
“The Grimm Reaper.” He rolled his eyes. “At least that’s what this guy, this stalker, is calling himself. He’s been making death threats that has everyone freaked out.”
“Death threats?”
“Apparently, he has information that only an insider would be able to obtain. That’s what my boss said anyway.” He shrugged. “Everyone has been taking extra measures to protect the band. The talk is that the threats have been that credible. Some think all this drama in the media with Hawkins has only made it worse.”
“How so?”
“What stalker isn’t attention seeking?” Riley offered.
“So that’s what he meant in the elevator,” I said to myself when it suddenly hit me.
“What?”
“Remember, when Hawkins warned me that now was not a good time to be around the band? He must have meant with this stalker around. Plus, he had mentioned that for
our
protection he would have someone personally escort Lizzie and I to the places of his choosing.” Looking back at the bodyguards who were blocking off the exit, I wondered, “Who’s going to protect us when we’re not around him?”
“If you hadn’t noticed, Warren’s had Lizzie over almost every night.” He pressed his lips together and nodded. “He really likes her I think, well enough to want to protect her.”
“Wow, that’s comforting,” I huffed as the rain hit the windshield hard and blurred our view of the hotel.
“Joie, everyone knows that you would be way too stubborn, and frankly, too proud to accept that kind of help.” Knowing that he was right, I just nodded my head in agreement.
“And who knows, you might be the one to really kill Hawkins in his sleep.” Riley grinned over at me.
“And then there’s that,” I agreed. “What qualifies as a real stalker, anyway?” I asked, making light of the situation as Lizzie ran out of the hotel like she might melt from the rain. She was wearing something red and clingy while carrying shopping bags up to her elbows. Only Lizzie would be caught dead in that outfit given the weather circumstance.
“You mean what’s the difference between us and him?” Riley laughed.
“Exactly.”
“Umm, you’re getting paid to do it.”
“Great.”
The conversation I had with Hawkins replayed in my mind as Lizzie crossed over to the van. I told Riley everything. Well, except the threat Hawkins had made about ending Riley’s job. Lizzie slid back the door with some difficulty because of all the bags. She dropped them in the back with scattered thuds, hopped up in the back and slammed the door shut.
“Couldn’t you have pulled up any closer?!” she shouted at me while shivering like a wet dog.
“Warren bought these clothes for me,” Lizzie said as she shook the water off her arms.
“If I had driven any closer, I would have been inside the hotel.”
“Whatever…please tell me that you have my phone,” she said on the edge of panic.
I held up the pink phone and she grabbed at her chest. “Thank god.” She reached out to snatch the phone from my hands.
“Just curious, how did you manage to lose it?” Perking up in my seat, I watched her through the rearview mirror.
“I didn’t drop it at my seat?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Then how did you find it?” She looked even more confused.
Glancing over at Riley for a second, I turned the van around in the parking lot. We weren’t sure if Lizzie could handle knowing that she was “Hawkins’ Muse” when just a little fame had made her ego sky rocket.
“Hawkins found it.” I saw her face flush a crimson red in the rearview mirror.
“Be nice,” Riley mouthed to me.
It wasn’t her fault that Hawkins was on a mission to make my life miserable so I told her about last night. I explained about the meet and greets which I was pretty sure were going to be used against me since he looked just too darn happy about them.
“Oh, my god!” Lizzie gushed as the bodyguards moved the barricades out of the way for us to exit the hotel’s parking lot.
“I’m glad that I went shopping! Not actually shopping.” She half laughed with a wave of her hand. “Warren just had them sent out for me like he would have for a coffee at Starbucks. Just one of the perks,” she said in an uppity way. “He must have known that I was going to be
seen
.”
Glaring over at Riley, I was now regretting telling Lizzie anything. Riley just pulled out his invisible radio and said, “The eagle is on the move, the eagle is on the move.” Now that Lizzie’s ego had obviously soared to new heights.
We said our goodbyes to Virginia Beach and the ocean, pulled onto the highway and headed south to Raleigh, North Carolina. The rain made it difficult to see the highway in front of us, but I was just grateful for the distraction of the road. The windshield wipers were working at top speed as they banged hard back and forth across the windshield. I might just as well have turned them off because they didn’t help me see any better. We were slowly tagging behind a set of blurry red tail lights. Still, driving the van stopped me from thinking about less pleasant things like how I got dragged into this mess with Hawkins and Lizzie.
Lizzie finally came back down to our level again. It only took two hours, thirty seven minutes, crossing the state line in to North Carolina, and ignoring her until she said something sensible again. Riley was typing his review of the show on his computer when he suddenly jerked his head up and started to fume. He looked over at my concerned expression and explained, “They posted my review from the other night.”
“Oh no, what’s wrong?”
“My review had this beautiful piece about the show’s lighting. I even kept it down to a few sentences instead of a paragraph,” he explained. “But they deleted the whole excerpt.”
“I could introduce you to Harlow,” Lizzie smiled deviously. “Then you can take all this pent up frustration out on him.”
“Rob Harlow isn’t gay,” Riley insisted.
“Have you met him?” Lizzie asked.
“No, obviously not, have you?” Riley darted a look over his shoulder at her.
“I’ve passed him a couple times backstage and not once did he look at me.”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Clearly, he’s gay then.”
“His clothes are impeccable and he definitely has highlights in his hair.”
Riley debated the idea with a skewed up expression across his face. “Nah, I’m not that lucky, besides there is so much more to him than just a pretty face.”
“Ah,” Lizzie whimpered like a puppy dog. “I’m definitely going to have to get to the bottom of this for you.”
Riley and I both gasped.
“What, do you want to know or not?” she asked.
“Just leave out the details if you’re wrong,” Riley pointed out. “He is
my
idol.”
“Cross my heart,” Lizzie promised before she began to rummage through her shopping bags.
“You know I have all these clothes back here,” she sang to me.
“Really, I’m pretty sure we’ve tried that one before,” I quipped.
“What ever happened to the purple shirt?” Lizzie asked when Riley’s eyes got so big that I could almost see the white around them as if to say, don’t even go there.
“Remember, I told you, a hooker stole it right off my back,” I said sarcastically, thinking about Hawkins’ snide comments.
“Well, I am his muse.” She tugged a light blue sequin dress over her head and down her body. “So I guess you don’t have to look good if you don’t want to.”
My tongue screamed in pain as I bit down to keep myself from saying something we would both regret. My nerves were racing as the concert drew near. Lizzie was going to town with the makeup, reminding me that this wasn’t just some kind of nightmare I had imagined. The only power I had was what I was going to write about tomorrow in my blog, and I had to admit to myself that that didn’t feel like much. Just then, as if this situation couldn’t get any worse, Riley announced, “A tweet is up from Hawkins.”