Tell Me No Lies

by A. V. Geiger

  Eric reached the end of the routine. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, scanning the room. His gaze ran past her as if she wasn’t even there. He wiped his face with the towel tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Then he clapped his hands together. “Again!”

  This time, his shoulders relaxed as his body flowed through the steps. He looked up. His eyes found her, and Tessa’s heart fluttered in her chest. She hit the button to snap the pic before he turned away.

  Perfect.

  Tessa headed for the door. She’d noticed an empty dressing room across the hall, and she made a beeline for it. She needed to be alone. She could finish composing the tweet from there, safely tucked away from any onlookers.

  She sank down to the floor and hugged her knees, ignoring the faint echo of voices from the other room.

  “Five, six, seven, eight…”

  “Looking good, kid! ”

  “That’s a wrap…”

  “Eric, get your scrawny butt to wardrobe! ”

  Tessa fiddled with her phone as footsteps filed past the door. She pulled up the picture of Eric on her camera roll, tracing an idle fingertip across the image of his lips.

  It was strange. His face had transformed the second before she snapped, and Tessa recognized the look. Chin down, eyes up—a pair of flaming blue embers directed at the camera lens. She’d seen that expression on his face a million times.

  In pictures.

  Never in real life.

  It wasn’t the real him. Tessa’s hand rose to her throat as the thought struck her. That seductive stare was all for show. A piece of choreography, no different from the other dance steps he had memorized.

  The real Eric… His eyes were softer, his smile lazier somehow…

  But Tessa hadn’t seen him smile that way in weeks. A month had passed since they stood together in their beach bungalow, and it felt like a distant memory. How was it possible that everything had changed so fast?

  Tessa hung her head. She couldn’t count how many days she’d spent exactly like this: studying some image of Eric Thorn on her cell phone screen. At least she’d had him to herself for those few short weeks. That was far more than she’d ever hoped for in her wildest fangirl fantasies. She couldn’t really complain.

  “Stop moping,” she whispered to herself. “Get to work.” Tessa swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and clicked on Twitter.

  Eric Thorn @EricThorn

  FOLLOWERS

  35.7 M

  His follower count had stood at 14 million before they ran away together, but it had ballooned in the aftermath of his infamous farewell tweet. Everyone liked a good murder mystery, after all. That tweet was still there now on his profile, with far more retweets than any other message he’d ever posted.

  Eric Thorn @EricThorn

  Sleep with a leech, and it just might bleed you dry.

  1.3M ♥ 923K

  Those words had marked her debut as Eric’s social media consultant, although Tessa hadn’t realized it at the time. She still remembered how she’d tapped the message into Eric’s old cell phone, smeared with bloody fingerprints. Then she’d smashed the phone against the corner of her bedside table to crack the screen and left it on the bedroom floor for the police to find.

  Today’s tweet might prove slightly less retweetable. Tessa opened the draft message that Maury had dictated to her, tacking on the image from the dance rehearsal.

  Eric Thorn @EricThorn

  Hitting the stage tonight! Catch me streaming LIVE at 8 PM EST on @YouTube #YMAs

  So dull. So corporate. The fans would know it hadn’t really come from Eric. A real flesh-and-blood human being would use an emoji now and then.

  “Let’s see,” she murmured. Tessa pulled up her emoji keyboard and added a few choice characters to the end of the message. Maybe the musical notes…followed by the red salsa dancer…or possibly the Playboy Bunny twins…and then a lipstick kiss…and a big, pink beating heart to round it out.

  There. Much better.

  A sad smile crept over Tessa’s face. She couldn’t actually tweet that. She’d probably get fired from her fake position. Maury had made it abundantly clear that she was “social media consultant” in name only. She was allowed to tweet what he approved and not a single character more.

  Tessa tapped Delete and watched the string of emojis disappear. She added a different one in their place to reflect her current mood: the sad little kitty-cat face, with a single tear running down its cheek.

  Better delete that too.

  Tessa lifted her finger, but she froze. Footsteps rang out in the hall. Were they coming or going? She couldn’t tell. She screwed her eyes shut and willed the sound to fade back into silence.

  Instead, she heard the dressing room door burst open. A familiar voice boomed in her ears. “Hey, kid! There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you!”

  Maury.

  Tessa looked up with a start. Her finger dropped to the cell phone screen, but it didn’t hit Delete.

  It landed on the Tweet button instead.

  • • •

  Eric stood on his pedestal in front of the three-way mirror. A wardrobe assistant knelt in front of him, and Eric did his best to ignore the proximity of the young woman’s fingers to his crotch. The jeans he’d chosen for tonight’s performance needed some last-minute alterations. They used to fit like a glove, with the perfect amount of stretch to accommodate his dance moves, but they kept slouching down his hips during rehearsal. Eric hadn’t accounted for the amount of muscle mass he’d lost from sitting in a camper van for four weeks.

  The wardrobe person had an array of pins clamped between her lips. She took one out, and Eric slid his feet apart a half inch wider, sending up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t poke anything but denim.

  He couldn’t bear to watch. To distract himself, he slipped his cell phone out of his pocket, running his thumb across the smooth metallic case. Amazing, the kind of stuff you got for free when you were famous. His swag bag at check-in had included this limited-edition smartphone in a custom titanium case, with his initials engraved at the bottom. He had to admit, it was pretty slick. A definite upgrade from the hunk of scrap metal he picked up in Mexico.

  What was it about firing up a brand-new phone for the first time? It felt like a rebirth. A fresh start. His manager had found some tech guy to give the phone a once-over this morning. The memory had been wiped clean and then loaded up with all his old apps and contacts.

  Including Twitter.

  Eric’s finger landed on its familiar destination. He scrolled through his timeline, barely pausing to read any of the tweets, until one particular hashtag caught his attention.

  #FreeDorian

  At the sight of it, Eric tensed. A needle of pain pricked the inside of his thigh.

  “Dude! Katrina! Watch it!”

  The wardrobe assistant let go of his inseam and removed the pins from her mouth, glaring up at him. “Hold still. I will poke you if you flex your quads.”

  He wished one of the newer people could do it. Katrina had been on his crew a long time, but she made him nervous. Why did he have the feeling she derived some kind of sick pleasure from pricking him when he misbehaved?

  “Ready?” she mumbled.

  Eric nodded, repositioning his legs. He hadn’t meant to fidget. That hashtag made every muscle in his body clench involuntarily. It had been trending for a couple weeks, since the news broke that Dorian Cromwell had taken a plea deal. Dorian was serving out his six-month sentence for tax fraud at an undisclosed British penitentiary. Eric couldn’t even fathom the fall from grace. Prison? An actual jail cell? Sure, Eric liked to complain how he felt handcuffed by his record contract—but Dorian’s plight put things in perspective.

  Talk about a near miss. Eric couldn’t hold it against his manager for forcing him to come back to the States. As much as Maury suffocated him, Eric knew his manager had his back. When push came to shove, Maury had saved his ass, big time.

/>   “Eric! I swear, these pants are going to end up sewn to your gonads if you keep moving.”

  Eric lifted his chin, relieving the tension in his neck. He needed to relax. Find some less disturbing topic to occupy his mind. But he couldn’t shake the memory of those hasty Snapchat messages Dorian had sent.

  There’s something else…

  Something you need to know…

  This is big. It goes too high up…

  What the hell was that all about? Eric doubted he’d ever find out the answer, and the mystery only fueled the half-baked conspiracy theories running through his head.

  He eyed his own reflection in the mirror. He’d always had this tendency toward paranoia. It wasn’t healthy. He should really stop reading the news. Eric knew how his brain latched on to certain headlines. Last summer, the Dorian Cromwell murder had occupied his every waking thought. That one turned out to be fake news, but there were plenty of other stories in the papers nowadays.

  Like that thing he read last night on NYTimes.com. Eric had only skimmed the article, but he’d gotten the gist. Something about cyberintelligence and the CIA—and hacking into people’s home electronics. Laptops, TVs, microwaves…

  The thought made Eric’s palms sweat. This morning, he’d marched straight over to the mini-microwave in his dressing room and yanked the power cord out of the wall. His bodyguard had looked at him like he’d grown two heads, but Maury had burst out laughing.

  “Let me guess, kid. You read the latest story from Wikileaks?”

  Eric hadn’t been amused. “You saw it, right? If the CIA can do it, the paps aren’t far behind. They can hack into stuff and use it to watch you!”

  Maury had humored him. He’d waved the unplugged microwave out of the room, and his shoulders had shaken with silent merriment the whole time.

  Was it really paranoia? Maybe… Or maybe that was how the gossip blogs kept getting pics of him backstage at all his tour stops. Maybe they’d been using that hacker crap to spy on him for years.

  So how could you tell the difference between a valid fear and a fake one?

  Tessa would know. He wished he had her here to calm him down. She’d probably rattle off the name of whatever cognitive distortion he’d committed this time. That’s all it was, right? This gnawing feeling in his belly that made him distrust everyone around him, from the paps to the record execs to the wardrobe girl at his feet?

  Eric glanced at his cell phone again, wrinkling his nose at the Twitter screen. If only he could message Tessa. It used to be so easy. A couple months ago, talking to her was as simple as switching to a fake account. But that whole DM thread was a distant memory now. His old @EricThornSucks account had been frozen by the Texas police, and @TessaHeartsEric was probably deactivated for good. If Tessa went on Twitter at all these days, it was only in her professional capacity, scheduling corporate spam from @EricThorn.

  She was probably logged into his account right now. Were they both reading the same Twitter timeline from different phones? If only there were some way to send a direct message to himself…

  Eric toggled to his recent tweets. His eyes skimmed over the newest one, tweeted moments earlier.

  Eric Thorn @EricThorn • 32s

  Hitting the stage tonight! Catch me streaming LIVE at 8 PM EST on @YouTube #YMAs

  42 ♥ 396

  His eyebrows drew together. That was weird. What the hell was up with that emoji?

  10

  SAD KITTY CAT

  Tessa trailed Maury down the corridor with her eyes pasted to the floor. She’d felt like crying before she sent that tweet. Now all she wanted was to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers for the rest of eternity. Did he really have to ream her out in front of Eric?

  Tessa’s feet felt leaden. She could barely summon the energy to move forward as the dressing room door approached.

  “Tessa!” Maury bellowed. He motioned at her with the two cell phones he held—his own phone and the one he’d confiscated from her. “A little hustle, please!”

  She broke into an awkward jog. She was starting to see why Eric found his manager so annoying. Why was Maury making such a big deal out of it? After Tessa hit Tweet by accident, she’d moved to delete the tweet from Eric’s feed, but Maury had ripped the phone from her hands.

  Tessa still didn’t understand what Maury was huffing and puffing about. “You can’t delete a tweet! ” he kept insisting. He’d spent the whole elevator ride ranting under his breath. Something about screen captures and retweets… “Once it’s out there, you can’t pull it back! ”

  And now they had to drag Eric into it? Normally she would welcome any excuse to see him, but not like this. What was Eric going to think when he saw the sad face? Maury hadn’t inquired why she added that particular emoji, but Eric was sure to wonder. Tessa had no idea how she would explain herself.

  Maybe she could play it off as an accident. Her finger slipped. Right, Tessa thought. A typo. Nothing to do with the fact that her boyfriend barely made eye contact with her anymore.

  Tessa drew up her shoulders as she passed through the dressing room door.

  Eric stood on a raised platform in front of a full-length mirror. He had his back to the door, with his head down and his hands unfastening his belt. Tessa’s jaw dropped open as Eric unzipped his fly and began peeling off his skintight jeans. A young woman with heavy eye makeup and a lip piercing rested on her knees in front of him, staring intently at Eric’s crotch.

  “Go slow,” she said in a hushed voice, smoothing her hands against one of his thighs. “That’s it. Gently…”

  Eric wiggled his butt. The woman’s hand darted to his waistband and helped him ease the jeans past his hips.

  Tessa clapped her palm over her mouth. Eric must have heard her gasp. He glanced up and met her eyes in the mirror, and a guilty flush of color suffused his cheeks.

  She felt the bile rise in her throat. She’d seen that same wardrobe person before, sniffing around Eric. She was one of the few people on his team that he ever addressed by name. Katrina. Tessa first encountered her at the press conference Eric had held after he returned from Mexico. He’d been wearing a T-shirt, and Katrina had practically torn it off him with minutes to go before airtime, muttering something about how he needed a smaller size.

  Katrina definitely wasn’t shy, but this… Tessa shook her head. It wasn’t what it looked like. That couldn’t be part of the pre-performance warm-up ritual… Could it?

  Eric finished kicking off his pants and stepped down off his pedestal. His white T-shirt flapped around his hips, concealing most of his boxer briefs. Katrina draped the jeans over her arm and scurried toward the door. “I’ll have these alterations back in twenty,” she said as she passed.

  Alterations.

  Tessa blinked. She needed to get a grip. It was all perfectly professional. No reason to get upset…just because some seamstress had a more intimate relationship with Eric’s anatomy than Tessa did.

  “Hurry it up,” Maury replied. “I’m going to need this kiddo fully clothed for social media.”

  Eric groaned. “Now what?” He held up his phone and flashed the screen in Maury’s direction. “What’s up with this tweet anyway?”

  “We have a situation.” Maury pushed the dressing room door closed and clicked the lock. When Tessa met his eyes, she hardly recognized him. None of the usual Maury Gilroy laughter. His face was deadly serious.

  Tessa braced. This day kept getting worse. Why did she get the feeling that Maury was about to fire her? Eric wouldn’t let him do that, would he? Or would Eric even care? Stupid, idiotic kitty-cat face, she thought. Was that really a fireable offense?

  • • •

  Eric watched in silence as his manager shut the door behind Katrina. The moment Maury locked it, Eric tossed his phone onto the makeup counter and crossed the room to Tessa in two long strides.

  He’d been holding his breath from the moment he caught sight of her in the doorway. It took a huge force of will not
to break into a grin. Every time he laid eyes on her, his heart beat a little faster, and the corners of his mouth quirked upward with a mind of their own.

  But he couldn’t let his feelings show in front of other staff. For Tessa’s own protection, they’d agreed that he would treat her like any other publicist on his PR team. If anyone else in his entourage caught wind of their relationship, the story would leak to the media in three seconds flat, and her picture would end up all over the tabloids.

  The stakes were too high to risk a smile in her direction or even a lingering look. He found the safest strategy was to avoid looking at her at all. When others were in the room, he forced his attention elsewhere. Another person…a camera lens…even his own reflection in the mirror…

  Just now, his gaze had only rested on Tessa for a second, but he hadn’t missed the expression on her face. Not happy. Close to tears.

  Again.

  Eric had noticed the strain on her face more and more lately. He knew the past month was taking its toll. Tessa wasn’t used to being around so many people. It was hard for her, especially combined with the breakneck pace of his day-to-day life. Hell, he wasn’t used to the speed he’d been going either. Since his return from Mexico, his label kept him more overscheduled than ever. They used to allow him the occasional day off, but he’d been in a full-speed sprint for thirty days straight now.

  His to-do list ran from the crack of dawn to the late-night hours with barely enough downtime for minor details like eating or sleeping…or DM’ing with his girlfriend. It wasn’t just his newfound respect for cybersecurity that kept him from texting her. Lately, his eyes closed the moment his head hit the pillow out of sheer physical exhaustion.

  Eric knew what the record label was doing. Throwing their weight around. Showing him who was boss. He had tried to escape their grasp, and he had to face the consequences. They were letting him off easy compared to what they could have done.