“Of course.” Maury stood and made his way toward the door. “You smell like a zoo animal, by the way. Did you shower?”
“Body odor isn’t in the contract,” Eric said dryly. He wrapped the sheet around himself, toga style, and followed his manager to the main door of the suite.
“Actually it is, my friend,” Maury said over his shoulder. “I hate to break it to you.”
“What? Since when?”
“Personal hygiene clause.”
“That’s ridiculous. Like anyone can smell me over Twitter!”
Maury didn’t answer. He already had his cell phone pressed to his ear, and he waved to Eric offhandedly as he made his way out.
Eric poked his head out the front door of the suite and swept his eyes down the length of the corridor. Empty except for a maid pushing a housekeeping cart. She spotted him, and Eric tensed as her eyes widened with recognition. A fan, he could tell, from the way her face flushed crimson.
Eric looked away, praying she wouldn’t make a fuss. She wouldn’t scream, would she? Or, worse yet, snap a cell phone video to sell to TMZ? But the maid lowered her gaze discreetly as she pushed the cart around the corner. Eric took a breath. For a moment, he considered going after her. Maybe he should offer to sign an autograph. He used to take such pleasure from little things like that. It only took a second of his time to make some fan’s whole day…
But that was all at the beginning of his career—back when his Twitter followers counted in the thousands, not the millions. Now he didn’t dare leave the safety of his room. Anyone could be lying in wait around the corner. Publicists…photographers…fourteen-year-olds with knives…
Eric hastily returned the Do Not Disturb sign to the door handle. He flipped the heavy deadbolt and checked it twice to make sure it was secure. Then he padded back toward the bathroom and turned on the shower.
“Personal hygiene clause,” he muttered under his breath. He turned his phone back on as he stood waiting for the water to heat.
Twitter app.
Trending topics.
#EricThornObsessed
21.9M tweets
In the half hour since he woke this morning, another hundred thousand people had added their voices to the chorus.
3
THE FOLLOW SPREE
Eric sat down on the toilet with a white hotel towel draped around his neck. He glanced down at the tweet he’d sent ten minutes ago before stepping into the shower.
Eric Thorn @EricThorn
Wow! Thanks for the #EricThornObsessed thing. How bout a follow spree? Retweet for a follow!
18.7K ? 20.1K
He’d immediately followed the first twenty fans who responded, but the retweets and replies were still rolling in by the thousands. He flicked back over to the trending list. Oh goodie. Up to the number-two spot. No doubt #EricThornObsessed would climb back to number one worldwide soon enough.
The label should be satisfied, even if he didn’t follow that one fan in particular: Tessa H, the most obsessed one of all, who’d managed to get the rest of them whipped up into this latest frenzy. Frankly, they could kiss his ass with that idea.
It would be a cold night in hell before he followed her.
“Enough,” Eric muttered to himself. “Put the phone down.” He knew he shouldn’t read the replies. It would only irritate him further—all those thousands of fangirls, tweeting their undying love to him. Not like in the old days, when they used to praise him for his music or his voice. He still appreciated tweets like that, but they were few and far between. Most of these fans had never even been to one of his concerts. They’d made it all too clear what they loved about him when he released his most recent album a few months back. He’d conducted a little experiment at the time.
First, he’d tweeted a link to buy the lead single on iTunes:
4.1K ? 10.2K
Then he tweeted a selfie, shirtless, from the set of the music video:
42.6K ? 86.3K
The numbers only confirmed what he already knew in his gut. His so-called fans would much rather stare at silent pictures of his body than listen to any song he bothered to record.
Ever since then, he hadn’t sent a single tweet unless commanded by his handlers. His Twitter app remained unopened and untouched for weeks at a time.
And I should close it again right now, he told himself. He’d done his duty. Move along.
Eric let out a weary sigh. He needed to get on with his day, but the thought of the workout looming before him kept him planted to the toilet. Just a few more minutes, he thought. They couldn’t give him a hard time for being late, right? Everyone needed to take a dump once in a while. Even pretty-boy pop stars.
He switched over to the notifications tab and rolled his eyes in disgust as he read the first one:
Eric Thorn Lover @EricLuv982
I LOVE UUUUUUUUUUUU ERIC PLS FOLLOW ME I’M CRYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She loved him? He’d wager good money that she barely listened to his music. Who had time, with all those pictures of him in his underpants to tweet about? But she loved him. Sure. If she only knew what he really thought.
It was so tempting to tell them. He could just imagine how that tweet would read:
@EricLuv982 You don’t love me. You don’t even know me.
Yes, he thought. How amazing would it feel to get it all off his chest? But why restrict it to that one when there were millions of others just like her?
Eric punched at his keypad, embellishing as he went:
Attention fans. You don’t love me. You don’t even know me. I’ll never, ever love you back. So put down the phone, go outside, and get a life
Not bad for 140 characters. He could go on, of course, but he’d reached the maximum length.
Eric wondered what would happen if he sent it. What would all the fangirls do? Would #EricThornObsessed grind to a screeching halt? He closed his eyes and pictured it, his lips forming a crooked grin.
Pure fantasy, of course. There’d be hell to pay if his finger slipped and hit the Tweet button. His publicists would rake him over the coals—and that would be the least of his problems.
Eric shifted his weight uneasily against the cold, hard surface of the toilet seat. He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t antagonize the fans. He only needed one of them to flip out and come after him with a butcher knife. How many were hovering on the brink, just waiting for one wrong move to push them over the edge?
He tipped back his head and ran his hand up and down his throat, rough with stubble. Did Dorian see it coming? Eric wondered. Or did that girl surprise him from behind?
No, he could never tell his followers what he really thought of them. Way too dangerous. In fact, he should probably tweet the opposite right then, just to be on the safe side—something to soothe the raging disappointment for all the ones he just passed over.
He hastily wrote a new message and hit Tweet.