Page 41 of Totally Fanatic

“I don’t know why he’d do this,” I say, and Ian wraps an arm around my shoulders.

“I admit when I knew he was a fan, I thought it was sweet, too. I mean, I am Duckie’s biggest fan, so how could it hurt, but this is a bit much. This is a lot of work and time on… well, you.Have these profiles sent you direct messages, too, trying to get you to talk with them?”

“I don’t know. I don’t go into the DMs. I mean, I did once to find a way to contact Lion, but I just went right to his profile. The one he told me about. I didn’t even think… let me check.”

I open the messages section, my heart pounding, fingers shaking as I scroll through the profile names. I don’t open anything, just scroll, my stomach twisting into knots as I go. Duckie comes to stand behind me and watch on, too, looking for any of the names on the list in Ian’s hands, and when I get to the end of a ridiculously long list, I’m even more confused than I was when I started searching.

“None of them have sent messages,” I say, and Duckie sits on my other side.

“That’s weird. Why create a bunch of profiles and not try to connect with you directly?” Ian asks.

“Maybe he’s waiting,” Duckie says.

“Waiting for what? I don’t go into direct messages. I posted at the beginning of last season that I wouldn’t be looking at anything in there, so no one would get offended if I didn’t reply to them. There were a bunch of nasty comments that I really struggled to get out of my head after that first year. You know?”

Ian nods and swipes on his tablet to the socials page and starts scrolling through posts. “That’s why. You posted that, and he knew there was no point in messaging.”

“Didn’t stop anyone else,” Duckie says, and I hate to agree with Duckie, but it’s true. There are over one hundred DM’s in there, none of them any of Lion’s profiles. If he was creating them all to hedge his bets on getting to me, he would have messaged to try, right?

“Where did you first meet him?”

Duckie answers before I can reply. “At Riverside Barbeque. We were getting food, and he was there with that woman, remember?”

“Actually, we’d met before then, I just didn’t remember at the time,” I say, and my heart rate picks up pace.

“Really? When?” Duckie asks.

“He was a server at Stevie’s wedding and we talked a little at the bar. Maybe that’s where Ryan remembered him from.”

“That’s a pretty monumental coincidence, him working the wedding. I think we have to tell the management. This guy could be dangerous.”

“He’s not, he’s just… I don’t know.” Is he dangerous? Am I being naive thinking this is still some enormous misunderstanding? My palms feel sticky, and I wipe them off on the front of my pants.

“He’s at all your games, then just happens to be working a Banana Ball wedding that you will be at, and then shows up at one of your favorite restaurants, and posts nothing but images and videos of you online, on twenty-three profiles. There is something not right about this guy. I don’t want to be waiting for you at training one day, and then I find out you’ve been cut into a million tiny Tim pieces.”

“I don’t think he’s dangerous, just a little… keen,” Ian says, scrolling through and clicking on posts that one of Lion’s twenty-three profiles has posted or shared or commented on. “There’s nothing jumping out at me in the comments that screams stalker, but the fact that there’s so many profiles, all him, doesn’t scream safe either. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ask him. It’s the only thing I can do. We’ve got plans to meet up tonight. Now actually.”

“Somewhere public, I hope,” Duckie adds, and I nod.

“The pub on the corner near my place.”

“Okay. We’ll come, too, but we’ll stay at the bar just to be safe.”

“You don’t have to.”

“We do,” Ian adds, and I give in because as much as I want to believe this is not what it looks like, that Lion isn’t some crazed stalker doing whatever he can to insert himself into my life, it kind of looks like he could be and that thought sits in my heart like a black rock.

My phone chimes.

LION: I’m at the bar, scored us a booth at the back. See you soon.

Fuck, please let there be an explanation for all of it. I need there to be an explanation. I desperately need this to have not all been some big fake out, some giant con. Okay, here goes nothing.

TIM: On my way.

Chapter sixteen

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