Page 51 of Totally Fanatic

“It’s probably best that he isn’t out there right now. Shall we?” he asks, and I follow him inside.

“This is Officer Meskan, she’s going to ask you a few questions, and it’s important that you’re honest with her,” Enzo says, gesturing to a mid-thirties woman with deep brown hair that’s tied back in the sleekest bun I’ve ever seen. That shit would give me a headache in a minute for sure.

“Okay,” I say, sitting on the couch to her left. She’s sitting in an armchair, and I’m not lost on how much this setting resembles a therapist’s office. My stomach is in knots. I haven’t had much contact with police, and while Officer Meskan is dressed in a lovely pinstripe pantsuit, I can still make out the bulge of her gun at her hip.

“Tim, there have been some concerning statements made, and before your manager and PR team get into any plans they have, we need to ask you a few questions, okay?”

“Umm, sure.”

“A simple yes or no is all that is needed here.”

“Got it. I mean, yes.”

My palms are sweaty, and I rub them on the front of my pants.

“There is no need to be nervous. There are no wrong answers,” she says, and I nod, but I still feel like a kid called into the principal’s office at school.

“Do you know a man named Lion Matherson?”

“Yes.”

“Are you now or have you ever been afraid to be in a room with Lion Matherson?”

“No, why would you ask that? These posts online are all bullshit. It’s the fucking Banana-Ramas you should be going after, not Lion.”

“Just a yes or no, please, Mr. Sage.”

“Okay, hurry up then because he’ll be here soon, and I don’t want him hearing you asking stupid questions like that. You aren’t going to ask him this stuff, are you?”

Enzo steps forward. “The authorities need to determine if this is a matter for them or something we can manage in-house. They just need to know where you stand.”

“Where I stand. Okay, well, where I stand is with Lion. He isn’t a stalker. I didn’t pay him to post about me, he did bring me soup because Ryan told him I was sick, and he has been to my house, but I haven’t been to his yet. He works as a waiter, and at a cafe with his best friend, he has season tickets to this year’s games and already has stays booked and flights and all that ready to follow our tour all over America. You want to ask if he’s a fan, yes. He is. He’s probably my biggest fan, but that doesn’t make him a stalker.”

“Thank you for that, Mr. Sage. Just one more question if you would oblige?” Officer Meskan asks, and I sigh, slouching back against the couch.

“Sure, what do you want to know?” I sigh.

“Has Mr. Matherson threatened or coerced you to say these things today?”

“Fuck, what? No. Oh God, come on.” I look over at Bart Erricson, who’s sitting in his desk chair, arms folded over his chest and an odd smirk on his lips.

“I think you’ve gotten everything you need,” Bart says, and the officer nods, gets up and leaves. “Now with that over, we can talk about options.”

I lean forward, raking my hands through my hair.

“What option are we looking at?” I ask, and Enzo sits on the chair the officer vacated, opening up the binder in his lap.

“Well, thanks to a few similar situations in the past, we actually have a couple of ideas for you to choose from. The first being, do nothing. Ignore the statements and wait for the media to get a hold of some other story and the Banana-Ramas to calm down.”

“So, just let them spread lies and get Lion fired and just pretend not to care?”

“Lion was fired?” Bart asks, a greater concern in his tone than I would have expected.

“Mary Beth couldn’t open her cafe with a bunch of the Banana-Ramas picketing the place, so he can’t work until it’s settled down. He’s not actually fired. I mean, he told them he was so they would leave her cafe alone. Those fans are the ones you should be worried about.”

Lion is nothing like them. They treat us like we owe them our lives because they cheer for us on a baseball field. They demand photos and autographs, they never ask, and then they outright bully anyone online who doesn’t think the same way they do. Look at what they’ve done with Lion. All their posts about him, all the lies about him have grown into a full-blown social dumpster fire. Security better find him soon because some ofthosepeople sit in that section.

“We agree, the Banana-Ramas are a concern, and we have people looking into any of the threats made online,” Bart says,and Enzo touches his ear with his finger just like the last time, only this time his gaze moves to the floor, and a frown deepens on his forehead.

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