Page 45 of Too Little Too Soon
Instead, she managed to sneak into Travis’s hotel room while they’d been performing in Albuquerque.
Their label had contacted her parents and then helped him secure a restraining order, and finally, finally, she stopped showing up at their concerts, and her social media accounts went quiet.
Until the New Year’s Eve show in New York, he’d thought the whole mess was behind him.
“She’s starting up again,” Mitch said, taking another swig of beer. “And she’s eighteen now, so her parents claim they can’t control her anymore.”
“You already went to them?” Travis asked. Damn, much swifter reaction than their last go ’round with this chick.
Mitch nodded. “I think we all know how quickly and how far she’s willing to escalate. No need to play the wait-and-see game this time.”
“So what do we do?”
“The restraining order still stands, so that helps, although only if she attempts to do something.”
Waiting for her to make some kind of move didn’t seem like a great way to handle the situation, given how drastic her previous moves had been. She might try to kidnap Travis.
She might fucking succeed.
Travis rubbed his hand over his face. “Is there anything we can do other than wait around with our thumbs up our asses?”
“I’ve talked to your publicist, and she’s blocking the girl on all the band’s social media accounts. You need to do the same on any of your personal accounts.”
“Consider it done.” Although he didn’t think that would be enough. Even with the restraining order, the chick kept popping up at shows and backstage, and Travis was always too rattled to do something about it—like call the cops before she could slip away again.
“If she does make contact, your best bet is to ignore her. Be very deliberate about it.”
“Okay.” Now that he could definitely do.
“And, uh, there’s a less conventional method that’s been used in the past with other public figures, and it worked.”
The way Mitch said it, Travis had a bad feeling he wasn’t going to like this unconventional method. Although to be honest, unless it involved locking him in a room with his stalker, Travis was game for pretty much anything at this point.
“Lay it on me.”
“It’s kind of out there but simple, and I have a feeling it might work in this case. Especially when you consider the girl says she was obsessed with you when you were in Dog Daze, yet she never contacted you back then.”
Travis had never made that connection, but now that Mitch mentioned it, he was right. Why was that? What changed?
“Stop selling it to me and tell me what you think will get this chick off my ass.” Travis tipped up his beer in a seemingly casual fashion, when really his heart rate had kicked into nervous territory. And he didn’t even know what Mitch was going to say.
“Well, I’m thinking if you get yourself a girlfriend, that might convince your stalker to back off. Let her know you aren’t available anymore.”
Get himself a girlfriend?What the fuck did Mitch think he was going to do, run an ad? That seemed like it had the potential to gain him a few dozenmorestalkers.
“This is the best solution you have?” Travis asked.
“This is the only solution I have. Aside from just dealing until the tour is over and then disappearing off the scene until she goes away, which, as the representative for your record label, I have to say is not the solution I’d prefer you go with. We need you visible so we can all make lots and lots of money.”
“I’m not really interested in fading away either, don’t worry.” He’d done that once before, and he’d been miserable. Rock ’n roll was in his blood, part of his makeup. Besides Ava, it was the only thing that made him feel whole.
Ava.
“Tell me more about this fake girlfriend idea.”
“It’s simple, really,” Mitch said, finishing his beer. “Find yourself a girl who won’t mind hanging all over you for the rest of the tour. That ought to be long enough for our stalker to get the picture.”
Travis shouldn’t like the idea of Ava hanging all over him as much as he did. “How will this scare off my stalker?”
