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“Y ou need to lay low.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Frustrated by his manager’s proclamation and piercing stare, Rory Rollins rocked back in his chair and ran a hand through his ginger-brown hair. Nolan always looked so intense watching him, like he was gauging the reaction to his words.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Kyler, Endeavor Street’s blond, blue-eyed lead singer, whose muscular build and classic features made him look like he should have been the star in an action-adventure blockbuster. “Dude, you have a stalker. She’s nuts. She disrupts every event we have.”

“It’s not every event.”

“Most of them.”

“If we wait it out, she’ll go away. She can’t manage to come to every single event. How is that even affordable?” asked Rory, determined not to be kicked out of his own indie band.

“Whatever, she apparently has unlimited funds. She showed up at our last three concerts.” Kyler held up a fist, shooting up his index finger as he began to count. “One, Cleveland; two, Philadelphia; three, New York.” He wiggled three fingers for extra emphasis.

Marco, the lean, dark-haired Puerto-Rican guitarist, took up the count, sounding peeved. “Four, she showed up in Europe.” Rory tensed. They needed Marco not to be upset. Lead guitarists could be temperamental, and good ones were hard to come by.

“That’s right,” said Kyler. “Four, Madrid, and five, Barcelona.” He waved his now open hand in the air.

Their short, stocky manager, Nolan, spoke up, his gaze unwavering. “It escalates.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Rory shot to his feet. He towered over Nolan, who gave a pointed frown. Nolan was focused and unshakable, both good qualities to have in a manager.

“She gets worse every time,” Venkat, the tall, dark bass player said, adding his take on the situation.

“Last spring she showed up on our bus. Weird, but okay. We escorted her off before you showed. Next event she tried to come backstage without a pass and created a scene—embarrassing, but security handled it. This last time? She made it onstage mid-concert. No one can even figure out how she made it past security and the stage crew. It’s like she had help. ”

“She has superpowers, man. You should’ve reported the emails and the notes when they first started,” said Marco.

Rory shoved a hand through his hair again.

“Ah, come on, they weren’t any weirder than half the stuff we see.

It wasn’t until she started sending pictures.

” He trailed off. Just thinking about the pictures made him cringe.

They were like something out of a horror movie.

Hearts and butterflies with scissors and a red pool of liquid ickiness.

It couldn’t really have been blood, could it?

“Yeah, man, that was weird.” Dustin, the drummer, tossed back his dreads and shook his head.

“Worse, she knows stuff about you. Like where you live,” added Venkat.

“So I’ll move, choose another neighborhood in New York. You can’t kick me out of the band. I started this band.”

“We aren’t kicking you out. Our concert season is over for now.

” Nolan was watching again and using his placating voice, like Rory was some temperamental music artist. He wasn’t.

Despite just sounding like one, he was a professional.

He’d run away to join a rock band at nineteen, and after bouncing around for years, filling in with one lame band after another, he’d wound up starting his own.

He had chosen every single one of these guys, including their manager.

It was his business sense that got them this far.

He was the one who held it all together.

For this to happen to him was the worst.

He gave it one last shot. “We have appearances, promos. I arranged a PR firm to set them up.”

“No one will miss the keyboardist,” Nolan intoned in that placating, soothing manner.

“Oh, thanks a lot.” Rory hated being managed, even if that was Nolan’s job.

“Or the drummer,” Dustin cut in. “No one will miss me, either, and it’s a great thing because Raina’s due any day. I plan to be there when my daughter is born. If I can step away for a couple of months, so can you. Even Ven is off to India to visit his extended fam for three weeks.”

“Listen, it’s a couple of talk shows and radio spots. The fans mostly want the lead singer and guitarist anyway.” Nolan just would not let up. Rory was really getting annoyed.

“Sorry, but you know it’s true,” Kyler grinned. “I’m the real star.”

They all groaned.

“Disappear for a while. She’ll get a new obsession, and all will be well when you come back for our Thanksgiving weekend booking.” Nolan spoke like it was already decided.

“Write us some new songs,” said Ven. “It’s what you do this time of year, anyway. The earth dying back, all these dry leaves. Weather turning cooler. Holiday time. Write us another Top40 love song. It makes a nice contrast to our heavier songs and gives me a break on the bass.”

“You’re the romantic,” Kyler laughed at Rory. “You write it, I’ll sing it, and the fans’ll love it.”

Rory rolled his eyes.

But the intensity on his manager’s face said it all: he would have to step back for at least a month. And that wasn’t all bad. He had the freedom to do that. They weren’t tied into a record contract, not yet. As much as Nolan pushed them, they hadn’t achieved Rolling Stones style popularity.

Maybe stalker-girl would lose interest. She might have figured out where he lived in New York, but he could go home, back to Hazard, Rhode Island for a while.

Visit his granddad in that Art Deco monstrosity overlooking the ocean.

If he traveled incognito, maybe even the town wouldn’t know him.

He didn’t want any local pieces popping up in the Hazard Gazette to publicize his location.

He looked way different than he had as a youth.

He’d grown a few more inches and filled out.

He wasn’t the scrawny kid he’d been when he left.

If he grew a bit of a beard and added sunglasses, probably no one who knew him from before would even recognize him.

He had been invisible as a kid. If the people who might still know him were anything at all like him, they would all have escaped from Hazard—the land of non-opportunity—as fast as he had.

He could fade into the woodwork. He gave a thoughtful nod.

It was a decent plan. “Okay, you win. I’ll drop out of sight until November.

I’ll write five new songs, one for each of us to showcase our talent.

By then, this latest crazed fan will have moved on to a new target and won’t be a problem to us anymore. ”

One could only hope.