"Thanks," Kevin said. "That's really helpful."
"Yeah, any time," Mitch replied. "I just feel so bad when people are stuck."
"You helped me, but now could you please tell me your angle?" asked Kevin. He'd been trying to figure out what Mitch wanted for a while.
"My-my what?" Mitch stammered. He bit his lip.
"Oh, come on," Kevin said. "Play innocent all you want, but you could at least tell me. What do you want, what are you distracting me from?"
"You could tell that I was distracting you?" asked Mitch. "Wow, you're good."
"I'm the smart one," Kevin said, smiling. "You're the 'pretend-to-be-sweet-and-naive' one. Now, what's going on that I wasn't supposed to know about?"
"Well…" Mitch said. Kirstie would get really mad. But who cares? "I was doing Kirstie a favor." Simple, but that explained it pretty well.
"By making Avi visit her?" Kevin asked nonplussed. "Huh?"
"Yeah," Mitch replied, nodding. "She wants to spend more time with him."
"Wait, what?" Kevin looked shocked. "She likes Avi?"
"Yes!" Mitch clapped his hands together. "You figured it out."
"This'll screw everything up!" Kevin exclaimed. "We've gotta stop them!"
"Technically," Mitch sighed. "You've got to stop them, because I'm not going to risk getting on her nerves. She'd kill me, and you're overall… bigger and less killable."
"What about Scott?" asked Kevin. "This is really, really bad. What'll this do to the group?"
"I don't know," Mitch said, patting Kevin's shoulder. "And I know that you know that I'm manipulating you to do the dirty work for me, but you'll still do it, right?"
"Fine," Kevin said. "What's the plan?"
"I actually was leaving that up to you," Mitch said, smiling sweetly. "You're the smart one." He turned and walked out of the hotel room.
Kevin sat there, deep in thought. Then he pulled out the cello and began to play. It helped him think. Maybe he could explain things to Avi from their point of view. That might help. Perhaps they could lock him Avi in a bathroom somewhere, then yell at Kirstie, then let him out before he called the police. No, way too scary and desperate. A few minutes into the session, a knock came at the door. "Come in!" Kevin called.
Esther opened the door.
"Esther?" asked Kevin. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Esther said, plucking at a string on the cello.
Kevin slapped her hand away.
"Kirstie told me that you were really stressed out, that's all," Esther said. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. I wrote a song, played my Beyonce, talked to Mitch… I'm great, actually." But Kevin's mind wasn't on stress or how he was feeling or the tour. It was on Esther. Esther! Why hadn't he thought of that before? She was the perfect wedge to drive between Kirstie and Avi!
"You look pretty zoned out," Esther said, waving a hand in front of Kevin.
"I'm fine, just thinking," Kevin replied.
"Can I hear your song?" she asked, peering over at the laptop.
"I don't sing," Kevin said. He needed the others to even attempt the song.
"Yeah you do, and you sound really good," Esther shot back. She was excited, being one of their managers. A new song would be the first steps towards a new album.
"I-" Kevin fake coughed. "I have a sore throat."
"Okay, if you don't want to tell me you don't have to," sighed Esther.
"Thanks for checking on me," Kevin said. "Bye."
"Rush me right out," Esther said, laughing. "See ya." She carefully closed the door behind her.
Kevin thought. If he just told Esther straight away, she would probably talk to Avi. And that might not end well. Kevin himself wasn't very persuasive. How could he get her to know, but not let her tell anyone? He needed to explain it and get her on their side. But how? What would he say? He needed something to convince her completely… he needed Mitch. The little tenor could make anyone believe anything.
Meanwhile, Scott and Mitch were locked in the bathroom of their hotel room. With a notebook.
Scott scribbled furiously, crossing out bad plans and trying to keep up with how fast Mitch was throwing ideas at him. "Talk slower."
"Fine," Mitch said, rolling his eyes. He slowed down a bit, but eventually he was speaking faster than he had been before. "And if we really wanna go down that road, Kirstie would kill us! Gosh, do you think she would-"
"Mitch?" Scott sighed.
"Huh?" The tenor broke off halfway through describing how to get from their room to Kirstie's without using the corridor at all. He looked over at Scott, his hand still raised in explanation.
"Do you think it would cause you some great advantage to listen to me sometimes?" Scott asked, tilting his head to one side.
"Yes," Mitch said firmly. He had such a perfect plan, if only Scott would stop interrupting! "Now-"
"Can we go sit down on the couch?" interrupted Scott. "I mean, we need to be secretive, but the bathtub's really hard and cold."
"Sit on the floor," Mitch suggested. He wanted to be helpful to Kirstie, she was their best friend, but he knew that there would be some drama and then their group would be nothing. When not everyone's heart is in the performance, there is no performance. "We need to still pretend to support Kirstie, though. I know that sometimes love is hard, but we can't let anything get in our way as a group right now."
"I'm really not comfy right now," Scott complained. "I'm sitting on the floor in a bathroom in a hotel, trying to keep up with someone who's talking really fast. Talking about ways to prevent two friends of ours from getting together."
"And?" Mitch rolled his eyes.
"And I feel like Pumbaa and Timon," Scott said. "From the Lion King."
"Can you deal with it?" asked Mitch. "I've been really focused on this tour and I can't let anything get in our way."
"Fine," Scott said. "Let's do this."