i'm the trouble ahead

JACOB ELORDI as HIG THE DOG STARS OFFICIAL TRAILER (2026)

LOGAN LERMAN photographed by Maya Spangler for Interview Magazine

── "you'll be lucky if you're discharged by tomorrow, champ." niko is sat in the visitor's chair to the left of the hospital bed, which is where he's been since he got the call, for the record. it was a lot like a scene out of a movie, really: he was working, flat on his back under the tires of an old pick-up, when his phone had started buzzing. he almost ignored it, not one to answer unknown numbers, but on the off chance it was his sister, or benji, he braved the accept button. he'd sat up so quickly that he'd thunked his head on the underside of the truck, shoving himself out and scrambling to his feet. he hadn't given much preamble to his co-workers, to his boss, nothing more than a rushed "i gotta go," before he'd torn out of the parking lot on two wheels. that's the kind of reaction regan lafaye still gets from him on a bad day, so imagine a good one? and he's been sitting here, in this chair, ever since. through regan waking up and blinking bleary eyes, through an explanation that he'd been the emergency contact, even after all this time had passed. not that much had changed, really, not on niko's end. same dead-end job, same address across town, same bad habits. "it's fine. i'm gonna stay, so quit nagging me." matter-of-fact. he does, now that regan is fully awake and coherent, drag a long glance around the room, though. and, yeah, some sick part of him takes a little pleasure in asking this question. sue him. "where's, uh... what's-his-ass." the boyfriend. he means the boyfriend, whose name he's very well-versed in knowing.

niko, who's sitting here now, pissing him off, insisting that he'll stay even though he really doesn't have to. niko, who could've said 'shit, that sucks' and gone back to work — niko, who never would've, and who always was going to say exactly what he just did. niko, who's here, and then john, who isn't. he wonders what it looked like, getting that call; wonders if it was a hard decision, wonders if he hesitated. knows, too, that he'd be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed. his head lulls back against the pillow, eyes on the ceiling instead of him now, right as niko calls attention to the lack of the boyfriend — which he knows niko knows the name of, they'd had the world's worst introduction a few months ago at the bar. regan's got a lot of moxy for someone who just lost his spleen, but he doesn't have the fortitude to look him in the eyes while he says this: "...he's not coming," he huffs so hard that a strand of his hair blows up, lifts right off his forehead, tone somehow simultaneously embarrassed and belligerent. "does'n know. di'n't answer. and mad at me, anyway," he says in a hushed tone after, the words more-than-a-little slurred, dejected. his eyes squeeze shut. "if you laugh, i'll, fucking... inject you with one of these poisons they're putting in me. i mean it, niko." he doesn't. "and i'm gonna bite 'em if he comes back in here." that, he means.

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