#chapter text

“John! Shit…” Above him, footsteps creaked on rackety metal, and Tyler must’ve done his best impression of Jacob Raw scaling down that fire escape, because he was at John’s side in seconds, and breathless. “Are you okay?”

With Tyler’s help, John wobbled to his feet, his heart thrumming in his chest. His left wrist felt like that guy’s foot at the end of Misery, but when he pulled back his jacket sleeve, everything seemed fine—other than a huge red bruise forming under his palm. Tyler exhaled at the sight of it, his fingers grazing the skin. John yanked the sleeve down.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” said John. He picked up his briefcase with his left hand, winced, and grabbed it with his right. “Looks like a gnarly bruise though. Jesus, how embarrassing. First a rash, now this, wow. Listen, I’ll head out and ice it.”

“Seriously, John, you’re as white as a sheet. Let me go—”

“—no,” said John. He stepped back. “I’m fine. Thank you. I’ll see you around, okay?”

John was halfway around the corner when Tyler spoke.

“No, we won’t.” 

John turned.

“We won’t see each other around,” Tyler repeated. God, he looked like a screenshot from some Nordic crime procedural, standing in that grey and weed-infested alley. He put his hands on his hips and grimaced at the ground like some unnecessarily hot, bearded, plain-clothed detective frowning at an off-screen corpse. “Shooting’s done. I’m out of town for work. I’ll be leaving New York by the spring. I—we…”

“…the Guggenheim!” offered John. “I’ll see you at the Social next month.”

“Right,” Tyler agreed, “guess so.”

Professional, John thought, keep things professional. So he walked up to Tyler and—awkwardly, because he needed his right hand to hold his briefcase—stuck out his left hand for a handshake.

“Great working with you,” said John. He smiled.

Tyler looked down at the hand, like John was handing him a rash-inducing Garfield scarf. He shook his hand.

“Yeah,” said Tyler, “it was great.”

It was the opposite of their first handshake. That one had been caught on camera, streamed to millions, and was full of bravado and raw strength as Tyler pulled John in. This time, Tyler’s hand was gentle and loose, careful with John’s grip, a ginger lingering goodbye. He wanted to take a snapshot of Tyler, but his brain still wouldn’t let him, because he still could not draw him. How could he ever capture the furrow in his brow, the shape of his downcast gaze, the hard line of Tyler’s mouth? It dawned on John that a sudden absence of laughter was about to hollow out his life. It stung worse than John’s wrist. 

“See you around,” said John.

“Yeah, I’ll—” started Tyler, but he swallowed whatever he was going to say “—see you.”

John waved—winced—and swore. Tyler pointed helplessly, like that was proof John was not okay, but then John began to…

…whistle. Yeah, that felt like the right thing to do. He whistled. Tyler stared at him. John saluted, backing out of the alley, before turning on his heel and marching off with a spring in his step. 

When he turned off Bushwick, he flexed his fingers and ow—ow—oh my goodness this was not good. None of this was good. Why did it feel so bad saying goodbye to Tyler when it was the right thing to do? He was saving himself months—years of being miserable over a guy. He had learned with Shawn. He was growing. It wasn’t Tyler’s fault that he got bored of people, and it wasn’t John’s fault that his heart had the structural integrity of a Fabergé egg. Is this what maturity felt like? Doing the smart thing? The bitter-tasting thing? Knowing that something was simply not meant to be?

He walked faster through Brooklyn, skipping with every other step, as the pain in his hand and heart ached more and more. He kept whistling a cheery tune; it was the theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, because, oh boy! Today? He could turn the world on with his smile! He walked until his whistle turned into a hum, and until his hum into short sweaty grunts. He walked while gritting his teeth and singing, “You’re—goonna—maake it—after arrrrgh.”

When he reached Broadway with its bustling pedestrians, and was far enough away from Tyler to hear, John let his briefcase clatter to the sidewalk, bent over slowly in front of a bodega, and gripping his left hand with right yelled:

“MOTHERFU—”

—as the J train roared above him on the elevated line and a flock of pigeons exploded into the air.

= 

The urgent care doctor said that if he’d had fallen in a slightly weirder position, he would’ve gotten a hairline fracture. So John should consider himself lucky: His wrist hurt like hell, but his left hand—his drawing hand—would only be living in a splint for four weeks.

When Susan Rich got the news, she was distraught, but was telling John to look on the bright side by the end of the phone call:  “Oh my dear. My dear. Well, look at Frida Khalo! Look at how she metabolized pain into exploration…No, sweetheart, I’m not comparing you spraining your wrist in Bushwick to a streetcar accident in Mexico City…But you could take up photography. Filmmaking! Sculpture…Fine. One-handed sculpture. I’m just trying to help.”

When John texted Shawn, he discovered that Shawn was…headlining two shows in Toronto. Randomly. And sure, he answered John’s texts seventy-two hours after he had sent them, but he cared. Sort of. “Please take care of yourself, john…Let’s link up when i’m back? lord of the rings joke we worked on killed.”

When John finally heard from Tyler on Monday morning, it was an uncharacteristically brief text. 

Tyler: I heard about your wrist. You okay?

John stared at the message in bed. He wanted to tell Tyler that he was not okay. In fact, he wanted to be on a cold late-night stroll through Central Park, with Tyler’s arm warm around his shoulder. He wanted for them to be together, for Tyler to never get bored of him, and for Tyler to kiss his aching wrist and make sad little faces while they walked. He wanted to complain about how much it sucked to not be able to hold a pencil. He wanted to explain how he’d drawn every single day for the last twenty-one years of his life, because when he was seven he learned that being an artist was something you could do for money, so he needed to get good at it. By the end of their Central Park walk, he wanted to be laughing with Tyler about something stupid; maybe Tyler would be narrating the inner monologues of the squirrels.

In reality, John answered Tyler’s text immediately.

Me: I am! Thanks for checking in. 

He tossed his phone across his duvet.

The Monday after the disastrous, final Big Picture session, John finally told the editor-in-chief of The New York Review that one of his cover artists would be out of commission for four weeks—four.

“Two weeks,” said John with a sigh. He made a big fuss of pushing back his suit jacket sleeve and fastening and unfastening the straps of his splint. “We’re lucky it isn’t longer or I’d have to miss the Guggenheim Social. Hard to discreetly sketch about the evening when you’re yelling in pain.”

They were in an emptying conference room after an early morning meeting on the aforementioned Social: assignments on attending guests, discussions about the event’s online presence, and an all-hands-on-deck breakdown of the evening. The night would be everything John dreamed of when he got the gig as cover man for The New York Review, and exactly the place he wanted to be: in a tux, around amazing art, while nursing a non-alcoholic cocktail.…Even if Tyler Hughes was no longer planning on attending. One of the Social producers announced this along with other changes to the laser-focused guest list, and John sat there, jaw set. Good. One less thing to agonize over. After the meeting, Assistant Jenny collected the spread of old Review issues fanned out on the wide conference table before Brenner. As Brenner signaled for Producer Danielle to stay behind, his eyes narrowed on John.

“I have a cursory knowledge of sprains and fractures,” he said. “It is remarkable that you’ll be fully recovered so quickly.”

John shrugged. “What can I say! I drink chicken soup like it’s Gatorade. It’s disgusting.”

“Well, we are lucky,” continued Brenner, standing, “because there has been a change in plans. You will be doing live portrait drawing at the Guggenheim.”

“…Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing! Amazing news. Shit.”

“What?” 

“Everything is fine.”

John hummed in panic.

“Filmed like Cover Sessions?” asked Danielle. John could see the producerial gears whirring in her brain. 

“Yes,” sighed Brenner, “filmed like Cover Sessions, but part of a live telecast. He looked at both of them. “In fact, call it a return to Cover Sessions, if all goes well.”

John promptly forgot about his wrist. “Wait, really?”

“A change,” said Brenner, “one…of many.”

“Not ominous at all,” said John.

 “Genevieve,” said Brenner to Assistant Jenny, “send Danielle the museum’s atrium layout, and connect her to event coordination. And John—I’ll let Clyde know you’re up to the task.”

”I will be up to the task in two weeks,” said John, as Brenner and Jenny brushed past him. “Two weeks! I will be fully recovered and churning out portraits!”

“Of course I lied,” said John later that day, from the comfort of his own drafting table. On a chilly evening in the West Village, John had just finished a slow, squiggly, right-handed portrait of Hunter. They were all crammed into John’s studio: Hunter carefully perusing John’s Garfield collection while Yohel stirred a curry in the kitchen. Two more people were all you could fit in a cramped studio like John’s and both stopped to stare at him. 

“You lied about your recovery time?” asked Hunter. “John.”

“Yes, yes, I know how it sounds, but I can do it. And I’ve got a great backup plan. I have two entire weeks to learn how to draw with my right hand.” John swiveled around on his stool. “You’re giving each other those little glances that mean you think I’m being delusional. I am not being delusional. I, John Marshall Rich, am not a delusional person.”

“You once said you could keep up with Mohammed Ali in an interview,” said Hunter.

“I absolutely could, if it were a topic we both knew about. Maybe he liked Garfield.”

“John!” 

“Geoffrey won’t let me go if I’m not recovered, and he certainly won’t let me draw live portraits if he knows my wrist is healing.” He stood up, tearing off and re-fastening the straps of his splint. It was becoming a nervous tick. “Every cell in my body needs to make art, okay? Yes, under normal circumstances I have the constitution of a Victorian child, but if I want to get better and draw, I will get better. Look.”

He picked a yellow #2 pencil up from the sill of his drafting table, and with his left hand, closed a trembling fist around it, but even flexing his pinky and ring finger sent a bolt of pain up his arm.  He frowned, his arm shook. The pencil clattered to the wood floor. 

“Stop,” ordered Yohel, snapping off John’s stove, “before you injure yourself again, fool.”

Yohel had insisted on making them all dinner when he had heard about John’s wrist, and had argued about it until John gave up. He was at the stove with a kitchen towel over one shoulder, like some gorgeous domestic god, one Superman curl falling across his eyebrow. John gazed at him. Maybe John could figure out how to run a kilometer and then he and Yohel could date. While Yohel handed Hunter a bowl of curry and rice, John snatched up the pencil, put it behind his ear, and held up his squiggly portrait of Hunter.

“Okay, well, at least I can still draw. See?”

Hunter frowned at the portrait. “This is sad.” 

“No it's not! It's happy!” He brought it closer to her, pointing. “See, your proportions are all there. I got the rhythm of your braids, and your eye shape, and the angle of your nose. See?”

“It’s all wobbly, John. It looks like I’m underwater.” She tilted her head ninety degrees. “I look like Leonard DiCaprio fading into the depths of the North Atlantic. Didn’t your mom say you should take up pottery or something?”

“Aha! I have done that too. I made the three of us.”

John pointed to the Garfield shelf. Sitting there were three lumpy ceramic faces of himself, Hunter, and Yohel. Hunter yelped. Yohel leaned over the kitchen island and whispered something in Spanish.

“What’s that English story where there’s an ugly painting that someone owns of themselves that keeps the person beautiful?” asked Yohel.

“The Picture of Dorian Gray,” John replied.

”I want that ceramic.” He pulled out three bowls. “Curry is ready.”

His shoulder sank. This was a foreign feeling. Making art that was apparently “bad” was not something he did every day. Instead of lingering on that, he turned to his Garfield collection. It was nice having people over who had seen the mass of Garfield merchandise before and were no longer surprised by it. Nevertheless, Hunter and Yohel did have completely different relationships with the collection. Like right now, Hunter was carefully looking through it. Every time she came over, she picked a random plushy and it would be hers for the night. Tonight she grabbed a Halloween Garfield and tucked it under her arm. Yohel on the other hand would ask about new pieces, and discuss the eBay battles that John had endured to win them. Made sense; Yohel was a guy who owned at least forty X-Men figurines and was proud of his curation. He even complimented John’s rare non-suit outfit: a vintage white Garfield T-shirt tucked smartly into high-waisted jeans. John took the steaming bowl of curry that Yohel placed in his hands.

“I’m very appreciative,” said John, “but you guys didn’t have to do any of this.”

“We did, actually,” said Hunter. “I feel terrible. If you had told me that you were meeting with a reclusive artist in Bushwick, I would’ve told you not to go.”

“It is proven that home cooking will make you feel better,” said Yohel, who in another life had finished med school. “I am creating an environment where you can heal your ligaments and draw Garfield again. Planning any retail therapy?”

“You mean eBay auctions?” John glanced at the still-broken ceramic bowl and thought of Shawn’s pained laughter. “I’m down-sizing, actually. This smells like heaven, Yohel. Thank you.”

“Anything to see you to a fast recovery.” He sighed as he squeezed in next to Hunter on the small couch. He ran his hand through his thick black hair. “Even watching reality programs. Now let’s sit down and visit the horrible women.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” said Hunter, clapping. She opened her laptop as John slotted himself in next to her. Season four of Run Club Savannah was cued up on the screen. “Do you need a refresher?”

“No,” muttered Yohel, “I think about the narcissism of these women every day.”

“You know what?” asked Hunter. “Let’s interrogate this misogyny, Yohel. It’s a lot.”

“The only misogyny in this room is the internalized misogyny of the Run Club Savannah police state. John, you have a text.”

Hunter picked up his phone and John let her. He wasn’t going to read the texts anytime soon. She read aloud. “Aw, he’s letting you know personally. ‘Tyler Hughes. I wanted to let you know that I won’t make it to…’ Dammit, the notification disappeared.”

John buried his face in the curry. “Yeah, that sucks.”

“That more than sucks. It’s huge news. I wonder…”

She hummed and searched for something on her phone. Yohel, annoyed, reached over to the laptop to tap play on the episode. She swatted his hand with the Garfield plushie toy.

John’s phone buzzed several more times during the episode, but he did not answer them. Instead, he started on some wiggly, right-handed sketches of Helen and Jeni, wobbly text reading, “it’s not about qualifying Helen. I swear to you, it's not.”

=

On the first Friday in March, John Rich got a fresh new haircut, dabbed on his suavest cologne, put on a jet-black tuxedo, tied a black bowtie, clasped on his sleekest watch, slipped his pencil bag and sketchbook into a black briefcase, and descended the stairs of his apartment with pep in his step; it was the evening of the Guggenheim Social and he looked like a million bucks. 

A million and one.

The pre-party anxiety that roiled in his stomach was exhilarating; he liked knowing that he was about to perform, to do something high-stakes that only he could do. The tightrope walk of returning to Cover Sessions—and making it perfect—while celebrities milled around him and he quipped and drew three portraits on the spot, live? He’d knock it out of the park. His mind drifted to Tyler Hughes, but he flexed his wrist to cut the rumination off with a dull ache. Whatever. Underneath the perfectly tailored tux and crisply parted hair he wore his lucky Garfield underwear, which was like his lucky Garfield tie, but far more powerful. As he bounced down the last steps of his apartment staircase, he thought one thing: 

Tonight was going to be perfect.

Mrs. Tuk burst out of her apartment. “John.”

“Mrs. Tuk,” started John, spinning around, gesturing at his tuxedo, “not now. Can’t you see I’m dressed to the nines? Off to rub elbows with the stars? Tracy baby, please, I gotta make tracks!”

She glared. “Do not call me Tracy.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, deflating immediately.

“It's just two walls,” Mrs. Tuk pleaded. “It will take you one hour, including clean-up! I need your eye. You have good taste. You're a painter!”

“Mrs. Tuk,” he said, pushing open the front door, “when I paint, it's portraits, on canvases, for weighty sums.”

“I'll give you a month off rent.”

John turned around. “Two months.”

“One and a half.”

“One and a half months, and you let me cat-sit your cat.”

She frowned. “But that’s more work.”

“Take it or leave it, lady!”

She shrugged and they shook on it.

“This week?” she asked, still holding his hand.

“No.” He was out the door.

John was hoofing it to the intersection when Mrs. Tuk yelled after him, “have fun at your dance!”

John opened his mouth to correct her, but instead sighed, hailed a taxi, and was swept away to the museum.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum sat at the eastern edge of Central Park, between 88th and 89th Streets, and the traffic from the Social stretched far down Fifth Avenue. John hopped out of his cab on 82nd Street and headed north as the sky melted into dusk over Manhattan. The commotion of the red carpet built as he got closer and closer to the museum, until he was weaving through shiny black sprinter vans and limousines, blinking into the firework of camera flashes, and lost in the hubbub of event coordinators shouting over publicists, who were shouting over photographers, who were shouting over a hundred ticketed fans at the barricades. 

John had no intention of walking down the red carpet, but as he closed in on the museum and the crowd erupted with cheers and applause, he couldn’t resist turning to see who was exiting the latest private car. Well, he’d be damned. He watched as Bella the TikTok dog skipped down the carpet, wearing a bowtie. Geoffrey Brenner had curated an excellent guest list. At a side entrance, John flashed his Audre West badge and slipped through security and more stressed event coordinators. Then the roar of Manhattan traffic and museum crowd faded into warm jazz and light soiree chatter, and John was inside the Guggenheim Social. 

If you’ve never had the chance to visit the Guggenheim, the most important thing that you need to know is its central architectural feature is a gently sloping multi-story ramp that swirls up through the main gallery. You start at the bottom, and wind up and up through the atrium, stepping into alcoves and looking over the wide-open bowl. For the Social, three emerging artists were presenting an exhibition and their works were scattered up the ramp. What was normally a well-lit gallery was dark for the dinner, and the fading light of the evening fell on the dozens of tables dotting the rotunda, each set with spring florals and twinkling candles. 

Milling about the tables and trekking up the ramp to see the art were the attendees of the Guggenheim Social, and they were like the invite list from The Review’s festival after party, but more refined and possibly even more famous: John spotted pop stars and their professional athlete plus-ones, a tech billionaire who was donating millions to the emerging artist fund, Pulitzer winners, famed Review writers, and at least three Academy Award nominees. There were designer gowns and tuxedos, endless introductions, and event photographers galore. Camera flashes went off on every floor of the museum as celebrities posed with the exhibit; if you weren’t looking at the art, you were looking at the crowd. 

At the foot of the stage where a jazz band played and through the increasingly dense crowd of famous people, John spotted Danielle. She was in her final form. She wore all black, gripped a clipboard, and the headset at her mouth sat on helmet-shiny hair. She looked exhausted. Beside her—next to a professional cameraman and hauled all the way from the RCA building— sat John’s drafting table.

“Oh my God!” exclaimed John, coming right up to the Cover Sessions setup. There was a cameraman with a live telecast setup, a sound guy, and bright warm lights for the broadcast. He rolled the drafting table’s rusty T-square back and forth. “Did you really bring this thing all the way from the office? It weighs a ton.” 

“It was in an email—never mind.” She softened looking at the setup. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Retro. How’s the lighting?”

John snapped on a desk lamp attached to the table and sat down at his stool. A sheet of archival Bristol board was already taped to the surface. He massaged his wrist.

“This is great,” said John. 

“Can I set up my desk to the left? Then it’ll really be like Cover Sessions.”

John turned to find Hunter, absolutely beaming from being around this many famous people. She grasped a black clutch in manicured fingers, wore a semi-sheer black Tom Ford dress that showed off her abs, and looked like she had gotten hours of glam—her signature microbraids transformed into a wavy blow-out. She gripped him by the shoulders and fiddled with John’s black bowtie. “I know you always wear a suit, but you clean up nice, Rich.”

“Not too bad yourself,” said John, kissing her cheek. 

She leaned in close. “I have some intel for you. Apparently, you will be drawing Helen Gardener.”

John barked out a laugh, setting out his sketchbook. “Fine. I mean, I hate her on TV, but I can draw her in real life.”

“Brenner is obsessed with Run Club: Savannah, and she’s launching a sunscreen line, so the Social is great press for her. Oh, look!”

Sure enough, at the proper front entrance of the Guggenheim, was Geoffrey Brenner. His black tie attire was a tuxedo jacket with black shirt, and his long locs were gathered solemnly behind his back. He was talking to Helen Gardener and someone who must have been the principal ballerina of the New York Ballet. His face was serene, excited almost—the angles of his face dulling into curves, the angle of his eyebrow less sharp. John found his drawing hand moving—carefully—across his sketchbook. He made the tiniest flick for Brenner’s ever-arched eyebrow.

“You know, bringing back Cover Sessions, putting you on the Guggenheim Social beat, and being into Run Club? That guy isn’t half bad.”

“Are you smiling at Geoffrey Brenner?” She leaned on his shoulder and shook her head at the drawing. “And drawing a flattering sketch of him? Jesus Christ. And with a bum wrist.”

John winked and twirled the pencil in his fingers, even though it pinched. He put an arm around Hunter’s waist.

“Never mind me, toots. You’re glowing. Let me guess, you ran into ten famous people in the bathroom?”

“The bathrooms up here are too small. But I’m going to hang out at the one downstairs. Apparently that’s where they do the bathroom selfie each year. But look at this place!” She looked around at the party, practically rubbing her hands together like a praying mantis. “We’re in the thick of it.”

It was glitzy—the pinpoints of light on the wine glasses, the attendees trickling down from looking at the art—and they were in the thick of it. The Guggenheim Social hosted by The New York Review in New York, New York, planet Earth. John adjusted his bow tie, letting the smirk trickle across his face. “Who am I drawing, Danielle?”

He pulled Danielle out of her conversation with the camera crew and she consulted her clipboard with a freshly printed out sheet of paper. “Rory Smith—some big sponsor. Helen Gardener—you know about her, right? And…” She frowned. “Tyler. Tyler Hughes.”

John’s head snapped up. “What?

Hunter’s eyes flashed. “How?”

“I know, that wasn’t in the email.” Danielle whipped out her phone. “No, no way.” As she scrolled, John saw her blush. “I missed an email—for once, from an hour ago. Audre West Entertainment, what the hell. I haven’t double-checked with his publicist—I can’t believe I missed an email.”

She was gone in a flash, wedging her way into the crowd.

“I guess he made it work,” Hunter said, where John could feel his stomach sinking, she was buzzing from the chaos. “Besides, this place is packed with voters for the Tonys. If I were his publicist, I’d make it work. I’d…Look.”

Hunter gasped. John looked over his shoulder.  

He heard the flurry of noise from the red carpet outside and John knew that Tyler Hughes had arrived at the Guggenheim Social. Even in the dim light of the atrium, he glowed. John had seen Tyler in a suit at The Review festival, in a casual blazer at City Live, but Tyler Hughes in black tie was something else. He wore a light cream suit that fit his shoulders, and his hair was perfectly tussled, and as he looked over the atrium, John got every angle of his freshly trimmed beard. But it was his smile—that movie star smile—that knocked John on his ass even though it wasn’t directed at him. It reached Tyler’s eyes, thinning them out into sweet blue lines, and seemed to sparkle with a toothpaste-commercial ding! John watched as he melted Geoffrey Brenner into a flurry of pleased greeting, as every camera in the museum trailed after him, as everything slowed to a grinding halt on the Tyler Hughes event horizon. 

Then they locked eyes.

From across the museum and through the crowd, Tyler’s smile softened. John held his breath. Could he read John’s mind? His stomach flipped, swooping up and then down. John breathed out one shallow breath and held up a hand to wave. Tyler laughed, and waved back then pointed to the drafting table. John looked down at it, smiled bigger than he had smiled all night, and nodded. Tyler gave him the smallest thumbs up, and was swept up in another conversation.

Slowly his smile faded. He turned away on his stool and exhaled, aching.

John Rich was in love. 

He did not want to be. He thought the feeling would dull after saying bye to Tyler, but no. He was still very much in love.

He was also in trouble. How do you draw someone when there’s so much of someone? How do you capture with lines all the facets of someone when a squint shifts him from a hardened action hero to a curious actor? When the light falls across his cheek and it changes him from movie star to friend? A grin reveals a secret, a laugh shows how he must have laughed when he was a boy. 

How do you draw someone when you’re head over heels in love?

“Hunter,” said John, quietly. He looked at the ground, swallowing. “I can’t draw him.”

“Pft,” she said, taking a picture on her phone, “because you’re injured? That’s your own—”

“—no, because—I can’t,” John said, grabbing her arm and shaking his head, “I can't. I don’t know how.”

He looked at her, and she searched his eyes.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay, well…if you’re getting cold feet, you should tell Danielle.” She glanced over to Brenner. “Because I don’t think Geoffrey Brenner is gonna like that the live broadcast for the Guggenheim Social stopped because you have big feelings for Tyler Hughes. Go find Danielle.” 

John nodded. He stood up and rushed through the crowd, on the hunt for Danielle. 

Maybe he should just let this happen. Tell Tyler he liked him—that he adored him. Let Tyler shower him with love and affection, and then let Tyler go. Just get over it. Why was he torturing himself like this? And what was an artist without a little heartbreak, anyway? After that, he’d be able to draw him. Okay, but what exactly would he say to Danielle now? To Tyler’s publicist? To Tyler? “Oh, sorry, I can’t draw Tyler Hughes because I’m hopelessly in love and see, like, a dozen people whenever I look at him. Maybe I could take a stab at it tonight, but could you give me two hours? Or maybe twenty? I’ll need a few sketchbooks.” 

 Or worse, they’d record and he’d be going viral for the next few weeks. “Did you see the newest Cover Sessions? It was at the Guggenheim Social! The Cover Sessions guy confessed his love to Tyler Hughes right there on the spot!” 

He slipped out from the atrium floor, to the dim side entrance right off the stage, and sidled through dozens of frantic people with clipboards and servers with plates of hors d'oeuvres and bottles of wine. Where had Danielle gotten to? He was thinking this right as he bumped into Catarina Harlow.

“John!” she yelped before jumping up to kiss his cheek. “Oh my goodness. The bowtie! You look the height of glamour.”

“Same to you,” said John. He was not exaggerating. He couldn’t place the designer, but the shimmery slip of a dress reeked of couture and hung off Catarina’s body by a perilous gold thread around her small shoulders. She was gripping a microphone, and a makeup artist refreshed her highlights. Not only had The Big Picture interview turned into an invite to the Social, but the invite had turned into Catarina performing several jazzy numbers with the band. Close by, Catarina’s shark-like publicist was grilling an event producer. “If you’re warming up, don’t let me distract you.”

“No, please don’t go!” she cried. “Distract me? Talk to me, please, because I’ve warmed up so much I’m overheating. Besides, you’re the only reason I’m here! Well, you and that guy.” On tiptoe, she looked over John’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of Tyler Hughes and the halo of star power swimming around him. “God, Tyler looks great doesn’t he?”

John nodded. He couldn’t look at him. “He’s gorgeous.”

John stepped aside for a flurry of event management, and took a deep breath. If Catarina had hooked up with Tyler and accepted her fate, maybe he could too. He turned to her. 

“How can you just be with him and then not be with him?” John blurted out. “How are you still friends?”

Catarina looked at him. “Be with Tyler?”

“Date him,” said John, shaking his head. “Sorry, I had to ask. I—I’ve heard. How did you do it? How does anyone just do it?”

“…date Tyler?” Catarina asked, frowning.

John watched a flurry of emotions pass over her face, a ripple through her eyebrows: confusion, surprise, amusement, and finally concern. With long gold nails, she gripped John’s tuxedo sleeve. “Oh, John, honey. Tyler and I have never dated.”

John froze.

“Really? But—” John thought about it. Oh, I heard a ton of rumors about you! Is that what you're going to say to a celebrity, John? “You guys are so…close.”

“He’s one of my best friends.” She shook her head. “John, no. Tyler…I'm not his type. Like. Not even close.”

“Wait.” John squinted at her. Then he looked around. He leaned in close and mouthed, “Is he bi?”

Catarina shrugged. Winced. Hummed.

Then John mouthed, “gay?”

Catarina inhaled. She nodded.

What?

“But,” John whispered, leaning in very close now, “what about Monica Grajales?” 

Catarina gasped. “I love her! What about her? Oh, you thought they were—John... John. I thought you talked to Tyler about Sutton Foster.”

“He didn't date Monica Grajales?” John hissed. “I heard they hooked-up at City Live, they were inseparable—”

“Hooked up?” asked Catarina. Even though her microphone was not on, she covered it with her palm. “I mean he's obsessed with her, but they met the week before her seventeen-year-old cat died. They spent so much time together because he,” she sighed, rolling her eyes fondly, “drove her to pick up the urn. Or something like that, I think. Whatever it was, it was fucking annoyingly kind. But…” She looked John up and down. “I thought you knew he played for a different team. At least by now.”

“I mean, he told me…” said John, slowly. So he wasn’t serially dating people? Love ‘em and leave ‘em? John couldn’t stop now. He had to know. “One last question. As a friend of his. Sorry, if this is weird—but Tyler and Micah Andrews.”

“Yeah?” She paused for a producer to double check her microphone, then leaned in closer to John. “I mean, they broke up after that thing in Miami. It was sad, but I don’t think Micah was serious.” She sucked her teeth and shook her head. “Tyler really wants a boyfriend.”

John’s eyes opened wide. 

He grabbed the doorframe of the side entrance. 

He needed to sit down. 

“Dear God, John, are you okay?”

“Break a leg,” said John, pulling himself up, “break your legs, break their legs—break everyone’s legs. Go on a leg breaking spree. Thank you, Catarina.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you!”

Then he ran.

Oh God! 

John squeezed through the now dense crowd of celebrities—he might have stepped on the foot of a certain Academy Award nominee—and scanned the crowd as the host urged them to take their seats. He had to be around here somewhere. Near Geoffrey Brenner? Near the front? John didn’t know what he would do when he found him, but if he could just talk to him—pull him aside and apologize to him—explain everything to him—there. He saw the back of Tyler’s head as he was taking his seat right next to the stage—

—which was when Hunter grabbed him. She started pulling him away. 

“Hunter, no. I need to talk to Tyler. I need to tell you something!”

“Later,” she said. Her voice was tight. “Follow me. Right now.”

She dragged him out from the dinner crowd and up the Guggenheim ramp, Tyler shrinking as they ascended and John protesting the entire way. “No, Hunter, if this is some celebrity gossip—I’ve got something better. Something big! Something just happened.” A smile took over his face. He stuffed it down. “This is important!”

“It’ll have to wait because I can guarantee you, you need to hear this.”

She yanked open the door to one of the tiny bathrooms and stuffed him in. 

Inside, Assistant Jenny was in tears.

“Jenny,” said John, squeezing in with Hunter. The museum restroom was barely large enough to fit one human, let alone three. He blinked at her. She was also dressed in black, a simple jumpsuit, and her long body shivered as she leaned against the sink. She blew her nose into a wad of toilet paper. “Oh my God, are you all right?”

“John,” said Hunter, turning to John. “Yohel got fired.”

John gaped. “What?”

“All the cartoonists got fired,” said Hunter. “Geoffrey Brenner took them all off staff. Everyone—gone. Jenny just found out and told me.”

“I-I shouldn't have,” said Jenny through a sob. “He forwarded me an email to proofread and schedule—he does that all the time. But this one goes out tonight. I shouldn't have told you, Hunter, but I—I had to tell someone.”

Hunter fumed. “And it gets worse.”

“How?” asked John.

Outside there was applause and Catarina Harlow started to sing. Hunter exhaled.

“He’s getting rid of the position,” she said. “John, you’re the last cover artist for The New York Review.” ✏️

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previous chapter < start > next chapter ("Tight Five")

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✏️ Author's Note

How satisfying is it to see John to fucking realize that he can't draw Tyler because he's in love with him. [loading...Character arc at 90% completion.]

This chapter is a microcosm of John Rich & The Big Picture—John in denial and making bad decisions, Yohel and Hunter and Danielle and Mrs. Tuk, the Garfield collection, tailored men's wear, ART, and a storyline about John's career getting in the way of John and Tyler making out.

Can you tell we're in act III we've never been more in act III. John is literally in his final form, the Charizard evolution of John Rich—he's in a tuxedo!!!

this will never get published bc the guggenheim will never approve of this "this man is too stupid to run around in our museum even fictionally"

The two of them stared at him under the hum of the bathroom lights while Catarina wailed in the rotunda. He inhaled, adjusted his bow tie, and pushed open the bathroom door. “I’m gonna take a walk.”

Hunter frowned. “Right now? Where?”

“I dunno,” he said cheerily and was out the door.

Below on the ground floor, Catarina beamed as she serenaded the crowd, sweet, swingy, and soaring. Along with the hundred other celebrities, Tyler looked up at her full of adoration. John spotted Brenner in the middle of it all, smirking in the darkness, probably thrilled at how smoothly the evening’s proceedings were going. Brother. John weaved through servers, producers, event photographers, lingering publicists floating over the attendees, never taking his eyes off the editor-in-chief. Maybe he should walk up to Tyler, kneel down, ask him out on a date, and then get out of here. No, I should go right up to Brenner, say something incredibly witty, and then leave. He massaged his wrist. Why not both? He’d need something legendary—something so stinging it would become Review lore, the kind of stuff historians gasp at in textbooks.

His feet had taken him to the larger bathrooms of the Guggenheim, the ones that weren’t single occupancy. Maybe the women’s room was the place where a bunch of startlets would crowd to get a viral selfie—there was a line forming at the door, but the men’s room was empty. As he pushed open the door, he collided with a brick wall.

That is, the man he walked into was as sturdy as one. When John looked up rubbing his wrist, he realized he was staring at one of Samwell University’s most famous alumni. Oh jeez, was he here with his husband as a plus-one or something? Was Geoffrey Brenner obsessed with a baking influencer? Was he secretly a hockey fan?

“Sorry,” said Jack Zimmermann, stepping aside. He was as wide as Tyler and had the same clear blue eyes—so was in other words, stupidly handsome in a tuxedo. He paused. “Wait. You’re the Cover Sessions artist, aren’t you? My husband loves your videos!”

“That’s me,” said John, with a small nod. He couldn’t do this right now. “Love your work. Your games. Your…skating and goals. And what you’ve done for the community.” John sighed, pained sympathy. “Let’s go…Samwell!” 

He pumped a fist. Jack Zimmermann, confusingly, pumped his fist in the air in return. Panicked, he backed away and left quickly.

John turned and saw another familiar face.

“Dan? Your company works all of these events?”

The last time he had seen Dan, the bathroom attendant, was at the New York Review Festival after party, minutes before John had gotten ensnared in a viral pool party. He wondered if Dan’s corner of the Internet included stupid celebrity parties. He hadn’t changed a bit—it had only been six months—but had ditched the small mustache. A shame. John thought that mustache charming. He greeted John with a genial wave. 

“Oh shit,” said Dan. “What’s up boss? You see Jack Zimmermann? Nice guy.”

“I did,” said John. “How’s it been?”

“To be real with you?” Dan sighed and shook his head.  “Not great.”

“Really?” John leaned against the counter.

Dan looked up at him guiltily. “Yeah, you know how it is…I messed things up with my girl. I missed this big party she helped put together for her cousin? Because something came up at work. She worked hard on it too…”

 “That's tough,” said John, clicking his tongue. 

“She's patient with me too, which makes it worse. Because this has happened a few times. So I’m trying, but you know?”

“When did this happen?”

“Last night. I don’t know what to do, man.”

John crossed his arms. “I’m the last person to offer anyone advice, but do you want my advice?”

“Please.”

“First of all, say you’re sorry, buy her flowers,” said John. “Second, work’s important, but she’s more important, so it’s priorities, I guess? Because I think stuff like that—you make mistakes again and again and you figure out what you actually can’t lose. It’s why I stopped drinking. Well, not exactly the same. Also, I probably replaced drinking with a different addiction—Garfield collectible merchandise. You know the orange cat from the newspaper comics?”

“Oh yeah, Heathcliff?” 

John frowned. “No. Anyway. Just my two cents. Get a second opinion though. I look put together because I’m wearing a tuxedo but I’m a complete wreck.” Dan laughed. “Seriously, I’m broke. Man, how much did you say I should charge famous people for portraits? Ten thousand? Do you want to be my illustration agent? Ten percent commission—no, fifteen. For you, Dan, fifteen.”

Dan laughed again. “Damn, priorities. You're right. I gotta get my priorities straight…You had a drinking problem? For real?” 

“I know. I look like I can't hold down apple juice.”

Dan laughed again. “You're quick, man. You should do comedy.” 

John laughed with him, but then really thought about it. With a loud crackling buzz, a lightbulb went on over his head.

“Sorry about that broken lightbulb,” said Dan. “It’s been like that all night.”

John snapped his fingers. He should do comedy.

John reached into his tuxedo jacket, pulled out a few dollar bills. Suddenly, every system in his body was coming online from a surge of adrenaline.

“Dan,” said John, “I only have four dollars. And a nearly complete punch card to a cafe in Greenwich.” 

“Yeah, man, it's okay,” said Dan. He held up his fist. “You don't seem like you're wealthy or anything. Plus, you didn’t even pee.” 

John fist bumped him, put the cash on the tray next to—Jesus, how much did Zimmermann tip? “Good luck, Dan. God bless you.”

He sprinted out of the bathroom and into the rotunda to a burst of applause.

Catarina launched into one last song, and John stared at the stage. Okay. All right. How bad could this all go? One half of his brain was telling him to text Tyler “are you free for a drink?” and leave; the other half of his brain was shorthanding a script, and highlighting punchlines. John loved a tightrope walk, the thrill of a performance, but he had not prepared, had not run any of this through. If he bombed it would be bombing on a live telecast of thousands of people—and before hundreds of celebrities. A big chunk of Hollywood and New York City’s elite art scene was sitting in those delicate chairs. If he didn’t bomb…

He glanced at Tyler.

John simply decided that he wouldn’t. 

John walked up to Danielle. Catarina's voice carried high into the rotunda, and as he got closer, he caught Brenner’s eye, smiled—Brenner smirked back—and lightly grabbed Danielle’s arm. 

“Hi,” whispered John, leading her along. A huge applause broke out as Catarina bowed under the spotlight. “I need you to take me up to the stage while talking into your headset the entire time.”

Danielle scurried with him. ”Why? What the hell are you doing?” 

“Because you look like you’re in charge and people are scared of you,” he panted, putting her in front of him like a shield, “and just trust me.”

As they walked, Danielle put her hand up to her headset mic and frowned but walked fast, the crowd parting as she held out her clipboard. 

Clapping guests stared at them as they marched around the Cover Sessions setup. The camera was trained on the stage, broadcasting live to hundreds of thousands of people—perfect, no pressure. When they reached the stage, John adjusted his tux, walked past a Guggenheim Social producer, who also had a headset and clipboard. They were about to ask why John was going on stage—when they took one look at Danielle and stepped aside.

“Thanks, Danielle,” John said.

“I had nothing to do with this.” 

John planted himself at the foot of the stage, just as Catarina was coming down the stairs, and she stopped in her tracks. He leaned in to whisper in her ear, heart thrumming in his chest.

“Hey. Can you do one more song?” he asked.

She bolted up straight, but leaned in to whisper again. “Yes. Oh my God, of course. An encore? They want me to do an encore?” 

“Yes,” said John, “but I’m going to give remarks. But you guys can go right into it after that, okay?” 

Catarina nodded, gesturing for the drummer and guitarist of the band to stay. “I had no idea you were going to talk to everyone.”

“Yeah, neither did I. May I?” 

John held out his hand, and Catarina placed the mic in his palm. He tapped it. Heavy. Hot. Good. He had one foot on the stage when he turned back to Catarina, covering the mic. “You were phenomenal by the way.” Then he took another step into the spotlight, and faced the hundred-something-person crowd of artists, actors, pop stars, professional athletes, unwanted billionaires, and staffers of The New York Review. Tyler Hughes was at the first table, and looked up at him, surprised and delighted. John, butterflies in his stomach, smiled back.

John Rich had been very good at standup comedy. He knew this, because people reacted to his comedy the way they reacted to his drawings—with recognition. With art, this meant leaning in, staring, going “ah!” and with comedy, laughter. Yes, John was an awkward anxious wreck six days out of seven, and yes, he had once combusted after Tyler Hughes called him a nickname, but on stage he had it figured out. Nothing could touch him. Not only did it all feel right—the weight of the mic, the sound of his voice, the knowledge that everyone in a room was listening to his clever thoughts; it felt deserved. They should be listening. Because if the ideas in John’s head were funny to him, they’d be funny to anyone else too. He was not just going to be fine—he was going to be more than fine. He was going to kill. 

Because John Rich, at any moment, had a deadly five minutes. 

“Hello, Guggenheim Social,” said John, voice echoing loud through the rotunda, “can we get another round of applause for the effervescent Catarina Harlow!”

A roaring applause erupted before John even finished his sentence. Of course. If you’re sitting in the crowd at a fancy gala and a man in a tuxedo tells you to clap, you’re gonna clap. The lights were bright on him but he could see, at a table two rows back, Geoffrey Brenner sat up—frozen. No, Jeff, this wasn’t on the schedule. John had to move fast. 

“And keep that going for the amazing emerging artists whose work we’re here to honor tonight!” He raised a hand and, like puppets, they clapped again.

“Welcome to the Guggenheim Social, an event organized by The New York Review and Audre West Entertainment,” said John, words falling out slowly, clear, without a stumble. “My name is John Rich, and I do covers for The New York Review—”

The first bump of this set: John was not expecting the applause here. Hooting and hollering broke out amongst the tables. He felt his eyebrows shoot up, and leaned into the expression, lowering the microphone in stunned silence to get the first chuckles of the evening. They cheered louder. Hunter stood at the edge of the rotunda, scrambling for her phone to start recording, and cheering her head off like everyone else. John smirked and brought the microphone back up to his lips.

“….I do covers for The New York Review,” said John, drinking in the pause and waiting for the applause to fade to silence, “but you might know me from, oh you know, falling into two feet of water last year.“

There it was. That first honest pop of laughter was like catching a warm breeze and riding it right up into the sky. The virality of the fountain incident was worth it. Oh, he was flying. He was a mile over Manhattan. They didn’t just like him—they loved him. 

“If you’re wondering,” he continued, smiling wide, “people see me on the train, and they still ask me if I’m okay after that fountain thing. And I say ‘no’, but then again, was I ever really okay in the first place?”

Again, they chuckled, all adoring grins as far as he could see. He had some tried and true bits—things he had repeated a million times at dinners and at the barbershop and whenever people asked him how he liked his job. He trotted them out one by one, because from there John knew it: this crowd was going to eat up everything. 

“Before we bring Catarina back onstage, I wanted to thank you all so much for being here tonight. We’re here to celebrate art and culture in New York City, which is what The Review is about. 

“You know, I love being the cover artist for The New York Review. Because it’s a job that shouldn’t exist. Every magazine in the world puts celebrities and super models on their covers, but we at The New York Review said, ‘you know what’s way hotter than that? That’s right….tasteful drawings of experimental poets.’

“For someone like me, it was either this or become a courtroom sketch artist, which I would be very bad at. Because I would not pay attention. If someone was wearing a bad wig, that’s it. That’s the drawing. Lumpy head? I’m locking in. ‘Oh, sorry, I did not draw the defendant during the moment of sentencing, I did however draw a juror whose head was oddly round. Did anyone else notice how round that guy’s head was? Just me? I’m fired? That’s fair.’

“You know, The New York Review gets a bad rap for being too intellectual, taking itself too seriously, being too intimidating—which isn’t true at all. So to completely change our image, we hired Geoffrey Brenner as editor-in-chief—” 

It was all John could ever ask for: a burst of laughter exploded from the back—from the Audre West employees, and was echoed by the knowing crowd. A diplomatic smile flitted to Brenner’s face and he clapped, but he stared daggers into John. John gave him his biggest shit-eating grin. Making Geoffrey Brenner publicly uncomfortable at his own gala checked off a huge box, but John couldn’t help it. He kept going. “People don’t know this but he has a great sense of humor, he is just really good at hiding it.

“But I am here today,” said John, for the first time, a tremble entered his voice, “to make an announcement. Maybe I should say I loved being the cover artist for The Review, because I am resigning.”

The crowd hushed. John swallowed, his mind going blank with what to say next. There. He said it. That would be the headline from this entire evening’s affair. You can’t fire me, Geoffrey Brenner—because I quit. Sweat prickled at his back, and the mental script he ran through had no more words. All he could hear was the tinkle of wine glasses and the increasing murmur from the audience, who was suddenly realizing that none of this was planned.

“I-I am resigning,” John repeated, but forcing a smile, forcing control back into his voice. He looked down at Tyler, who was staring back at him, hand covering his mouth, waiting for John’s next words. John took a breath. “And I’m announcing it here because. Well, someone told me that doing it at the Guggenheim Social would be the best way to get booked for weddings and barmitzvahs for the rest of the year?”

Now John laughed—from relief—because the museum was laughing with him. They were back. “Bachelorette parties? I have no other skills. Dear God, please hire me. My email is [email protected]—I lose access on Monday, seriously.”

“Artists, we do this—this.” He gestured to the building and the exhibit it housed. “Because if we don’t, we’ll die. It’s that simple. You wake up compelled to figure something out about yourself, or the world, or someone else. We do this to survive. Art should be something that we use to reach out to one another and to understand one another. And I’m glad to have been part of something that has connected so many people.

“The last thing I’ll say is,” and he paused, “I do wish that I had gotten more cartoons in the magazine, but it’s really hard. Like, you think Review cartoons are hard to understand—I don’t get them either. Anyway.”

John's wrist was starting to throb in pain. He realized he had been clutching the mic with a deathgrip, like someone was going to wrest it away from him. 

“Please enjoy the evening, please enjoy each other, and please, for the love of god, enjoy all this goddamn art.” He waved. They were already applauding, and he shouted over it. “Thank you. Catarina Harlow one more time, everyone.”

He bowed.

The rotunda erupted into applause, and when Catarina met John at the stairs to the stage, she beamed. She threw her arms around him, and they kissed cheeks. “Oh my God, you’re hilarious!”

”Th-thanks,” he said. Uh-oh. His tongue was starting to feel like it was made out of a sock. He had to get out of here. “Go and kill it.”

He jogged down the steps and through a sea of clapping hands and gowns and tuxedos and smiling mouths.

“So sad you’re leaving The—”

“Wonderful speec—”

“Ruff!”

But he couldn’t stop. His retinas still stung from the stage lights and he swam through a sea of dark blobs and pinpricks of candle light as Catarina launched into another song. He heard Hunter shouting over the crowd, saw Danielle swearing at him and shaking her head, but he could feel Geoffrey Brenner moving to intercept him, only slowed down by the dozens of dinner tables and celebrities between them. John got to his drawing table, realized Danielle must have moved his sketchbook and briefcase elsewhere, snatched up his pencil bag, put it in the pocket of his tuxedo, and wove through the crowd of event staff until he was at the side entrance and out of the Guggenheim. He set off down Fifth Avenue at a brisk walk then a jog, sidestepping a screeching taxi as it wailed at him, and running across the street as annoyed bikes clanged their bells. He ran, breathless, until he was drenched in the darkness of Central Park.

He opened his phone to text Hunter:

me: Had to stepnoutsee you after yhe show ?

Jesus Christ, he couldn’t type—his entire body shook from the post-adrenaline comedown. He walked fast through the park. This wasn’t a daydream. This was real. He tried to pocket his phone, but his shaking hands missed his pocket and it clattered to the ground. He stooped down to pick it up, and that’s when he heard behind him, faint at first. 

“John. John!”

John turned around. 

Someone was running after him in a cream-white tuxedo.

John stared, as Tyler Hughes jogged through Central Park, illuminated by lamp posts and darkened by tree cover again and again as he ran up to him. John watched, panting, and set his jaw to keep it from chattering. 

“Oh my god!” said Tyler, when he had reached him. “I’m lucky as fucking hell that I found you. That was insane! Did you really just quit and run out of there? You’re really not cover artist or something?”

“H-how—how?” Make your mouth move normally, John. “How’d you know I’d take off for the park?”

Tyler shrugged as they walked side by side. “I dunno. Hunter was looking for you too, but she went off toward Madison. That took huge balls, mate. Oh my god. Everyone was talking.”

“Did it seem planned?” John asked.

“Maybe but—it also absolutely did not. Which made it all the more impressive. Holy hell.” Tyler’s smile faded. “You alright? You're shaking.”

John stopped walking. 

He had already done one scary thing that evening; two wouldn’t kill him. Plus, Tyler wouldn’t let him die. Even though everything felt right, and he knew what he knew about Tyler, the what if? still frightened him. His stomach dropped. His heart pounded. His hands trembled.

“Tyler, last year, when we were in your apartment after recording,” said John, “d-did you want to kiss me?”

Tyler was quiet. He looked at John, hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, I did,” he said softly. “Why?”

The answer made John’s head swim, and his hands rattled even more. Go, he told himself. Do it. Be honest. Don’t be an idiot about it. He took in a breath, and nodded.

“I should’ve just kissed you, then,” said John, "and I wanted to. But I—I get scared sometimes. Anyway.” 

There was the scraping sound of asphalt under his dress shoes as he turned to face Tyler, and there was a spark when his hands settled on Tyler’s waist. John pulled Tyler close and kissed him.

He felt the scratch of Tyler’s beard, but his lips were warm and soft and gentle. Tyler shifted, and John felt a hand cradling the back of his head, an arm wrapping around his back. There was a puff of cool night air between them before Tyler found John’s lips again, and again, exhaling against John’s nose, thumb stroking the back of John’s neck, and John felt like every firework from New Year’s Eve was going off in his body. Because Tyler was kissing him. John could taste the wine from the Social, smell his cologne, feel the weight of his body against his—

CLING. CLING CLING. 

Tyler stepped aside and jerked John with him. 

The bike bell waned in the distance, but the delivery guy looked over his shoulder and bellowed. “Fucking bike lane!”

“What?…Come on!” shouted John. “What the hell!”

“Stupid!” shouted the guy.

“For the love of—we were kissing!” shouted John right back. He stepped away from Tyler. “It’s Central Park! We were making out! Ever heard of fucking romance?”

Fading into the darkness, the guy flipped him off. John rolled his eyes.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” muttered John. John squinted. “Wait a minute. Was that the same guy? From when we were walking through Washington Square Park? No way. No way!” He turned to Tyler. “I think that was the same—”

His words were lost on Tyler’s smiling, laughing lips. ✏️

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previous chapter < start > next chapter ("John’s")

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✏️ Author's Note

Have feelings??? SIGN THE GUEST BOOK! Still have feelings??? COME BACK AND READ THE COMMENTS.

i need you to tell a friend bc i wish ten thousand more people were reading about this stupid cartoonist finding love

guesses for the next chapter? There’s only 3 left, people. what other important plot points need to happen hmmmmm

laugh tax please

So far, it’d been ten minutes of Jules on their very best behavior, answering each of Tyler and John’s questions without their penchant for chaos. Maybe it was because three of Jules’ drag friends were seated in a tattered booth just off camera. Apparently Jules had told them that Tyler Hughes came into the diner in Greenwich every once in a while, but failed to mention that, well, A-list movie star Tyler Hughes was actually an acquaintance. When John arrived at the bar that morning, unusually on-time, he heard Jules’s friends fervently whispering with them near the bar, peeking looks at Danielle and Tyler, scandalized. “No, he fucking wrote down questions about you! Look!”

“The acting element fascinates me, because do you still discover things about Shuck?” asked Tyler, like a therapist, as though Jules’s drag king name wasn’t completely ridiculous. “Like is he an archetype you’re trying to embody? Or does he change each time you get up here?”

“Oh, they definitely change. And, um, Shuck is a ‘they’,” corrected Jules, and they held up the silicone chest plate, “I know, it’s confusing. I keep calling this guy a ‘he.’ And then. Shuck’s 18-wheeler wife is ‘she.’ Shuck’s dick is a ‘he.’ Their slam jamming junk.”

“Their slam jamming—” John repeated, before covering his face and sighing. The booth of drag friends shrieked. “Jules, you were doing so well.” 

Jules shrugged and Tyler, a true theater kid, also seemed unfazed. As John uncapped his inking pen, Jules explained how Shuck Driver—who was like a mixture of Joe Dirt and Elvis in 1968– was their way of saying how femininity and masculinity are the same thing. His pen skittered over Jules’s bangs, and he feathered a few strokes at their temple to indicate the undercut.

“I have a question,” said Jules, raising their hand. “Why do you think you're doing this show? With John Rich?”

“Oh,” said Tyler, slowly, sitting back. “I think people like to see me learn things. You know, people see me and go, ‘Well that looks like a guy who doesn't know anything’—and they're not wrong—so when I ask a question and learn something? Every single person watching this breathes a sigh of relief.”

“Like, thank God,” added John, “he needed that.”

Tyler smiled and then, quickly—winked. John’s insides lit up. Maybe it was worth waking up at 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday. 

“Exactly,” said Tyler, “I didn’t go to college. Can barely read. The Big Picture is my last chance at a proper education, isn’t it? How else am I gonna learn about important things? Like Jules, you can probably tell me about your obsession with wrestling. I hear that’s a thing for drag kings.”

Jules sat up straight. “Tyler Hughes. How the hell do you know about drag and wrestling?”

“I know lots of stuff, my friend,” sighed Tyler, stroking his beard, “mysterious things. Things about art and the universe.”

Jules argued that Tyler literally just said he was stupid and didn't know anything. Tyler countered that, no, he knew many useless things. Jules accused him of pseudo-gaslighting. Tyler claimed that wasn't a word. They kept volleying back and forth, with John's wry interjections, the camera's rolling, conversation straying away from and wandering back to drag, filling the room with sparks and pops of wit and playfulness. Tyler Hughes simply had chemistry with every human on planet Earth.

And it happened again before John could stop it: He pictured sitting there with Tyler, being a couple, and feeling overwhelmed by pride for his boyfriend. His partner was so inquisitive and thoughtful; his partner genuinely wanted to understand people, and they opened up to him. “He is such a great listener—you’re so lucky, John,” people would say. “I know,” John would sigh, rubbing Tyler’s back. John sat there grinning, running a grey marker under the swirl of his drawing of Jules’s earlobe, while—in his head—his boyfriend Tyler Hughes was a lovely fucking human being.

Then, strangely enough, he thought of Shawn. Maybe because he was also a lovely human being—or at least therapizing himself into becoming one. He and Shawn never were an item publicly. Is that what John had craved the most from that jumbled situationship? An arm draped around his shoulder? Sitting too close in a restaurant booth? The PDA that said this is my boyfriend, and I can't get enough of him?

“You guys are super cute together, by the way,” said Jules.

“Co-producer John and I?” asked Tyler, eyes sparkling.

“No, like, the way you make John laugh is super cute,” said Jules. “He never laughs like that. And I'm a John Rich mega fan.”

“I am also a John Rich mega fan,” said Tyler, nudging John's oxfords with his sneakers. “I'm very lucky to have stumbled upon a person with the same idiot sense of humor as me. Makes interviews a breeze.”

“Stop,” said John. He could feel himself blushing and became aware of Danielle filming in the corner again. He needed to pay attention and stop fantasizing about his nonexistent happily-ever-after with Tyler. “No one should be a fan of me. I'm the poster boy for generalized anxiety.”

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out six blue Copic markers, fanning them out in his palms. “Now, what the viewers don’t know is that I’ve actually drawn Jules before, but I didn’t have the right shade of blue for their hair then. Jules?”

“Ooohh,” cooed Jules, and hopped off the stage. Their steps sounded sticky as they stood near John. “Dude, nice. Oh my god, these are like special Copics. Oh, oh oh! How did you get this color? It’s actually the shade that I want.” They held a Copic to their hair: It was electric blue, verging on yellow. “Use this one.”

Tyler got up as Jules returned to their mark, putting a hand on John’s shoulder and looking down at the near-finished drawing of Jules. 

“Blue is your signature color, then?” asked Tyler.

“Yeah,” said Jules, “it’s my character design. Kinda like how I’ve never seen John Rich without a suit on.”

John looked them straight in the eye and arched an eyebrow. “I sleep in suits, you know.”

Jules guffawed, shaking their shoulders and then they sobered, filled with dread. “Wait, if you actually do that as a coping mechanism, then it’s not funny. A suit could be like a weighted blanket but for gender affirmation.” 

Minutes later and with a final stroke, the portrait was done. It was Jules staring off to the side, curious, smiling, wide-eyed, and greyscale save for the shock of electric blue John used to color their hair. He lifted it up to show Jules’s friends and they gasped, training their phone cameras on it. Tyler crossed his arms and blew his cheeks out.

“Fucking amazing. Mate, you captured their energy, their enthusiasm.” He put a hand on Jules’s shoulder. “You? Were very serious and insightful, okay? I’m proud of you.”

Jules stood up straight, clapped their heels together, and saluted. The cameras were still rolling, but the interview was over. “Thank you, sir! I was asked to talk exclusively about art, sir! Wait, new question.” They bounded over to John. “John Rich, were you talking to my friends about Run Club: Savannah when you walked in? Oh my God. I love that show—”

“No,” said John sternly. “Nope. We are not talking about that in front of Tyler.”

“We are!” said Jules.

“No.”

“Run Club?” asked Tyler. John bit his lip because Tyler did that adorable puppy-dog head-tilt he always did when he was curious about something. “That’s a reality TV show, right? Is it any good—”

“—it’s the best show in the universe,” blurted out John. “It is cinema. But we’re not talking about it.” 

“Seriously, who’s your favorite run clubber?” asked Jules. For some reason, they handed Tyler the chest plate, and he gladly accepted it. “Mine is Jeni, but my bias is Helen because she has evil MILF energy. I'm like mommy, make me run one kilometer dom running mommy.”

John dissolved. He held his head in his hands while Jules ran off camera to hoot about cardio training as BDSM and hot moms in their forties. “Okay, we’re done. The Big Picture is done. Can we cut maybe all of that, Dan—Danielle. Get yourself on camera, lady. Everyone at home, Danielle’s cracking up in the corner. There goes Tyler. Am I the only person with a sense of decorum in this drag bar?”

Twenty minutes later— after a damning amount of content for a blooper reel—John and Tyler were alone in the East Village, taking in a bright and chilly morning. They were a block away from the bar when Tyler turned to him. 

“Let’s watch an episode,” he said.

John stopped on the sidewalk, right in a rectangle of sunlight. “What?”

“Of your show. Run Club,” said Tyler, taking a step. “My apartment is a short ride away. Or we could walk to your place. Come on.”

“Right now?” John's heels remained glued to the concrete. Nuh uh, John. Don’t be stupid. Do not be alone with this man that you constantly fantasize about. John’s hands were cold, exposed to the bracing East Village air, but his palms sweated around his briefcase handle. “We don't have enough time.”

“I’ve got two hours before I’ve got to be at the theater.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s now, or I’m going to be a skeptic forever.”

“You'll hate it.” He needed to get out of here. 

“I might,” said Tyler, strolling up to him, hands in his jacket pockets, stepping into John’s square of sun. A winter breeze picked up his already-tussled blonde hair. He elbowed John, “but I know I'll love your commentary. Come on, then. Properly induct me. Or at least educate me.”

“I'm insufferable when I watch this show, Tyler. I can only watch it with Hunter or at the gay bar—”

“—shall we go to a local gay bar this evening then?” Tyler pulled out his phone. “I could catch you after the matinee—” John imagined walking into a gay bar with Tyler fucking Hughes. He could see it so clearly: John extending a hand to Tyler as a tsunami of men devoured him like a goddamn riptide. Tyler wasn’t giving up. “John, we had coffee at Jules’s diner just yesterday and talked about your favorite Garfield strip for twenty minutes. I now know so much about Nermal getting shipped off to Abu Dhabi. You're passionate, not insufferable.”

John groaned…but took a step. Tyler clenched a fist in victory. 

“I'm a little insufferable,” said John.

“Fine, sometimes,” said Tyler, “but it gives you a quirky edge. Let's go.”

988 Greenwich Street had been a book bindery at the turn of the twentieth century, office space through most of the 1950s, uninhabited in the ‘90s and renovated into luxury lofts for privacy-valuing residents in the last twenty years. It was two blocks from the Hudson, four stories, and according to Tyler, had a below-ground garage, filled with insane cars.

With Tyler's keycard they left the busy street, slipped through a gate, crossed a rustic and overgrown courtyard, went down to a long concrete hallway where a doorman nodded happily at Tyler, and rode up a gleaming elevator. The entire time, John prattled on about how he and Hunter watched Run Club (while forcing Yohel to partake in their ritual), and that Hunter was working on a piece for print in The Review.

“Oh, what about Hunter for The Big Picture?” asked Tyler as he pulled a key out of his jacket pocket. There was like, a country mile, between the elevator and Tyler’s apartment. Did this man have his own ZIP Code? “Well, I suppose journalism isn’t art. But it’s a craft.”

“It’s a lost art,” said John, “and trust me, Hunter would find an angle if it meant she could be on…”

John shuffled to a stop, and stared at the minimal, black door of Tyler Hughes's Chelsea loft. Tyler stood on a welcome mat with an illustration of red and white flowers on it and unlocked his door. A little over a month ago John had been standing, soaking wet, fuming at the actor who played Jacob Raw, and now John was minutes away from being alone with him in his apartment. The door cracked open and Tyler walked in, toeing off his sneakers, and chatting about the art of interviewing. But John stood on the threshold, a vice grip on his briefcase handle. 

“Sorry, It's a bit of a mess—oh,” said Tyler, looking over his shoulder, “you all right?”

Go in. Just go in! John wasn’t going to his crush’s apartment. He was showing his business partner a relevant piece of pop culture. John smiled at Tyler like he smiled at the receptionist at the dentist before a root canal. 

“Just admiring the foyer,” said John. 

He stepped in and toed off his dress shoes.

Even though Tyler had been living in New York City for a year, John had not expected for his space to feel so… lived in. It was nice, sure—high ceilings, exposed beams and red brick, concrete floors, with a sliver of the Hudson peeking into the view at the wide living room window—but there was also a drum set in the corner, a decent amount of plants that were half-alive, and tons and tons of art. Framed posters hung along the foyer wall (Die Hard, Goodfellas, Rear Window, North by Northwest), a large and heavy canvas of something gnarly and abstract hung over the fireplace, and he spotted a framed cover of The Review down a hallway that must’ve led to the bedrooms. John soaked everything up like a sponge. 

Two canvases leaned at the end of the foyer hall, and John looked over the first canvas before peeling it back to look at the second. One was an image of a rubber duck in an upturned tub of protein powder, and the other had a race dog covered in dollar signs.

“Oh yeah, what do you think?” asked Tyler, he picked up a canvas. “Alex Fleming.”

“Never heard of him,” said John, “the technique’s great but I feel like I’m not in on the joke.”

Tyler beamed. “Yeah! I don’t get them either! It’s why I like them; they’re fucking weird. He’s this super-recluse artist that lives in Brooklyn, actually. If I can track him down, he’d be perfect for The Big Picture.” He set the canvas down. “Can I get you anything? We’ve got…actually, I have no idea what we’ve got.”

As Tyler disappeared into his kitchen, John followed but quickly spotted a sketchbook open on the white marble kitchen counter. A few scratchy drawings of a hand in pencil, another of a chair, another drawing that looked like a woman holding a parasol. Very different from Tyler’s Big Picture legal pad. But something else caught John’s eye. Near the sketchbook, and underneath a pile of unripe bananas sat a gleaming tabloid magazine. On the cover, Tyler frowned in a paparazzi photo while neon green block letters yelled, “TYLER HUGHES CRASHES OUT IN MIAMI!”

As John reached for it, Tyler returned, half-eaten apple in hand and cheeks stuffed with a bite. His eyes widened. “Oh. Wait. Gimme that—”

“—Sorry,” said John, holding it away. “I had no idea you collected literature on yourself, Tyler! That’s amazing—”

“—It’s not mine,” said Tyler reaching past John and suddenly getting too close. Despite not being at all the same width, they were the same height, and John could still hold the tabloid just out of reach. But Tyler had shrugged off his jacket and thick muscles pressed against John’s body, chest strained against a T-shirt. John flushed, stumbled back too slowly, and Tyler’s hand fell to his hip. Then an arm wrapped around John’s waist to hold him in place.

“Hey, bucko, excuse me,” said John, swallowing a tiny whimper, “did you invite me to your apartment to wrestle me?” 

Tyler’s eyes fell to John’s for a second, and he half-muttered, half-growled, “maybe.”

“Huh?” said John, a fount of razor-sharp intelligence.

 John was in danger of being wedged between Tyler Hughes and a kitchen counter, and his back curved as Tyler’s fingers brushed the magazine and his wrist—and then Tyler stopped. Remember how Tyler could bench-press John and fling him across the length of a Manhattan avenue crosswalk, probably? Tyler must have remembered, because he realized this was not a fair fight. After one last futile grab, Tyler stepped back, sighing, and releasing John’s body. “Okay, fine. It’s stupid. This is my brother’s personal form of torture. I can’t throw them away in the mailroom downstairs because there’s no trash, so I have to carry them up here.” He threw his hands up and shrugged. “Read it.”

John knew that Tyler had let him win that encounter—because if Tyler had wanted that magazine he could’ve torn John’s arm off to get it—but he grinned to himself. No one would believe him, but he had triumphed over Tyler Hughes in a struggle for physical dominance. He flicked the rag stiff in one hand and smoothed down his lapels with the other.

“I actually heard about this,” said John, looking over the front page. A blurry paparazzi photo showed a bowing parking meter, uprooted concrete, and caution tape cordoning off broken glass. “It wasn’t serious, was it? ‘Seaside Lies co-stars Tyler Hughes and Micah Andrews were both unharmed in the incident. A rep from Tyler Hughes said the former co-stars enjoy vacationing together and were simply having too much fun when the accident happened.’ That’s harmless. Well, besides the property damage.”

“We weren’t drinking,” said Tyler quickly, “just driving way too fast. But it is true that we were having fun at the time.” Tyler took a deep breath and opened his refrigerator. “Which is the weirdest way to say going on dates.”

John looked up at him and then back down at the magazine. 

“Oh,” said John.

For whatever reason, this didn’t surprise John, confirmation that Tyler wasn’t totally straight. Yes, he was literally doing musical theater eight times a week; and yes, he had said Yohel was good-looking when John had shown him a selfie of the Trio; and yes, he made John feel like they were on a date every time they hung out, but a straight guy could do that. And that last thing wasn't really evidence—Tyler made everyone feel like they were the sole object of his admiration and curiosity; John had seen this first hand. Nevertheless, a few weeks ago, when they’d been culling the guest list, John had naively texted Tyler the question: “Who’s Sutton Foster?” Milliseconds later, Tyler had called him from the gym (in what some might label a homosexual panic) to explain to John who the hell Sutton Foster was. That urgency made even John’s busted gaydar beep. 

If anything, this confirmation made John feel worse. He took one look at the stock image of Micah Andrews, an actor who apparently starred in the same Australian soap as Tyler at the beginning of their careers. Tall, dark, handsome. A body that had either been painfully sculpted in the gym or built by a horny mad scientist in a lab. Basically the opposite of John, who was suddenly very aware of his noodly arms, narrow shoulders, round face. Who wouldn’t want to hook up with that walking furnace of a man? There was nothing worse than being friend-zoned by another gay guy, but Tyler and Micah were practically a different species than John. He flipped a page. 

“How do you deal with this stuff?” asked John. “The tabloids. The paparazzi?”

“Pft, my least favorite part of fucking Hollywood,” said Tyler. “The publicity stunts, the dating rumors. The getting in good with those producers and casting agents because you want to work on these projects.”

“So, the Hollywood parts,” said John. Tyler’s laugh was muffled by the apple. He was literally eating the core. Ugh.

“Well, stop looking at that,” said Tyler, “and look at this.”

He picked up a small lumpy saltshaker off his bookshelf and set it in front of John. It was shaped like Garfield.

John lunged for it.

“What is this?” John asked. “Where did you get this? Why do you have this? Are you giving this to me? Is this mine? Can I have this?” 

“Yes, that’s for you,” said Tyler, clapping him on the shoulder. “The garf-shaker is yours, my friend. You sent me a picture of your bowl, right? And I found this one day and thought, oh it’d be nice for John. Could’ve been a wrap gift for The Big Picture, really.” The hand on John’s shoulder did not move. “You like it?”

“I—” It was less misshapen than the ceramic Garfield bowl, but still…so weird. And delightful. It was Garfield—kind of—or maybe just an orange cat with hooded eyes standing upright, with four uneven holes on its head. John put his briefcase on the counter, popped it open, and nestled the shaker inside. “Tyler, I love it. Thank you.”

“‘Love,’” Tyler repeated to himself. “Lucky me, to get a ‘love’ out of John Rich.” He was in his living room now, and turned on his TV but handed John the remote control. “Co-producer John.”

John started a streaming service, and exhaled loudly. Okay, this was important. He always recommended that people start on season 2 episode 4 of Run Club: Savannah, but Tyler needed something different. Drama, but humor, maybe a Jeni episode? He should have texted Hunter. Soon, they sat on opposite sides of the couch, and John toggled between two episodes, his sketchbook open on his lap. He pressed play on the episode called “One Mile Fun Run”.

“Do you always draw while you watch television?” asked Tyler.

“No, but I don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve seen this exact episode.”

“How many times? Like more than ten?”

“Brother,” said John, “while you were falling asleep to Cover Sessions, I was falling asleep to Helen Gardener arguing with her husband.”

“One Mile Fun Run” followed the antics of the Savannah Women’s Run Club’s yearly spring charity race that was, obviously, the opposite of fun for all who organized it. The final thrilling minutes of the episode featured the de facto protagonist, Jeni Adams, dismissing the two dozen unsanctioned “pace runners” from the race the morning of…because the race was only a mile. They didn’t need pacers. But the pace runners had been the brilliant idea of the beach-blonde tyrant Helen Gardener. She ambushed Jeni at the starting line, and Jeni ended up running a terrific race partly because she was fleeing Helen.

At the end of the episode, Tyler’s verdict was that Run Club: Savannah was funny and he liked Jeni…but he found the whole thing admittedly grating. They were all just sort of mean. But John forgave him. Like wine, discerning the different hints of what made Run Club: Savannah great would take time. John cued up another episode as Tyler speculated on the season finale—the disastrous 5k Turkey Trot. Perfect. John knew there was hope. 

Halfway through the second episode, Tyler, ever curious, leaned in. 

“Can I see some of your drawings?” John had been sketching the entire time. He actually had to get up to feed ink into his Copic markers over Tyler’s sink. Maybe his expression said it all, because Tyler took it back. “I mean, I know that’s your personal sketchbook.”

Personal sketchbook, schmersonal schmetchbook—John had gotten over showing people his sketchbook in high school. This particular sketchbook, however, had an incriminating drawing of Tyler flocked by hearts, but John had forgotten where. Did he say no, and watch his co-producer shrug off stinging disappointment? Or did he risk it? There were dozens of illustrations of people on the subway, and dogs, and architecture between them and the raw heart-laden sketch. Tyler smiled, small, shy, sweet, and pleading. John’s heart did the macarena.

“Yeah, go for it.” 

John laid his sketchbook between them. First, it was pages of drawings of the women from Run Club, with speech balloons of arguments and confessionals. As John flipped backwards, he surprised himself. Had he actually sketched all of these right now? Tyler grabbed the remote and hit pause on Helen Gardener. Tyler looked up at the screen, scooted closer on the couch, and glanced down at the sketchbook again. 

“These are terrific, mate,” said Tyler. His fingers brushed John’s as he flipped back to the drawing of Helen rolling her eyes.

Next, it was pages from John’s short commute, getting coffee with Yohel and Hunter, the last art meeting with Geoffrey Brenner. Tyler pointed at the drawing of Hunter, and chuckled at her speech balloon. “That’s great. ‘Let me have my moment, Rich.’ …Is that the editor-in-chief of The Review? Wow.” He laughed. “He’s a good-looking fellow, isn’t he? No no, don’t flip so quickly. This is payback for the tabloids.”

They weren’t the perplexing leather pant sketches of the dastardly editor-in-chief, but John had drawn a scowling (simmering? Smoldering?) Geoffrey Brenner examining John’s latest cover.

“What can I say,” said John, shrugging. “I probably have a thing for guys who treat me like shit.”

“Oh, really?” asked Tyler, he flipped the next page himself. His shoulder pressed into John’s. “That’s too bad.”

They were flipping back in time, closer and closer to The Big Picture sketch, but it was maybe two or three days worth of sketching away. Tyler’s knee pressed against his, and the corner of the pages pushed into his thumbs. They opened to a drawing of the caféin Greenwich where Jules worked. Tyler tapped the page.

 “Wow! Is that me?” he asked. “Or no—”

“—oh yeah,” said John, heart fluttering. Thankfully, this wasn’t The Big Picture sketch, but some throwaway doodle of Tyler with his monster sandwich at Jules’s café. “It is. But it isn’t. It doesn’t look anything like you. You’re kinda hard to draw.” 

John’s mouth was dry. When did Tyler get this close? They were sitting side by side on one side of Tyler’s couch. And then Tyler finally turned to John, their faces inches apart. 

“Did you ever figure out why you messed up? That first time?”

John had once quipped to Hunter, a few months after working at The Review that he was “pretty sure” he could draw anyone, the more intense the personality, the better. Like when cover artist Mel Chaisson drew Muhammad Ali in the summer of ‘71 and somehow had to keep up rapid fire verbal sparring for an hour and turned in a portrait by the end of the day. John could've done that, he told Hunter boldly. It was half delusional, half-spun of raw confidence because drawing was easy to him and talking was easier. It was now that John realized that he was very wrong, and that the right person could make both acts impossible. It would have been impossible, now, to capture Tyler Hughes's face in pen and ink, just as it was impossible to breathe. 

This close, every single detail of Tyler’s face assaulted him, overwhelmed him, and his usual process of breaking down shapes and angles and proportions kept sputtering out, reaching dead ends. John’s eyes flew from the triangle dark clumps of lashes formed, to the crease in his cheek as he grinned, the highlight of moisture on his lips, the acute angle of his jaw, the slope of Tyler’s nose. John’s heart was beating a hundred miles a minute. His tongue, dry, stuck to the roof of his mouth. 

“...Not really,” murmured John. His words felt like they were lowercase, clumped together, a deflated jumble of letters.

“No clue?” asked Tyler, his voice soft. He idly flipped another page in the sketchbook in John’s lap, forearm brushing John’s thigh. “Really? Not at all?”

“I,” started John, but it trailed off into silence.

“You know it’s okay. You can just say it.” John stared at him, frozen. Tyler smiled that tight, closed smirk of his, and popped up from the couch. He clapped his hands. “I’m starving. You want anything to eat? Snack or something?”

John exhaled, air returning to the room and to his lungs. “Wait. ‘You can just say it.’ What do you mean?” 

“Oh,” called Tyler from the kitchen. He said all this with his head stuck in his fridge, nonchalant, the sound of glass food containers made by some in-home chef clinking. “You can say I’ve got a boring face.”

“Boring? Aren’t you the face of a cologne brand?” John laughed, thrilled his wit had returned. “I think that disqualifies you from having a boring face.”

“Fair,” called Tyler.

John smiled to himself, happy to have avoided another disaster, and placed his sketchbook down on the cushion where Tyler had been sitting.

The warmth lingering on the seat seeped into the back of John's fingers, so he opened his palm and pushed it into the fabric. Tyler spoke about being the face of a brand, but his voice faded away. John couldn’t control it, the film clip rolled, speeding, and he leaned forward and kissed Tyler in his mind. Tyler pushed aside the sketchbook on his lap and it clattered to the floor, museum ticket stubs and art store receipts scattering at their feet, and his hand wrapped around John's waist and pulled him closer. He murmured an apology into John's lips, and John held his face laughing, the hairs of Tyler's beard flickering with John's exhale. John dreamt that he wasn’t frozen, and that they kissed until the minutes melted away, until the temperature rose, until John’s suit jacket was hanging wrinkled off one shoulder, and that he shuffled into Tyler’s lap, pressing his lips into Tyler’s jaw, his neck, warm and damp from sweat, gasping when Tyler tugged John’s pants down over his ass, the both of them laughing at John’s cute Snoopy boxer-briefs, groaning when Tyler held his aching cock—

John withdrew his hand from the couch cushion like he'd touched a hot stove. He blinked and glanced around himself. No, he had not made out with Tyler, but the effects of his wandering mind were very much real. Horrified, John looked down at the visible hard-on tenting in his suit trousers and Snoopy underwear, let out a small yelp, and yanked his sketchbook over his lap.

“Wh-what was that?” John asked.

Tyler leaned out of the kitchen, chewing on an entire carrot like a cartoon rabbit. “I said, do you want to see me eat an entire tub of hummus in under a minute? It’s disgusting, but kinda cool.”

“I should go,” said John suddenly, bolting up. 

“Oh, mate, I was joking. I mean.” Tyler regarded the tub of hummus. “Last time it took a minute and seven seconds. This is a different brand.”

“No,” said John, already in the foyer and tossing his sketchbook into his briefcase. “I just remembered, I have a thing.”

“Huh,” said Tyler slowly as John laced his dress shoes. “Late for something else? Like last time?”

“Yes,” said John, too flustered to think of a lie. What could he be late for on Sunday at 10:00 a.m.? “Sorry. You know me. I'm a goddamn mess.”

“No, I get it, you’re a bohemian artist. When inspiration sparks, so must John Rich venture out.” 

Venture out and away from you. John's hand nearly grasped the front door handle when another hand landed on the door. John stared up at Tyler, trapped. Dear God, he'd noticed John’s boner and was going to make fun of him. “Aw, Johnny, you got all turned on? Because one of your mates sat too close to you? Aw hell, that’s adorable, isn’t it? It’s like you’re fourteen! I mean you look fourteen.” John swallowed, trying to suffocate his arousal. Helen Gardener’s boob job. Helen Gardener’s boob job.

“Before you leave, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Tyler. “John. Do you want to go to one of my shows? One of my last shows. Maybe next week? You saw my stupid sketchbook, it’s the same one I use in the show—I think you’d like it. Sunday in the Park is a show about art and you’re an artist…I’d love to see what you think of me.” Tyler frowned. “It, rather. What you’d think of it. Hah, well, I think you’d really enjoy it.”

There was that look again. The same one when Tyler asked John to do The Big Picture with him. It was like he was bracing himself. For what? Who the hell says no to Tyler fucking Hughes? 

John wanted to be on the streets of Chelsea, running away from Tyler and from this question, but they were close together in the entryway. He moved his briefcase over his front and dug his fingers into his palms to verify that this, in fact, was reality. Tyler Hughes was asking him to see him perform on Broadway. 

The first words that popped into John’s head were:

“Sure. Uh. Can my mom come?” ✏️

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previous chapter < start > next chapter ("Sunday in the Park with Susan")

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John Rich’s Garfield collection had tripled in size since his mother had seen it last, from maybe thirty or forty pieces to well over a hundred. It took up the three long shelves built-in to the southern wall of John’s apartment and featured large items like plush dolls that were almost as big as John, to small things like a set of Garfield shot glasses. Spying on her out of the bathroom, John heard her mutter “unbelievable” and “junk.” Kudos to his mom for walking into his apartment last night, murmuring “Oh no” at his shelf of Garfield stuff, and then waiting an entire twenty four hours before beginning her critique.

“Now, John, don’t you think this is all a bit much?” she called over the hissing of his radiator. John ducked back into the bathroom. “The volume of these items? This sheer mass of things? Mounds of plastic. Broken, sticky pieces. Some of these things are junk—I did not say all of it. Calm down.” She appeared in the tiny mirror in his bathroom. “Are we not treading dangerously close to hoarding?” 

“It’s not hoarding,” John replied. He raked down a cowlick. He’d gotten a fresh haircut just to sit in the audience and watch Tyler Hughes perform. He had also agonized over his outfit before settling on a dark grey suit, a burgundy scarf that draped over his shoulders and hung down to his waist, and a chocolate-brown tie. If he could only find this tie. Choosing and locating the right tie was why he was late for almost everything. “It’s a collection.”

“Collections are organized,” said his mother, “collectors organize their trophies along the lines of size, value, year acquired, place of origin—”

“Exactly, this is organized,” said John. He pointed at her with his comb. “The stuff I like is closer to the front.”

John grinned into the mirror. His mother rolled her eyes and disappeared.

John and his mother had looked exactly alike, up until John had turned fourteen and puberty hit him like an auction lot of vintage Garfield clocks. They still had the same round face, the same blue eyes, and the same protruding dinner-plate ears—though John’s mom covered hers up with a big cloud of bushy, grey-streaked, browned hair. He could create a doodle of his mom by first drawing a doodle of himself, then surrounding it with waves of brown hair and carving two dagger-like eyebrows over the big blue eyes, with a big line in the middle. John called this line The Ridge. It appeared whenever she read something, or observed something, or thought about stuff, which was all the time. So, over the last six or so decades, The Ridge had deepened and now rivaled the Grand Canyon. 

“John,” she continued to protest, as John emerged from his bathroom on the hunt for his tie. “I’m merely suggesting you cull—”

“—No,” said John. He looked under a sketchbook, turned around in a circle, and looked, again, under the same sketchbook.

“See?” she said, “it’s the emotional attachment I'm worried about. That’s an early sign of hoarding.”

“I’m emotional because you called my stuff junk. That’s my life’s work.”

She grimaced, horrified. “Life’s work? What on earth are you talking about?”

“I'm saving up,” said John, now, rummaging through his closet. “I'm thinking of starting a museum and education center for Garfield. It'd be free, but you would have to get branded to enter? And make a pledge. And sure there would be some light tithing.” He looked over his shoulder to catch his mom rolling her eyes again. “Hey, lady, they're gonna interview you when we drink the Kool-Aid out of those Garfield shot glasses, you know.” He did his best Susan Rich impression, sighing, “Where did I go wrong—” 

“—how on earth,” sighed his mom, “did I raise such an irreverent goof?”

“You are goofball numero uno.” He made a stupid face, crossing his eyes and sticking out a tongue. And despite herself, John's mom snorted, shook her head and the Ridge melted away.

While he searched under the air mattress where he’d slept last night, she continued to appraise the Garfield collection. Suddenly, his stomach did a flip. Anxiety snaked through his insides. When Tyler had invited John to see his show on Broadway, his knee jerk reaction was to include his mother, the one person who would not only enjoy it, but also experience it with a crystal clear lens. Now, he regretted it. He could see it now—his mom sitting there, Ridge forming between her brow, and tearing Tyler to shreds by intermission. 

Susan Rich had been writing criticism of visual art, performance, and literature since before John was born, always with the precision of a surgeon, the scrutiny of a jeweler, and the disapproving gaze of a judge on the bench. Even Geoffrey Brenner revered her work—one thing that made John hate him less. John did not need for his mom to become a fan of this revival of Sunday in the Park with George; she did not need to become a fan of Tyler Hughes. She just needed to think it was…fine. Or even okay. She needed to think Tyler was okay. Even a glimmer of approval would let John look back at this hopeless crush years from now with a piece of mind—he wasn’t delusional; his mom saw it too. Tyler Hughes was actually kind and talented, and John was not just idiotic and shallow. The smallest acknowledgment from her would do. A nod. Or a “huh.” or a “well, he was certainly entertaining.”

She leaned back against John’s drafting table in a gray houndstooth coat, with a black scarf pulled around her neck, arms crossed, frowning at her next victim: a cowboy Garfield with a hand up in the air, riding on a rocking horse. What would the art world think of Susan Rich if they could see her now? She was wearing the same outfit as her author’s photo for her last book of critical essays, the tiny fog-colored book on Cindy Sherman and feminist art in the 1970s. But the background on that author’s photo was the provincial cemetery near John’s grandmother’s house in Pennsylvania. Behind her now was a wall of grinning orange cats. There were at least three Garfields on skateboards. 

 “What do your guests say?” she asked suddenly. “No one questions your sanity?”

John’s eyes narrowed. “Guests?”

“Your friends,” she explained impatiently, “and your prospects.”

John’s eyes narrowed even more. “Prospects?”

She sighed. “Your lovers, John.” 

“Lovers? Plural?” Why did everyone assume he had pull? The last time John dated two guys at once, he broke things off with both of them because he had a panic attack. “Ugh, God—what are you talking about? Please never ask me about my lovers.”

“Well, my apologies,” she said. “I assumed you were living the life of a young artist in New York.” His mom's voice always got airy and innocent and condescending when she trapped John in conversations like this—ones where she demonstrated that she knew something that John did not. In this case, it was the ample knowledge of a true bohemian New York City lifestyle, instead of whatever Disney-adult life that she assumed John carried on.

“You know, when I lived in Brooklyn, before I met your father, every art person or musician was social and queer and sexually active. We did everything. Anyone…” When John found his tie, he would strangle her and then hang himself. “But maybe this particular form of mania deters that.” She pulled at the cowboy hat on the wide-eyed grinning Garf. It would not come off. She picked up the salt shaker. “I do like non-commercial pieces. This has humor, I can see why it’s front and center.”

“Tyler gave that to me.”

She turned to him. And not only did the Ridge disappear, it was replaced with something else. If John had to draw it, he would put a tilde where his mom’s mouth should’ve been. “Oh. Tyler Hughes?”

“Why are you making that face?”

“What face?”

“This one,” said John. He twisted his mouth into a tilde.

“Oh,” she said slowly, looking over the salt shaker, that same airy voice of superior secret knowledge. “It’s nothing.” She replaced the salt shaker. “Did these come together? Who is crafting these? Your tie.”

She picked up the bowl and sitting behind it, was his tie, folded. He lunged for it, and threw it around his neck. They were already late. “Clyde Fotheringay’s daughter made that one,” said John, “as a going away gift.”

“Well maybe keep these,” she said, turning it over her fingers, and placing it next to the salt shaker. “This has merit.”

They made their way downstairs to catch a taxi, and as John watched the water drops slide against the car window, he thought of his very large orange collection. When John stopped drinking, the collection had grown. It was a simple rerouting of funds. It was a stunning revelation that being a functioning alcoholic had taken him away from his true passion—hunting down rare Garfield merchandise. Plus, if he could get out of work, the money would help fund his trip to the Garfestival, a big meet-up that changed cities every year.

Suddenly, the cold wet air of Manhattan in December was replaced by a dry breeze from Palm Springs—the location of the next Garfestival—and in this warm daydream he was dating Tyler Hughes. They grinned at each other as they strolled into a three-star hotel, the two of them deeply in love and lost in some joke. But Tyler’s laugh curdled into a light awkward chuckle as he saw how his boyfriend lived: ratty tie-dyed Garfield T-shirts. Garfield Trivia. Pin the tail on the Garfield. Warm lasagna in a pan. Revolting, all of it. And just then a wave of awkward, pimply, Garfield enthusiasts shuffled towards them like zombies, arms outstretched and faces filled with lopsided glee at this incredible celebrity in their midsts. They descended upon Tyler, moaning, “Jaaaacooob Raawww… We loooved…The trilogy!” As Tyler turned to flee, he knocked John’s suitcase of plush dolls open. 

Garfs scattered everywhere. Tyler glared down at them. “Jesus, mate, how many dolls do you have?” 

John fell to his knees, sputtering, clutching them to his chest. 

“I told you not to come with me,” he cried. “You don’t know these people! You don’t know my friends! This means something to us!”

Then Tyler would freak out and rush out the automatic doors, but not before casting one last scornful look at John and taking the 10 right back to Hollywood.

Back in reality, John turned to his mother as they crept up Eighth Avenue. “Okay. What would you get rid of?”

“What?” asked Susan. The Ridge appeared. She leaned up to the driver. “We can get off here, thank you.”

The accoutrements of Broadway sprang up around them: massive flashy banners for current shows, the glint of Time Square, and throngs of dazzled tourists. As they closed in on the 48th Street Theater, John finally saw, for the first time—Tyler Hughes fans in the wild. He had heard them in Studio 6 at City Live and had seen their comments on Cover Sessions, but laying eyes upon a bunch of people excited to see Tyler “IRL” was—well, it did something to John. The excitement was contagious. He was about to see Tyler fucking Hughes on Broadway! An alarming number of giddy fans stood, queued up in Jacob Raw shirts, and some of them wore hoodies from Seaside Lies, the Aussie soap that Tyler starred in as a teenager. The most fervent among them recognized John. When John and his mother stepped into the chilly line, half a dozen people looked over their shoulders with hushed voices of disbelief. John caught two teens gaping at him with mittens covering their mouths. 

John’s mom pulled her scarf around her shoulders, hooked her hand on John’s elbow, and huddled next to him for warmth. John thought she had forgotten his question, as she was busy relaying the history of the 48th Street Theater, but she interrupted herself.

 “Well, I’ve turned into Miriam, haven’t I? A nag. Nana once tried to purge my magazine collection. That’s what she called The Paris Review.” She sighed, and squeezed John’s arm. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Don’t get rid of anything. But, please, just be particular. Salvador Dali collected walking sticks.”

“Salvador Dali was a fascist.”

Again, almost against her will, Susan Rich laughed. “I’ve raised you well. Yes, but kitsch can be an interesting design choice.” 

“Exactly,” said John, elbowing her and grinning, “maximal aesthetic. It’s a choice. It’s camp.”

“Do not,” said his mom, grinning back, “lecture me on camp.”

They had waited all of four minutes when a woman with a walkie talkie found them, and plucked them out of line. She introduced herself as the assistant house manager, wore a black puffer jacket with the 48th Street Theater logo on it, and escorted them through a crowded lobby, as the rest of the audience filtered in from the cold. She led them away to their fourth row orchestra seats, slightly stage left. She departed, but not before she asked John if he wanted something to drink and asked Susan if she wanted a glass of wine. She had to lean in close to be heard over the dull roar of the chattering audience. Susan said they were fine, looked high up at the arching Italian Renaissance seating, around at their primo seats, and began studying the Playbill through her reading glasses. She hummed. Her mouth did that annoying tilde shape again.

“What?” John demanded.

“Oh! Nothing.” Airy, cool, full of veiled knowledge. Infuriating.

John looked down at the Playbill in his hand: Sunday in The Park With George written in tall white serif font at the bottom. On top, the show’s poster depicted Tyler Hughes as George Seurat and his co-star Willa Codd as Dot, hand in hand, stepping through a picture frame. On the stage were blank rectangular slabs that stood tall or laid  flat on the floor. Close to the audience, stage left, was a stool. John watched no less than a dozen people twist around to get a selfie with the stool in the background.

Ever since John was a kid, there was a game he played with his mom when they went to an art gallery or the theater or watched a classic film. His mother didn’t know about the game, and also, John almost always lost. But the game went like this: If they were looking at a work of art, John would scour the work, noting every single detail. Then, later, his mother would inevitably turn to him and ask, “Oh, did you notice—” something. Anything. The cigarette in Jackson Pollack’s Full Fathom Five. The bare teacup handle of Meret Oppenheim’s fur-covered Object. If John noticed it, he won; if he didn’t, he lost. So he took out a mental notebook to scribble out every theme and motif of Sunday. Because this round? He had to win.

But when the lights finally dimmed, the notepad dissolved. John’s stomach flipped again. A roar of applause shook the theater, and a figure stepped out of the wing, and in the blue twilight of the stage, sat down at the stool. Then the lights rose again—gold and hazy—there sat Tyler Hughes, chin up to an adoring audience, stoic, hopeful, pencil in hand. When Tyler spoke, a different voice came out. His Australian accent had disappeared into something thinner and American:

White,

A blank page or canvas,

The challenge? Bring order to the whole,

through design.

Composition.

Tension.

Balance.

Light…

…and harmony.

Then the orchestra came alive with a chime, and it was off to the races.

John did read stuff about the play when Tyler’s issue of The New York Review came out. (It was, admittedly, a hate reading at the time.) Sunday in the Park with George was a play about George Seurat creating his famous masterpiece, Sunday Afternoon on The Island of La Grand Jatte, while his relationship with his muse, Dot, deteriorates. Then the second act time-jumps to the modern day where George Seurat’s descendant struggles both with art as a career and also to connect to his roots. It was a musical about art. Tyler did say that he first watched Cover Sessions as research to prepare for the role.

John’s game strategy imploded the moment the spotlight fell on Tyler. While his mother was probably cross analyzing themes, and picking up nuances, John sat all but slack-jawed watching Tyler move across George Seurat’s studio, paint as George Seurat, and play the stoic genius. But he was funny too—there was a moment when he was on all fours and pretending to be not one, but two of the dogs in the painting. The crowd fell in love with him. John remembered the first time he ever laid eyes on Tyler, up on a rooftop, as he wrestled Bella the TikTok dog. John was completely pulled in. Only when his mother went “huh” or laughed at a joke, would he remember that he was sitting in a theater in Midtown, and not in 1880s France.

The first act closed and John exhaled and turned to his mother ready to compare notes.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” she announced. Then added, “wow.” 

John watched her shuffle through their aisle. 

Wow? Sorry, what the hell was wow supposed to mean? Was that a good wow? Or a bad wow? Lady, wow could mean anything!

His mom took her sweet time too, probably aiming the Ridge at some commemorative plaque in the theater or losing her place in line because she was reading Playbill. She did not return until the second act began and the audience’s drone fell back to a whisper.

The second act ended with a final reprise of the act one closer, “Sunday”, a shimmering choral performance where the entire ensemble faced the crowd. Having two dozen people sing at the audience made John freeze with everyone else, skin prickling from the transcendence of it all. By the end of that number, there were two sounds on either side of John. To John’s right were his mother’s inscrutable “hm’s”, and to his left, a young man sniffled and wiped away tears. 

After the finale, a deafening applause that erupted, and John added to it, palms going numb as the cast bowed. And when Tyler stepped forward, John had to keep himself from springing up with some of the Jacob Raw devotees, who hooted and roared as he waved, the last to jog off of the stage. 

And shit, the show was over.

John smiled…and then sat up, frowning. Oh God, the game! Goddammit, he hadn’t paid attention to anything profound. He hadn’t noticed a single detail. He had just gaped at Tyler Hughes for two hours! He scanned his mental notebook—uh, light imagery? Observer versus object relation? Uh…women?

But before the game could commence, the same house assistant appeared at the end of their row, and gave them a little wave. Phew, this would buy John time. When they met her, she said, “I’d be happy to take you to Tyler’s dressing room, if you want to wait there? He’ll be a moment. He takes a while saying hello to fans at the stage door.” 

John straightened up. “Can we watch him? Say hi at the stage door, that is.”

The house manager’s head tilted and a smile spread across her face. “Of course. It’s kind of the show after the show with Tyler. Follow me.”

They ventured out onto the damp sidewalks and touristy bustle of Midtown, and John’s mom was still oddly silent. This worried John. Before he could think, he blurted out, “so, what did you think?” 

The Ridge appeared, perhaps the worst seismic activity to date—the tectonic plates of her eyebrows crashing together. John hated when people said, “Oh, I can’t even draw a straight line!” and he knew his mother hated when people asked her what she “thought.” Or—God forbid—if she “liked” something.

“Think about what?” she sighed. “What did I think of the set design? The stage direction? Of the use of light as a stand in for obsession with the feminine? Or of this portrayal of George Seurat by Tyler Hughes—”

“—of Tyler,” said John. “Yeah, Tyler! What did you think? I thought he was hilarious.”

“Oh.” She hummed. The Ridge receded…and that weird contorted smirk returned.

A thick crowd of people stood in a freezing puddle on the curb, an influx of playgoers jostling to get a better view of the stage door. Each departure of a cast member sparked a chorus of cheers and congratulations; then that cast member disappeared into the anonymity of Times Square. They were done with work. 

 “Hm.” She glanced at John. She let the twist of the tilde unfold into a smile. “Well, I should ask that of you. That was quite the impression. No pun intended.” 

Oh no. John was losing the game already. What on Earth did he miss? “Impression?”

“John,” she sighed, “the entire first act was like watching an episode of Cover Sessions, his mannerisms as he drew. Oh! And as he performed ‘Finishing The Hat’, in particular. And the second half, yes, I’ve only seen your stand up comedy act a few times, I think. But his movements during ‘Putting It Together’? His accent? Sweetheart.” She raised an eyebrow. John stared blankly. “Tyler Hughes likely sees you as some platonic ideal of artist and performer.”

John’s stomach dropped. 

“What?” He didn’t like how high his voice was getting. He scoffed. “No. What? He wasn’t acting like me. He was—” But suddenly, John couldn’t recall. He had been too enamored with the singing, and the way Tyler moved through the canvas, and how enormous his eyes were, even from twenty-five feet away. John looked down at the cloud of wizened brown hair at his shoulder. “Mom, just because a play is about an artist does not mean it’s about me.”

But her voice took on that airy tone again, as she hooked her hand into John’s elbow. She smiled. “Love, I’d be very flattered.”

The stage door fans yelped and waved. Willa Codd, the actress who played Dot, stopped for selfies and autographed Playbills, her brown curls tucked into her baseball cap. John thought of the way Tyler stared as he drew her, how his eyes darted from his sketchpad and back up to Willa. Intense, blank, fixed, cold. Is that how John drew? Had Tyler been doing an impression of him? But he forgot the thought because when Willa Codd disappeared into the Midtown bustle, Tyler Hughes pushed open the stage door.

It was like the burst of raw affection in John’s heart became manifest in the five dozen people who cheered, stood up on their tiptoes, and reached out to touch Tyler. The crush of fans inched closer to the barricade while the theater security sighed, and the fans extended their hands full of sharpies and selfie ready cell phones. A flock of Playbills fluttered around Tyler like a halo.

Tyler had changed out of the George Seurat jacket and dress shirt into a simple black T-shirt with the 48th Street Theater logo on it, and he smiled, his breath fogging in the cold white light of the stage door. He got to work, chuckling and uttering “thank you” over and over and over, tackling as many autographs as he could. 

Just like John had never seen Tyler act. John had never actually seen Tyler with fans before. He couldn’t stop watching. Was it weird that he wanted to pull out his phone and record? A middle-aged woman handed Tyler some sort of gift; a man didn’t want a selfie or signature, but simply shook Tyler’s hand and spoke to him. Maybe John was getting off on watching Tyler being so sweet to so many people, making just the right amount of small talk, thanking them just enough. John kept searching for and then failing to find fakeness. No, this is just who Tyler was—endlessly curious. Endlessly sweet. Endlessly kind.

Dear God, he was in love with him.

John had only been half listening to his mom, who was now explaining a Dan Flavin light installation she saw in Los Angeles, but she drifted off to watch Tyler too. 

“Incredible,” she declared, finally, “he’s extraordinary at this.”

“At what?”

“Connecting with people,” she said. “If I hadn’t just seen him bare his soul out on the stage, I’d think he’d have a career in politics.”

“Yeah,” agreed John, “he’s great.”

Tyler finished up and instead of darting into Time Square, he went back inside. The crowd waved and chimed, “bye, Tyler!” some asking for second selfies. John wanted to wave at Tyler too, but clenched a fist in his pocket.

 “So Tyler is only friends with me because I’m source material?” said John. His mom chuckled. “I’m just feeding his performances? When he wins the Tony for this, do you think he’ll give it to me on weekends?”

“The word is muse, my son. Look.”

The house assistant leaned out of the door and waved them over. John and his mom slipped past a barricade, followed her into the theater. Inside stood Tyler Hughes. 

“Hi, Susan,” said Tyler, shaking his mom’s hand, the fan gift under his other arm, “so nice to meet you, thank you all for making it out, I hope you enjoyed it!” Left to his own devices Tyler might have kept on nervously chattering, but he locked eyes with John. He grabbed his shoulders. “Johnny! Wow, look at that scarf. C’mere.”

He pulled John into an enormous hug, slapping his back, and John grinned, murmuring how great the show was, letting himself sink into it, living in the two-and-a-half seconds where he could hold Tyler. It was so nice to hear his accent again. When John stepped back he poked the gift. It was…a fully knitted Jacob Raw? The doll’s face, white T-shirt, and tiny knit jean jacket were covered with knit-on grease and blood. It was astonishing craftmanship.

“Someone made this?” John laughed.

“Here, keep it safe for me, will you?” asked Tyler, placing the Jacob Raw in John’s hands. He winked, squeezing John’s shoulder. “I will know if you steal it, so don’t even think about it, all right?”

Then, Tyler led them through the house and back to his dressing room. 

“Hope it didn’t get you wet, Susan?”

John frowned. “What?”

“That’s right,” chuckled his mom, nodding, “I was telling John about the last time I was at the 48th Street Theater. That was before he was born. I had a colleague who claimed he was victim to an undeniable trickle of water during a terribly static preview of Cyrano de Bergerac. But for this—No drops, no leaks. Bravo.”

“Am I missing something?” said John. 

“Water drops,” explained Tyler, with a wide smile. He fistbumped a producer as they descended a thin stairwell. “So there was this massive rooftop water tank that collapsed in the ‘50s, and took out the whole north half of the building. They repaired it, but part of the lore of this theater is you can still feel water leaking at times. Mate, it is crazy. It’s happened to me in the lobby, and in my dressing room, and there aren’t even pipes in there. It’s so weird!”

“And if a show is a particular dud,” added his mom, “the audience supposedly gets trickled on. Lovely superstition. Very different from a movie set, I presume.”

From here, Tyler and his mom exchanged every bit of theater and movie set trivia they could come up with, stopping only when Tyler playfully hooted at a man in his fifties in 48th Street Theater hoodie wearing a toolbelt, and did a complex handshake with another woman with a headset dangling around her shoulders. Finally, Tyler pushed open a door with his name on it.

“Here we are,” he said, “home away from home—away from home, I suppose.”

The dressing room was surprisingly small and therefore crammed with stuff: a vanity desk that dimly lit the room, a loveseat covered in pillows, a tiny closet with all of the outfits John had just seen on stage, and a bookshelf and wall covered in fanart and gifts: figurines of Jacob Raw, photos of Sondheim, a painstakingly woven quilt of Tyler as George Seurat. Tyler placed a hand on John’s shoulder.

“May I?” he asked. “Unless you two have become too attached?”

“What?” John looked down. Jesus Christ. He was hugging the tiny version of Tyler to his chest. He practically threw it at the real Tyler. “Oh God. Sorry. Here.” 

Tyler grinned, placing it with the rest of the fan gifts.

“How on earth do you deal with that mob?” asked John. He wanted to pick every piece of fanart up and look at all the little renditions of Tyler’s face in the drawings and figurines. “What do people say to you when they’ve got you at the stage door? That guy had you for a full minute.”

“Oh my God, that guy,” said Tyler, leaning in and whispering to him. Again, Tyler seemed oblivious to personal space, and practically embraced John from behind. “Apparently it’s universal if you have brothers and grew up in the theater: he also had brothers who punched him in the nuts for missing lines—Yup. Knew that would get you.”

John had thrown his head back—losing balance, leaning back into Tyler—his laugh startlingly loud and open and…dorky. It’s like Tyler always somehow unlocked his inner fourteen-year old. “No way.”

“Sorry, Susan,” he said, playing the drums on John’s shoulder, “dumb guy stuff.”

“Hm. Very understandable,” she said. But where John expected a sigh and an eyeroll…he only found a raised eyebrow as she looked him up and down. Then she did that stupid weird smile again. John didn’t have the time to decipher what the hell that was because she turned to Tyler. “Will you be joining us for dinner, Tyler?”

“Ah, I’d love to,” he said, “but I’ve got a plane to catch. Heading home for the first few weeks of year! So I actually can’t stay here long either. But, oh!” He clapped his hands. “John, I’ve got something to show you.” 

And without warning, he dropped to the floor and crawled under the vanity.

“I saw it when I dropped my cellphone back here, but check it out.” Tyler waved for John to join him under the desk. Well, if Tyler wanted him on all fours, John was not going to argue. Tyler turned on the flashlight on his phone and pointed it at the wall. Then John saw it.

“Oh my god. What?” laughed John, shaking his head. “Some Garfield freak was here!”

It was a weird wobbly Garfield drawn with a Sharpie next to a peeling red pipe. He was shoulder to shoulder with Tyler down under the vanity, and he turned to find Tyler gazing at him, the lines around his eyes creasing with his smile.

“What are the chances, right?” 

John opened his mouth to say something, but he’d locked eyes with Tyler. His mind went blank. Tyler kept grinning.

“There’s graffiti?” asked John’s mom from above. “Are we sure it wasn’t Tyler?”

“I wish.” He looked away from John, clearing his throat as he emerged. “I’m assuming it was a kid of someone who had this dressing room. I’ve spent way too much time going through past performances that have been in this theater since they renovated.”

When John crawled back up, he found his mom downright beaming at Tyler. She looked pleased with the proceedings—amused—grinning like a schoolgirl. What was her freaking deal? John straightened out his scarf and narrowed his eyes. Did she…find Tyler good-looking? 

He was, but cookie-cutter good looks never had sway on Susan Rich. Especially men’s. This was because, John had decided roughly around college, that his mother was functionally a lesbian. Like, she was definitely straight and would be too bored of sexual repression and being in the closet, but was, essentially, a lesbian. The only reason she had ended up with his father was that John’s father—a dry, tidy, industrial architect who laughed at the same Eastern European authors and had detailed theories on growing tomatoes— was also a lesbian. His parents were a man and a woman in a lesbian relationship. They wore each other’s clothes.

So it was discomfiting to see this full-blown smile on his mother’s face. He knew it was Tyler’s radioactive Hollywood charm, but John thought she was impervious to such emissions. (John thought he was impervious to that, but look at him now.) But there she was, Ridge invisible, as Tyler prattled on and on about other productions in this theater like a beautiful, lab-grown tour guide. And Susan Rich kept grinning from Tyler to John and back to Tyler.

Then she glanced down at her watch and the Ridge appeared. 

“That’s right, John, your father wanted to know about the show,” she announced suddenly. “I should call him. Right now. Oh, but quick, a picture—you all look great together—No, just you and Tyler, my dear.” She pulled out her phone, and Tyler threw an arm around John’s waist and pulled him close, zero hesitation. “Lovely, lovely! Well, I’ll be in the lobby or outside or wherever they put me.”

She quickly left with a wave. Then John and Tyler were alone. 

Tyler exhaled and slumped.

“I’d want to go to dinner, but I have no further knowledge about this theater or this production, and your mom would very quickly find out that I’m an idiot.” He blew his cheeks out. “Holy shit, that woman’s an encyclopaedia.”

“She’s obsessed with you,” said John. “You have no idea what normal people have to do to get her smile like that.”

Then he didn’t even think; he crawled on the floor again. He had to get a picture of that freaking graffiti. Unbelievable. And when John returned, wiping dust off his knees, he found Tyler watching him.

“Well, we won’t see each other until February? One last episode of The Big Picture, eh?” Audre West Entertainment and Stagehand Productions had agreed, contractually, that John and Tyler would film three episodes of The Big Picture. That’s all Tyler’s schedule could realistically afford at the moment. That plus Tyler’s vacation meant that John would be Hughes-less for over a month. 

John nodded. Think of something else to say or get the hell out of here. Don’t just stare at this…but he was alone with Tyler Hughes, and Tyler looked so very pretty in the gold light of his vanity, heavy arms crossed, wearing a snug black T-shirt anyone could buy during intermission. The silence persisted until Tyler threw open his arms, said, “well,” and ensnared John in a hug. 

It was a long one, longer than the one at the stage door, the kind of hug you give to someone at the airport. John’s breath hitched when Tyler rubbed his back, but he let himself sink into it.

“Co-producer.” Tyler murmured in his neck.

John did his yelp-laugh, but said at a smaller decibel. “Co-producer.”

Finally Tyler stepped back and sighed, cleared his throat, and looked down. “John,” he began. “Well…”

Tyler did that tight smile of his again, and put a hand on John’s shoulder, and left it there. His eyes searched John’s and then dropped to John’s mouth, but he laughed.

“I wanted to tell you that it’s been great working with you,” said Tyler, hand dropping from John’s shoulder,  “on everything. Just lovely. Highlight of my year.”

“Yeah, it’s been really cool,” said John, “Thanks for inviting me. Us to this.” 

“Of course, seriously, thank you for coming, for bringing your mum,” said Tyler, fully retreating. “Don’t want to keep you—Or I can walk you back…?”

“No, it’s fine! I should go,” said John, already half out the door, “thanks. Happy New Year!”

“Happy New Year,” Tyler said at the threshold, waving down the hallway. 

John was a few steps down the hall when he swiveled around and backtracked, snapping his fingers. 

“Oh yeah, my mom,” John said, “she thought you were doing an impression of me? As George?”

“Oh, really?” Tyler said leaning in the doorway. “Well, I’ve certainly been influenced. But come on, Susan.” He shrugged. “There’s no one like John Rich.”

“What verdict did you deliver to dad?” said John. 

John had found his mother just inside the stage door, flipping through Playbill. They pushed out into the now vacant sidewalk and joined the crowd moving west and away from Time Square.

“What?” said Susan. And then remembered. “Oh. Yes. I didn’t call your father. But I was going to tell Tyler that I did think the second act was brilliant. The direction was much less precious, perhaps because it was a contemporary setting. And the modern lines work for him, in my opinion. He surprised me. Very talented. I hope I gave you two space.” She waved her hand around like she was swatting away a fly. “I was so caught up in discussing the show, I didn’t think you probably wanted a moment alone.”

John frowned down at her.

“You’re not dating?” she asked.

“What?”

“No need to be coy,” she said. “It’s sweet that you would want to introduce me to a lover—”

“—Why do you keep saying lover? I don’t have lovers just because I’m an artist.” Not the point. “You think I’m dating Tyler Hughes?”

“Not think,” said his mother, “I noticed that you were. Because I can make basic inferences from the wealth of evidence presented to me. I noticed, John, I’m a professional notice-er.”

John’s mouth fell open. Finally, he understood why she had been smirking all evening. When she took a picture of him and Tyler, when she saw their seats, when she picked up the Garf salt shaker back at his apartment. Dear God. “You think I’m dating Tyler Hughes! I am not dating him. Oh my God!”

“Oh,” she said, and then a long pause. She shrugged, her sigh a cloud in the cold air. “Well, he is smitten with you.” And when John stared at her, she stuck out a thumb and rubbed the middle of his brow until John batted her hand away. “Don’t frown like that. You’re getting my stupid Ridge. John, dear, I'm sorry, did we not both witness a grown man crawl on the floor to show you a graffitied drawing of Garfield?”

“Yeah, but,” John protested. Well, when she put it that way. 

Because, actually, that was not normal. John’s warped Garfield-forward mind thought, yeah, obviously, that was a reasonable thing for anybody to do upon discovering a drawing of Garfield. You gotta get on the ground like a goblin and show all your friends. But then John thought about the press of his arms as he held John against his body for a hug. Tyler’s eyes falling to John’s lips… 

“Anyway,” his mother continued, “a suitor who appreciates and maybe even enables your tastes. I stand corrected about your collection…John? Why have you stopped walking?”

Leave it up to Susan Rich to notice everything. John lost this round. And it was a round of the game he hadn’t even known he’d been playing.

Tyler liked him.

“Shit,” said John. He laughed. “Shit.”

“It’s sweet,” said his mom, backtracking to her stunned son and hooking their arms together again. She dragged him along. “Anyway, I cannot believe you haven’t seen any Sondheim. This play he wrote after he got completely panned in 1972. He swore off musicals…”

They made their way through Midtown and John made a decision. The next time he and Tyler were alone, in person, he would ask Tyler Hughes, the movie star, the actor—his friend, out on a date. It was as clear as a stage play in his mind, and the idea made his stomach flip over: He’d be calm and casual. “Would you like to go get something to eat somewhere? Like on a date? With the intention of dating?” They turned the corner onto Ninth Avenue, and John pictured Tyler saying, “Very strange way of asking someone out, Rich, but yes.” His mother talked, and John smiled but did not listen, the rest of the daydream filling in like a pencil sketch on a warm page. ✏️

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previous chapter < start > next chapter ("NYE")

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✏️ Author's Note Do I want to write warm gooey fanfiction about Tyler kissing John in his dressing room? Absolutely. Will I instead make sure that terrible things happen to John and Tyler in the next chapter? Absolutely.

In real life, people don’t act on feelings. That’s what people did in sitcom finales and music videos. And John was lucky that he was able to keep such a watchful eye over his emotions—otherwise he would be a hopeless romantic like every other dopey artist in New York City with a fragile heart dreams of falling in love. No, crushes were storms you had to weather, and then you moved on with life. John had survived them in the past. Barely. He knew what to expect.

First, the most embarrassing thing about a crush was how they ambushed you. How could he have not seen this coming? Sheesh. Tropical storm Hughes snuck up on him and here he was, pants down, ass out, without so much as canned soup in his pantry. John decided that this, obviously, was Tyler’s fault. You see, at 28, John was quite wise. He had inoculated himself against “hunks.” Straight, gay, bisexual—all bad news. Crushing on them, pointless. Tyler Hughes was a dashing, charming, 6’3” man with a warm smile—a hunk. If a nurse wrapped a measuring tape around his bicep, he could flex and break it, and the nurse would wail “not again!” That level of hunk. The first time he saw Tyler, John’s brain yelled, “Nice try, buster!”

It was Tyler’s fault that he hadn’t immediately revealed to John that he was thoughtful and creative and hilarious and sweet. It was Tyler’s fault that he seemed hellbent on forming a connection with every human being he encountered. It was Tyler’s fault that he had a never-ending well of curiosity. If Tyler had simply better advertised his endearing inner world—well—John wouldn’t feel so goddamn stupid, now would he? He wouldn’t be in this mess. It was all very rude.

Second, a crush meant John thought about Tyler constantly. In June, John barely knew the guy existed. (His mother texted John: “Do you want to see the Jacob Raw movie in theaters for your birthday?” John texted back if she had meant to send that to his 16-year-old cousin.) Now, post-Big Picture revelation, Tyler Hughes thoughts skyrocketed to dozens of thoughts a day. (This didn’t even include the horny ones.)

Finally, the daydreaming would be relentless. On the train, while picking up his laundry—these were all opportunities for John to get swept up in a quiet fantasy about Tyler Hughes falling in love with him. Nestled in his bed a week later, John peeked at the sketchbook drawing of Tyler with Catarina, and groaned.

Well. Groaned and smiled. He battened down the hatches.

It was the second week of December, and a perilous cold front hit Manhattan, greying the horizon and nipping at John’s ankles whenever he was out. Mrs. Tuk turned the heat on two months ago, which had kept John’s studio sweltering during most of the fall. Now it meant that John had accidentally burnt himself on his bathroom’s radiator pipe, swore like a sailor, forgot, and did it again, at least once a week. 

John was late for meeting Hunter in Brooklyn, when he heard a knock on his door. John poked his head out of his small bathroom. 

No one ever knocked on John’s door. Well, Mrs. Tuk did, occasionally, if she wanted John to do a chore for her (read: lightly extort him), but that usually followed her calling out his name. John finished tying his tie, shrugged on his suit jacket, crossed his apartment, and opened the door. 

And standing there was Tyler Hughes.

 “Hi,” breathed Tyler. “Can I come in?”

Shocked, John nodded and Tyler stepped inside. Tyler looked fresh from a workout, like he had cut his jog short to run to John’s apartment. His black sweatpants and hoodie clung to his body and he smelled damp with sweat. He toed off his shoes, leaving them on John’s orange doormat. As he stood there, looking at John, the honks and barks and chatter of the city faded away outside…

…In fact, music seemed to swell.

“I raced over as soon as I could,” murmured Tyler. “John, your text…”

“The Garfield one I just sent?” asked John, hopefully. It was a funny strip. Odie was up to it again.

“No, not that one,” replied Tyler, “but the other one.” Blue eyes met John’s. Tyler smiled and the background behind him went fuzzy and warm. “The one after that, where you confessed how you felt about me. Johnny, why, I had no idea. And I had no idea that anyone could be so eloquent and funny while expressing themselves via text. Like, no typos or anything.” 

Tyler squeezed his shoulder. John ducked his head, burning with pleasure at the nickname, and bashful at the praise. He might have been an artist, but he could string words together when he put his mind to it.

“I mean, I had to do a few drafts, but listen,” whispered John. He took his heart out of the hermetically sealed vault he usually stored it in for safe keeping. He closed his other hand over Tyler’s. God, it was so warm. “Tyler. I know you’re the most famous movie star on the planet, and jacked, and gorgeous. And I’m just a guy with a YouTube show. But you get me, Tyler Hughes. You’re genuine and sweet, and I just.” John’s voice trembled as he exhaled. But, alas, he had to say it now. “I’m falling for you.”

“...Me too,” sighed Tyler.

“Really?” asked John.

“Of course, John,” chuckled Tyler. He straightened John’s tie and left his hand on John’s chest. “You’re the best. I want to sit down and let you teach me things about Garfield for hours. For days.”

“But,” sputtered John, gazing up at him. (Even though, seriously? Tyler was maybe three inches taller than him. Two. One and a half on a good day. They were virtually eye level.) “I don’t want this to get in the way of the Big Picture. We’re making something amazing…” 

“So I should wait until we’re done recording to ask you out on a date?” teased Tyler, smirking. He looked around at the Garfield memorabilia lining the walls, and he chuckled again. “Or on second thought, I didn’t know you were this into Garfield. I’m having second thoughts…”

“Shut up,” grinned John, chuckling too. He pulled Tyler close. “Shut up and kiss me, Tyler Hughes!”

And then John held him, and they kissed, and the ambient orchestral music in John’s apartment swelled, and John wrapped his arms around him. Finally, he got to run his hands over Tyler’s biceps and chest, and feel the scrape of his beard on his chin, and feel how heavy Tyler’s body felt in his arms, and he could finally huff Tyler’s sweaty skin like a truant kid with a fresh can of glue. And they laughed as they kissed—which was perfect, because John’s ideal first kiss with anyone had to go like that. And when Tyler pushed him into bed—somehow his outside clothes weren’t sweaty or gross from traveling through the city or anything—they moaned as they pressed together. The shelves of Garfield figurines looked down over the start of a beautiful new love—

“John?” 

No. Go away. He was making out with Tyler Hughes while mentally high-fiving Garfield.

“John,” said Mrs. Tuk. “John.”

“Huh?” asked John. He shook his head, climaxing violins screeching to a halt.

John blinked and quickly realized that he had stopped on the second floor landing of his building, and it was silent. When did he get here? Better question—how did he get here? He looked down at Mrs. Tuk standing in front of her apartment, holding a metal bin full of tarps and gardening tools. She also looked confused. She put the bin down with a thud. “I said, were you exercising upstairs?”

“What?” said John. This was disorienting. “No. I’m leaving for the train.”

“Your face is red,” said Mrs. Tuk, “like you've just been doing hard exercise in your apartment.”

John turned to the full-length mirror that Mrs. Tuk had hung up on the second floor landing, right before he moved in. 

He took a step back. 

The young man staring back wore a lucas tweed jacket in navy, and a dark blue tie with thin yellow stripes. A satchel slung over his shoulder. He looked meticulously metropolitan, brown hair swept up to the side—except his face was pink. John’s freckles were nowhere to be seen. The tips of his ears were magenta.

“Oh God,” groaned John, touching his cheeks.

“Yeah,” said Mrs. Tuk, pointing up at him. “I know. It’s concerning.”

“Mrs. Tuk, I’m just,” said John and waved away the image of a moaning Tyler Hughes and approving Garfield action figures. He thought of a stupid lie. “My face is red from running down here so fast.”

“Hm,” she said, “but you’re always late and rushing out the door, and never look like this. You might be sick. Could be a fever.”

John sighed, jogging down the steps. “No, I also had my window open—you know, it’s super windy outside.”

“No, it’s not,” said Mrs. Tuk, frowning. “The weatherman said, just this morning, there would only be a light breeze coming in from the northeast. Your window doesn’t even face that way.”

John spun around at the front door and glared down at her.

“Okay, Agatha Christie,” said John. “I don’t know! Maybe I’m sunburned or something! Anyway, goodbye.” 

He stormed out, shutting the front door firmly behind him. 

Then he came back, huffing and grumbling, and picked up the heavy bin of gardening tools. He marched past her again, carrying the bin outside and setting the bin at the bottom of the stairs. Then John stomped toward the C train. He was halfway down the street when Mrs. Tuk leaned out of their building and called from the stoop. 

“Thank you!” And as he turned the corner. “If you get sunburned, you should wear a hat!”

John decided, last minute, to attend Ethan Koenig’s book signing in Brooklyn Heights. He needed to take his mind off of things. Maybe he would run into a hot literary guy at the signing. Maybe he would get clipped by a delivery bike and die. These all counted as distractions.

He had also decided to drag Hunter along with him. John promised her that the signing would not be crawling with alumni from The Bullet and with Samwell students who took the Metro North down from Boston, but when John opened the door to Keep in Mind Books, the folding chairs were crammed with City Live fans and college kids and Wellies. Hunter stood in the back, next to the foreign language section, with other people huddled in heavy coats. Her glare was colder than the weather outside and her frown said, “never in your life do this to me again.” John winced apologetically. He would definitely do this again.

He hadn’t been totally wrong. In addition to the wave of alumni from The Bullet, bookish-looking literature aficionados dotted the crowd and carried The Review’s signature blue and white tote bag. Ethan’s new book featured humorous essays which had been published in The Review's droll Passing Remarks section. Oh boy, John thought, as he pulled out a bright yellow #2 pencil. The Passing Remarks section’s days were numbered. Geoffrey Brenner would no doubt obliterate it soon. He’d hate it if someone laughed within twenty feet of The New York Review.

John leaned against the bookshelf behind him, and cradled his sketchbook in the crook of his arm. With crowd scenes like this and in an ultra-detailed environment, it was less about drawing every book, every bundled up Samwell kid. You had to summarize. His pencil outlined the dozens of heads in front of him, the size of the oblong shapes receding with the perspective of the bookstore. The baristas in the café portion of the sketch were less than an inch tall, stick figures handing rectangles of coffee to other stick figures. He drew a speech balloon from Ethan's mouth that read in blocky clear cartoonist's lettering—which was just John's handwriting now—“You learn a lot in college” and ambient crowd laughter with “ha ha ha.”

John’s suit jacket buzzed. He reached into his pocket—but then pulled his hand out like he had touched a hot stove. No. He couldn’t. As he turned the corner to the bookstore, he had responded to a volley of texts from Tyler about his newest idea for a Big Picture guest: Jules, of all people. Tyler had discovered that the blue-haired barista was apparently a bit of a star in cosplay and amateur drag circles, and had poured dozens of excited thoughts into John's DMs. 

To look at his phone now would be fatal. Hunter Henderson stood at his shoulder and would see the pages of conversation and know John was obsessed. And John Rich would never admit to Hunter and Yohel that they were right. He swallowed. Yes, he had caught feelings. Yes, John wished that he and Tyler had gone on a date that evening in November. Yes, he had a stupid, radioactively glowing crush on him. But they wouldn’t understand. John wasn’t shallow! This was real! John could see it now: the two of them inundating him with pictures of Tyler’s cover shoots and clips from his shirtless viral workouts. 

“This was inevitable,” Yohel would say, “this was your specific weakness to developed pectoral muscles and chest hair.”

“It’s okay,” Hunter would say, “now you and horny soccer moms in middle America have something in common: you think Tyler Hughes is dreamy.”

Fine. They had seen it before John had seen it! He was an idiot!

“So what if I think he’s dreamy,” John muttered through his teeth. 

Hunter turned to John, as did the entire back row of people sitting in the audience. John stared back.

“Ethan,” John whispered, wincing. There were some frowns. Some confused nods, but everyone returned to the interview.

After the talk, John and Hunter meandered through the bookstore with their signed copies. 

“I went on a date with a finance guy once—only once. I'm not a masochist,” said Hunter as she typed on her phone non-stop. She wove through the displays of coffee table art books, and people standing in line to get their books signed. “We went to an Ivy League-plus mixer? John, this is worse. This feels like a prep school reunion. There is too much educated chuckling going on.”

“Sorry,” said John, nestling his pencil behind his ear. “Though, to be fair, some of these people are just comedy writers. Which has a weird overlap with pretentious schooling. Why do people pay so much money to read Proust, and then come to New York to write poop jokes?”

Hunter wore an enormous puffer jacket and the rings on her fingers glinted as she typed. And she did not stop typing. She might have been answering emails or writing the next great American novel. “Well, the little cult you're in is truly adorable. Those kids knew you were editor-in-chief. Aw.”

She was referring to the two Samwell juniors from The Bullet who accosted John after Ethan’s talk. The juniors were now in line now, scrolling through their picture with John, zooming in on the selfie. John smiled at them.

“You know toxoplasmosis? That thing that makes people love cats?” asked John, picking up an empty Moleskine sketchbook from the stack on display. He didn’t like the pages—too thin. “I'm pretty sure we all have that but for whatever parasite was growing in The Bullet offices. It gets in your soft tissues and bam. Suddenly you want to donate to The Bullet’s alumni fund and fistfight someone from The Harvard Lampoon.”

Again, John's phone buzzed. 

John turned to Hunter. 

“Hey,” said John. “So, random. But I need you to download Grindr. Right now. On your phone, so I can use it.”

This was why he fucked with Hunter—she was ride or die. His right-hand woman. She was already swiping over to the Apple Store to download the thing. “Sure thing. Why?”

“It’s my go-to app whenever I need a distraction in the form of sex, and I hate every other app,” said John, “also, I am banned. Look.”

John attempted to download Grinder and then held up his phone screen: 

BOT ALERT. PERMANENT BAN. You downloaded and deleted this app too many times in a 24 hour period. STOP. EXIT NOW. YOU ARE BANNED for suspicious activity.

John sighed wearily and fished the pocket square out of his jacket and handed it to Hunter. She was laughing so hard that tears welled in her eyes.

He needed a distraction from the texts, the thoughts, the daydreams. He needed to pop this ooey-gooey fixation like a balloon. 

But…

Again, John’s phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down at it and his thumb moved to the messaging icon. He needed a distraction, but. Maybe just one peek. How bad could a text be? He tapped.

John bit his lip. Exhaled.

He knew Tyler was objectively attractive. Test screening across all quadrants likely yielded feedback where people wrote “Jacob Raw looks cool” and “I liked Jacob Raw” or “Tyler Hughes was very attractive in this movie.” But John had not expected Tyler to be cute. When Tyler sent photos they were usually screencaps from interesting Big Picture guest articles, or memes, or art he liked and thought John might like too. This was the first selfie. Tyler’s eyes crinkled above a sweet smile. It was Tyler at his favorite café with a thumbs up, while Jules the barista looked crazed in the background. They were holding Tyler’s custom enormous grilled chicken sandwich and pointed at Tyler indicating, yes, this guy was gonna freaking eat this entire thing.

Tyler: Pre-interview going well.

John typed.

Me: are you interviewing that sandwich? Me: that thing is the size of your head. Tyler: jules wants me to tell you that half of it's inside of me Me: gross

John watched the dots bounce and dance as Tyler cued up his next text, and he found a chuckle escaping him in anticipation. Then it hit John, the daydream, the fantasy, the hope wrapping around his shoulders like a soft wool scarf. What if he could talk to Tyler like this forever? For the rest of his life? If he and Tyler were together, they could laugh in bed, flash a smile in the middle of sex, mutter dumb jokes as one of them left for the airport, and text more follow-up jokes on the tarmac. All laced with I miss you. I can’t wait to see you. I love you. It made John’s stomach’s burn.

Hunter snapped a photo of John. John looked up. 

“Huh?” asked John. “Why’d you take a photo?”

“To show you how you look whenever you get a damn text from Tyler Hughes,” she said. She lowered her voice and suddenly sounded like she was sharing a scoop, a transatlantic lady reporter, like Lois Lane. “You know, if the rumors are true, you should ask him out. Hughes has a thing for hooking up with co-stars. Allegedly.” John rolled his eyes and ignored this. She held the screen up to his face. “You, on the other hand? If your phone had a cord you’d be twirling it on your index finger.”

“What? Come on. He’s just—Oh.”

Yikes. 

John leaned in closer, and immediately stuffed the fantasy back into his emotional cellar. Dear God. You could edit the cell phone out of John’s hand and replace it with a small fuzzy newborn bunny and the picture would be the same. John looked at Hunter’s phone and his stupid round freckly face was grinning fondly from ear to pencil-holding ear….

…But then John frowned. “Wait.” He grabbed her wrist. He expanded the photo to zoom into the background. A tall Black guy stood in the self-help section.

John straightened. He turned around.

“Shawn?”

Shawn Hendrix looked over his shoulder. He stood near the shop window with the same juniors who had gotten a picture with John. They had just finished getting a selfie with him. Shawn’s lips parted, startled.

There were not enough pages in all the sketchbooks in this store to draw Shawn Hendrix, the way the details hit John all at once. He could see the pencil strokes shading in deep brown eyes that tapered with his cheekbones. The tight crosshatches for his beard—that was new, the fullness of it, anyway—that clung close to his mouth. John could pull a long line across the page to frame his shoulders, lean in close to sketch out the close-cropped hair that peeked out from Dodgers cap, drop two pools of white ink where the bookstore lights bounced off black pupils. John could draw his smile—erase it—draw it again. He would need to show more gum than he thought. 

John’s brain was still drawing Shawn while he extracted himself from the undergraduates and walked up to John and Hunter. John felt the rumble of his laugh when he gave John a warm hug.

“Man, John,” said Shawn, “how you been—”

But as they pulled apart, the pencil behind John’s ear clattered to the ground. They both stooped down; Shawn got to it first. The way the pencil had rolled into Shawn’s boots reminded John of something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“Look at you, John Rich,” said Shawn as they stood. He said his name like it was a full sentence. “A cartoonist but you still dress like an architect. Sorry—” 

And, like it was nothing, Shawn reached up and tucked the pencil behind John’s ear. Careful, gentle, snug. Like he was nestling a flower into John’s temple. His fingers brushed John’s cheek, and he asked again, smiling. “You’ve been good?”

He was still drawing Shawn in his mind, finding the contours of his jaw, imagining the gradient he’d need to shade to make his lips look as soft as they had once felt…But wait. Hadn’t he done this already? He had filled up a sketchbook with pages and pages of Shawn. That sketchbook was probably at the bottom of a Rubbermaid bin at his parent’s house in Boston. The last time he had sketched Shawn was three years ago, in a green room in Los Angeles before Shawn unceremoniously dumped him. Or walked out of whatever friends-with-benefit thing they had going on.

John Rich knew how to draw Shawn Hendrix. He could draw him from memory. Blindfolded. He took a big gray eraser and dragged it across the canvas of his mind. You’ve been good?

“I’ve been great!” said John, the shock thawing away into charisma. “Yeah, you know. Dressing like a news anchor. Forgetting that I put pencils behind my big ass ears. You’re in town working on your hour, right?” He didn’t let Shawn answer, and gestured to Hunter. “Hunter, Shawn Hendrix. Great comic—you’ve probably seen clips of him floating around online. We met at Samwell— Shawn, my friend Hunter Henderson. She works at The Review.”

“I’ve heard so much about you,” said Hunter. She shook his hand and appraised him from his bright white sneakers to his sweater. Her eyes landed on the books in his hand. “What are you picking up?”

“...Oh,” said Shawn. 

Shawn’s eyes widened. His gaze darted to John. Shawn exhaled as he held them out to Hunter. One was entitled Grounded Habits and the other How to Talk To Me: Reflections On Knowing The Self. 

“Huh,” said John. He took a book and turned it over. “Okay.”

“I mean.” Shawn coughed and nodded. “Yup. I am purchasing self-help books. Awkward? Probably. I would lie and say this is for New Year's resolutions…but they're not. Shoot, I guess I’m trying to fix what is broken inside of me or whatever.”

The dwindling signing line looked over at them because Hunter had a loud laugh and found Shawn’s delivery hilarious. John frowned at her. Yes, Shawn Hendrix was a professional comedian, but come on, woman. That wasn’t that funny. John handed the book back and crossed his arms.

“Walking around a bookstore in Brooklyn Heights with self-help books, Jesus Christ,” said John. “That is kind of screaming, ‘INVEST NOW,’ isn’t it? ‘Buy buy buy. I’m single and reflective and ready to mingle.’ What handkerchief would that be in a gay club? A tea towel with All About Love quotes on it?”

It wasn’t a competition, but this just about killed Hunter. What was worse, was that Shawn laughed too. He squinted at John through a wheeze, delighted. John’s stomach did an unpleasant somersault. It was hard to be furious at someone with a smile like that. The fingers on John’s left hand twitched. He traced how much gum showed when Shawn laughed.

“We were just about to go get coffee,” said John, suddenly. “Are you doing anything after this?”

Shawn stared at him, lips parting again in surprise. “Oh, I’m busy,” he said, rubbing his beard. “You know. I have to read these books immediately.”

Dammit. John laughed. 

“Of course. Audiobook versions at 2x speed?” John added.

“One earbud is my therapist, the other is these self-help audiobooks going super fast. You know, video game speedruns? Where a guy beats Mario in like two hours or whatever? That’s me.” Shawn’s goddamn smile. “I need to be a good person by the end of the week.”

“Exactly,” agreed John, “what’s the Konami code but for cognitive behavioral therapy?”

“Right, so, you two? Go,” said Hunter. She was already looking up a train back to Manhattan on her phone. She kissed John on the cheek. “I can roast John, but I can’t do bits. And you two look like you want to do bits. All day. See you Tuesday, John? Such a pleasure, Shawn. I love the sound of your names together!”

As John put his sketchbook away he looked at Shawn and Hunter smiling and exchanging goodbyes. To be clear, Hunter knew exactly who Shawn Hendrix was. Both because he was the darling of viral algorithms, but also because John had spilled their history out one night on her couch after a marathon of Run Club: Savannah. But John didn’t tell her everything: how he had a crush on Shawn since freshman year at Samwell, the first time they made out on the patio at 2:00 a.m. after some bar show. How Shawn, exploring, wanted a fling; John, foolishly, had wanted a boyfriend.

His phone buzzed. Maybe he still wanted one.

John knew about a place a block over—better than the coffee here—so they set out into the cold afternoon, the breeze snaking down Montague and into the East River. John plucked the pencil out from where Shawn had placed it, and dropped it in his jacket pocket. 

John’s suggestion was a crowded little café right off Court Street where the baristas were as mean as the coffee was amazing. And just like Shawn had knocked the pencil from John’s ear, Shawn fumbled the coffee the barista handed to him. 

It was the ultimate Pratfall effect, a guy like Shawn being so cute and funny and apologetic and clumsy. John watched him win the barista over, explaining to her that he had horrible body-eye coordination. Not hand-eye. It affected his entire body. He once took down an entire ladder with his ass. This barista hated John, but she giggled at Shawn. She apologized to him and went back to make his new order. 

While Shawn stood at the counter in a throng of Brooklynites, John looked at his phone. A message from Tyler. A few from The Bullet group chat. And several from Hunter. 

Hunter: WHEW. Hunter: John RICH! I was UNFAMILIAR with your GAME. Hunter: You showed me 10 blurry iPhone photos and a low budget half-hour special from five years ago—ALL failed to demonstrate that Shawn Hendrix is fine. Like 90’s fine. Which is confusing. What business does a stand-up comedian have being attractive? What’s wrong with him?  Me: Yeah. What was up with that laugh you did Hunter: Sweetheart. That was on purpose. I’m not single but that was me trying to get a Man. Watch out. If I break up with Chris I’ve ALWAYS wanted a bisexual black boyfriend, and I *know* you can’t fight. Hunter: OH he smelled like leather and smoky pine. OH the beard was connected. OH he dresses like he got that Netflix money. Hunter: Yohel, TYLER HUGHES, now this MAN?  Hunter: How on God’s green Earth do you have so much pull???????????????????????????? Hunter: What is it the suits? Do I have to go around dressed like an actuary? Me: Never underestimate the power of being a funny man and having encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture. In some circles I’m what is called an “alpha.” Hunter: threw up in my mouth

John replaced his phone with his sketchbook as soon as Shawn returned. But imagine if Shawn had seen Hunter’s delusional text about Tyler Hughes? Yeah. John wasn’t the clingy twenty-four-year-old who needed Shawn to be his boyfriend anymore. He was twenty-eight-and-a-half, and was the cover artist for the goddamn New York Review. (Well, maybe just “a” cover artist. Whatever.) John had pull. “Holy shit,” Shawn would say. “You’re pulling Tyler Hughes?! It was so messed up of me to dump you in Los Angeles! Actually—I love you! You’ve got it all figured out, John!” Plus, he knew how this would go: he and Shawn would joke and banter and talk about nothing, until they clumsily agreed to see each other again—or made evasive maneuvers to avoid seeing each other because shit got awkward. He knew Shawn Hendrix. Which was why he should’ve seen the spit take coming.

Shawn waited until John was taking a sip from his drink when he asked, “how’s your milkshake?”

John’s drink dribbled over his lips. He wiped the spray of latte from his chin, laughing. Dammit. Of course Shawn had good timing. The latte had too much vanilla and tasted like a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Therefore it was perfect. John looked like a man who only took his coffee black, but he was probably addicted to sugar.

“You think I’m going to see a vanilla cereal milk latte and not have a sick desire to try it?” John forced his voice to be low and level, jazzy and suave. “Come on, Hendrix, I thought you knew me better.” 

“No, I love that you got it,” Shawn said, voice naturally low and easy. He watched John over the lip of his paper cup. “Something's wrong if John Rich doesn’t get the sweetest thing on the menu.”

John stared into brown eyes and swallowed. Shawn had spent all of college torturing John with innocuous comments like this. Joking that he thought John was gentler than he let on, hinting that John was a softy beneath the suits and ties. It wasn’t Shawn’s fault—he flirted with everyone. It was a byproduct of his existence. 

He always thought that it was weird that Shawn decided to become a stand-up comedian. A comedy writer, yes—he was observant and good with words. But he wasn’t a loner or dramatic or interested in being the center of attention. You dig into a stand-up comedian’s personality, and you eventually hit bedrock. Like, “ah, there it is. This is why you’re a goddamn psychopath.” He lacked that specific neurosis that every comic possessed, whether they were good at hiding it or not. Also, comics, John assumed, all came from terrible families or had some simmering mental illness, but Shawn had nice parents and was frustratingly well-adjusted. 

But he was fucking good. Though guiltily, John suspected that much of Shawn’s success came from having two things: a pretty face, and a moderately famous dad. His father had been on a popular Black sitcom twenty years ago, and it might have been enough to get Shawn into the right rooms and connected to the right entertainment people. 

But the most un-comic-like thing about Shawn? The one thing that stand-ups typically were not? He was an easy laugh. Sketch comedians laughed. Improv guys were giggle boxes. But Shawn laughed at everything. Maybe the world amused him, maybe he wanted to laugh. And today his smile was at the ready, taking everything John put on the table like a gift.

The catch up itself was easy: Shawn asked about life on The Review, and John asked how the hour was going. Recording an hour of a stand-up for a comedian was like working on a book of essays for an author. You were taking a myriad of ideas and stories and stringing them together in a way that made sense, except instead of an editor giving you notes, an audience would awkwardly cough or burst into delighted applause. John’s pencil wandered until he was drawing Shawn’s hand holding his coffee. Shawn thanked him when John congratulated him on the Netflix deal, and John thanked him when Shawn mentioned Cover Sessions.

“Cover Sessions,” said Shawn. Shawn sucked his teeth, tapped John’s ankle under the table with his sneakers. “Not gonna lie. I’ve never seen a man fall in love on live television before. Whoof.”

Don’t do this to me now. Millions of people knew that John was smitten with Tyler before John had figured it out.

“You too?” asked John, sighing. “The number of people who picked that video apart is insane. I didn’t think it was such a big deal. Dude, the fancams—”

“—the fancams!” said Shawn. “I’m at the dentist’s office, sitting there going, ‘why is my algorithm serving me videos of John with K-Pop music playing over it? And why are they cinematic?’”

 “Some of them were brutal,” said John. “I checked. In the state of New York, you can’t file a worker’s comp claim for getting your feelings hurt by teenagers on the Internet.”

There was a lull. Shawn drained his coffee. Then he smiled suddenly, too wide, strained, his canine teeth flashing. 

“How was Tyler Hughes?” asked Shawn. “Like, for real. You’re not really in love with him, right?”

Shawn suddenly had a lot in common with John’s latte: he wasn’t subtle at all. 

“I’m completely in love with him,” said John. Shawn ducked his head to hide his laugh, and John laughed too. He didn’t say what he wanted to say: that he wanted to eat a mouthful of Tyler’s chest hair; Tyler gave great hugs; he was possibly the sweetest man alive; see: John’s aforementioned sugar addiction, etc. “What? What if I were? Is that just impossible to believe?”

“You being in love with someone and telling anyone about it?” Shawn scoffed. “You’d rather walk into the East River.”

John’s scoff was darker. “You’re right. It’s terrifying. Usually when I tell guys how I feel about them, they leave. But anyway.” Shawn blinked at him and John cleared his throat, looking out the window to sketch a shaggy water spaniel leading its owner down the street. “We’re working on another project together. Doing interviews with creative people while drawing them? The guy is nice, way more creative than he looks.”

“You’re really working on something with him?” asked Shawn. “That’s awesome. I’m jealous, I loved the Jacob Raw movies.”

John’s pen missed the stroke and the leash went through the owner’s hand. No. No. You’re supposed to be jealous of him spending time with me! As Shawn talked about the Jacob Raw movies, and how Shawn almost got cast for a small role in the last movie, he gushed about the director and Tyler’s production company. Shawn was getting into producing, now apparently; someone who majored in film studies actually doing something in film.

“Well, my mom actually hates those movies,” said John, annoyed. Wait, why was he putting down Tyler? Why did Shawn have to make this all so confusing? “Or she doesn’t hate them, but says they’re bad. But it’s good that they’re bad because that makes them camp. I think she likes Tyler Hughes?”

“Good looking guy, too,” agreed Shawn. “He’s hot.”

“You want to head out?” said John, slapping his sketchbook closed.

As they walked past the park on Tillary Street, John saw the same dog he had sketched at the café, tugging their owner along. The clouds over Brooklyn were grey and indecisive and threatened to open into a bone-cold drizzle at any moment. John’s tie flew in his face. He sighed and decided that Shawn Hendrix was impossible to stay mad at. He looked at Shawn’s self-help books.

John knew Shawn was turning this all into a bit, modifying the joke so that it was a shade of the truth. He could see Shawn onstage, mic in hand, an easy smile luring the crowd into the punchline. “Y'all know how it is. You only run into your ex when you least expect it. I ran to my ex at a bookstore and I was holding a self-help book. That was basically like saying, 'if you're wondering, you were right for breaking up with me. You were dating the old me, and I'm also breaking up with that guy.'”

“Sorry to put your self-enlightenment journey on blast,” said John, tapping the books under Shawn’s palms. “I wish I could improve myself. The best I can do is not self-worsen.” And as they waited for the light to change, John thought. “Well, actually. I guess I have improved. I’m sober now. Three years.”

 “John, that’s amazing,” said Shawn. “Congratulations. Shit, is it any coincidence that you stopped comedy three years ago?” 

“Hah,” John said. “Yeah, it’s weird. When you stop hanging around high-functioning alcoholics all the time, it’s suddenly sort of easy? No one presses two drink tickets into your hand in the green room; no one offers you coke at the after party. Did I tell you I passed out in a flower bed during a corporate drawing gig? Yeah, there’s a moment in every man’s life, when he’s passed out in a trench of peonies, where he’s like, ah! This is not what pride feels like.”

“That’s the most beautiful,” said Shawn, grinning, “most gentle rock bottom I've ever heard of in my life. A bed of flowers caressing you going, ‘Ay man, that’s enough.’”

“I had to pay for the flowers.”

In the near-decade of knowing Shawn, John had never once heard him laugh. John had seen it plenty of times, like now, when Shawn grinned, leaned forward, and a completely silent chuckle leaked out of him. 

Hunter was right to leave them, because they spent the rest of the walk riffing and tagging and one-upping each other. It wasn’t until the cold air made John’s lungs burn that he realized he missed this. Elbows grazing as they made room on the sidewalk, warm clouds of air leaking out with each chuckle. Shawn smelled like leather and smoky pine and whatever else Hunter said, and John got a nose full of it at the A train stop when they hugged and departed.

But he took a few steps down into the station when he heard something over his shoulder.

“John.”

He turned around. Shawn was jogging across the fallen foliage on the sidewalk.

“Yeah?” asked John, climbing back up the subway stairs.

Shawn sighed, started to speak, stopped. Started again. John always found it terrifying when a stand-up seemed to have trouble saying something. 

“Would you ever spend the summer in L.A,” asked Shawn, "for a week or two?”

“...What?" asked John.

"My deal with Netflix is for two projects, the first one is the hour, the second is themed line-ups with cool people and I’m producing it," he explained. "Everyone’s best stories. Even though you’re not in the game, you’re one of the best, and I’d love to have you. Sorry, it’s a lot. Shit is weird. And I know we haven’t talked.”

“Shit is definitely weird," said John. A flicker of pain lit up in John but extinguished. "And no, we haven’t talked.”

“Yeah," said Shawn, "because of me. John…I messed up back then, okay? When I didn’t tell you I was staying in Los Angeles.”

John stared. “What?”

“I," started Shawn. He shook his head as the squeal of the train filtered up the stairs. “Things between us are weird mostly because I made them weird. I waited until the last minute to say I was moving, and then we stopped talking. I was clueless, and anxious, and didn’t know how to have a real-ass conversation. I’m sorry our friendship…I didn’t know what I wanted.” He exhaled. “That is a lot—You obviously don’t have to say yes to anything right now.”

It was John’s turn to start and stop, panic seeping in. It wasn’t supposed to be going like this. When did they speak to each other this candidly? When did they have mature conversations? When had Shawn…grown up? John had grown, definitively, and was supposed to be the dapper composed adult in control of this interaction, but Shawn, inexplicably, now had the superhuman ability to say exactly how he felt. Is this what happened when you lived out in Los Angeles? You do morning yoga and get enlightened and can suddenly apologize? Was it the damn books?

“Thank you, but we both made it weird, probably,” said John, shaking his head, moving on. He didn’t want to engage with this raw honesty for even a microsecond. “Um—L.A., the Netflix thing? I’ll think about it. Could be nice.”

“It'll be nice,” said Shawn, “to see you, pick up where we left off. I’m busy for the next few weeks, but are you going to The Bullet New Year’s party? I’m assuming you were invited to it, but have considered opening the invitation email, but are putting it off until December 29th or 30th when you have to commit to—”

“—yes, yes,” said John, laughing, “I drink disgusting lattes and procrastinate. It’s like you’ve known me for years.” 

Shawn elbowed him. “I still remember you pacing around The Bullet offices, my senior year, fucking scrambling a quarter ‘til midnight to register for classes. Getting mad that The Bullet Wi-Fi is down. No, dude, that’s you.”

“The Bullet has an endowment, man,” John complained. “You couldn’t download a .jpeg in that place.” John watched the same shaggy water spaniel he had drawn make its way down the street with its owner. Brooklyn was such a small town. “Yeah, I’ll go to the New Year’s party.”

“Nice,” said Shawn, he nodded. “It’ll be good to see more of you. And I dunno. The suits are great, but you look good.”

John scoffed. “Oh, me? Yeah, I managed to put on an entire ten pounds between graduation and now.”

“Nah.” And he smiled, but there was a lower register in his voice that was soft and weighty. “I just mean you look good.”

Shawn touched his arm, fingers lingering, and then he left him at the subway stairs, stunned. He thought about how he did not know Shawn Hendrix at all. He thought about sketching the cleft in Shawn’s lips.

John’s memory clicked. When Shawn picked up his pencil, it reminded him of a moment. It was his freshman year. He had spent all of three days on Samwell’s campus when he bumped shoulders with an upperclassman, and dropped an entire tin of colored pencils to the ground on Lake Quad.

Aquamarine and lime and clay-red cylinders clattered, bouncing and flipping across the stone path near the arts building, rolling under orange and yellow leaves.

As John stooped down to pick them up, his fingers brushed the hand of the upperclassman. It was Shawn, that junior from The Bullet comedy showcase where John had been in the front row. John’s cheeks got warm and his heart raced. What do you say to the coolest person you’ve ever met? The funniest guy you’ve ever seen? 

John couldn’t remember what he said, but it worked. Dear God, John couldn’t believe it. Shawn did his silent chuckle, sweet brown eyes trained on him, and asked, “didn’t I see you at The Bullet showcase?” and John said something else that made him laugh. Shawn’s eyes glittered and he flashed a smile that showed so much gum, and handed John a bouquet of pencils. He remembered Shawn looking down, embarrassed, like he shouldn’t be showing so much of himself to a stranger. ✏️

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previous chapter < start> next chapter ("The Intimate Act of Watching A Curated Playlist of Reality TV Episodes")

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✏️ Author's Note Hello! If you missed my last update, expect big chunky chapter updates of John Rich & The Big Picture on the first Friday of the month. (Feb 6th?)

John Marshall Rich...if you've been keeping up with the story to this point, you know now that this young man is an utter mess who both knows that he's chaos in a tailored suit but also is blissfully unaware of how fragile a grasp he has on any given situation at any time. What's going to happen between him and Shawn? And will that extinguish John's crush on Tyler? (And I also like to imagine Shawn and Tyler meeting and having a genuine-nice-guy showdown while John squirms.)

Tyler and John hang out in Chapter 13—how do you think John acts when he's around someone he's falling in love with? Until next time!

John stood up from his stool, slowly. From the sound of it, Tyler was engrossed in conversation with Eliza Schaefer, the writer who profiled him, and was oblivious to the iPhones that were being brought out of tote bags, and the mass of Review staffers migrating to John’s drafting table. The poetry editor, who had been patiently seated for Jean Doring, sighed at Danielle, stood up, and left.

“I actually framed The Review cover that has Sondheim at the piano,” John heard, before Tyler Hughes, Eliza, and his publicist turned the corner. “Oh, wow! Here it is.” Tyler reached out to shake hands with Producer Danielle, Intern Jenny, and pointed as he looked around at the setup—the drafting table, the brick wall, the window. Then Tyler’s gaze finally landed on John. His bright blue eyes creased at the edges. He looked like he had just seen a long lost friend. “There he is. John Rich. Man of the hour!”

The cameras were rolling. They did cold opens like this all the time, where the profile writer led the cover subject to John’s drafting table, and John was usually calm and collected for those. You know, grinning as he welcomed people in, spinning a pencil between his fingers, making a wisecrack to Producer Danielle. Now, John scanned his brain for something to say, anything, but his mind was blank. Tyler was flashing him that movie star smile again and it had the same effect as a blinding flashbulb. Tyler Hughes was not glaring at him from a street poster; he was not safely sequestered away in the frames of viral videos. He was here, now, and this all felt like a bad dream.

John blinked and his eyes darted down. To make matters worse, Tyler wore the softest, plushest, cream-colored jumper that was zipped down to the chest, an inch or so past his collar bone, exposing a nonchalant tuft of brown chest hair. John had an unfortunate reaction to other men’s chest hair. It made him feel like he was just presented with a bouquet of flowers: he wanted to put his entire face in it like Al Pacino at the end of Scarface. This, admittedly, would be a tad unprofessional.

“Tyler,” said John, feebly stretching out his hand, “Hi, wow.”

Tyler’s grin widened. “I know, crazy, meeting like this again, right?”

He grabbed John’s hand and crushed it. Before John could wince, Tyler yanked the rest of John’s body into a familiar bro-y hug, complete with several pats on the back. The question of whether or not John could fit his arms around Tyler Hughes remained unanswered, but John now knew that Tyler could easily wrap his arms around him. And maybe pick him up. And possibly throw John several yards if he wanted to. John felt a warm flat hand at his back pull him in and stubble brush against his ear. He was so close that John picked up hints of mint and rugged mountain pine on Tyler's skin.

 “I get it.” He said it quietly, so softly that there was no way that the boom mic could pick it up. John’s heart rate spiked. “Worst person ever, twice in one week?”

Tyler stood back, squeezed John’s shoulder, and winked. John’s face was so warm his freckles must have evaporated.

John cleared his throat. “Welcome to Cover Sessions, Tyler Hughes. I hear you’re a fan.”

“Told you; obsessed with you. Look at this. The Garfield tie.” Suddenly, Tyler Hughes’s hands were adjusting the knot ever so slightly, loosening it against John’s neck. Hunter laughed along with the rest of John's knowing colleagues. John should have been focusing on the fact that Jenny had the camera trained on the both of them, and not on how warm Tyler’s thumb was against his Adam's apple. “Why has no one on this show ever complimented your styling?”

“Oh. My styling? The suits? They're my great uncle's,” murmured John. A beautiful man was inches away from his face. The lashes on Tyler’s lower eyelid were forming gorgeous little u’s and w’s that John wanted to trace with brushstrokes. Dear God, John, stop staring at his man’s face—you’re on camera. He glanced at Hunter for help, but she was taking pictures of John like he had gotten third place in the spelling bee. John took a big step back and smoothed down his tie. “Can we get started?”

John turned away from Tyler and the cameras, wiped the remaining coffee off from his face, and dried his hand on his trouser leg. Okay. He had been hosting his show for a year, and he had aced every interview, in the exact same way. He and the model would have lovely conversation about whatever they were promoting, and John would ask them about art or music, or technology or the world. Then, a little over an hour later, with his signature yellow #2 pencil behind his ear, John would peel the bristol board off the drafting table, and reveal the drawing to the world. Then Producer Danielle would say “cut,” and they’d have another cover of The Review complete and another episode of Cover Sessions in the can. 

Tyler Hughes would be no different. Why? Because drawing people while being effortlessly charming was what John did. Yeah, that's right. He wasn't scared of Tyler Hughes. Pft. the last time John checked, Tyler Hughes was a three dimensional being that John could translate into two dimensional shapes. He wasn’t some inconceivable fifth dimensional horror. And if he were, that’d actually be kind of cool, and John would still try to draw him anyway. He’d have plenty of questions. How would an Australian accent sound coming out of an unimaginable god-beast from a higher plane of existence? Food for thought. 

John rounded his drafting table, took a deep breath and a quick look out the windows over the city. There were eight million people out there, and this guy was one of them. He would get him out of here before noon—no, before 11:45 AM. John adjusted his Garfield tie, and took a breath. When he sat down at the desk, he exhaled, and waved at the camera.

“Hi, and welcome to Cover Sessions,” said John, forcing a grin to his face and a smug swing to his hosting voice. “My name is John Rich, and I draw all of the covers for The New York Review. Today, I’m here with the writer Eliza Schaefer—” She waved from the growing mass of Review Staffers, and John gestured to Tyler, a familiar patter rolling off his tongue. “And I will be drawing Tyler Hughes, cover story for the first week of November. Now to ask you what I ask everyone on Cover Sessions, what do people know you best for?”

“Oh,” said Tyler, “I was in a few little movies about a CIA agent who doesn’t need sleep—or is unable to—debatable—that is known as the Jacob Raw trilogy.”

John tried not to roll his eyes as clapping and a “woo!” emerged from the peanut gallery that had formed off camera. At least with a drafting table between him and Tyler, he now felt more confident, his timing returning. “Tyler and I met this weekend during something called The Fountain Incident, which my lawyers told me that I am not allowed to talk about. By the way—” He leaned forward against his drafting table. “Where’d you get that extra raffle ticket?” asked John, point blank.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Tyler, “but thank you again for attempting to draw me. Sorry again about the incident. You get home okay? You had like, a whole easel.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said John, shrugging. “I’m an artist. I carry around easels. Did you jump in the pool after or? I wasn’t on social media.”

“Oh no,” said Tyler, “I left. Funny, are you actually not an online person or?”

“Sort of. Do the parties you attend usually break out into utter chaos?” asked John.

Tyler swiveled back and forth on the stool, grin spreading across his lips as he stared at John. Laced his fingers together politely. “Well. If the party’s worth its salt.”

The Review staff tittered. Tyler was the kind of handsome where he didn’t have to say or do much to get a laugh out of anyone, because it was simply a pleasant surprise that he had a brain, let alone a sense of humor.

“Impeccable media training,” said John.

“Thank you,” said Tyler, “and thanks for doing this last minute. Didn’t mean to catch you off guard.”

“You’re fine,” interjected Producer Danielle, and while the stationary camera remained in a two-shot of John and Tyler, Jenny swiveled the other camera to Danielle. Because she was so far away from the boom mic, John could already see the subtitles popping up as she spoke. “We told him about you, but he refused to check his email all weekend.”

Tyler bit his lip. “All weekend? Busted.”

“Please,” said John, sliding a T-square to the side. He could see the punchline before he even started the sentence. “I never check my email. If you want to reach me, send me a letter via the United States Postal Service, or include a subliminal message in today’s Garfield strip.”

Tyler laughed, a genuine one that scrunched up his shoulders. This did a weird thing to John’s insides that he didn’t really want to think about. It was like a point was added to an invisible scoreboard every time he caught Hughes off-guard, and broke through the media training. Ding! He lifted the pencil from behind his ear with a flourish. “Okay.”

John bit the bullet and looked the man in the eyes—it was a portrait after all—and the desks and windows and people faded away. The remnants of a laugh made Tyler’s eyes blue slits, and there was less product in his short blonde hair. His face was frustratingly symmetrical. And, okay, under the fluorescent lights, it didn’t look like he had gotten that much cosmetic surgery. Or maybe any at all. John visualized someone picking up a copy of next week’s Review—what would they see? Sometimes the models looked off to the side, and for the more serious profiles, John decided on a joyless glance down. Tyler had a soft smile. John’s pencil started to move.

“Question,” said Tyler, “but how do you actually draw while talking?” John erased. “I’ve watched so many episodes of Cover Sessions, and you’ve never explained it without joking. It takes every ounce of my brain power to focus on drawing a single, tiiiny, stick figure.”

And he squinted, sticking his tongue out, and brought his fingers up and together to demonstrate how small of a drawing he was talking about. John heard Hunter absolutely dissolves at that one, and he couldn’t help it, he grinned too. So this guy is jock-shaped and has an enormous personality, but it’s giving class clown, John thought, starved for attention. He remembered Tyler on Friday, on all fours on the terrace, playing with Bella the TikTok dog. Golden retriever to golden retriever communication.

“Talking while drawing is like singing the words to your favorite song while driving?” said John, hand gripping the top of the drafting table. “But much lower stakes. If I majorly screw up, I can erase, and no one dies. I mean, I do, a little. On the inside. Die, that is.”

Ding, another point for John Rich. Tyler laughed, and again, John felt like he had missed a step while walking down the stairs. He realized his subject’s eyebrows were actually quite faint. John had to erase the underdrawing one last time, and an unsettling drift of eraser dust grew on the sill of the drafting table. Still, a grin kept tugging at his lips. He snatched his pencil from behind his ear again. 

“You’ve really seen every single episode of this show?” asked John. 

“Yes.” Tyler said it like John was a less than stellar student and had finally figured out an algebra problem. He swiveled on the stool and pointed. “Producer Danielle. Intern Jenny.” He swiveled again, turning all the way behind him. Hunter froze and stopped swirling her empty ice coffee. “Hunter Henderson. I saw you at the party and wanted to say hi, but thought no, that’d be too weird, wouldn’t it?”

“Tyler Hughes,” said Hunter, “oh my God. You can say hi to me anytime you want!”

“Thank you,” said Tyler and turned back to John. “It started off as research for Sunday in the Park but sometimes I just put it on in the background. Yes, that’s right! I’m in the musical production Sunday in the Park. That’s why I’m here. Not sure if you knew, or if Eliza here told you.”

“That’s Stephen Sondheim, right?” asked John, looking up from his sketch. “It’s about Georges Seurat?”

“Yeah,” said Tyler. “It’s about—mostly, the first act, anyway— Georges Seurat painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte? So I started by studying artists, anyone who draws, because I want to be accurate, right? Loads of research. I’ve still got questions. Actually.” Tyler paused for a long time, drumming his knees. Then he exhaled.… and then stood up. “Yup. I’ve got a few questions for you.”

Tyler Hughes pulled index cards out of the back of his pocket.

John’s pencil paused over the Bristol board, and he looked at the index cards like Tyler Hughes was serving him papers. An audible flurry of delight rose from the audience of critics and journalists. Holy mother of God, Tyler Hughes was one of them. Uneven, messy handwriting adorned the notecards and someone had gone ballistic with a yellow highlighter. All John could think was: What the fuck? This man was a goofball but also a lunatic. And to John’s shock, this behavior was making him smile from ear to ear. What a freak! John pictured Tyler Hughes sitting in his trailer, in costume as CIA agent Jacob Raw, covered in engine grease and fake blood, and frowning over his lines with a bright yellow highlighter. Against his wishes, a bubble of amusement welled in him.

“What are those?” asked John. He wanted to finish redrawing Tyler’s nose, but he could not stop staring. “When did you write those?”

“They’re questions, and this morning. I told you on Friday. I’m a big fan.” And when John kept staring, Tyler sat down and glanced down at the first card. “First question. Would you call your interest in Garfield an obsession?”

Ding! But that was a point for Tyler. Because John’s coworkers loved this. John snorted and looked around at the room laughing at him on his own show. You know, like, “oh my God, so you noticed? Yeah, that is our colleague’s weird thing. He loves Garfield. We tolerate it, but do not understand. We’ve all sorta concluded that it’s a psychologically load-bearing hyperfixation.” John touched his Garfield tie and looked down at his pencil bag. Okay, fair.

“I have a lot in common with Garfield,” said John. And maybe with more pride than a grown man should have about this fact: “I’ll have you know that we just so happen to be born on the same day. June 19th.”

Tyler loved this. “Really? That’s adorable.”

“It’s not adorable,” said John. “It’s trivia.”

“Yes,” said Tyler, nodding seriously. “Of course, not cute at all. My apologies. Second question. When you were on The Samwell Bulletin, how did you draw cartoons on a deadline?”

“I’m sorry—were you on Wikipedia on the ride over here?” asked John. “Are you trying to Hot Ones me right now?”

“Sir, answer the question,” said Tyler.

“You’d just sit on the floor with a writer and a stack of computer paper,” said John, “and go through stupid ideas until something hit. It was great.”

“Lovely,” said Tyler, who was having too much fun playing the role of interviewer for the cameras. “Where has absurdism gone in comic strips and why is modern Heathcliff a Dadaist text?”

Ding ding ding! Several points for Tyler Hughes. A yelp of laughter escaped John before he could restrain it, and he ducked his head, chuckling. “I’m sorry, what?”

Tyler’s media training failed to keep him from losing it too. He was utterly delighted by how this question landed. John could have drawn stars in Tyler’s eyes, the way they twinkled at him. “You can draw while talking, but nice to know you can’t draw while giggling. Noted.”

”I’m not giggling,” said John, definitely not giggling, “I’m amused and bemused.”

Tyler kept grinning at him. “Whatever you say, mate.”

”Heathcliff through the lens of the Dada art movement?” asked John, drawing the border of Tyler's beard. ”Do they even have Heathcliff in Australia? Why do you know anything about Heathcliff?”

“I take offense. You act as if we don’t have newspapers.” He shuffled to another index card. And, for a moment, Tyler shifted, a bashful shrug. “There was an episode where you talked about different cartoon cats. Listen, I don’t know anything about actual art history. I don’t know if that question made sense—”

“Well, now, no no no, I’m gonna answer it.” said John, holding up his pencil to stop Tyler from flipping to his next card. His stomach was doing another somersault, but he wasn’t sure why. This question was weird and funny and perfect. “Is Heathcliff Dada? If you’re talking about the Jim Gallagher comics which are weird—no. Absurdism isn’t immediately Dada. Dada has political implications tied to the meaninglessness of war.” He looked at some Review writers, either shrugged or nodded in agreement. “Right. I think people see Garfield’s tendency to break the fourth wall and comment on everyday life, then see the playground of Heathcliff and assume some sort of impenetrable commentary. But Heathcliff has a pretty strong internal logic. It might be the opposite of absurd. It’s kind of an episodic sitcom.”

Tyler’s head was cocked to the side. “I knew you’d have a thorough answer to this.”

John nodded. “Big fan.”

The underdrawing was not bad—handsome. Recognizeable. A little confident. John reached for his brush pens. 

“Good, okay. Fourth question.” Tyler flipped through the index cards and found one. “Why do you have that—I think it’s called a T-square?”

John shifted a two-foot long rusty T-square on his desk with a satisfying squeak. “It helps me draw borders, sometimes.”

“Perfect,” said Tyler. Next card. “Do you always wear a suit?”

“John does not own shorts,” Hunter blurted out, and Tyler turned to her, then gaped at John. 

“You don’t own shorts?” he asked. “Like a single pair? Do you wear a full suit when you go to the gym?”

“Oh, the gym, that’s funny,” said John. He used his entire arm to pull a long curving line of ink down the silhouette of Tyler’s face. “First—wear what you want. I don't care. But for anyone with a baseline appreciation for men's wear, having a pair of shorts in your closet is like putting a Capri Sun in your wine fridge. Completely fine, but I would not break those out for a dinner party.”

 “Do you wear suits,” Tyler asked, already on the next card, “to look older? And is it to counteract the effects of having a babyface?” 

John immediately felt a rush of warmth in his cheeks, and another flutter of his stomach, and he was aware of the dozens of eyes staring at him. He had been drawing the small J-shaped curve at the tip of Tyler Hughes’s smirk when Hunter stifled a shriek at this observation. This admittedly disrupted the line. A good joke hated to see Hunter Henderson coming.

“Wait, for the record, having a babyface is very charming,” Tyler continued. He swiveled back and forth on his stool, looking John up and down. “I mean, I started growing facial hair when I was sixteen—couldn’t be me. But you're going to look adorable forever. Like a button.”

“You wrote that down on an index card?” asked John. He was going for nonchalant but his heart was thrumming in his chest. He knew he was blushing, but if he didn’t look up, maybe Tyler wouldn’t know. He was inking the drawing now—he only needed small covert glances.

But a single glance revealed that Tyler had his sights on him, staring. “So it’s always a suit and tie or a jumper or something? That’s the style? Or do you ever let loose? You know, T-shirt and jeans. Like is this just how you dress for work? Or would you wear that out on a date?”

Now.

Now, John Rich had a very bad gaydar. It was never properly calibrated. This is because straight men who John had massive crushes on were very nice to him, and the gay men he actually ended up sleeping with were very mean. Like knowing either the speed or location of an electron, John was only ever certain if someone liked him or if they were gay. But the scoreboard had now just been replaced with an analog gauge with a single quivering needle, and this gauge read IS TYLER HUGHES FLIRTING WITH ME? 

All this time, it was like John had forgotten he was on the 34th floor of the RCA building, the only puzzles in his mind being figuring out this cover and the man before him. But this question rudely grabbed John by the tie and yanked him back into reality, because the needle vibrated toward yes. John blinked up at Tyler, viscerally aware of the camera set up, his colleagues, the hundreds of thousands of people who would see this, and how flushed he must have looked. Was he acting? Was this revenge? Was this genuine? That’s when John looked down.

John stared at the sheet of paper. The angle of the jaw was too sharp. The triangle that he used as the base of the nose was too thin, and too far from the mouth. There was a line like a bracket around his smirk, and the more he looked at the eyes of this cover portrait, the more they looked like the eyes of Jacob Raw—the steely murderous ones that followed John on the streets of Manhattan. They weren’t the happy thin lines of the man in front of him.

“Oh,” he said. John stood up. “Huh.”

He reached for the Bristol board and peeled off the tape.

“No way,” said Tyler. In awe, he glanced down at the heavy timepiece he was wearing. “You're done already?”

“No,” said John. He cleared his throat and wandered over to the file cabinet filled with archival drawing paper, the camera tracking his every movement. He pulled a screeching drawer open. “I have to start over.”

There was a pause of confusion before Hunter finally said, “Wait. Seriously?” 

“Was it all of the questions?“ asked Tyler, sobering immediately. “Was I moving too much?”

“No, it wasn’t you,” he answered. When John folded the first attempt in half, the bullpen winced, and he pinched his fingers across the edge like a Ziploc bag. John pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. No, John thought, there was something wrong with him.

This was bad. He’d have to work fast now; he killed almost twenty minutes with that failed underdrawing. What was going on? John might erase a drawing. He might end up inking a completely different drawing, but he had never had started over. It wasn’t even a matter of pride—it was simply a matter of time. When a busy person showed up at the RCA building, they had a schedule. John might show up late, but he never turned in a cover late. There was no starting over.

Before John sat down, Tyler Hughes had popped up and searched around the bullpen. “Okay, I’ve got it. Can I borrow a pen?”

Hunter’s arm immediately shot out, along with a pad of sticky notes. Tyler grabbed the pad and pen, knelt down on one knee and began scribbling earnestly at Hunter’s desk. The camera crossed over to watch him, and members of staff peered on tiptoe to get a better look. John looked over the top of his drafting table.

“You’re…probably just…nervous or something,” said Tyler. Drawing really did take a significant portion of his computational power. But whatever he was drawing did not take long. “There, lemme lower the stakes, as an amateur.” He capped the pen, and met John at the table. 

It was a very long stick figure with a scratchy swoop of hair, two, large, round ears, no eyes or mouth, and about 5 dots across the middle of the face. Ah, freckles. The artist behind the piece grinned at him, and a delighted applause rose from his coworkers as the camera trained on John’s face.

“Cover worthy?” asked Tyler.

If this was flirting, John was not sure how he felt about it at all. “You’re a natural.” ✏️

They set out east to the sound of their footsteps on wet cement, the occasional clunk of sidewalk grating, the rumble of traffic on Lafayette, and of course, the heavy quiet between them. During the taxi ride over to Dean’s, John had fantasized about wielding the breadth of his comedic talents and gripping Tyler with laughter—but as they walked, not looking at one another, he found himself with a dearth of wit with which to fill the silence. Instead, his stomach kept tensing up and there was this weird droning in his head. It was like there was a beehive where his brain should have been, and the bees in this beehive were all, like, big fans of Tyler Hughes. So they were excited he was around, but they didn’t know what to say to him, because they didn’t speak English. Because they were bees.

They crossed the street and walked past a group of downtown 6 train riders who were spilling out from the subway. If anyone recognized Tyler Hughes—famous and dashing action movie star who was just on live television—they didn’t seem to care. God bless New Yorkers. Tyler cleared his throat.

“Super excited,” said Tyler, slipping his phone back in his coat pocket, “about where we’re going—it’s an awesome late-night café. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Oh?” asked John, wondering what sort of chic second location Tyler had planned for them. “Another producer?”

“Oh,” said Tyler, “no, actually…”

Silence. They kept walking.

“I hope you had fun?” asked Tyler. 

“Oh, it was lovely,” said John, nodding. “City Live is great.”

 “Yeah, I always wonder what people with a comedy background think about the show, you know?”

“It’s a feat that the show comes together every week, that’s for sure.”

“Haha, yeah,” agreed Tyler.

More silence. John considered himself a New Yorker and could really hoof it, but Tyler was practically speedwalking. They marched past a fence of orange and white plastic barriers, away from the thoroughfare of Third Avenue, and through loud puddles from the early evening rain. 

“I think it’s better in real life,” Tyler blurted out from nowhere. “I mean, in person, seeing it. Like, going to the show and being there. Sitting there, watching. In the crowd. As an observer.” He frowned and tried to grab at the word in mid-air. He turned to John for help. “A viewer.”

“As an audience member?” offered John.

“Yes!” said Tyler. He exhaled. “ Do you typically like the show? That is, watch the show or…?”

“Um,” said John, “sometimes. I liked the episodes from the ‘90s.”

“Oh man, yeah,” said Tyler, elbowing John, “me too.”

And yet more silence. But when they turned onto Waverly, Tyler said, quickly, all at once:

“Well, thank you so much for coming! And for meeting! And agreeing to all of this—no, thanks. Yeah, sucks to leave the after party a bit early, but I hosted before, and the fun parts happen during the week, you know, like working with Ethan and Wil?” John nodded. “Yeah, Ethan and Wil are just great, just super smart, aren’t they? I have to ask you about going to Samwell and being on The Samwell Bullet, like, did you like it? I reckon it was like being in a writer’s room, but in university—that’s what I heard—but yeah, every time you do City Live it’s such a fun week, but you’re totally spent by the end of it; like the last time I did it, I got super sick—ah! It was the last after party, I think, where I got COVID. Hey, which worked out, because the very next week I watched all of Cover Sessions, like stuck in bed, iPad on my stomach, gross snot everywhere, watching you draw supreme court justices.” He chuckled and checked if John laughed. “Well, anyway, do you like events like that? Not counting The Review Festival after party, obviously, because I do like a party, but with City Live, you celebrate a little bit after the show and you have such great, deep, fun conversations with everyone during the week, and you can’t actually talk much there. Also, the food looked all right but I’m pretty hungry—did you get to eat in there? Sorry, I should’ve asked, well, the place we’re going to has a great menu—I love it; I go there all the time—oh yeah, what part of town do you live in?”

Tyler had asked John maybe eight questions, but John chose to answer the last one. “West Village,” he said. 

“Oh, I just got a loft in Chelsea,” said Tyler cheerily, and when John didn’t immediately answer, he kept going, speaking as speedily as they were walking: “It’s way too big. Or it’s fine. I probably won’t even sleep, though, I have a flight right after this, believe it or not. I was serious, in the monologue, when I said I like to sleep. I really do. I’m usually in bed by 11:00 p.m., up by 6:00—”

“—and at the gym by 6:15?” asked John.

And Tyler’s laugh popped out of him too loudly and shook his shoulders, and he threw John another searching glance. Suddenly, John realized something.

Tyler Hughes was nervous.

Huh.

“You were great, by the way,” said John quickly, “like, super funny monologue.”

There was a long pause before Tyler said, finally at a normal speed, “Really? My comedy chops were up to snuff?”

“I mean,” said John, shrugging. He could feel Wil rolling his eyes at the list of praise John had written up in the wake of the monologue. “I don’t love sketch comedy. It’s hard to get right; so many moving parts. But it’s much funnier in person, definitely.”

“You don’t love sketch comedy.” And Tyler eyed him with his very crinkly blue eyes and an unfair amount of eyelashes.

 Ironically, they had just walked past the English department at NYU, and John could not think of a response in English. After a look like that from Tyler Hughes, the bees in John’s head were running the show. He was like, “Hey, ladies, help. I need stuff to say to this cool hot guy,” and the bees were like, “We’re sorry, John. The best we can do is ZZZZZZZZZ. Have you tried showing Tyler Hughes where some pollen is? Try doing a controlled dance to show Tyler Hughes the location of a great flower bed.”

“Uh,” said John. “That’s no reflection on you.” And Tyler gave him another cheery yet inscrutable look. “Loving things is hard. To love a type of comedy—or a type of art. Loving things is… uh. Well…” 

A low chuckle escaped Tyler’s throat like a purr as John trailed off. This had his stomach doing somersaults. He jogged across the crosswalk. Why in the name of Bill Watterson was he talking about love? At 3 a.m.? In the middle of a rainy night in Manhattan? When Tyler caught up, his nervousness had retreated; he drilled into a new vein of confidence, and the swagger from earlier in the evening sprang forth.

“But you love portraits?”

“I mean,” John sighed, “yes?”

“Good.” Tyler grinned and clicked his tongue. “But the monologue. Is there a reason why you laughed extremely loudly halfway through it, John?”

Dammit. “Okay,” said John. Tyler Hughes was tall and solid next to him, arm brushing his as they stepped out from more construction markers, and was now laughing at him. John couldn’t help it—he laughed too. It made the buzzing fainter. “I will argue—the involuntary scream you heard could’ve been from anyone.”

“No, mate, it could not have,” said Tyler, “because I’ve seen at least twenty hours of you laughing. John Rich doesn’t love sketch comedy, but he loves a well-placed joke about getting whacked in the nuts. Curious.”

Now, that was something John had not heard in a while: the sound of his own laughter bouncing off 18th century Gothic architecture. But Tyler’s story of immature brotherly torture was something they would’ve come up with back on The Bullet. It was so delightfully stupid.

“Were you guys just,” said John through a chuckle, “whacking each other in the nuts for screwing up Shakespeare? Saying ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ back and forth and then kicking the utter shit out of each other?”

“Essentially,” said Tyler. “I think the original goal was to see who could remember anything, like a sentence, but we were like eight, ten, and thirteen respectively, so for whatever reason, if it looked like you forgot, you get punished? And someone would blast a nerf gun right at your junk. Pow. And it would hurt a fucking lot. And it was extremely stupid. We weren’t allowed on the Internet until high school; it’s how we entertained ourselves in the suburbs of Sydney.”

“Trying to murder each other?” asked John, incredulously.

“Basically. You know my little brother Matthew almost broke my arm. Oh, look at you. Piss off, relishing in my plight.” Tyler body-checked him lightly, but it still sent John stumbling sideways—laughing, grinning. “You think it’s hilarious, but it was quite serious. He pushed me off the deck, never mind getting nerfed in the fucking nuts.”

“No, I think that’s great,” said John. “In fact, you should do that to learn your lines from here on out. You know, have a production assistant point a nerf gun at your nuts. And no! It won’t be weird, it’s just a lesser known acting technique.”

 “Exactly, yes,” said Tyler, “it would be nice to get some weird rumors going, wouldn’t it? You know this guy has strange methods—”

“—that Tyler Hughes—get a load of this—I hear he does some weird shit with foam darts and his balls and the Meisner technique? He learned it from Tom Cruise?” 

The reverberations of Tyler’s laugh put John in a bumper car, if that makes any sense. He felt his stomach jolt, his heart race, and the rest of his body caught up. John grinned with that giddy feeling of careening into a friend while full of Gatorade and pizza. He kept going, this time doing a shade of an Australian accent: “Yeah, I just need an hour of silence every day, and someone threatening to shoot my junk with foam darts. Not actually doing it though. I just need the threat.”

This killed.

“Holy shit,” Tyler murmured, when he had recovered from John’s joke and his attempt at an accent. “I didn’t think you’d show up to the show, because, you know.” He shrugged. “I’m cursed.”

 “Ah, yes. I get within ten feet of you, I end up with unwanted viral fame. Yeah, buddy, you’re definitely cursed.” They turned, and Tyler led them down Mercer Street. “I should seriously be terrified of you. If I get sideswiped by a CitiBike while someone is on Instagram Live? And then my pained yelling becomes a cool Tiktok sound? It will be your fault.” 

Tyler Hughes laughed at John like he just learned what a joke was. It was like John was the incredibly charismatic performer, and Tyler hadn’t just performed on live television for millions of people. They crossed more construction barriers to the edge of Washington Square Park, and sitting on a bench were NYU students sharing a birthday cake. They were oblivious to everything but the cakey spoons in their hands, and erupted in laughter just as John and Tyler turned the corner. The droning in John’s head had quieted, and the bees in the beehive finally understood, “Oh, shit, wait, we don’t have to communicate with Tyler Hughes! John can do that for us, and he can do a super good job. Guys, let’s get out of here and back to doing our bee activities. Honey, honey, honey, honey—”

“Okay, is that a Samwell thing?” said Tyler. “You guys are so fucking quick. I didn’t pick up on it the first time I hosted, but is that how The Bullet was? With Ethan and Wil? Everyone firing off on all cylinders?” 

“Good question,” said John, as they approached the center of the park and its enormous fountain. “The front office of The Samwell Bulletin was one of the most magical places on Earth. Yes, sometimes there were boxes of moldy pizza in there for the entire semester—and I wasn’t a fan of that—but in my opinion, that added to the magic. Yes, everyone was firing on all cylinders. All the time. We barely got the magazine in most months from all the bits.”

“Amazing,” said Tyler. “That sounds like theater—like heaven.”

“It was.” 

John wanted to tell him about the trips they took to New York City Live, or the time they filled the dean’s car with mini M&Ms. Instead, he gazed at the plaza fountain which threw out shimmering streams of water and glowed against dark branches and the night sky. John wondered why it was still on despite it being chilly and November, but realized that they couldn’t turn it off; it was too magical. Autumn in New York was making up its mind on whether it would settle into a mild or treacherous winter, and the students eating birthday cake needed a picturesque backdrop. 

“Not to be the guy who is like ‘I peaked in college’, but I might have peaked in college. I miss The Bullet.” John smiled at the flowing water. “God, I loved that silly little magazine.”

“Wow,” said Tyler. 

“Wow?” John slowed down to look at the jetting water. “Come on, dude, you never had fun on a long production before?” And then froze, terrified, and murmured to himself. “Oh God. I’m back at a fountain with Tyler Hughes.”

“No, it’s amazing that John Rich loves things,” said Tyler behind him.

John spun around. 

Tyler was watching him. And John watched back, transfixed, knowing that if he pulled out his sketchbook now, he would end up with another failed attempt at drawing the man before him. The silver light of the fountain lit Tyler up, and his sparkling blue eyes scanned John’s face, fixed and unrelenting. Everything about his grin was friendly, but there was a sharpness to how long Tyler held his gaze. John couldn’t pin down the shapes—the proportions—the features, but he was starting to feel that Tyler could see him crystal clear. 

“See, it’s not so hard after all,” said Tyler.

John opened his mouth—then closed it. The volume of buzzing in John’s brain had faded to a tolerable hum over the last quarter mile, giving way to the college kids rapping an out-of-tune happy birthday. But it was replaced by the fountain sounds behind him, deafening. 

“What’s not hard?” John asked.

“To love things,” said Tyler, and then added with a smile, “other than Garfield.”

Tyler turned on his heel and continued west, still smiling to himself, which left John in the middle of Washington Square Park, in his nice brown suit and dark brown tie, alone. It would be so easy to run up to Tyler, yawn, call it a night, and quit this entire enterprise. If he peeled off at Seventh Avenue, he’d be back at his apartment in fifteen minutes, waking up Mrs. Tuk with the creak of the stairs. But John looked at the man in the long coat disappearing into the benches and trees and fences of the park, and took one step. Then another. Then he jogged.

“I guess, I did not know,” said John, breathless, after he had caught up and they’d walked for a bit, “I didn’t know that I gave off the impression that I withheld buckets of raw enthusiasm and affection for the world around me. I love Snoopy too, by the way.” This earned John a smile. “Question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“How much of my personality are you basing on Cover Sessions?” asked John. “Because, buddy, I’ve got news for you. That’s a persona.”

“All right, fair. You watch twenty episodes of Cover Sessions one summer and you start to believe that persona. John Rich is this whip smart, blasé, Ivy League-educated artist. Ultra classy, unbelievably urbane. A tough cookie to crack. You believe the persona and you start to wonder, fuck, would he be crazy enough to do a YouTube interview show with some ditzy Hollywood actor?”

“He might, that’s why he’s still here,” John said. But he squinted, and couldn’t contain the laughter bubbling up in him. “Wait, Tyler. Do you know what parasocial relationships are?”

“Oh. Are you asking if I’ve developed one with you?” Tyler nodded vigorously. “Almost certainly.” John’s laughter was contagious. “Look at you. This is glorious; this isn’t persona. You truly get all giggly, don’t you?”

“That is a monumental statement,” said John—again—definitely not giggling. “You developed a parasocial relationship with me?”

Tyler ignored him. Instead, as they closed in on the intersection, he pushed an index finger into John’s shoulder. “Very giggly. You know, it’s nice to know that once you get started, you’re hard to stop. You like stories about me and my brothers injuring each other? Okay, here’s one: Did I tell you my little brother once nearly ran me over with a dirt bike?” Yes, John did find this funny. He immediately started being even more…not giggly. “When he was like seven. Like he should not have had access to the dirt bike. Aussie parents. We weren’t supervised. Anyway, I just remember running for my life like Cary Grant in North by Northwest with the plane? In the cornfiel—”

Tyler grabbed his arm, yanking John out of the way. John stumbled back. Angry bell ringing, a delivery bike whizzing by, and a guy twisting around to yell at John as he sped down Sixth Avenue. “Bike lane!” John gawked down the street, and catching his breath, realized he was in Tyler’s arms.

John looked at Tyler. 

Tyler looked at John.

“Come on, dude,” said Tyler, releasing John, patting him on the shoulder.

“Oh my God,” said John, stepping away, “I gotta shut up! I’m manifesting.”

But the hand on his arm didn’t move, though the grip relaxed, heavy on John’s bicep. Tyler leaned in like he was telling John a secret, letting his hand drop to John’s back, a grin on his lips. “No, mate, I’m the cursed one, remember?” One last shoulder squeeze. “It’s definitely me.”

It was two more blocks to Tyler’s café. They talked more about City Live, Samwell, and siblings—John unfortunately had no tales of his older sister trying to murder him—but Tyler’s interest piqued when John brought up his mother, Susan Rich, who was a pretty famous arts critic. As they walked, sensations collided within him at once: the delight of making Tyler Hughes laugh, followed by the certainty that there was no way Tyler was having a good time; the electric feeling of being awake in the middle of the night in Manhattan, followed by the exhaustion of keeping this up—staying sharp—not being a fool; the breathless realization that he had not laughed this much with anyone else, maybe ever. 

John caught Tyler’s profile, how the collar of his long coat cut through the plane of his beard, and how his eyelashes caught the dull grey light of some mysterious bulb in a wet alley. He realized, with a dull ache, that he kept seeing the beginnings of a painting whenever he stared at this man, so he set his eyes ahead on the street lights in the distance; a cluster of green dots turned red. His stomach tightened with the sound of their steps on the damp pavement and with the ebbs and flow of their jokes. His heart fluttered whenever Tyler tossed him a lopsided grin or elbowed John in the arm. His head told him not to misconstrue, but John’s pounding heart told him that he was on the best date of his entire life. Otherwise, all was quiet in Greenwich village.

The bell above the door clattered. If the warm smell of roasted coffee hadn’t wrapped around them as soon as they walked in, John would’ve argued that this was not a café, but was someone’s studio space. Coffee table books and fashion magazines cluttered the concrete floors and weighed down shelves, and canvases covered every inch of wall space, with more leaning against the walls than hanging. John had expected something as swanky as Dean’s, but Tyler had taken him to a high school art class. 

“Hi, Jules,” said Tyler to the barista, who waved at him with a stylus in hand. They had blue hair, an apron weighed down in enamel pins, and as they approached the counter, John could see one pin had an adorable frog sitting on a flower petal—but it was holding a bloody hatchet that said “they/them.”

“Hi, Tyler Hughes,” said the blue-haired barista. They yawned, squeezing their eyes closed and hunching their shoulders together in a stretch. They yawned again on the way to the cash register, like this was maybe the fortieth time Tyler had walked into this place. Barely opening their eyes, they checked the time on their phone. Then they didn’t put the phone down, but kept scrolling. “Do you want your crazy latte, or a big sandwich for big strong boys?”

“Hey. Okay, come on, wake up,” hissed Tyler. He tapped the counter. “Look who I’ve got with me.”

Jules blinked, and leaned to the side, to look behind Tyler.

And then they backed so hard into the counter that the mugs shook with a clink. They clasped their hand over their mouth.

“What?” they said. They pulled down their beanie, then looked from Tyler to John, and then back to Tyler, glaring. “What? Bro. You can’t just do this without warning.” Jules’ hand reached out to turn off their still glowing tablet screen. “I was drawing porn. What if John Rich had seen my porn?” And then to John. “It’s not that I think you would care about the porn, but my anatomy is shit. I love you.” 

“Oh,” said John. “You watch Cover Sessions. Well, thank you, I appreciate that, I love you too.”

“Hm,” said Tyler, handing a paper menu to John. “Should you be drawing erotica on the job, my friend? You don’t find that perhaps a bit off-putting to the fine people of this establishment?”

“Um, excuse me, but it’s a commission I got online. It’s paying for school. Sorry, I’m not a billionaire, Tyler Hughes,” said Jules. “Did you know he has a billion dollars?”

Tyler smiled politely. “I really don’t.”

“I don’t know, Jules wouldn’t lie to me,” said John. “Tyler just hosted New York City Live. Like three hours ago. Rich guy behavior.”

“I will have my big boy sandwich and an oat milk latte,” said Tyler, ignoring them both. “And just remember this, all right? Remember that I did something for you. You counted me out as useless, and here I am with John Rich, host of Cover Sessions.”

Jules tapped in the order. “I’m sorry that I said that your movies are part of the military industrial complex, Tyler Hughes. They are, but I’m sorry I said that.” And to John. “I haven’t actually seen them. Action movies give me vertigo. What can I get you?”

John ordered a latte as well—decaf. The menu was dense, but this was not just any diner—it had holistic and earnest ingredients. Two simple lattes and a sandwich would stack up to a pretty penny, like the fare to JFK in a Yellow Cab. John reached for his wallet, but Tyler slapped a heavy metal card down on the card reader. Jules disappeared to make their drinks, while Tyler explained how he found this place (“So, ever since the Raw movies, I’m hungry all the time? This place closes at 5 a.m.”) and when Jules returned, they had their sketchbook in their apron.

“Okay, this is cringe, but I’m embracing cringe this year,” said Jules. “I was just wondering if it would be weird to ask for an autograph? But no pressure if you guys are on a date or something.”

“Oh,” said John, the butterflies bubbling up out of his mouth. “I mean—”

The door to the diner opened, and the ringing of the bell made John jump. It was one of Jules’s coworkers who was hauling a huge packet of flour over his shoulder. John turned back to Jules. But before he could find his train of thought, Tyler spoke.

“This?” He didn’t even look up, but his chuckle was amused. “Jules, please. This is business.” And when he finally met John’s eyes, his look was casual. “I don’t think this’ll take long, will it? Half hour or less, right?”

It were as though John had blithely stepped into a bike lane on Sixth Avenue and had gotten sideswiped by a guy delivering Thai food. The door to the café was stuck open, letting a cold breeze cut into the warm coffee roasted air. John went to close it.

Yohel was absolutely correct that John Rich judged people. Yes, he did. He did this because, all too often, his silly little heart would reach out to someone, and mistakenly believe it would be safe and could make a connection with this new uninvestigated person. In this case, John had erroneously created two categories of men that he was attracted to: straight men who were nice to him, and the emotionally unavailable gay men he actually slept with. If he placed Tyler into one of those categories, he could operate without running into frustration. But there was a third column, and John now dropped Tyler Hughes into it. Men that John was attracted to, who he could see getting along with, who made him laugh unbelievably hard—who saw him as a professional connection. This was not a date. It didn’t matter if Tyler was straight, gay, or specifically attracted to cartoonists. The needle of the IS TYLER HUGHES FLIRTING WITH ME? gauge plummeted and stilled.

And the gauge exploded. 

And moths flew out of it. 

As John came back to the counter with the last of a nipping Greenwich breeze, Jules shouted back into the kitchen: “Max, you have to close the door! Ugh. Sorry, you had to close that, John Rich.”

“It’s no problem. And yeah, twenty minutes?” John shrugged, nodding at Tyler. He kept a wide professional grin despite the disappointment seeping into his heart. “I get it. If I saw me, a fully gay man, at a diner at 3 o’clock with Tyler Hughes, I’d hope something romantic was going on too. Nope!” He did not let Tyler have any time to laugh at that one. “And, forget the autograph, Jules, how about I just draw you?” 

Jules gasped. 

Tyler sighed. “Here we go.”

“I would die,” said Jules.

“A quick sketch,” said John. 

“I am dying,” said Jules.

“We all are,” replied John, slapping his menu on the counter. “Do we go sit, or?”

It really was a high school art classroom—the stools wobbled as they sat down, and there were pencil shavings on the table. John placed down his Garfield pencil bag, and studied Jules over his shoulder. Oval head, huge brown eyes, a mouth that just said things and asked questions. Blue hair. Did he have a blue marker? Maybe if he didn’t, Jules would.

“Dear God, I’m starving,” said Tyler. Sitting across from him, Tyler still looked like a movie star, but tired. And somewhere between Dean’s and presenting John to Jules, Tyler had, thankfully, buttoned up his shirt. “You’re about to see me eat a lot of food. It might be disgusting. Don’t judge me.”

“Charming,” said John, as he rummaged through his pencil bag. “I won’t. You should’ve gotten food back at Dean’s. You know, if you text your girlfriend, maybe she could bring us all the sliders that were floating around that place.”

Tyler scoffed.

“Wow, mate,” said Tyler, “you trying to get a sound bite or something?”

“What?” said John.

“Nevermind,” said Tyler. “I meant, Catarina. We’re just friends.”

Sure, John thought. At this point in the evening, exhaustion had dulled John’s nerves. He took out markers and pens and laid them out on the café table. He sometimes, randomly, had a teal highlighter buried at the bottom of this thing—bingo. He lifted the blue marker and held it up to Jules, who was turned away and tamping down espresso grounds. John placed the marker on the table with a soft tap, and pulled out a #2 pencil and put it behind his ear. Then he put down a few brush pens and an eraser. Tyler’s eyes followed his hands, and he leaned across the table to peer into the chaotic void of the Garfield pencil bag.

John lifted it up. “You want to see what’s in my pencil bag?”

Tyler nodded.

John unceremoniously turned the pencil bag over.

He did what he usually did whenever he dumped out his art supplies: he organized them. He mindlessly sorted out the Copic markers, grouped the Zebra and Kuretake brush pens, pairing his Staedler eraser with his Mono stick eraser, shoving a stubby blackened 6B pencil in with the other pencils, pushing all the supplies through a new layer of pencil shavings and eraser crumbs. Tyler nudged a brush pen into file. Then, more boldly, he moved a Garfield eraser next to the cigarette lighter. Soon, Tyler was touching everything, moving all of John’s art supplies around—reading the Japanese text on the brush pens and politely clicking the stick eraser. Tyler decided that all of the brush pens could be next to the markers, and the erasers should sit nicely on top. John hummed. This wasn’t normally a group project. 

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask, what is this? You use it on the show sometimes.” Tyler picked up an even stubbier pencil that was locked into a metal brace.

“A pencil extender,” John said, shaking the shavings out of his bag. “It extends pencil stubs so you can use them longer.”

“And this guy?” 

“A very thin eraser. I don’t use that as much since I’m drawing pretty large.”

Tyler held up the Garfield eraser.

 “The physical embodiment of all my mental illnesses.”

Tyler clapped his hands together. “Okay, this,” he said, gesturing at the drawing supplies across the table. “This is what I mean. For the show.”

“We go through my art supplies and talk about them?” asked John. “Well, I won that Garfield eraser at a Dave and Busters in the fifth grade. It is extremely rare and was like seventy tickets. This eraser costs twenty dollars if you factor in inflation.”

“No,” said Tyler, “what I mean is, getting to see the nuts and bolts of what makes you an artist. I love that Cover Sessions is you in dialogue with a subject about their feature in The Review. But what if we subtracted that promotional piece? Pushed it a bit further. Make it where you, me, and a subject are talking about art. So you’re capturing them in this moment of reflecting on art, while you’re practicing your own craft. And then we could get this cool synergy.” Tyler talked with his hands, like he was putting all the pieces of the idea together in mid air. “And it would be different from Cover Sessions, you know? Because I’d love to go to the artists’ studios? Or, like, to a recording studio! Or like the kiln, or wherever we want. And it would be my job to be kind of familiar and facilitate the conversation, but all of us just talk. And it’d be super small too. Intern Jenny, Producer Danielle—” Tyler started to move John’s art supplies around like a general with a war map, pushing the eraser, then a small pill-shaped highlighter, and finally the pencil in the extender to the center of the table. “Me and you. That’s it.” He shifted the cheap Garfield eraser to the center of his diagram, and John realized that was supposed to be…well, John. “Two cameras, stripped down audio setup...”

When John had rushed into the SNC building up in Midtown earlier this evening, he was not expecting an actual business meeting. He also had not expected Tyler Hughes to be funny, so what did he know? John was halfway done with his sketch of Jules, which was maybe a few inches tall and just as wide. He uncapped the blue highlighter. He swept away the IS TYLER HUGHES FLIRTING WITH ME? meter, and thought of Ethan’s advice. He placed down, gently, an IS TYLER HUGHES A GOOD CREATIVE PARTNER? gauge. 

The needle flickered.

“Cover Sessions, but it’s less about the portrait,” said John, “or about you or me. But it’s about craft. Talking about art. Like a studio tour and interview.”

“Exactly,” said Tyler. He snapped his fingers and sat back. “You got it.”

John shaded Jules’s hair. “Would the goal be to get a look at their formal process? Or inspirations? Origins?”

Tyler bit his thumb, thinking about it. “Yes, but we want to steer it deeper. Like the big ’why?’ All of us pursue this stuff for a reason right? So kinda, looking at the forest but stopping by neato trees. Stupid metaphor.”

“No, neato trees, that’s perfect,” John said. “Ideas for a name? Cover Sessions: On The Road? Craft Talk?” He stopped shading to squint at Tyler. Come on, he was a Bullet alum. Ideas. “Reframe?”

“The Big Picture,” said Tyler simply.

John snapped his fingers. “Nice.”

Tyler shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it. Because I’m a movie guy, you’re drawing pictures, etcetera...I think,” he paused, rotating the Garfield eraser between his thumb and forefinger, “that we kind of forget how different forms of art affect each other, you know? Like in theater especially, there are so many crafts that go into a production. So if we put you, me, and another artist in a room, we could discover something neat.” He put the eraser down in the center of the camera setup, and carefully brushed debris from the eraser’s face with his thumb. “So you want to do this? Make something cool?” 

Tyler sat back with a take-it-or-leave-it lean, but something about his smile and tilt of his brow said “hopeful.” 

Every single interaction that John had with Tyler Hughes eventually led to catastrophic results. He had not checked the number of views on their episode of Cover Sessions, but John was certain it was being dubbed in forty different languages and Audre West was selling the rights for a movie. But could he trust Tyler? Where was the guy who starred in three mindless action movies? Where was the guy who nearly got arrested for destroying property? Jules’s colleague emerged from the kitchen with Tyler’s sandwich, and John thought deeply about his answer. 

“One question before we shake on this,” said John.

Tyler nodded, and he took a very large bite out of his sandwich. Yeah, it was a little gross, but surprisingly humanizing. John smiled. Tyler looked at him with an impossible amount of food in his mouth.

“Where did you get the extra fucking raffle ticket?” John asked. “From the after party?”

Tyler froze, stopping mid-chew with a mouthful of sandwich and to stare at John. He looked adorable, startled. John’s smile widened.

“I,” said Tyler, with this mouth full. “Okay, sorry about that again.” And after he swallowed, and cleared his throat. “Can I give you a partial answer?”

“It will affect your grade, but yes,” said John.

“I ended up with that ticket, ultimately, because I…” He thought about it. “I wanted to work with you. Really.”

John’s eyes narrowed, but he couldn’t fight the grin tugging at his lips. This liar, John thought. But Tyler grinned back. 

Jules emerged from behind the counter with two lattes, and set them down. “Oh cool, are you guys working on something? Oh—” 

Jules looked down at John’s sketchbook and gasped.

“Tyler and I? We might be working on something,” corrected John. He ripped the drawing out of his sketchbook with one hand, and handed it to Jules, who clutched it to their chest. “We’ll see. It’s in development.” And to Tyler, with his other hand. “We got a deal?” ✏️

=

previous chapter < start> next chapter ("Harmless Little Doodles”)

=

John stuck out an arm and held open the elevator door for a model going up to Statement’s offices. The model smiled, brushed crinkling brown leaves out of their sparkly scarf, thanked him in a heavy northern European accent, and then they leaned against the metal wall, and kept watching a video on their phone. On it, John saw Tyler Hughes flipping through index cards, his eyes crinkling with laughter and smile igniting the small screen. Dammit, John thought. He coughed, and slowly brought his briefcase up to his face as a shield. 

This backfired. The beautiful 5'11” alien gasped.

“Oh! My goodness, are you the cover guy?” they asked in their Scandinavian accent. They had a jet black pixie cut and no eyebrows. “You are! I was hoping because you all are downstairs that I would see you! Oh my God, you are super viral. It’s so cute. The views are crazy!”

“Yeah,” agreed John, “like four million views.”

They held up their phone. “No? Six million. And twice more on TikTok.”

John gurgled.

“Selfie?” 

John waved a hand. “I’m sorry, but I can’t—”

The elevator dinged, and the door slid open to reveal several more models wearing mod dresses, electric blonde wigs, a woman tapping an iPad, and the errant blast of a flash bulb. The woman pointed up and said something in a language John couldn’t understand, and the eyebrowless model responded, and they all laughed and piled in, chattering. Then someone pointed at John and said, “Something something something Tyler Hughes?” and everyone clapped and went “Ah!” The elevator thrummed with delight. John smiled weakly, shoulders scrunched, elbow to elbow with the modeling troupe under the bright lights of the elevator.

“We all want a picture with you,” said their eyebrowless representative. “Maybe on your floor, we can all get out?” 

With the ding of the elevator and the sound of five European models thanking him still ringing in his ears, John speedwalked through the bullpen. The familiar clatter of keyboards and journalistic conversation dipped into whispers with each desk he crossed, and no fewer than five laptop screens had open “YouTube.com - The New York Review: Cover Sessions | Tyler Hughes”. John walked faster. But he was halfway to his drafting table when he stopped…and backtracked. The poetry editor who had wanted nothing to do with Cover Sessions when she found out Jean Doring had cancelled? Well, she was watching a reaction video. 

“Really?” John asked her accusingly.

She shrugged. John rolled his eyes.

He marched. It would only be a matter of time before this would all blow over. He would stop getting frantic pings from various group chats. He would stop getting sent clips of himself blushing in 4K. He would stop getting turned into memes. The Internet had a blessedly short attention span, and in a week, John would go back to being a friendly neighborhood cartoonist with a dedicated Garfield hobby—and not the other half of the Internet’s new favorite ship.

Or he’d go insane. Whichever came first.

“John?” Hunter pushed away from her desk. “Oh my God. It’s Monday. I thought you stopped existing on Mondays. Why are you here on a Monday? And nice suit.”

“Thank you,” said John. He had chosen a simple charcoal suit and a black tie because perhaps he was in mourning. John tossed his briefcase onto the expensive Danish sofa near his drafting table, and ran a hand over his jaw. 

“You know the thing about living in New York is that you don’t matter. No, no, which is good!” said John, when Hunter frowned in confusion. “It is freeing. Everyone has their own lives, and everyone is doing their own thing, and everyone cares about their fellow man, but no one cares about you specifically—that’s the beauty of it. That’s the balance. That’s humanity. The biggest thing in your life can happen to you, but it’s still small, because life is happening everywhere. Even if you’re, say, having a complete mental breakdown from going viral twice in one week? No one on the train cares. You’re worrying about getting immortalized as a meme, but it does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Not in the grand scheme of the city. People are falling in love and dying and being born, Hunter. Life goes on. That’s the grand scheme of New York.” John nodded deeply. “Fifteen minutes of fame. This too shall pass. Memento mori. Etcetera, etcetera. Am I making any sense?” 

“No,” said Hunter.

“I was attacked by models on the elevator.” He collapsed on the sofa. 

“Perfect! Since you’re here,” Hunter practically sang, “you can give me a quote on going insanely viral twice. I can shoot it over to Janice and she can include you in the Chronically Online newsletter—again. And— pure objective journalism.” She began typing into her phone, casually. “You didn’t hang out with Tyler this weekend, did you?” 

John’s head slowly turned. “You’re asking if I hung out with Tyler Hughes.”

“Yes,” said Hunter.

“The A-list action blockbuster star.”

“Yes.”

“Most famous man ever who is currently ruining my life?”asked John. “That Tyler Hughes? You’re asking if we went and got boba on Sunday and I just forgot to tell you?” 

“Okay, smart ass, I’m doing my job. You are now tangentially part of pop culture,” said Hunter, “I’m a pop culture journalist.”

“Friend,” said John. “No. I didn’t hang out with Tyler Hughes. I spent most of Sunday with a New York Review baseball cap pulled down over my eyes and waiting in line at the Trader Joe’s in Soho. I haven’t heard a thing from Tyler Hughes or his ilk.”

“He hasn’t DM’d you?” asked Hunter. “Asked his reps to reach out? Sent you a gift basket? You’ve given that man the best pivot press since he announced that he was doing Broadway and he honestly hasn’t said a peep to you? That’s…huh.” She put down her phone and picked up her laptop. “Yes, he’s literally the sexiest man alive, and yes, he's busy, but he should reach out. And maybe even hangout. You watched the Cover Sessions episode, right? You guys have so much—”

She puckered her lips and hummed.

John frowned. “Have what?” 

She tapped a bit on her keyboard and raised a shoulder. “You know.”

“Know what?” 

“John.” She sighed, and scooted closer to him, until she was inches away from his face. Then she shrugged again, like the word choice had nothing to do with her, whispering. “...Chemistry.”

John frowned.

“Calculus,” John whispered back, “physics. AP Spanish. Are we naming classes that I hated in high school? Okay—here's one—art. Which surprises people. But, sophomore year of high school, Sawyer Davis threw my final project off a bridge and I failed. And it was a beautiful still life.”

“Boo-hoo, I have effervescent chemistry with a hot Australian actor,” said Hunter, sitting back in her chair. “Chemistry is chemistry. Flirting is a healthy part of our psychological diet. You guys were straight-up giggling.”

John blew out his cheeks and glanced at the stool where the subjects of Cover Sessions usually sat and at his drafting table. He had yet to sit down there. He was worried it would activate something in him, the memory of sitting across from Tyler a few days ago. He had not watched the newest episode of Cover Sessions in its entirety. If there were video proof of John giggling, getting swept up in effervescent chemistry, naively opening up to and falling for a guy who couldn't possibly want to date him, John wanted no part in it. He thought about Tyler nodding along to his Heathcliff rant and John's stomach did a flip.

“He isn’t the sexiest man alive,” he said stubbornly.

Hunter spun around and pulled an issue of People out from a stack of magazines on her desk. Tyler Hughes posed on the cover, boyish and grinning, with rippling abs and in a dripping wetsuit, clutching a surfboard. John winced, throwing up his hand to block the image. Jesus Christ, it was like staring into the sun.

Hunter tossed the magazine back on her desk, and set her laptop on top of it. “So you're just here on a Monday, and it has nothing to do with the most successful episode of Cover Sessions to date?” 

“Geoffrey Brenner told me to come in.” John lowered his voice. “I’m assuming that he either wants to fire me, or do a formal critique of all of my covers to unlock my ‘potential’…”

Then John saw it. Open on Hunter’s screen was a YouTube video, paused, that said “PRETENTIOUS NEW YORK ILLUSTRATOR DESTROYED BY ALPHA ACTION STAR!” The thumbnail had flames, an image of Tyler Hughes as Jacob Raw, and a big red X over the worst picture of John in the world. But next to that, also open in an image processor, was a different image of Tyler Hughes, some text, an emoji of a painter’s palette, clipart of Garfield, and a headshot of John from college surrounded by marching ants. The text cursor blinked. John pointed at the screen. 

“Wait a minute. Hunter, are you making a meme?”

Hunter froze, her eyes widened. “What?” she asked innocently.

“On your laptop screen. You're making a meme of me.”

“Oh…”

She looked back at her laptop and then back at John.

He looked at her and then back at her laptop.

The wheels of Hunter’s office chair clattered over the wood floors. John’s dress shoes clamored over the sofa’s Danish leather. They both lunged for her laptop, and Hunter got there first by a hair. John went “gwuph” as he hit the ground. The legal assistant at the nearest desk stared at them. 

Hunter held the open computer above her head and scooted away on the chair, heels click-clacking on the hardwood floor, and yelped. “John—Chill out! It’s for my sister’s bachelorette party’s group chat. They’re obsessed with Tyler Hughes!”

“What happened to pure objective journalism, huh?!” hissed John, as he scrambled up from his knees and reached over Hunter’s back. “Et tu, Hunter?” He scratched a spacebar. “Et tu?!”

“What happened to ‘the grand scheme of New York City?’” Hunter hissed right back, and elbowed John hard in the arm. 

“Ow,” he said, grimacing. “I’m from Boston!”

“Calm down—”

“—stop editing—”

“—Ahem.”

Hunter swiveled around in her chair, and leapt out of it at full attention. John turned—then stood up straight and smoothed out his tie.

Geoffrey Brenner stood in the bullpen of The New York Review, locs gathered in a loose ponytail. He matched the sleek Danish furniture and open concept of the updated Review bullpen: He wore a black turtleneck, black slacks, and black tassel loafers that could only be Italian leather. John peeked behind him; not a computer screen in sight showed Tyler Hughes’ face anymore. Brenner’s eyes drifted between Hunter and John, hands clasped behind his back, eyebrow arched like a caret. 

“Oh hey, Geoffrey. Um.” John nodded. “How about that Mets game last night?” 

Brenner frowned. “The Mets aren’t in the playoffs, Rich—the Yankees are.”

Goddammit, this guy was good.

Brenner ignored John and instead stepped closer, looking Hunter up and down. John could hear Hunter stop breathing. “A staff member of The Review and a friend of John Rich’s, I presume.”

Hunter cleared her throat, and her voice came out higher than usual. “Hunter Henderson! You’ve actually read my writing, back at NYU. When you were a guest professor for a junior journalism seminar?” 

“Ah,” said Geoffrey, and his eyes narrowed. “Ah, that’s right. A treatise on the narrative complexities of unscripted television series—Summer House—I believe it was.” Geoffrey threw John one last glance. Then… Geoffrey extended his hand and smiled pleasantly. “Hunter Henderson, yes. I haven’t seen your name in the bylines of the magazine.”

“No, I—” Hunter pumped Geoffrey’s hand, utterly confused. “I do online columns and newsletters.” And then added, when Geoffrey let go. “Clyde gave me the Chronically Online newsletter. One hundred thousand subscribers.”

“Makes sense. A well-loved branch of our online publication,” said Brenner, “deft, intersectional commentary. I am remiss. I should have recognized your work sooner. I do expect you to pitch a feature for print before the end of the year, of course.”

“Of course,” she said. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

Brenner had the slightest self-satisfied grin on his face, and he turned on his heel to stride through the bullpen. “Rich, I have news for you; something has come up. And quite suddenly. My office, please.”

John grabbed his briefcase, also confused. What was that? Was Geoffrey Brenner being nice to Hunter—just to spite John? No, of course not. Hunter was immensely talented—that’s why she worked at The Review. Even Geoffrey could see that. But still. Had he suddenly become enlightened to the value of pop culture in the last few years? And if he could see the merit of Hunter’s writing, why was John’s art mud to him? Hunter gave John a sad salute, and mouthed “goodbye.” He couldn’t believe it; he’d just spent his last minutes on The Review fighting with his best friend over a stupid meme. John pressed his lips into a thin line and saluted back. 

John jogged after Brenner as they made their way to the small corner office on the south side of the RCA building, the office of the editor-in-chief of The Review. John’s hands felt hot and moist around the handle of his briefcase. Forget John’s potential—the viral Cover Sessions moment probably had Brenner furious. Sitting in his office was no doubt the other, new cover artist with a stack of canvases, and someone from Audre West Legal to explain that John was being terminated immediately.

But when John walked in, he found an office with floor to ceiling windows, where you could see a sliver of Brooklyn and parts of the Woolworth building. It was filled with Brenner’s library, pieces of African and South American art, an enormous fiddle leaf plant, and Clyde Fotheringay, the former editor-in-chief of The New York Review.

Clyde Fotheringay was the exact intersection of an Oxford University professor and a giraffe. He was very British, very tall, moved in slow motion, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz in the early 20th century. His glasses always seemed a centimeter from sliding off of his nose and had a mop of greying brown hair. As Brenner took the chair behind Clyde’s old desk, Clyde leaned toward the conference phone.

“Dawn, hold on a moment? Yes, he’s arrived,” said Clyde, hitting the mute button. “John, there you are. Come take a seat while Geoffrey and I have you for a moment.”

“Clyde?” asked John. He looked behind the fiddle leaf plant for any errant cover artists. “What are you still doing here? Not like I want you out of here, but I thought you were gone with the last issue.”

“You are correct, John,” said Clyde, “Which is why I have some news—two bits in fact. Congratulations on the latest Cover Sessions taking off, by the way. Even my kids are sending me the memes.” He took a long pause. “Three bits of news, actually—before I forget.”

Clyde unfolded himself from his seat, opened a file box of ancient-looking Review issues, and slowly produced a large crinkly pile of tissue paper. He handed it to John. 

Brenner watched closely as John unwrapped the tissue paper to reveal a small, misshapen, orange, white and yellow bowl. The face in the center of the bowl had irregular hooded eyes and cat ears were drawn onto the sides. It smiled at him, lumpy, and John couldn’t help but smile back. It was the strangest drawing of Garfield he had ever seen, and an extremely ugly bowl.

“Oh,” said Brenner.

“Oh, indeed,” said Clyde sitting down. “That was crafted by my youngest, Kelayla. She still remembers you drawing a cartoon for her this summer, in the office. A bit of a going away present from me to you.”

“This is incredible,” said John. He cradled it carefully in his hands. “Thank you.”

“The next bit of news involves Dawn, who can explain.” He hit unmute. “Dawn are you there?” 

“Of course, Clyde, thank you so much. And so pleasant to meet you, John! It’s Dawn Newsome, head producer of Stage Hands Productions, calling in from L.A.,” said Dawn in a distinctly Australian accent.

John’s head snapped up from admiring the tchotchke.

Australian accents were not uncommon, but of late, were also somewhat triggering.

“Hi,” said John, “nice to meet you too.”

“A bit of a short notice, but we would need to move quickly, considering scheduling,” she continued. “Tyler has an opening over the next three months before shooting starts on an upcoming project. We’re all so excited! Even before the clip of Cover Sessions went viral, Tyler had been looking for collaborators to bounce off of, and you two have—”

“— great chemistry,” John finished, mumbling, numb.

“Exactly,” said Dawn, laughing from two thousand miles away. “Oh my goodness, you are a wit. So Stage Hand is looking for unscripted digital-first content, and Tyler wants a focus on art, creativity, in a semi-documentary, semi-journalistic—”

John heard their words, but did not process them. He deciphered some Hollywood-babble like “media landscape“ and “short-form video.” Tyler Hughes had a production company? And apparently everyone said company knew about John? When did this happen? Clyde nodded, his drone blending into her chirps while Brenner sighed out questions and clarifications. Then, John heard himself saying “yes,” “of course,” and “it was a pleasure speaking to you.” Then Clyde hung up. 

“And as Dawn mentioned, Audre West Entertainment is new,” said Clyde, standing at the window of his former office and looking out east, “and as the new managing director I think this would be a lovely project for our launch slate. But, of course that means that Stage Hand and I would potentially be poaching your cover artist, Geoffrey.”

“I have a feeling Geoffrey wouldn’t mind,” said John.

Brenner was unperturbed. “Yes, Clyde, I’ve accounted for as much. I believe John’s unique talents are well placed in video content. While we reconfigure Cover Sessions, this is a perfect project to keep John…” He searched for the right word. “Occupied.”

“Stage Hand was very clear about working with you,” said Clyde, patting John on the shoulder. “Evidently, Tyler has been a very big fan for some time. But with how we’re running Audre West, this sort of collaboration is ultimately up to you.”

John lingered on the phrase, very big fan. Everyone on Earth seemed aware of this fact but John.

Clyde stalked out the door of his—Brenner’s—office, and turned around with a hand on the door frame. “Do consider it, John, will you? Could we get word by next Monday?” 

John nodded, and Clyde left, his giraffe legs carrying him up to the 39th floor.

Which left John and Brenner.

John blinked. Outside the window, thick black storm clouds raced over lower Manhattan, and the temperature in the office plummeted. A strange breeze seemed to trickle in from nowhere, rustling the leaves of the fiddle leaf plant...

“Well, Brenner,” said John, as the new editor-in-chief stood and regarded the skyline, “When you lured me into your office, I thought another cover artist would be sitting here waiting to replace me.”

Brenner chuckled, watching the sky darken. “When I move my pieces, Rich, it is with a far lighter touch. Rain should come in from the south this afternoon, I believe. May I see your bowl?” 

John froze, and swallowed. He reached down and slowly handed Geoffrey Brenner the Garfield bowl.

Brenner took the bowl in long fingers, and pressed his palm along the bottom, flipping it over, tracing the uneven bumps and ridges made by a child's hands. “Fascinating, isn't it? This bustling city that is New York. Each of us attempting to stake our claim, to have our way.” The ambient wind picked up his locs. Thunder rumbled. “All while rising and fading within the anonymity of the city itself. Such is the grand scheme.”

Brenner hurled the bowl to the ground. John jumped in the arm chair; brown and orange shards exploded on the hardwood floor, and lightning split the sky on cue.

“And that, Mr. Rich, is you if you get in my way. I expect you to take on this project with the Australian. I expect you to create minutes and minutes of viral content. And when you reach unprecedented fame in the realms of new media, it is my greatest hope that your drawings never grace the pages of my magazine ever again.” He braced his hands on either side of John's armchair and leaned in close, eyebrow arched. “Also. I got my email address.” 

John gasped. 

“That's right,” said Brenner. “[email protected].”

“Oh.” John's eyes narrowed. “God, that's chic.”

“Mr. Rich?”

John snapped back to reality. The day outside was still perfectly clear and the Garfield bowl was perfectly whole in his lap, lazily staring up at him. The chatter of office keyboards and phone ringing filtered in from outside. Brenner had said John's name twice now, and Clyde was still standing there, waiting for an answer. 

“Monday,” blurted out John, scrambling up to join Clyde at the office door, and clutching the Garfield bowl to his chest. “Monday, yes, got it. And what's chic is what you've done with your office. Honduran?” 

John pointed to a small statue on Brenner’s desk.

“It is,” said Brenner, confused.

John made an okay symbol with his thumb and forefinger, and backed into Clyde—apologized—and out of the room.

Later that evening, back at his apartment, John shoved the tottering stack of Reviews out of the way, and placed the Garfield bowl down. It was now filled with Halloween candy that he had swiped from The Review's kitchen. He placed his laptop on his desk, put his earbuds in his ears, and pressed play on “The New York Review: Cover Sessions | Tyler Hughes.” 

Then he set his jaw and crossed his arms.

He was greeted by the John in the video, dribbling coffee down his chin. The real John inhaled, arms still crossed, digging his fingernails into his bicep—but he kept watching. Tyler Hughes pulled John into a hug, said something in his ear that the mic didn’t pick up, and video John retreated to his drafting table where he got his wits about him. As he watched himself, John bit his lip. Okay, yes, you couldn’t ignore that Tyler Hughes was downright bubbly—he seemed ecstatic to be there. And John Rich, portrait artist, kept ducking his head and beaming at every single one of Tyler’s jokes. The conversation volleyed back and forth and no one dropped the ball, and every twenty seconds—thanks to Danielle’s ingenious editing—there was a clip of John, grinning, looking up from his drafting table and deep into Tyler Hughes’s eyes, followed by Tyler staring back with all of the warmth and tenderness of an autumn hearth.

John’s hand darted to the trackpad on his laptop, and he pushed the cursor to the “x” of the tab. Intern Jenny was training the camera on the failed drawing, right before John swiped it off the ancient drafting table. But John clenched a fist and pulled away. Just let the moment play out. And it did. The ending bit with the stick figure drawing wasn’t as bad as John had thought it would be. This was probably because the camera was focused on Tyler, who held the sticky note up before going over to video John, and squeezing his shoulder. In his apartment, John looked up to the corner of his drafting table. There was Tyler’s drawing, which had been viewed by several million people and counting. John let himself chuckle.

And then the video was done. John leaned back in his chair, and groaned into his hands. Could he even survive seeing this man again, let alone working with him? He’d been getting texts from his group chat with Hunter and Yohel the entire evening. Despite Geoffrey’s apparent olive branch to her, Hunter was convinced that this was a ploy to muscle John out of his position as cover artist. Yohel contended that John had no other choice—work with Tyler and have a job at Audre West.

John peeled the sticky note off the drafting table. The wobbly black pen line on the right ear traced over itself to make both ears the same size. The tiny freckles formed a thin rainbow. The left arm had a small stroke going through it, and John realized suddenly that the stick figure was holding a pencil. John smiled, thumb smoothing out the curled edge of the paper.

John set the drawing down, and sighed. Then he did something he had not done since last Saturday— he logged into Instagram.

As he predicted, his notifications and inbox were a disaster, but he gave them a cursory glance—a few friends from high school, a message from his aunt, a ton of notifications from The Samwell Bulletin who proudly tagged John in a clipped version of Tyler Hughes’s Cover Sessions that they uploaded themselves. “Former editor-in-chief John Rich casually…making Tyler Hughes fall in love with him? Are Bulleters just super hot? #thesamwellbulletin #tylerhughes #johnmrich #InviteUsToTheWedding.”

And that’s when John saw, scrolling through a dozen unread direct messages:

@tylerrhughes.“Hey John! Not sure how to say it…” - 7d

John froze.

Where had Tyler Hughes been seven days ago? In a sprinter heading back to his hotel? Sitting down on crisp white sheets, shirt unbuttoned, pulling up his phone to open Instagram and searching John's name? Then, had he awoken the next morning to his follower count ticking up by another million, but with no response from John Marshall Rich? Maybe this explained the firmness of the handshake, the slap on the back when they'd reunited at Cover Sessions. Oh no. That's for not responding to my messages, Rich. Nice, power play.

But there was no power play. John, simply, had undiagnosed ADHD and was not online. He clicked and exhaled.

 Dear God. 

There were a host of messages from Tyler, all unread.

@tylerrhughes: Hey John! Not sure how to say it, so I’ll just say it. really sorry about the fountain thing! Had no idea that would happen and would be happy to make right since you lost a piece out of the whole thing?

And then, from last Tuesday.

@tylerrhughes: Sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to say thanks for the portrait! Not sure if you’ve seen my last message, that still stands. And it seems like I tripped you up there. I just get really excited about the show, haha.

And then, finally, from Sunday afternoon.

@tylerrhughes: Okay, this is definitely an anxiety thing and I should talk to my therapist and you haven’t responded to any of these, but just wanted to say, wow! Viral twice in one week!  @tylerrhughes: Crzy! @tylerrhughes: Crazy!

John stared at all of these messages. Tyler Hughes had not just been thinking about him, he had also been worried about what John thought about him. This news made John a bit ill. He grabbed a Twix from the Garfield bowl and inhaled it. It was dawning on John, slowly and with terrifying meaning, that he did not know who Tyler Hughes was. Tyler Hughes, the brick wall of good looks and charming smiles, was a paper bag labeled typical movie actor, but inside the bag was something else entirely, and John would have to turn the entire thing over on the kitchen counter to find out.

John’s finger hovered over his keyboard and he licked his lips and typed out the following message, sent from @jonrich619:

me: Hi, Tyler.

John frowned at the period, and deleted it. Then he left the opening without a period, going for a “Hi Tyler,” and deleted that too. He tried a “Dear Tyler,” and deleted that because what was he writing here? A direct message to someone or a letter to his dying husband during World War II? What he really wanted to write was “who are you, and what did you do with the jock I thought you were? Tell me now!”

me: Hi, Tyler! me: Hey, it’s no problem, stuff happens. And sometimes the stuff that happens is going insanely viral twice in the course of a week. me: And no problem. You were fine—I’m supposed to be able to draw people. And I can usually do the thing they pay me for, lol.

“No problem” twice. A “lol.” John picked up a Cadbury egg from the Garf bowl, and a hooded, pink, cartoon eye looked at him, accusingly. Okay, yes, he was trying to be aloof. Because John Rich was supposed to be cool and distant and assertive. He was a guy who wore tailored suits and parted his hair and had a briefcase. John got up to get more candy. He was also just a guy in Garfield pajamas with a shelf full of Garfield figurines. He was about to text the group chat with Hunter and Yohel, when the direct message interface shifted up. John stopped mid rip on a pack of Nerds Clusters and saw the tiny grey text.

Seen.

John sat up, staring down at waving ellipses as Tyler Hughes formulated a response. Seen?

And then, crisp digital text popped up.

@tylerrhughes: Hey!

John updated the visual in his mind. Where could Tyler be now? It was 11:03 p.m. and drizzling. Was he walking around somewhere, getting back from a late night workout in a private gym in Park Slope? Or maybe he was at a classy bar in Greenwich. Maybe he was in a five star hotel in Chelsea or a rented loft in Tribeca. Wherever he was, he was ignoring whatever he was doing or whomever he was with to text John. A simple hey. An enthusiastic, quick, hey. The ellipses kept dancing.

@tylerrhughes: I was wondering if my DMs hit a dead end, haha. @tylerrhughes: So glad to hear you weren’t tripped up. @tylerrhughes: And yeah, you probably got the note from your magazine but would love to collab on something. @tylerrhughes: I’ve been wanting to pick your brain since I started watching Cover Sessions, and it was great working with you!  @tylerrhughes: Always down to talk more about that, if you’re free.

Clyde wanted an answer by the end of the week. John kept typing, forcing a nonchalant tone into the message box.

me: Yeah, I’d be down to talk more, whenever you’re free. me: Though I guess sooner is better than later. me: Have to give word to Audre West on Monday. @tylerrhughes: Awesome! @tylerrhughes: Thanks for wanting to meet up even though ever time you’ve come 10 feet near me I’ve dragged you into some social media death spiral me: Yes, I am terrified of you @tylerrhughes: 😂  @tylerrhughes: haha @tylerrhughes: Well it’s awkward, but I’m going to be busy for the next few days and I've got a flight on Saturday morning.  @tylerrhughes: This is very weird but would you want to meet up late Friday?  @tylerrhughes: Like, very late. Basically on Saturday. I swear these aren’t my usual hours. me: Yeah, sure. Sounds good. @tylerrhughes: I’m hosting New York City Live that evening, if you want you could come to that and then we could meet up after? My publicist can get you the info.

John's lips parted. He stared. Oh, okay, City Live. Very casual.

me: Sure thing.

John let the period sit like a stamp, and hit send, sweating. He did not wait for a response. He closed his laptop and bit into a dreaded dark chocolate Almond Joy. ✏️

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previous chapter < start> next chapter (“New York City Live - I”)

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✏️ Author's Note We can all be sure that Tyler Hughes punched the air, went "YESSS!" and threw another fifty pounds on that barbell when he got the DM from John. Also, fun Big Picture lore, when I first posted this to ao3, people were VERY UPSET about the Garfield bowl getting "destroyed." I had to revise that part to make it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that Jeff Brenner was not out here smashing John's bespoke ceramic Garfield dishware. lmao.