Two

GREG

Greg Harlow lugs the last of his brown boxes up the steep flight of steps and sets them down with a huff. He's sweaty, his gray shirt stained both front and back. After he unpacks, he needs to take his first shower at his new place, otherwise he'll be stinking up his new room on day one—and it's already smelly enough thanks to the previous tenant, a pizza delivery guy who didn't bother to clean before he skipped town and left behind a few old, ripped work polos to rot in the closet.

Every room, even the bathroom, has the ghost of garlic floating on the air.

He finds lavender air freshener in a disorganized box and tries his best to spray the scent away.

Greg didn't expect to be moving into a tiny room in a house with a roommate at twenty-seven. When he was a teenager, imagining a life beyond Ohio, he often thought he'd be living in a luxurious city in one of those high-rise buildings with a doorman and a business suite and a gym. What he wouldn't give for a free gym right now.

And he had that. For a while. The financial security and the luxury, all thanks to ninety-second shirtless cocktail-making videos he started posting for fun on TikTok and ended up turning a profit on. But fifteen minutes of fame came and went, and while he still has a solid following, the endorsements and the invites and the checks have dried up relatively quickly.

Burning bright and fast was never in Greg Harlow's imaginings of his future.

Yet, here he is, twenty-seven and two months, moving into his cousin's guest room in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and taking a job at a (presumably) failing bar and restaurant.

He is lucky to have a cousin, Rufus, a couple years younger than him who is willing to rent him the spare room in his grandmother's old home on the cheap. He was also fortunate to get a message from Martin Shaw about the open bartender position. Frankly, there are times when he buzzes with excitement over the idea of having his own cocktail menu at an established restaurant. None of his friends could say the same.

Not that he has many friends. Not anymore. New York City runs on the rich. The prettier you are and the fatter your wallet, the more social you get to be. The rub is that the more social you get to be, the more money you have to spend. And the more money you have to spend, the more money you have to make. Which wouldn't have been a problem if the algorithm didn't hate him suddenly, and his engagement wasn't going down to the point that he was handing over potentially meaningless pieces of plastic for bottle service while crossing his fingers and toes that his card doesn't get declined.

The memories of his old life and his carelessness whip up an anxiety twister inside him, picking up traces of guilt and loneliness along the way, until they're spiraling together so fast that he starts sweating even more. He sits down from sudden dizziness.

He swipes his forehead with a paper towel from a roll near the closet, focuses on the breath in his lungs and the feel of his feet on the ground, and inspects the room. To combat the anxiety, he makes a mental list of what he sees. One window, small and facing the neighboring house. Just enough floor space for a full-size bed and a dresser. A corner where he can hang up his backdrop, roll over his roving kitchen cart, and set up his expensive studio lights.

At least there's that. He still gets to make videos, share his creations, and engage with the fans who have stuck around, liking and commenting.

It could be worse.

It could always be worse.

"Hey, cuz, need any help in here?" Rufus says, bounding into the room with all the energy of a golden retriever.

Rufus has a shaggy blond mane, boyish cheeks, and round eyes. When they were younger, during family barbecues, Rufus would follow the older cousins around asking a million questions and always trying to start up a game of soccer or Wiffle ball or capture the flag. Greg, the nearest in age, would usually leave the older kids who were drinking and shit-talking to play HORSE with Rufus at the basketball hoop in the driveway. He knew a thing or two about being an outsider, and he wouldn't wish those feelings on anyone.

"Jeez, dude, did you go stand in the shower?" Rufus asks. A droplet of sweat drips down Greg's nose.

"There was no AC in the moving truck, and it's hot as balls in here," Greg says, reaching for another paper towel. His mind has slowed, but his sweat glands haven't, leaving him uncomfortably damp. "What happened to the AC unit from the pictures you sent me?" It's unseasonably warm for mid-September. He was hoping the Lehigh Valley with its plentiful green spaces and lower population would mean cooler, crisper weather, but that's not what welcomed him.

Rufus steps over to the window. "Yeah, about that... My last roomie kind of jacked it. Took off in the middle of the night with the unit. Ripped it clear out of the window. Honestly, I don't know how I didn't hear it. Slept through it like a baby."

Greg tamps down any anger firing through his neurons. He takes a meditative breath. It's all going to work out. "Got it. Well, either I'll get into hot yoga or invest in a unit myself." He forces a smile, as he always does, when faced with a setback.

"I can float you some cash if you need it," Rufus offers, leaning into the window frame.

Greg resolutely shakes his head, masking with a sunshiny demeanor. If he projects it on the outside, maybe he'll feel it on the inside. "I won't hear of it. You're already doing me a solid with this place and the price."

Rufus nods with understanding, but Greg grows antsy. Wonders if his younger cousin knows he's holding back. Maybe Rufus, after growing up together, can read Greg's situation all over his sweat-sheened face.

Greg isn't withholding. He just doesn't want to be that guy. The anxious charity case. If he's not mistaken, Rufus has always considered him to be like an older brother. He doesn't want to shatter the illusion that he has his life together. He doesn't want the truth of his debt and his mental health to trickle out to other members of his family. Especially the ones he rarely speaks to these days.

The sunshiny mask slips, but only for a second. Luckily, Rufus doesn't catch it.

It's all fine. All smiles. Greg puts on a soft rock playlist, hands Rufus his extra box cutter, and starts unloading his belongings. They work for the next hour, chatting and reminiscing and deciding where to hang his pictures. Over the bed or by the door?

The last thing they do is set up "the studio." In New York, Greg didn't need to stage his content. When he did photo shoots for IG or videos for TikTok, he did them right out of his own state-of-the-art kitchen. Of course that meant keeping the kitchen impeccably clean, but he didn't mind. While cleaning wasn't his favorite activity, he liked showing off his beautiful apartment. Liked knowing he'd earned something, despite what others had said about him starting at a very young age.

"If you ever need, like, a director or a lighting guy, I'm around," Rufus says as they strain to lug the rolling bar cart up the stairs. The entryway is narrow and stuffy, and Greg is sweating again. He really should've changed his shirt.

"That would be awesome. I do have a tripod and stuff to do it all myself, though, so I won't need to bother you," he says, mostly because above all else, he hates being a bother. His charm has always been one of his greatest gifts, but he's never used it for favors. Instead, he prefers to use it for making friends, meeting guys.

Objectively, he's attractive. He wouldn't have amassed such a following without a symmetrical face and a worked-out body, but he's always believed his looks were a superpower, and like Spider-Man, they came with great responsibility. That meant not being a douche about it.

"I don't mind. Sometimes during the day I need a break from staring at my computer screen," Rufus says as they enter the room with some trial and error.

"So you want to stare at my phone screen instead?" Greg asks.

"Good point," Rufus says with a laugh. "I'm just saying. My last roommate kind of kept to himself. We haven't seen each other in a few years, so I'd really like to hang out and stuff." Rufus says this so earnestly that Greg wants to go back and say something to his older cousins who ragged on Rufus for being annoying.

"I'd like that," Greg says right before they situate the bar cart in the corner in front of the green drop they hung earlier. "So what are our plans for tonight then?" He doesn't start at Martin's Place until Tuesday, so he's got the whole weekend to explore Allentown and the surrounding suburbs and get to know his new home for the time being. Who knows? Maybe he'll fall in love with it and want to stay.

Rufus says, "Oh shit, sorry, cuz, I actually have plans tonight."

Greg hides his disappointment with that well-practiced smile again. It's been a decade since those family barbecue days, so he's not sure why he assumed Rufus was still the hyperactive loner he was back then. "Gotcha. No worries, man."

"I'm meeting my girlfriend to see the new Jordan Peele movie," Rufus says. "You should come! I bet Jessica would love to meet you."

He knows Rufus means the invitation genuinely, but he really doesn't want to be a third wheel on his first night at his new place. Even if being alone for hours in this strange house might ramp his anxiety back up again. "Ah, thanks, but you go and have fun. I should really finish and get situated here."

"You sure?" Rufus asks. "Maybe we can meet up for drinks or ice cream afterward?"

He has a feeling Rufus isn't going to quit until he accepts the offer. Thankfully (or not so thankfully) his phone lights up at that exact moment. The number on the screen sends a shiver down his spine, but he makes no show of that. Instead, he says, "You know what? I totally forgot a buddy of mine is in the area and suggested we grab dinner tonight. This is him right now." He waves his phone with confidence. "Can we rain check the ice cream?"

"Sure thing," Rufus says. "I'm heading out in a half hour, so I'll see you in the morning probably."

"Sounds good," says Greg. "Can you shut the door on your way out?"

When the door clicks back into place, instead of picking up, he guiltily declines the call from his credit card company and continues setting up his room.