When the song ends, Josh excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Anika takes Greg’s hand and snakes back to Stryker’s booth. On the way, Anika pushes up onto her tiptoes and whisper-shouts, “Happy homecoming, Greg! I’ve missed you!”
“I’ve missed you, too!” he whisper-shouts back.
“Please tell me you’ve returned for good! Life has been a snooze since you left.” Her posh British accent is extra pronounced on the wordsnooze. Anika was born in the UK, moved to the States for college, and then never left. Greg met her at a photo shoot he was doing for some online magazine. She was there styling influencers for the corresponding pictures. Greg found her instantly likable and glamorous. She’s the one who introduced him to Stryker.
“I’m not sure yet,” Greg says, legs wobbly, voice wobblier. “I’m considering a job offer here, but...” He trails off. It’s not like Anika has kept in contact over the last six months. Aside from the occasional TikTok or IG comment, she’s mostly been MIA from his inbox.
“Take it,” she says almost too quickly. “Come back to civilization. Come back to your friends.” Anika’s top talent is persuasion. She convinced him to wear a tiny tank top and a silky, patterned kerchief in that first photo shoot. Nothing about Greg said silky patterned kerchief, but she maintained that it would pull together the simplistic yet classic look, and when Greg saw the final proofs, he had to admit that she’d been right. Is she right again now?
“I just moved away,” he says. She leans in closer to him, clearly having a hard time hearing him over the music. “I don’t know if I should come back so quickly. I’d have to find a new place overnight. You know how the rental market is out here.”
“Oh, right. You’re a renter,” she says. It’s snarky, but it’s not meant to be mean. Greg knows her well enough to realize that, even if he wishes he were lucky enough to have inherited wealth and a grandparent who left him real estate in their will. “I’m sure Josh and I can help you find something quick. Anything is better than living in your cousin’s guest room, right?”
Greg isn’t so sure he can answer in the affirmative. He really likes Rufus. He likes having a roommate. He likes when Jessica comes over with free food and they talk for hours. He even enjoys learning about video games and DJ equipment and fun facts about the blood-brain barrier.
Quickly, Greg recalls the downside of New York City’s anonymity: the loneliness. There was always a coldness to living alone in his one bedroom, they-all-look-alike-in-the-building apartment. While his room in Rufus’s house is small, the paint is chipping, and the floors are creaky, the place never feels empty.
Though maybe that’s because Julien is often there, filling up his bedroom with stories and passion and the smell of sex. If he returns and Julien ends their arrangement, aces his advanced sommelier exam, and leaves for greener pastures in a year, that loneliness is only going to befriend Greg again in a new place.
Fuck. What if he’s not meant to have a home in any physical sense? Maybe he’ll be a transient, and if that’s the case, it won’t matter if he packs up his life once again. It’ll be good practice.
“I guess that’s true,” Greg finally concedes to Anika. Moving back to a bustling epicenter will undoubtedly reintroduce him to a faster pace. Perhaps he needs that.
“Of course, it’s true.” Anika’s eyes wander over to Stryker. “It’s not just me. He missed you, too.”
“He could’ve called and said so.”
“Stryker doesn’t even call his parents.”
“Hell, he could’vetextedand said so.”
Anika gives Greg the most disapproving look ever. “Stryker is a knob when it comes to his emotions. You were with him for months. You know this about him. If he’s a dick, it’s because he’s hurting, and when you left, he was on dick mode three thousand. Basically impossible to be around.”
“You’re not painting a great picture here,” Greg says as she tugs them toward a quieter corner of the club. He feels Stryker’s eyes on the back of his head.
“I lived through it. I’m painting an accurate picture.” Anika shakes her head. “I’ve known Stryker since he was a freshman in college. I’ve never seen him that broken up. Honestly, since you’ve been gone, he’s been...different?”
“Different, how?” Greg asks, even though he’s suspecting he saw some of these differences earlier today at the café.
“Like he went slowly from dick mode three thousand to kind mode one hundred.” Anika stops him before he can comment. “I know one hundred is not great, but for him? That’s trying.”
Opposites-attract is a true feature of Greg’s universe. There’s no other way to explain his immediate attraction to Julien—the hard edge, the challenge of it all. The difference, though, is that underneath Julien’s grumpiness is a soft man who hardened against the world. Could he say the same for Stryker?
There’s a possibility that the time Greg spent away from New York, the time he used to woo Julien and establish a thriving happy hour, was needed for him to return and draw back Stryker’s shiny, previously impenetrable armor. Wouldn’t that be nice? That the bordering-on-devastation he feels right now over being textless could be part of a larger growth arc he needs to find happiness with someone else. Someone he already knew.
“You’re right,” Greg says.
“Of course I’m right. Now let’s get back.” Anika has him by the hand again.
“Nobody dances like you, Greg Harlow.” Stryker runs his tongue across the front of his perfect white teeth when they return.
Greg’s eyes flick down to Stryker’s full mouth. Stryker always reminded him of an actor in a luxury car commercial. Someone both rehearsed and handsome beyond compare. He’s got slightly wavy hair that’s always tamed, wide eyes that somehow never betray him, and a dimple in his left cheek that Greg used to enjoy running his finger along when they kissed.
Even drunk, Greg knows he shouldn’t be thinking about what kissing Stryker was like. But his mind is already an unwilling passenger on a rocket to outer space.
In the beginning, kissing Stryker was like lighting a match and allowing it to burn until it touched your fingertips. Dangerous. Exciting. Toward the middle of their relationship, kissing Stryker was like throwing that match into a pile of kindling and sitting beside it on a cold winter’s night. By the end, kissing Stryker was like being the match itself. Greg had to set himself on fire just to get Stryker’s attention.
Greg was lucky he hadn’t turned to ash before the relationship ended. Out of that luck was born resilience. Resilience that allowed him to move across state lines, accept a post at a place he’d never heard of, and rebuild his finances and his confidence.
