JOHN RICH & THE BIG PICTURE ✏️
Chapter 16 - Hearts, Wrists, and Garfield Bowls for $400, Alex
THROUGH THE HAZE of half-sleep and in the darkness of the apartment, a phone vibrated. Then the dull blips of a text message—followed by another text message—cut through the silence. A gentle breath kissed the back of John’s neck along with a sigh. His bed creaked, two feet padded softly on the hardwood, and there was a shrill crack! This was the sound of ceramic shattering against the floor. John Rich shot up in bed, his spider senses tingling. He knew, like a mother knows when their child is in danger, that there was a disturbance in his Garfield collection.
Brown bangs grazed his eyebrows, and through them, he saw the salt shaker that Tyler had given him—he exhaled—was perfectly fine. Next, he saw Shawn Hendrix, shirtless, and standing over the split remains of a broken Garfield bowl. He held his heart and leaned into the mattress.
“Euggghhf,” John moaned. God, this was it, he was dying, he was having a heart attack. Had he been storing a part of his soul in this ugly bowl? Ow! “Aw, man.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry, John,” whispered Shawn, stooping down above the broken bowl, toes curled on the studio’s rough wood floor. Shawn was in dark blue boxer-briefs, and despite the mortal pain that had inexplicably beset John, he couldn’t help but follow the feather-light coils of chest hair that trailed down across dark skin and into those briefs. He couldn’t help but trace the swell of Shawn’s quadriceps, the curve of his glutes. He didn’t want to say that Los Angeles had changed Shawn, who had always been on the athletic side, but he must have been doing shots of beets and ginger or something.
The blackout curtains brushed the window frame, and a blade of light fell on the wreckage. It was January 1st and it felt like January 1st; the light piercing the dark studio was crisp, a new year’s light. At least four Garfield alarm clocks glowed 7:37 a.m. God, John needed a triple espresso. Or a casket.
Shawn lifted up a piece in one hand, and held his phone in the other. “I was just reaching for my phone…You gotta let me replace this.”
“I don’t,” began John, “I don’t think you can.”
Shawn went Phhhfeww. John didn’t know how to explain that, no, he didn’t find the Garfield bowl online. A little British girl had crafted it with her little British hands as a summer project. After that, her father brought the awful thing all the way to the RCA building without shattering it. It was one of a kind. It was the most beautiful thing John owned. It was irreplaceable.
But instead he shrugged and said, “Ahh, you know. Pft, it’s fine.”
“Really?” asked Shawn. “You sounded like your soul left your body.”
John patted the mattress next to him. Everything was fine.
Less than six hours ago, John had nearly been ensnared in a romantic vortex by world-famous movie star and flirt Tyler Hughes. He avoided this vortex by making out with Shawn until half past midnight, dragging the both of them into Sam Brother’s upstairs bathroom, parting Shawn’s lips with his tongue, letting his suit get wrinkled, and scraping his chin against Shawn’s beard until it chaffed. When they had first run into each other at that bookstore, John had traced Shawn’s shoulders with eyes; in the cramped bathroom, he ran his palms over them. He had catalogued Shawn’s outfit, his hoodie and jeans; now he grabbed at the skin underneath. He clawed under Shawn’s sweater with still-cold hands, and when they had warmed, shoved down the back of Shawn’s jeans, clutching his ass until Shawn murmured, perhaps impressed, “Okay.”
Around one in the morning, they’d taken a cab to Manhattan, and John watched Shawn perform in a packed comedy club. He was charming and electric and smart and fucking sexy for the new year’s show, smirking like a killer as the crowd shook apart with laughter. He sketched him as Shawn leaned against a mic stand and the late-show audience fell in love.
As they made their way back to John’s apartment, he did not want to think about Tyler. His mom had been right (Tyler liked him), Hunter had been right (Tyler had a track record with co-stars), and John had been wrong—he thought he could get out of a crush alive. What a fool! He had ignored the danger of having a heart that lived in daydreams and fairy tales; reality always caught up to his gooey machinations. You silly cartoon man, he said to himself, you were chasing one of your naïve crystalline happily-ever-afters—no, no. You’re safe here with Shawn. Intimacy with zero, crushing expectations.
They had barely made it past the second floor landing before John pulled Shawn in by the hips, uneven on the steps. They both stifled their laughter when Mrs. Tuk opened the door to investigate—and closed it again.
They kissed, gripping each other, and it was different from before, when they used to fumble around on Wil Diego’s couch after John graduated. Back then, John had been pining after Shawn for four years at Samwell and on The Bullet. Their hook-ups were dirty little secrets. They never talked about it. It was different now, and John wanted Shawn to know that it was different. He was different. He wasn't a pining sap, a kid. He was John Rich, cover artist for the New York fucking Review! A confident man who had his life completely under control! In the dark of John’s apartment, he had shoved Shawn back against his door, unzipped his jeans, unbuckled and dragged down his own trousers, and rolled their hips together until they were both panting and hard. When they were out of their street clothes and half-naked on John’s comforter, John offered, matter-of-factly, to fuck Shawn. “Like we did that one time, remember? It was humid, and the air conditioner wasn’t working in Wil’s apartment? I was sorta gassy? Wait, don’t remember that part. Anyway, would you be into that?”
This caused Shawn to question aloud why exactly John thought he had “pull.” Well, mister, John did. Because fifteen minutes later, Shawn Hendrix was swearing, moaning, and gripping John’s sheets, and learning that John—through the rigorous scientific trial and error of an anxious slut in his twenties —had gotten very good at pretending to know what he was doing in bed. It was enough to unravel Shawn. Most of the time, the guy was quiet, sexy, and assured, but he pleaded with John to “come on.” The only thing that felt better than how warm and soft Shawn felt around his cock, was the sound of Shawn swearing, maybe in disbelief, because John Rich actually knew what he was doing. They both fell asleep workshopping the stupid “Guy Doesn’t Go To Time Square Because His Brother Got Food Poisoning” joke. Shawn had almost got it to work on stage a few hours ago, but something wasn’t clicking.
Now, for the second time that January morning, Shawn’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the white rhombus of light glowing on John’s bookshelf.
“Sorry.”
“Your agent?” asked John, rolling over.
“Probably. I should check.” He patted John's ass, feather-light. “But don’t go anywhere.”
A minute later, Shawn was murmuring “yeah” and “okay” while a Charlie-Brown-teacher voice spoke a mile a minute on the other end. John scooted off his mattress, and stretched. A glimmer of light from the window fell on that damned Garfield salt shaker that Tyler had given him. Oh brother. Why hadn’t that thing fallen to the ground and broken in half? John scowled and yanked back the curtain, and a burst of white light from the new year filtered in…
…and with it, a burst of flaming orange on John’s shelves.
“I’ll talk to Val,” said Shawn, “I’ll call in a…”
In his underwear, Shawn turned, blinking into the daylight, eyes widening.
They darted from the orange shelves to the cartoon-cat poster—to John's 3XL Garfield T-Shirt. “Oh shit.” He shook his head and said into his phone, “No—sorry. It’s nothing. Uh. Actually. Can I call you back?”
Shawn hung up.
“Shit,” he repeated.
Usually, when John looked at the three shelves of Garf memorabilia his emotions ranged from (at best) delighted amusement at this sardonic cat to (at worst) unease toward the ever growing mass of orange stuff. Now a different emotion rose in him; it grabbed his lower intestines like an icy claw. He felt naked. Stupid. Sideswiped. He had mentioned to Shawn that he had stopped drinking, but he hadn’t mentioned to him that this had taken over his life. He threw up jazz hands.
“Um,” said John weakly, “ta-da?”
“It was dark so I couldn’t see...” Shawn moved back slowly, fearfully, like he was a paleontologist at a disastrous dinosaur theme park and the velociraptors had just found him in the kitchen. “Okay…you got a thing!”
“Yeah,” said John, “I have a collection. The bowl was part of it.”
“Oh, no, no! Don't apologize,” said Shawn, even though John had not apologized for anything. “I’ve got all of my sneakers in these plastic cases with LED lights in a closet? Collecting, I get it.” He pointed at John’s big Garfield shirt, and smiled weakly. “Sleeping gown!”
John looked down at the t-shirt, which hung off his lanky body and went down to his thighs. When had he even put this thing on? It was like he fell asleep in this cursed Garfield den and the shirt had enveloped his body like a Garfield chrysalis.
“It’s not a gown,” he complained, “it’s a T-shirt.”
“Sure, sure. It’s cool! Very cool, very Dickensian. A different style than usual for you like—Don Draper in the streets but Scrooge in the sheets.”
Then Shawn laughed—audibly.
It was a terrible sound, like a monotonous bird call. John wished he would stop. Shawn turned around.
“HOLY SHIT.” He jumped a foot in the air, took a step back, his bird-song laugh starting up again. He pointed. “Fuck, I am so sorry. Was that thing here all night?”
In the corner stood a large fiberglass Garfield sculpture. It was about the size of someone’s five-foot-tall girlfriend. John knew this, because when he picked it up from its previous owner, this owner said that the sculpture freaked out her five-foot-tall girlfriend. “She always forgets that it’s in the living room, so I gotta get rid of it.” The petite woman had eagerly helped dolly the thing into John’s apartment.
“Was that thing watching us?” asked Shawn.
“Watching us,” John shrugged. He threw up air quotes. “Watching ‘over’ us. Listen, Shawn…”
Shawn looked up. Down. Turned around in a circle. His eyes searched for more hidden, terrifying Garfs. With every turn, he glanced back to the three long shelves heavy with the weight of plushies and tchotchkes. Hundreds of hooded eyes stared down at him like spectators in a coliseum. He could see it in their dead white eyes—they’d kill Shawn. They’d smother him. John heard their cry for blood. John wanted to dive in between Shawn and the collection, to cover the Garfs up but also to protect his friend. Dear God, it was the bowl. They had seen what Shawn had done to one of their brethren. They wanted revenge; they wanted justice.
Shawn’s phone buzzed again. He answered immediately.
“Wow, okay.” Shawn stepped into his pants, pulled on his sweater, and collected his beanie. He turned to John. “Hey, you mind if I take this outside?”
“Go ahead!” John smiled.
As soon as the door clicked closed, John yanked the Garfield T-shirt off his body. In record time, he changed into a pair of trousers, a button down shirt and rolled up the sleeves, and pulled out a tie. Maybe not your lucky red Garfield one, Johnny boy! Not today! He found his fancy grown-up watch where he had left it while he and Shawn were making out. He rushed around his apartment, glaring at his Garfield collection, the manifestation of his juvenile obsessions. Dear God, Susan Rich was right again. She was always right! This collection was weird! It was the last thing an unsuspecting victim would see before a Garfield serial killer murdered them (lasagna asphyxiation). What was he a child?
He caught a glimpse of himself in his bathroom mirror, and did in fact see a child; bangs cascaded over his brows, softening his already soft features. He growled. John charged into the bathroom to tame his hair—and bustled right into his radiator pipe.
“Hrrrrgggfffhh!”
He thought he could smell the burning flesh on his forearms. John muffled the pain in his throat, but laughed. Because oh, yes, the pain was clarifying! He gazed at himself in the mirror. John Rich had pull?
His face was a soft oval. He had a tidy androgynous haircut. With his boyish freckles and tea-saucer ears and pink little mouth, he would have been the perfect casting for a kid in an ice cream commercial. That’s right, BOY #1 - VANILLA. “Yum,” sneered John into his mirror, but it was a yum of self-loathing. “Yum!” He combed his hair back, tousled it with product. Maybe men threw themselves at his feet the same way moths flew into lightbulbs and died.
When Shawn opened the door. John strolled back into his studio, completely calm, hands in his pockets, with a serene smile.
“Are you doing anything today?” asked John casually, cheerfully, delighted. Shawn wanted to glance at the Garfield collection, but John held his shoulders and steered him away from it. “I just made a new year’s resolution. Downsizing, dropping some of this stuff off at the Salvation Army. Haha! You in?”
“Sorry,” said Shawn. He glanced at his phone. It was a quarter ‘til 11:00 a.m. “This stupid television deal. We have a studio deadline at noon—”
“The television deal, of course,” said John. “Maybe lunch then?”
Shawn’s phone pinged.
“John, I’m so sorry. I gotta take this phone call.”
“Well, how long is it?” asked John. “We can get breakfast afterwards. There’s this barista you have to meet—”
“I’ll be on Zoom calls with the production company all day. This television stuff; it’s big, but it’s a big mess.”
John considered asking “did my Garfield obsession freak you out?” He wanted to show Shawn that people had bigger collections than he did, to prove that he wasn’t so bad, but his heart wouldn’t be in it. For there was no such thing as a Garfield collection that was too big.
“Well,” said John. “Nice hanging out.”
Shawn smiled too. “Yeah.”
Shawn put a hand on John’s hip and kissed him, soft. It was stupid that it gave John butterflies. It was stupid that a college crush could do this to him.
“You’re something else, John Rich,” murmured Shawn, tapping John’s chin with his knuckle.
“I know,” said John, “that’s the problem.”
Shawn laughed silently, squeezed John’s hip, and soon he was out the door. There was the sound of Shawn’s footsteps on the stairs, then a long pause. John held his breath. He heard a muffled, “hello?” and more footsteps. The creaking of the front door. The disappearing conversation. All of it fading into the bustle of the West Village.
John sighed in his empty apartment.
He picked up the Garfield bowl, broken in two pieces, and put it back on the shelf with the rest of his junk. It made a tiny clink.
Comment. looooove seeing this sweet side of Tyler! he’s alot more comfortable when he’s not answering questions to promo a movie.
Comment. Loved the interview, but @NewYork Review, how dare you use Catarina for clout in promoting your new series but not invite her to the Guggenheim Social. Shame. Edit: THANK YOU FOR FINALLY INVITING CATARINA!!!! QUEEN
Comment. are you kidding me Tyler Hughes & the cover sessions guy
Replies. 14 comments.
By the time Hunter set her laptop down on the kitchen counters in The Review’s office that Monday, the view count for the first episode of The Big Picture crossed one and a half million. Because outside of the star power of Tyler Hughes, it was a really good interview. Danielle left in that long raw clip of Tyler defending Catarina, and John’s candid monologue about loving a certain cartoon cat. In fact, it was such a good interview that Hunter and Yohel had to pause every three seconds to analyze it, huddled over her laptop, pointing and arguing like they were mission control at NASA navigating the moon landing.
Later, in an empty meeting room, John clicked a link on his phone and watched a viral clip of the cold open. The first episode of The Big Picture was doing numbers, but this cold open clip was everywhere. On his phone screen, Tyler and John leaned over Tyler’s yellow legal pad, bantering, smiling, touching—every titillating electric moment of the viral Cover Sessions interview came out in bursts thanks to Danielle’s editing. A thumb under John’s lapel. A hand on Tyler’s back. A smile across John’s face, boyish and giddy and wide. John Rich looked like he was on his goddamn honeymoon. John stared at all of it, a prisoner of his past affections. He frowned, pocketed his phone, and returned to practice sketches for today’s cover.
Drawing the cover of The New York Review, often his only solace when his love life imploded, was also not going great. In the middle of January, he finally met his apparent usurper Arielle Su. It was terrible. Because John instantly liked her. He had wanted to hold a petty grudge, but when she sat down in the office chair at the art meeting, she shrugged off a huge neon-red, knee-length puffer jacket. When she took off her beanie, she revealed a chic silver buzzcut. When she asked questions, she cut off Geoffrey with sharp, insightful inquiries. She jotted down all of her notes with a tiny, plastic, carrot-shaped pen. John gazed at her, charmed, fascinated, completely jealous.
“This is probably old hat to you, but assignments! I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with that director duo.” They chatted on the way to the elevators. John couldn’t help it: he asked about her studio, her collage process, her painting style. She answered with all the chill of a surfer who just loved a good wave. “And dude, I was obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes in high school. We should get coffee sometime!”
God dammit! He’d love to get coffee with her!
February rolled around, and winter turned Manhattan into a slab of icy concrete. With interviews of Catarina Harlow and Jules the Barista in the can, the last guest on The Big Picture would be Alex Fleming, the Australian painter with whom Tyler was obsessed. John couldn’t find anything about him online, other than a few cryptic interviews and blurry, pixelized self-portraits—the guy was a mystery.
Alex Feming’s studio was in Bushwick, behind a coffee shop the size of a closet, where John stopped to get a latte the morning of the shoot. As the espresso machine whirred, his phone buzzed.
The slot machine in John’s brain lined up three Tyler Hughes heads, but John couldn’t scoop up the gold coins that tumbled out. Their texts had slowed since the new year. Tyler was busy with some Jacob Raw post-production, and John was attempting to fall out of love. This meant no more yes-and-ing Tyler’s jokes, no more texting Tyler as they fell asleep, no more teasing. He would keep things professional. John sighed and looked at the texts.
Tyler: Phenomenal studio up here. AMAZING.
Tyler: You’re going to love this johnno
Tyler: Danielle nearly slipped getting to the studio, and told me to tell you because you’re a klutz?
Tyler: and apparently only respond to my texts?
Tyler: :D I’m honored
Tyler: well get up here, there’s a massive pyramid of paint cans!
…John would keep things professional. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t smile. John hid it behind a sip from his latte. God. Tyler fucking Hughes. Golden boy inspired by humanity. Honest weirdo who used emojis. Genuine man who thought everything was amazing…
…Serial flirt who was ruining John’s fucking life. He typed back.
me: I’m a klutz and you send good memes.
me: Where is this place?
The alleyway behind the coffee shop was empty save for iced-over weeds, a ripped-open garbage bag, and piles of empty spray paint cans. A voice came from above. Danielle stood out on a fire escape landing, and that thing could not have been up to code. She looked especially exhausted, black ponytail pulled tauter than ever.
“We’re on the third floor,” she called down. “Check your damn email, John!”
“Third floor…” murmured John, he looked at the rattling death trap in front of him, “…you guys climbed up this fire escape?”
“Yes, get up here.”
The peeling and rusted black staircase snaked up to the third floor. John took as many stinging sips of his latte as he could before abandoning the thing on the ground. He set one foot on the narrow metal stairs, climbed another step, and another, until he was at the second floor. The J train screeched a block over, and, peering through the grating, he realized that he did not have the goddamn constitution for this. The fire escape swayed and vertigo twisted the ground underneath him. If John fell here, he'd break something and have a terrible time on the way down. He gripped the railing, and kept marching up as the alley wind snaked around his ankles.
When he finally reached the third floor and found studio 7B, he found a forest of chaos. The floor was sticky with drizzled vines of acrylic paint, and covered in a lawn of empty spray paint cans. Last year’s calendar hung over a graffitied desk and stacks of art books sprouted around the studio like tree stumps. Canvases were everywhere. Amongst the debris, Danielle had set up an easel, a box light, and three stools in the center of the room, and perched on one stool was Tyler Hughes.
“There he is.”
Like a dust storm engulfing a defenseless corn farm in 1936, Tyler wrapped John into a massive, overwhelming hug. For a moment, John was frozen, brain forgetting strategy and body feeling the firmness of Tyler’s arms. How the hell did Tyler’s entire body feel like it was smiling at him—into him? Tyler laughed, squeezing him, lifting him clean off of his toes. He stepped back, beaming, running his hands up and down John’s arms, already chattering about a dozen things, and John smiled back, dreamily, taking him all in. Tyler rubbed his shoulders, ready to tuck his thumbs under John’s lapels for a massage—and John ducked.
“Cat is convinced it was you who got her the invite to the Guggenheim So—what are you doing?”
“Urmh” said John, straightening up. He backed into stool and it toppled over, clattering like a church bell. John set it straight. “Uh. I’m sunburned.”
Tyler frowned, hands frozen mid-air. “Really? In January?”
“Well, no, actually, it’s more of a rash.” John’s face crumpled and he nodded, shuddering. “A terrible rash. Like so much texture and oozing. I sent a picture to Hunter and she thought it was cookie dough.”
“Oh no! Your whole shoulder area? Are you—”
“—don’t.” John sidestepped him, lifting up his briefcase like a shield, this time knocking over an empty can of paint. “Don’t touch me. It. No one should touch the rash. We all must take necessary precautions around the rash. We don’t know if it spreads. It could take all of you down in minutes.”
Danielle frowned over at him from the second camera tripod. “Jesus, John. How did you get a rash?”
“I got this homemade Garfield scarf from Esty? I think they used an off-market fungal dying process, to make it, you know—orange. Anyway. The Big Picture?”
Tyler nodded, but gave John a look that he’d never seen before. It was confusion with little flecks of disappointment—a pout. It made John want to throw himself off the fire escape. Nevertheless, he stood fast, and Tyler gestured to the studio around them. “Well…welcome to the studio of Alex Fleming. How does it rank in terms of artsiest studios you’ve ever been in?”
“It’s…” said John, looking around.
It was not the artsiest studio by a long shot. Senior year of college, he had shared a studio space that was a biohazard. (Two words: mold art.) The problem with this space was Alex Fleming’s art wasn’t “artsy” at all. Canvases were everywhere, and a large one lay balanced between two sawhorses. It was just like the painting John had seen back in Tyler’s apartment—like if the worst frat bro you’d ever met decided he wanted to do Andy Warhol. The piece showed a dozen repeated images of a man shouting into podcasting equipment, layered over pink spray paint. The microphone was a penis. John hated it. It was the fine art equivalent of those Calvin and Hobbes decals. You know the ones? Where Calvin is mischievously peeing? People put them on their giant trucks? Yeah, those. It left a queasy feeling in his stomach as he questioned Tyler’s taste.
“It’s something,” John concluded. “Where’s our guy?”
Danielle sighed at her phone. “On his way. This Fleming guy is…uinque. He told us to set up if we beat him here because his studio is never locked.”
“Never locks his studio, doesn’t have a website,” said Tyler, cheery nature restored. He found this chaos intriguing. “I had to get his email from a friend of a friend of the guy I bought the paintings off of. He was cagey about this whole interview, but I’m not above begging. I’ve discovered that artists always want to open up, but it’s a trust thing.” He winked. “It’s like getting a cat to like you, you know?”
“Right,” muttered John, popping open his briefcase, pulling out drawing paper, and feeling like this was all about to go south, “you can lure most artists out from under a couch with deli meat.”
“Dali meat,” said Tyler.
John suavely covered up a yelp of laughter with a cough.
Usually, John was in awe of Tyler’s ability to make people like him, but it was irksome now, this self-assuredness, this need to get people on his side. Was this why the guy was an actor? He needed people to fall in love with him or he couldn’t sleep at night? Tyler’s way of going about this was off, the art was off, this space was off. Nothing about this interview felt right.
Right on cue, there was a clatter at the door, and leaning in was Alex Fleming.
“Hi.”
Danielle gasped and toppled a tripod. She picked it up, slowly looking from Tyler and John to Alex—and back to John. And then back to Alex. And then back to John again. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
“Oh. Hi,” she said, “are you…Alex?”
“Yes,” he said, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Alex removed a small canvas from his backpack. “You’re in my studio, aren’t you? Whoops. Shouldn’t smoke in here.”
He put out his cigarette in an ashtray right outside the door. Alex Fleming was a tall white guy with messy brown hair. A baggy black skateboarding T-shirt hung off his skinny body, and black tracksuit bottoms were tucked into his socks. John immediately clocked the guy as loaded, because his simple outfit was entirely designer, and he carried himself like every oblivious trust fund baby he had known in college. That’s how he was able to make a living in New York City hawking gaudy paintings. Alex Fleming was just rich.
But the strangest thing was that Fleming reminded John of someone, but he couldn’t place who. It was like looking at someone he was related to, and maybe they were, distantly. When the British were starving John’s great great grandfather’s family during the potato famine, one of the brothers must have hopped on a ship to go to America, and the other went down under. Fleming also had big ears and blue eyes and—as he walked closer through the piles of spray paint cans—John saw that he also had freckles. Same height, similar weight, but the number one difference…was his thick, push-broom mustache.
John tiled his head. Huh.
Alex stalked right past Tyler and Tyler’s extended hand, and went over to investigate the camera set up. “I’m guessing you’re Tyler.”
“No, I’m Danielle Allen, the producer,” she said, shaking Alex’s hand, “that’s Tyler Hughes.”
“Oh! You’re Tyler,” said Alex. Another thing John noticed was that Alex’s Australian accent sounded strange. Like it was using more vowels than necessary. The artist shook Tyler’s hand. “The guy who annoyed the shit out of me, emailing me twice a day. Who owns a painting? Movie producer? Or something? Or a lumberjack. Why are you so big?”
“I workout,” said Tyler, grinning? Blushing? John stared in disbelief. This guy hadn’t heard of Tyler Hughes? And Tyler seemed charmed by this man’s insanity? He felt this interview was going to go badly, but in typical John Rich fashion, it was going badly in terrific and whimsical ways. “Great to meet you, Alex. I’m a huge, huge fan of your work. Always great to discover Aussie artists. Oh! This is John Rich, he’s the cover artist for The New York Review. He’ll be drawing you today.”
John shook his hand. “You never lock your studio? What if someone steals all of your paintings?”
Alex froze, suddenly alarmed. “People do that?”
“In New York City?” asked John. “Yes.”
“I never thought about that,” said Alex. “That would be terrible. What do you do with your art?”
“…lock my door?” John offered.
Alex nodded slowly like John was explaining international banking.
“You had an assistant that I emailed?” said Danielle from behind the camera, flipping through a clipboard. “He confirmed that you got the info about the interview.”
“Oh, I didn’t get the info,” said Alex, “because I don’t have an assistant.”
“But someone responded,” said Danielle. “With a thumbs up.”
“Oh well! That was me. But I respond so that things don’t pile up in the inbox.”
Danielle made a strangled sound.
“Hey, so,” said Tyler, seeing the blood vessel popping in Danielle’s forehead and clapping his hands together, “let’s get started so we can get out of your hair, shall we?”
While Alex Fleming went to unload his backpack, team Big Picture huddled together, heads together.
“Unique was an understatement,” hissed John, “this guy has no clue what’s going on!”
“Right?” whispered Tyler in awe, “he seems lost in his art.”
“Oh my God, forget about any of that that. You guys seriously didn’t notice?” Danielle looked from Tyler to John. They shook their heads. She waved her hands. “He looks exactly like John! He looks like John, but if John had a fake mustache!”
“I don’t really see it,” said Tyler and John at the same time.
“No, no, no, wait, I can see it,” said Tyler quietly, “in the ears.”
“We can’t interview this guy,” continued John in hushed tones. He looked over his shoulder to where Alex Fleming was lighting a cigarette before absentmindedly remembering he couldn’t smoke in his own studio. “He looks like he barely has a clue what year it is, let alone what this interview should be about.”
“You don’t want to interview him?” Tyler asked. He seemed shocked that they weren’t totally aligned on this guy.
“Not particularly,” said John.
“Well, suck it up, because we have to get this episode edited by next week. The sooner you draw this guy, the sooner we can get out of here.” Danielle hit the record buttons on both cameras and shuddered. “Hurry up. I’m weirded out.”
The interview that proceeded was…weird. Not only had this Alex Fleming character never heard of Tyler Hughes or the billion-dollar Case Raw franchise, he was very cagey about where he was from in Australia. Like, Tyler couldn’t pin down his accent. His answers were spacey and vague, his art process completely random, and he seemed increasingly suspicious of Tyler’s curiosity.
The worst part was that Tyler loved this. He found Fleming’s aloofness and increasing irritability charming—elbowing John like, “can you believe this guy? How much of an asshole he is? How much of an artist he is?” When Tyler asked why Alex had stacked a bunch of semi-open paint buckets like a pyramid near the window, Alex explained that he had simply gotten bored. Tyler beamed. John’s pencil tip broke twice from how hard he was pushed into the Bristol board. Great, Tyler Hughes had found another person to win over—Another weird genius he had to impress. Another victim. By the time John was inking the piece, Alex Fleming had yawned twice, and asked how long the interview was supposed to last. John filled in the bushy mustache and capped his pen and was done. He nodded at the portrait.
This guy looked nothing like him.
Fleming walked around to John’s shoulder and looked down at the finished portrait. Danielle trained the camera on the both of them and Fleming whistled.
“Really dig your style,” said Alex. “Sorry, this place is so fucking dark. Can I take this to the window?” He gestured for the picture. “May I?”
John handed it to him. Even if Alex Fleming made a shallow critique of his work, it wasn’t like this interview could get any worse.
“There we go, we can see it better in the light…”
Then things got worse. It all happened in slow motion. Alex Fleming strolled across his studio, transfixed like Narcissus by the ink drawing in his hands, and when he reached the window, promptly stepped on an overturned can of spray paint. Before he knew it, his legs went out from under him. Before he could find balance, his arms wind-milled in the air. Before God could save him, he went flailing into the pyramid of paint cans, which toppled over him and the drawing with a loud, colorful, and goopy crash! Danielle, Tyler, and John watched wincing.
“My God, man,” started Tyler, pulling the artist from the wreckage.
“We got that all on tape,” breathed Danielle. “Dear God.”
“This happens more than you think,” said Alex, as Tyler hauled him up. He was drenched in paint and—John squinted—was his mustache slightly askew? “Oh, mate, sorry about your piece.” He tilted his head at the Bristol board, which was streaked in green and yellow paint. He hummed. “Well actually, somewhat improved it don’t you think?”
An empty bucket of paint rolled up to John’s shiny brown Oxfords.
“Yeah.” John jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go.”
It’s not that John stormed out of the studio—he’d simply grabbed his briefcase and departed abruptly. He did not own any of the portraits that he drew for The New York Review, but it was admittedly annoying to see one destroyed—and that Tyler, again, was somehow involved. He pretended not to hear Tyler shouting after him.
“Wait, John! Would you wait? Hey—” Tyler caught him by the arm just as John stepped out on the windy fire escape. “Can we please talk before you just leave?”
“Sure,” snapped John, plastering on a smile, “do you want to talk about how terrible that guy was, or to explain why you wanted to interview him in the first place? Or should we debrief on how that was pretty much a waste of all our time?”
“No,” said Tyler, “I want to talk about what’s going on. Co-producer to co-producer. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“No,” countered Tyler, “you barely said a word during the interview. You sped right through that portrait. You’ve got this sudden and concerning rash that I’m only just hearing about. It’s fungal. Are you sure?”
“Yes,” repeated John, taking a step down the fire escape, “I’m absolutely fine. The paint fumes in that studio were slightly disorienting, so I had to get out—”
“Then are we okay?” Tyler put a hand on the rail and it shook the fire escape. “I haven’t properly heard from you since the holidays, and back there. Something’s off. I feel like I’ve done something wrong. Have I pissed you off somehow?”
John shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“No, John, I know you by now. Why can’t you just say what you’re actually feeling for once?”
“You know me,” John said flatly, mostly to himself. “Okay, so you probably know that I thought that guy was a hack, and super weird. And hated us being there, and one hundred percent hated you. Why did we waste our time on that, man? And honest question—why do you have to try so fucking hard to win everyone over?”
It was too much, and John could tell all of it landed right on Tyler’s heart. John watched him blink, hurt, as frustration turned to understanding. John opened his mouth to take it back, but Tyler spoke first:
“You think I try to win people over?”
“—that came out wrong,” said John, over him. He waved a hand. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. You don’t—you don’t do anything, but be kind. It’s just that guys like that—some artists aren’t worth your time.” John sighed. “Just because they’re quirky, and hard to understand, and impossible to get a hold of, and assholes, you don’t have to—” John stopped himself. “Listen, we’re good. This is something we’ll laugh about, later, I’m sure. I’m sorry I was acting weird, but everything between us is copacetic, okay? I’ll see you around.”
Tyler looked like he wanted to speak, but did not—or could not. Professional, John reminded himself, and descended the fire escape, bravely, gripping his briefcase, like he wasn’t afraid of slipping and falling to his death. When John’s feet were planted firmly on the cold concrete, he hurried, kept his gaze on the horizon, rushing forward—and nearly stepped on an empty spray paint can. He looked down at it, and chuckled in relief.
Then he slid on a banana peel from the trash.
His briefcase went flying, he fell backwards, and when he landed, it was on his wrist, and with an audible crack. ✏️
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previous chapter < start > next chapter ("The Guggenheim Social")
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✏️ Author's Note
Thank you so much for reading this latest chapter of John Rich & The Big Picture—yes, that was John in a mustache. Like, if this were a TV show, it would be the same actor who played John, but wearing a fake mustache and doing an awful Australian accent. This novel had a world-famous TikTok dog as an integral part of the meet-cute it's weird.
At this point, how do we feel about John? Do YOU like John?
I feel like this doesn't read like a romcom because I have a B-plot (John's job) that has little to do with the #rom, and I really love chapters like this where were get to indulge in the #com. What do you think? Is this a romcom to you?
#tfw you know your brother's gonna make a scene at the business brunch#because he always makes a scene at the business brunch#so you bring along your arm candy#(who is the head of your security detail by the way)#even though he has no place at the business brunch#and you're going to have to field questions from the nosier of your already nosy family members later#as to the specifics of your relationship with the head of your security detail#such as “why did he keep brushing knees with you”#and “i don't think he looked at a single other person at this table - why might that be”#and also he puts down three slices of victoria sponge because you notice how much he's enjoying it so you keep ordering him more#and he'll insist later - when he's driving you home - that you take it out of his paycheck#that he doesn't need you to pay for things for him and that he can pay his own way#and you'll keep quiet - for now - that you in fact quite like buying things for him#and it would please you to do it more regularly even#but he spooks like a horse when it comes to these things so you have to tread carefully#so you keep quiet - for now - and let him drive you home#tfw amiright
-
But of course he doesn't take it out of his paycheck, because Baelor Targaryen is a lot of things — gentle, clever, kind, funny, surprisingly vanilla in bed, sentimental, unbelievably fussy about his clothes, determined, a terrible driver, loving, impatient, prone to crying at John Lewis adverts, overworked — but one thing he is above all things is a rich arsehole.
"I was under the impression that you rather enjoyed my arsehole," Baelor observed mildly, when Dunk told him as much. He probably meant it to sound snippy, but his eyes were smiling too crinkly for Dunk to take him seriously. They were curled up in Baelor's massive four-poster bed and in the moonlight he was so beautiful it made Dunk's heart twist.
"And so I do," he said, instead of confessing any of that shite, "but that doesn't mean I want to be..."
"My boyfriend?" This time there was no crinkly smile, just the slow drawing of tension that always threaded through their conversations whenever they started on these What Are We Really To Each Other talks. Dunk wasn't sure how he could be clearer about where he was — at Baelor's side, from now until Baelor inevitably got tired of him, even if he never said that last bit — but Baelor still got that pinched look around his mouth and looked off toward the middle distance like he was in some Jane Austen novel and was about to propose to the wrong sister or whatever those books were about.
"I just don't want you thinking I'm...around... because of the things you buy for me. Or because you pay me," he added, and then rewound that sentence and realized how stupid it sounded. "I mean, you do pay me, I suppose, but—"
"I pay you to protect myself and my family," Baelor finished for him. "You've gone to rather extreme lengths to demonstrate that anything aside from that is due to my personal magnetism." The crinkles were back, thank fuck, and Dunk breathed a sigh of relief.
"I don't think I put it quite like that," he said, but he nudged Baelor onto his side so he could tuck himself along the curve of Baelor's spine and legs, still marveling after all this time that he could do this — that Baelor Targaryen let him do this, wanted him to.
"Perhaps not," Baelor allowed, pressing back against him, warm and real in his arms. "Must be my arsehole, then."
"Must be," Dunk agreed, and kissed him fondly on the back of his head, right where the hair was beginning to thin. It was his favorite bit, but he decided to wait a while longer before confessing that.
thank you ao3 for being an archive and not an algorithm. thank you for letting me like things without consequences, thank you for being free with no ads, thank you for having lawyers to defend our freedom of speech. thank you tag wranglers. thank you to all authors and thank you ao3
The Heartstopper webcomic’s first update dropped on September 1st 2016. Today, on April 11th 2026, the story has concluded.
I don’t quite know how to put all of my feelings into one letter. Heartstopper means more to me than words can express, but I’ll try my best.
Heartstopper has defined the past decade of my life. It started as a fun side project and quickly grew into something much bigger, eventually becoming my career. Despite that huge and unexpected change, making the Heartstopper comic feels the same to me as it did on day one. When I sit down to make Heartstopper, I feel at peace. When the world feels so scary and difficult, I have been able to return to Heartstopper, and everything feels okay again for a little while.
Nick and Charlie first appeared as supporting characters in my first novel, ‘Solitaire’. In Solitaire, Nick and Charlie represent the idea that hope, love, joy and connection can persist and thrive despite the trials and tribulations of being alive. So maybe it’s ironic that Nick and Charlie have come to represent this in my own life. They have brought me joy. They have given me purpose. They have given me everything, really. And I’m so grateful for every moment I have spent with them.
Heartstopper is profoundly special to me. Which makes it extremely hard to say goodbye.
But it is time. I always knew that Nick going to university would be the end point of the story. And despite how sad I am to be bidding farewell to these characters, I am so, so proud and excited to have made it to the end and concluded the story exactly the way I wanted to.
Any webcomic creator can tell you that making a webcomic requires a heavy amount of determination and endurance. To draw a page almost every day for the past ten years has required a lot of sacrifice and a lot of energy. But every moment was worth it. And now that it is complete, Nick and Charlie’s story can be experienced from beginning to end, for the rest of forever.
I wouldn’t have made it here alone. From the very start, Heartstopper’s readers have offered so much support, love, community, conversation, and enthusiasm. Knowing that there are people out there who love these characters just like I do has given me the strength to keep going. I’ve also had the support of many colleagues, friends, and family members, who’ve all helped in different ways at various points in the past decade. Thank you so, so much to everyone who has been here for the journey.
I have no idea what I’ll make next. For now, I’m taking a break. And I know that Nick and Charlie won’t simply vanish. I expect I will always return to drawing them and writing about them, probably in smaller ways, for the rest of my life, as long as my body allows.
Nick and Charlie will forever be in my heart, hand in hand on a beach somewhere.
It was 10:32 p.m. and John was stunned at the way a simple pair of texts filled his stomach with butterflies. His thumbs tripped over themselves to answer, like they remembered how rare and precious a check-in text from Shawn Hendrix was, and the sensation of responding to one. Seven words and John Rich had forgotten his New Year's Eve plans.
That was when, at his elbow, Eddie asked for the green crayon.
Eddie was the five-year old kid of Sam Brothers, a Bullet alum who created a massively popular tennis dramedy called Love. As a result, Sam had a brownstone in Park Slope with a newly renovated rooftop and backyard. Forty or fifty guests, all television people or Bullet alums, milled about his warm living room and chilly rooftop with glasses of wine and endless complaints about the entertainment industry. John sat on the ground, legs criss-cross applesauce under Sam’s coffee table, with a Bluey coloring sheet and a mocktail, as a dozen adults groused about old-people things in the kitchen. A universal sound system piped in splashy jazz on every floor.
John had wanted to go up on the roof, but the moment he set foot up there, he’d been accosted by someone's plus-one. Tech Lawyer Lady demanded that John explain how The New York Review’s cartoon caption contest worked. “Okay, be honest. I can take it. Do they actually judge it, or is it random? Because I’ve submitted eighteen times—”
John pointed at the dinosaur-like cranes in the Red Hook port on the horizon, and Tech Lawyer Lady swiveled to admire the skyline. She looked back and found a cartoonist-shaped cloud where John had been.
But, oh, John would return: Tonight, at The Samwell Bullet’s New Year’s Eve party, he was going to take the sexiest, most devil-may-care, man-on-the-town, get-a-load-of-this-guy selfie he had ever taken in his life—and then send that shit to Tyler.
It all started at nine o'clock this morning when John opened a text. Tyler had taken a selfie on some yacht off the coast of Sydney, shirtless, probably inebriated, with his movie-star smile. His beard spread out into stubble against his throat and Adam's apple. The hard lines of his neck and shoulders cut down into his chest. His abs ran into low-slung, damp, clinging teal swimming trunks—all under fluffy crops of body hair. John stopped breathing, hair messy and hanging in his eyes, nose a centimeter from his screen protector. His cock got so hard it actually hurt. If Tyler had allowed even a dozen more pixels into the frame, you would’ve been able to see the outline of whatever gift from God was hanging out in his swimwear.
John looked at the picture until he went cross-eyed. He thought about eating his phone, but no—that would make him sick and accomplish nothing.
He exhaled, “Yowza.”
The selfie was followed immediately by—
Tyler: Happy New Year, John! Looking forward to what we’ll make this year. 🎉
The message made it all the more endearing, and Tyler's bright blue eyes looked giddy, thinned by his smile. A perfect mix of sweet and scorching hot. And laying in bed, nestled in a Garfield T-shirt, frankly fighting the urge to use this selfie as jerk-off material, John had given the message a like, and typed:
Me: me too! happy NYE!
An exclamation point and everything.
After shipping his mom back up to Massachusetts, John let the news sink in: Tyler Hughes liked him. This man was sexually attracted to him for some reason. Most chumps would rest on their laurels with that big win, but, no, John Rich was a go-getter, a self-starter, a man of action. And thus, he was gonna churn out cool and sexy selfies like they were tanks and it was goddamn World War II.
…But now John pocketed Shawn’s text, feeling a burgeoning complication to his New Year’s Eve.
"You’re good at coloring," said Eddie.
"Thank you," said John, putting the crayon down with a tap and adjusting his tie. "Coloring is my job."
John did not drink and he always wanted to color things, so he probably had more in common with a five-year-old than anyone else at this party. Eddie put his nose up to John’s paper to watch him finish up with a light green crayon. And John wasn’t gonna lie—he was absolutely cooking with this thing. He was shading. He was coloring inside the lines. But at this job explanation, Eddie gave John a look like he worked at the DMV, and John had incorrectly given him his last name instead of his date of birth.
"Coloring?" asked Eddie.
"You’re so right to be skeptical about that, Eddie," said John. "It is not my whole job. It is a big part of my job. Scout’s honor, I color things all the time. Well, it’s a lot of grey and black and white, but those are colors, you know. I’m an artist."
"Oh, okay," said Eddie.
"It’s fun!" said John. "And you know what? Between you and me?” He looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “You don’t even have to color in the lines most of the time." Eddie gave him a confused look. John backtracked. "But you do. Mostly. Of course."
Eddie thought about it. The kid didn’t like all these goddamned curveballs. He kept coloring his page. Bluey was freaking green. Kid was on to something. "You have meetings."
John liked how kids always made observations that were innately questions. They were brand new to the planet; to acknowledge reality was to be confused by it.
"I do have meetings! Many meetings,” he said. “How’d you know? Oh."
John looked down at his suit. It was a festive, inky forest green, accented with a black tie and white pocket square. "Well, I dress this way because it makes me feel confident. A tailored suit can do that, Eddie. It can make people listen to you and treat you like an adult, and your words matter because people assume you know what you’re saying. And I never know what I’m saying. How you dress matters. That’s free advice, by the way."
Eddie yawned.
"Yeah, that was super boring," John agreed.
Sam, the host, looked over from the kitchen island. He clicked his tongue. "Okay, buddy, are you fading?"
A tremendous protest commenced. No, Eddie wasn’t fading, and yes, he had just yawned, but it wasn’t because he was tired. It was because the adult he was talking to was lecturing him on sartorial confidence. There was a lot of complaining as Eddie was transported up stairs, clutching a lime green crayon like a Bowie knife.
Sam’s wife, Rebekkah, thanked John for babysitting, and when Sam returned, he noted that John was surprisingly good with kids. John had to explain that no, he was not good with kids. Mostly. Kids were miniature crazy people, and as a rule, John always deferred to the craziest person in a room; it's how he survived the MTA. But he had also taught a million art classes for kids as a teenager, and thus had a morbid fascination with children who wanted to do arts and crafts. He actually wanted to see the fucked-up turkeys that a kid would draw by tracing their hands; the ensuing murder scenes that a kid would make with a jar of glitter and Elmer’s glue. It was often very good art. Then John completed his coloring sheet with a curt nod to no one, folded and tucked it into his inside breast pocket. And he took the blue crayon for good measure.
When John Rich stepped out onto the rooftop, swilling his soda, he stepped out as a man on a mission. It was a little over an hour until midnight, and he would get his cool-guy selfie. But where? He sipped his cocktail and squinted into the breeze. Maybe as a backdrop, he could have that small electric fire pit where Sam’s guest sat huddled in jackets and sipping on twinkling cocktails. Or if the wind kept picking up, it could get his tie airborne and he could arch an eyebrow, leaning back on the concrete ledge as the skyline wrapped around him. The sound of raucous laughter broke through the middle-aged party chatter, and John spun around and saw it—Wil Diego, the City Live writer, was smoking a cigar and cracking up with some other Bulleters. The illustration filled out in John’s mind so fast he couldn’t stop it. It would be stupid, funny, and a little sexy.
He’d ask Wil for a cigar, light up the thing, and with a mocktail in one hand and a cigar in the other—and a blue crayon behind his ear—he’d send Tyler his best not-looking-at-the-camera smolder. Cityscape and breezy rooftop string lights behind him, surrounded by chic partygoers. Oh, that was good. And then he’d send another one of his Bluey coloring page. He could see Tyler bubbling up with laughter and curiosity. “Ringing in the New Year at the kid’s table,” the caption would read, “I’ll explain later. Happy NYE, Hughes.”
John dug the crayon out of his pocket and tucked it behind his ear. He was dapper, confident, and cool. Don Draper, Mad Men, season one.
“There he is!”
He dove into the planter.
“There you are.” Tech Lawyer Lady leaned over the planter in her short-short brown hair, quarter zip, and thick glasses, like she was Rachel Maddow and John was a skittish politician who owed her an answer to a follow-up question. “Okay, pal, you disappeared on me! I found the cloud folder with all of my submissions. Tell me these aren’t good. At least runner-up material. Andrew Mitchell from Connecticut has won four times with captions that are so bad. Bazooka Joe bubblegum wrapper stuff. Look.”
John stood up, brushing garden soil from his suit, drink now half-empty from his strategic evasive maneuver.
“Listen—” What was this woman’s name again? “Shauna. I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell my Aunt Becky every Thanksgiving: First, I don’t get the caption contest. Second, I don’t get most of the cartoons. And, third, the mac and cheese was amazing this year; you knocked it out of the park.”
“Can I run some of my submissions past you?”
John thought, please no.
But John sighed, “Sure, why not.”
“Is that Mr. New York fucking Review himself? John.”
An arm wrapped itself around John’s shoulder, and John down to find Wil Diego’s round and unshaven face. He wore a wrinkly blazer and faded Bob Dylan T-Shirt, and held his cigar and drink away from him. John opened his eyes wide, panicked, blinking out Morse code. Wil winked and slapped John’s chest.
“Sorry, can I borrow him for a second? Comedy stuff—no, no, he can’t reveal all of The Review’s secrets. Look, I promise to return him in the new year. Let’s go, Rich—listen, you could open for me tonight, you asshole…” John waved apologetically to Tech Lawyer Lady as Wil led him to the other side of the rooftop, and as Wil kept talking at an obnoxious volume. When they were finally under the vine-covered pergola, Wil muttered. “That chick told me that technology will be writing all of my jokes in three years.”
“Jesus Christ,” said John, “who’s she here with again?”
Wil leveled him with a look. “Sarah.”
They proceeded to do what all stand-up comedians do within minutes of meeting up to hang out: they gossiped like church deacons. When Wil relayed the latest juicy news on Sarah, the former managing editor of The Bullet and how she met her tech-lawyer (“Mark Zuckerberg-loaded, John”) wife, Shauna—at Wil’s stand-up show. It suddenly turned into a Wil Diego performance, and John was a happy, willing audience member. He’d be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t had a crush on every upperclassman on The Bullet, Wil included. Wil had been chubby and beardy and wild and the smartest motherfucker in every room; John assumed everyone had a crush on him. As he told John his tale, he was kind of like if Chris Farley or Jack Black had majored in Directed Studies at Samwell: one minute he was hanging off the pergola beams and John was in stitches, the next he was quoting Kierkegaard in a terrible accent.
When John said he needed to take a sexy photo to send to some guy, Wil hooted and volunteered to be photographer. They wound up doing a mini photoshoot, John refilling his drink and nursing Wil's cigar as Wil shouted direction: “Very sexy, Rich—you're mysterious. You don’t give a shit if this guy fucks you. Dude, I'd fuck you.” Then the conversation eventually shifted to complaining about work, Wil bemoaning that they were cutting way too many of his sketches on City Live, while John talked shit about Geoffrey Brenner.
“Cover Sessions on hiatus!” exclaimed Wil, showing him the camera reel of John thirst traps. “Is he a lunatic? Or jealous as hell of all the attention on you.”
“I mean, he’s not completely wrong,” admitted John. “The only consolation is that Audre West is having me collaborate with Tyler Hughes’s production company now? It’s fun.”
Wil looked at him. “Really? With Tyler fucking Hughes?”
“We’ve recorded two episodes of our thing,” John said, whipping out his phone. “It’s only because that entire stupid Cover Sessions episode went viral. He’s—not hilarious, but smarter than he looks. And a good interviewer. You know how he is, you’ve worked with him. Super eager. Lots of energy?”
“Golden retriever,” said Wil, frowning at John’s phone. “What’s this?”
“The Big Picture,” said John, and tapped play on his phone.
They watched a forty-second clip of The Big Picture promo that was set to drop on The New York Review’s social media pages in January. It was clips of Tyler and John leaning on each other, Tyler watching Catarina mix a track, John and Tyler going through Jules’s drag closet, and them laughing. Grinning. Touching. Tyler massaged John’s shoulders and gave him a bear hug. You loved watching these two idiots go all ooey-gooey-flirty with each other for half an hour on Cover Sessions? Guess what? Here’s another ninety minutes of that with Catarina Harlow, Jules the Barista, and an Australian painter, if Tyler Hughes can track him down!
Wil handed John back his phone. He wasn’t smiling. “Nice. No, that’s great…”
A huge breeze cut through the roof, and the crowd around the electric firepit yelped. Even John was starting to get cold.
“Listen, Rich,” said Wil, “all I'm saying is be careful, okay?”
John laughed. Too late. He was already in love. Nothing worse could happen to him. “Why?”
Wil put out the stump of the cigar on an ash tray.
“Tyler Hughes collects people.”
“Collects people?”
“Well, if they’re hot enough,” amended Wil, he scratched the stubble on his neck. He shrugged. “He didn’t latch on to the fat guy who isn’t easily flattered for some reason. Weird, right?
“The first time Tyler Hughes hosted he was obsessed with Monica, because, who wouldn’t be? She’s the star of City Live right now; she’s a genius. But you've seen it, that eagerness, obsessed with winning people over. Day one, he shows up, gushing about how he's a fan and has memorized all of Monica’s sketches. Just reverential. And Monica being Monica was like ‘Okay, dude’ at first, but he’s Tyler Hughes. If he wants you, he gets you. And ask Ethan, Monica and Tyler wrote for hours that first week he hosted. You’re not supposed to fucking date the host if you’re a cast member, but if the host really wants to fuck you…” Wil shrugged. John frowned at him. “They disappeared for two hours the Wednesday before air. And they’re cool now, but Jesus. He was all over her.”
John thought back to the City Live after party at Dean’s, to when Tyler and Monica were having that serious talk before embracing. Was that some type of post-romantic debrief?
“Weird,” said John. He could feel the Ridge in his brow.
“This time around, do I think Tyler Hughes fell in love with Ethan a little bit?” Wil snorted, nudging John. “Like, was he trying to destroy his marriage? Can't say. He fucking blew up Ethan’s phone at every hour of the night.”
“My friend Hunter mentioned, uh,” started John, he was speeding through a checklist in his mind, names lighting up in neon with each realization. Micah Andrews. Monica Grajales. Catarina Harlow. Ethan Koenig. “She said Tyler…he likes to…”
“Fuck his coworkers?” Wil offered.
John Rich.
“Yeah,” said John quietly, chuckling.
“Well that's a specious rumor. I don't think it's just sex. He tries to date them.” Wil tapped his empty drink on the bench. “Like he's a nice guy and hot, I get it. Knowing you, John, I figured you didn't want to get love-bombed and dumped once he gets the trophy. But shit you're too smart for that—or maybe you don't give a shit.”
“I don’t,” said John, brain willing his mouth to shut up before he played his hand, before he showed his soft underbelly, “but I dunno. That doesn’t sound like him, I guess? I’m…”
It was too late. Wil looked at John's disappointed face—and then down at the gallery of thirst traps.
“Oh…” Wil began, “you know what? I’m sure he’s fine for the most part. You spent time with him. You draw people. You’re good at reading people.”
Not him.
John forced a smirk onto his face. “No, I’m sure you’re right. Can you blame him? Breaking news: hot actor has sex!”
“Exactly!” Wil elbowed him. “Holy shit, the new year's sneaking up on us. It's 11:31 p.m. You want a drink? No, you quit, my bad, sorry, sorry. Where the hell is Shawn?”
“He's on his way,” John answered, still smug and smirking. But his brain felt numb. “Thanks, Wil.”
Wil popped up and grabbed one of the party hats being passed around, offered one to John, who waved it away.
“Well, Rich, if you ever want to return to the dark-side, get back on stage. I will not try to sleep with you.”
He saluted. Then Wil disappeared into the crowd to get his last drink of the year.
John watched a tiny burst of gold in the horizon, and decided, promptly, to make a mistake. He pulled out this phone, opened a search engine, and typed:
Tyler Hughes Co-Star Romance
The results exploded across the screen, lighting John's face as he sat alone on the patio, the crowd rushing around him for party hats and searching for champagne. It was like the comments from the viral Cover Session episode but grisly and dark and mutated. Reddit threads. Tabloid articles. Video compilations. Hunter had told him about this. Had John dismissed her because he didn't want to hear it? John clicked on a podcast and scrubbed to hear laughter and “—giver, and he tracked down an upright piano as his wrap gift for Catarina Harlow–”
Last year, John remembered walking around the Flat Iron building during a freak storm with a cheap black umbrella, and it whipped around, wild, bending backwards, until it was warped and useless. John could not corral what he felt for Tyler into just lust, he couldn’t simply be happy with a one-night stand with a movie star, he didn't want to be a passing interest, or a trophy. The entirety of it all dragged him along, helpless, like he was hanging on to a Duane Reade umbrella swept up in a wind tunnel. He wanted it all: the affection, the intimacy, the full scope of a life with Tyler Hughes that their fledgling friendship had advertised. The slideshow of daydreams flashed through his mind faster than he could keep up with: Walking through an art gallery with him and stifling laughter; Tyler calling him something sweet while they had messy, breathless sex; Arguing, making up, eating breakfast, worrying over colds, getting lost while traveling, tying Tyler’s tie before an award show. John Rich knew he was a hopeless romantic, which is why he fought hard to not fall in love. Premature bursts of violet and green went off a dozen blocks over. The umbrella ripped out of his hand, tumbling down Fifth Avenue.
A crush. Once you squeezed that toothpaste? Well, chump? Good luck getting it back in the tube.
He got up and pushed through the swelling rooftop crowd, past the partygoers going up the stairs, through the living room on the first floor—he backtracked, peering around a doorframe. Eddie Brothers was coloring at the coffee table. He waved at John with a green crayon.
“How'd you get out of bed?” asked John.
“I put on my brontosaurus pj’s and made my demands clear,” said Eddie.
John nodded. “Genius.”
“Rich!” Sam Brothers appeared with sparkling cider, and poured Eddie a glass. He glanced at his watch. “What? You're leaving? Come on.” He slapped a kazoo into John’s hand. “If the roof is too cold and crowded, the backyard's cozy.”
“Ahhhhh, I'm not feeling well.” John shrugged and pulled the door open. He would be falling asleep to a marathon of Run Club: Savannah by 2 a.m. He started down the stoop. “But this was amazing. Happy New Year, Sam, stay safe, best of luck with—”
John collided with Shawn Hendrix.
Shawn Hendrix stumbled back, catching him, lit phone clattering to the pavement. John looked up at him, the both of them breathless: John from tripping, Shawn apparently from sprinting here.
“Hey, sorry,” said Shawn. “I’m not coordinated in the slightest. Wait. Were you leaving? I just texted you, man. No way you're heading out!”
He wore a grey beanie pulled down soft over his ears, and a plush, worn, cream-colored thrifted sweater. His thick eyebrows had been furrowed in confusion, but he began to laugh along with Sam, setting John upright, and picking up his phone. A couple wailed a warbly, early Auld Lang Syne across the street: Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…
“Shawn? You…No, I was just...” John looked him over. He thought of a convenient-store umbrella cartwheeling away in a wind tunnel. “...No, I was looking for you! Did you run here from Manhattan? Get in here.” Sam did his hostly duties of offering a politely-declined tour and pointing out the bathroom and the booze. Then John put an arm around Shawn’s shoulder and led him to the living room. “You're schvitzing. Here take a kazoo; we're being festive. There's a million people on the roof, but Sam said the backyard is cozy. How was your set? Jesus, it's almost midnight—”
“Friend of yours?” Shawn pointed over John’s shoulder.
At the coffee table Eddie held up a coloring sheet, expectantly.
“My deepest apologies, this is Ed Brothers,” said John, taking the sheet. “Ed, Shawn; Shawn, Ed. Shawn is a comedian and a producer like your dad. He just got a huge Netflix deal and he’s working on a comedy special—it’s gonna get nominated for an Emmy. Shawn, Ed and I are acquaintances. Ed, that means we’re people who just met each other, but you can call me a friend if you’re networking and need to name drop.”
“My name’s not Ed, it’s Eddie,” corrected Eddie.
“Eddie, right. Of course. Ed ages you.”
Sam had returned, clock app open on his phone at 11:48 p.m., perhaps to see how exactly John Rich was so damn good with kids. But Shawn squatted down near the coffee table, and also looked frustrated with the whole proceedings. He flipped a page around and shook his head, sucking his teeth.
“Hey, man. You know this guy can…draw Bluey, right?”
Eddie’s eyes went wide, and Sam went “ooooh!” Eddie’s head spun and he gave John a look of betrayal. Why hadn’t you mentioned this earlier, you freaking bozo? John froze.
“Shawn,” John said, warning, “be cool.”
“He can draw Bluey and dinosaurs and make them all have huge butts,” said Shawn, looking at Sam. This just about killed Eddie, who laughed, looking at his dad, like where was this guy? This guy is sharp. I like this guy. He’s good. The other guy could color well but was very bad. “You could, right John? I mean…I don’t know where a pterodactyl's butt goes—Hey, I’m serious. They have tails.” He tapped his forehead. “Think about it.”
Shawn was murdering. And John’s grin was touching both of his big ears.
Someone shouted, “ten minutes!”
John grabbed Shawn.
“Come on,” he said.
“Hold up, you owe this child a Bluey.”
“Later. Come on.”
The patio led out to a miniscule patch of backyard, an imperial lawn for Brooklyn. Short conifers branched out into the neighbor's yard and the same string lights hung up on the rooftop patio snaked over John and Shawn's heads. There was one outdoor heater, but the couple chatting beside it returned inside for champagne and party hats. Without thinking, John put an arm around Shawn’s shoulder as they leaned on the patio railing. Shawn described the crowd work he did that evening on a drunk guy and his friends who had never been to New York City.
“There were like a dozen of them, from West Virginia or something, and their only purpose was to get this one friend and his brother to Times Square,” said Shawn, kicking what must have been Eddie’s soccer ball to John. It rolled over John’s dress shoes. “It was like Lord of The Rings. Trying to deliver these quaint little men to the mouth of hell. But the brother got food poisoning, and told them to do this comedy show instead of taking care of him—”
“—fly you fools!” barked John.
It was a startlingly accurate Gandalf impression and Shawn slumped on the patio railing, doing that quiet laugh of his. He sighed looking up at the night sky, and to the bustling New Year’s party on Sam’s roof. Shawn checked his phone: a minute til. Then Shawn’s dark eyes blinked and caught the light of the living room far behind them, globs of yellow-grey on brown. He smiled, slow and curious, and reached up and touched the crayon at John’s ear. He plucked it.
“You do this to be cute, or does it actually serve a function?”
“Believe it or not, it's practical. I have lost so many goddamn pencils just from putting them down,” said John, “but yes, I do it to look cool. It works. I’ve been told that I have amazing pull.” He sighed, put upon. “We’re kissing, right?”
Shawn sputtered, leaning into him. “Guys with amazing pull don’t have to ask.”
“Well, it’s the only reason I’m out here,” said John turning to him, feeling Shawn’s breath against his skin, “and because I don’t want to kiss you in front of Eddie. He’s not a bigot; he’s five, but when you’re five, adults kissing isn’t cool, and I worked so hard on a Bluey page to make him think I’m cool. Which, by the way, never again in your life try to get me to draw Bluey on-the-spot in front of a kid. You psychopath. That’s like asking me to play ‘Yesterday’ in front of Sir Paul McCartney.” Above them and around them the block filled with echoes of a countdown. Fifteen. Fourteen. “I’d love to kiss you. If you don’t mind. You should let me kiss you.”
He didn’t make a sound but John could tell he was laughing at him; he could see it in his eyes.
“John, you’re the only reason I’m here.”
“Really?”
Eight, seven, six, five, four…
"Happy New Year," said Shawn.
John was about to parrot the same back, but instead caught himself, brushed his nose against Shawn's and murmured. “You too.”
And as he said it, he leaned in, pulled Shawn in close, and pressed their lips together. ✏️
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previous chapter < start > next chapter ("Hearts, Wrists, and Garfield Bowls for $400, Alex")
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✏️ Author's Note
Surely it can't get worse! (Don't look at the next chapter title.)
Loved the last chapter. What can I say I live for the drama.
I’m hoping we get to see some of Tyler’s real flaws. I don’t really know what he has going on, but I’m guessing it’s something more complicated than the egocentrism Will implied. He surely can’t be the flawless ideal of a man John has made him out to be. I’m pretty sure the lenses of John’s eyeballs turned rose colored from his infatuation, not just his glasses. Romantic LASIK is going to be one hell of a recovery journey for John.
I'm looking forward to whatever mess John will make of his love live and in consequence his professional one.
I can't wait to show Tyler's flaws! John and the reader are definitely in the rose-colored glasses/crush stage where Tyler is just...perfect.
Tyler is conveniently insecure for a love interest, which is an easy trait for plot reasons, right? He's this huge movie star but he's...obsessed with this YouTube portrait artist? Who is, quite frankly, kind of arrogant, neurotic, and emotionally unavailable? Tyler also seems to have a low self-esteem when it comes to his own intelligence, but we haven't seen that create actual conflict. (Not yet at least.)
Also the Johnny Wander shop is having a sale through the end of the year! Get 10% off everything with code SANTALEEDS2025!
⭐️ read BARBAROUS from the beginning here!
⭐️ pick up books, stickers, prints, etc at our online shop here!
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