When I get a reply from the editor, Meredith is the first person I tell. But then I tell Ari—I tell Winslow, Bobbie, Ruby, and Gardenia—and they take me out for cocktails the size of my face at the Bye and Bye to celebrate the start of something new.

A month passes, gray days become grayer, and every night as I fall asleep, I try not to think about the woman who could make a gray world feel vibrant.

I think about her every night as I fall asleep.

“You have a visitor,” Ari announces one Friday night, sticking her head through the open door into my closet. I’ve got my iPad on my lap, and I’m working on a fanart commission for two characters in some queer book I haven’t read. I’ve started doing commissions again, too, as a side hustle until I get my first check for the new graphic novel. Even if it’s just fifty bucks for a single character and seventy-five for two, it feels good to create this kind of joy again.

“What kind of visitor?” I ask without looking up from my line sketch.

“A knockoff copy of the person you wish it was.”

“Thanks for that,” a male voice grumbles, and I jerk up to see Andrew Kim-Prescott’s head floating over Ari’s in the doorway. “Uh, hey, Oliver.”

I push the iPad out of my lap. “Hi. Andrew.” I have nothing better to say, so I go with “Hi,” again.

“Can I get you anything?” Ari offers. “I think Winslow has some matcha powder.”

Andrew shakes his head, and Ari leaves us to talk. Andrew attempts to take a step into my room, but his loafers immediately hit the edge of my mattress. I point to the small cubby Ari helped me mount to the wall. “Shoes go there.”

He toes off his shoes, slides them into the cubby, and then gets down on his knees so he can awkwardly scooch his way onto my bed.

“Wow. This is cool.” Andrew gestures to the rainbow lights I’ve strung up around the ceiling, the curtains framing the one window, the prints of my own art on the walls of my tiny closet bedroom. “You’ve done a lot with, um… very little.”

“How did you know where I live?” I ask as I make room for his large frame. He shifts until he’s cross-legged across from me in an Armani suit.

“Greg,” Andrew answers. “You gave him this address for forwarding your final paycheck.”

“And he gave away my address? Dickweed.”