Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
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Synopsis
A medical scare leads to life-changing developments when a recently single woman moves in with three lovable himbos in this heartfelt and hilarious romantic comedy—perfect for fans of Lynn Painter and Hannah Bonam-Young.
Release date: November 4, 2025
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 352
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Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
Vanessa King
I ROLL MY SHOULDERS BACK and take in a deep breath, then knock on the front door of the brick bungalow, planting what I hope is a friendly, open smile onto my face. But just as I bring my hand back to my side, the smile slips. Something isn’t right.
It’s the smell.
Another whiff and the scent clicks into place. It’s unmistakable, conjuring deep voices emanating from locker rooms, matte black cans of body spray, and multistep handshakes tailored to the narrow parameters of traditionally acceptable masculine intimacy.
It’s 100 percent grade-A dude.
And it’s not supposed to be here.
I turn, pivoting on the heel of my pump to squint at the “room for rent” sign at the end of the driveway, where the rideshare just deposited me. It’s there, in all of its hot-pink, bubble-lettered glory, the glitter highlighting the words private bath catching the fading twilight this Friday evening with the same flair that snagged my attention Monday afternoon.
The sign’s unapologetic femininity had me prepared for fellow ladies, the proximity to UT Austin and a single room on offer all but guaranteeing students. It would be perfect. The sunny coeds would keep me hip to social media trends, while I introduced them to overlooked rom-coms from the aughts. They would turn to me for guidance, and while my ten-plus years of life experience had left me a bit jaded, in time, I would be softened by their fresh enthusiasm. We’d end up as linked emotionally as our ovulation cycles would be synced.
Derivative? Sure. But I’d woken up blind in my right eye that morning and clocked the Pepto-pink sign while en route to the first of two specialists who would tell me that they had no explanation for my condition. My boyfriend of five years had responded to my situation with a resigned “Now what?” that made clear how misplaced my optimism had been when we signed a two-year lease on our apartment last fall. And if being a medical mystery in a domestic situation of dubious stability wasn’t reason enough to dabble in a little escapism, Wednesday’s neurologist diagnosed me with optic neuritis: swelling on the optic nerve that’s preventing my brain from interpreting what my eye is trying to see. The kicker? Fifty percent of the time, the condition is the first sign of multiple sclerosis.
I was tossed into an MRI machine the same afternoon, and in the panicky day and a half I waited for my results, that glittery posterboard became a touchstone. My immune system might have turned on my nervous system, and I may no longer be able to ignore that the doomsday clock on my relationship is seconds to midnight, but there could be sisterhood in my future, and evenings spent in shared admiration for Nancy Meyers’s kitchens.
It was freak out or fantasize, and I chose the latter.
So it’s with a touch of desperation that I scan the porch, hoping to disprove what my nose is telling me. A pair of dark blue sneakers sits to the side of the battered welcome mat, which, I realize, is conspicuously devoid of an L: WE COME.
Ick. Never mind. I get back to the shoes, which dwarf my silver Fluevogs. I try rationalizing. My college roommate had huge feet! Or… maybe they belong to a boyfriend?
Heavy footsteps sound from inside the house, and I gather more evidence. There’s a triangular rack of dumbbells in the corner, the numbers on the weights ranging from 25 to 50, and to the right of the front door, I note a flash of white. I angle my head to use my good eye and find that the mailbox has been labeled with a torn piece of paper reading THE DAWGHOUSE in incriminatingly masculine scrawl.
I cling to the hope of a house of endearingly raunchy, yoked ladies, one among them, perhaps, with a closet full of clodhoppers. I’m still struggling to spin the DAWGHOUSE signage when the door opens. The scent I’d identified hits me in a cloud of concentrated bro, and a young man towers over me from the doorway. He’s cute, with wide dark eyes and a blond fade that speaks of regular maintenance. Early twenties, I’d guess, based on the softness of his cheeks. He’s a baby. A dudeling.
He cocks his head. “Hi?”
My desperation morphs into defeat; my imaginary bestie squad has been deposed by the bro-iest of bros. He might be a puppy, but he’s the physical embodiment of the body spray I’d recognized. He’s even dressed for the gym, wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and armholes extending almost to his waist.
But I’m determined to recover some shred of that sidelined fantasy; The Proposal has something for everyone. I straighten and plaster on my winningest smile. “Hi! I’m Ellie.”
The dudeling continues to stare, the information, evidently, not meaningful to him.
“I’m here about the room?” I venture, feeling the corners of my mouth slip.
His wide eyes widen further. “You’re who texted about seeing the room?”
I screw the smile back into place. “Yes. Oh! Did I not include my name?” He shakes his head, and I offer an apologetic grimace. “Sorry about that…” I trail off, hoping to inspire an introduction in return.
“Grant,” he says, voice distant. He takes a step back, pulling the door open further. “Come on in?”
Despite the ongoing mental and emotional whiplash, some sense of self-preservation manages to bubble up. I am about to follow an unfamiliar man—a puppy of an unfamiliar man, but an unfamiliar man nonetheless—into an unfamiliar space without relaying my whereabouts to anyone who might come to my aid or collect my remains.
A week ago, this would have been madness. But a week ago, I wasn’t half-blind, freshly dumped, soon to be unhoused, and waiting to find out if I have a debilitating nerve condition. Because even though my MRI showed no sign of nerve damage, it’s possible that I’m in an early, undetectable stage of MS. Another flare-up in the next six months would be confirmation. My boyfriend, Cole, couldn’t hack it long enough to get through tonight’s semi-celebratory dinner, so here I am, having put all of my eggs in this fabulously misrepresented basket.
So I step into the bungalow.
Grant joins me, leaving the door open, which is appreciated. Inside, two more youths sit in lawn chairs, one reclining with his legs dangling over an armrest, eyes glued to his phone, while the other, whose seat is so low he’s basically on the floor, sits with a video game controller in his hands, attention firmly on the first-person shooter lighting up a massive flatscreen TV.
I scan the rest of the room, but there’s not much to take in. Nothing on the walls, no coffee table, and the only source of light is an audibly unbalanced ceiling fan. There’s a recliner toward the back of the room, just past the lounging guy, and between it and his folding chair, an end table I’m sure is meant to be a nightstand. There’s a beer bottle on the surface, and the lounging guy reaches back for it without lifting his eyes from his phone, takes a swig, and then puts it back down. No coaster. I suppress a twitch.
The one playing the video game turns his head nominally, offering an overly loud “Hola!” without looking away from the game. His curly dark hair is so voluminous, it buries his headset. The sound’s high enough that I can make out the rat-a-tat of gunfire.
The guy with the phone looks up. He stares at me. I stare back, because good God, this kid is stunning. He’s all chiseled cheekbones and dark-eyed smolder, with sideswept hair coiffed to careless perfection. I’m actually appreciative of my single-eye status; it’s like staring at the sun.
Granted, some of my awe wears off when his jaw slackens—dumb confusion isn’t a good look for anyone—and I wave. His brow furrows, and it’s another few seconds of silent observation before he takes in a breath, holds it, then lets it out on a thoughtful “Huh.” He extends a socked foot to nudge the guy playing the video game, who turns to face him. The pretty one bugs his eyes insistently, pointing toward me, and gamer boy finally looks my way.
“I already said—ohmigoodness!” He heaves himself forward to stand, and the tiny chair rises with him, the armrests gripping his backside. He staggers forward in a crouch, reaching back to free himself from the lawn chair with a high, self-conscious giggle.
“That chair is very small,” he says, and rises. We’re the same height in my heels, and he’s built like a compact linebacker, his barrel chest rising and falling in quick, panicked breaths. “I am Diego!” he announces in a shout that has me flinching. He frowns, then gasps. “Oh!” He tears the headset from his head, sending askew the blush-pink scrunchie partly restraining his curls. A few coils spring loose, and he smooths them back, heedless of his controller and headset.
“I am Diego,” he repeats. His volume is normal this time, but his chest is still heaving like he’s come in from a run. “So sorry for my rudeness. I didn’t know you would be…” The hand still bearing the headset extends toward me, making a vague, circle shape. But whether he’s indicating my gender, the ten-plus years I have on him, or the plunging neckline of the halter dress I selected when the evening’s direction had promised champagne and not sudden singledom, I don’t know.
He glares at Grant. “This is not a roommate!” he insists. “This is a pretty lady! You…” He returns to me. “You are a pretty lady.”
It comes out more as an accusation than a compliment, which is good; given the overwhelming suck of the past five days, a compliment from this puppy probably would have made me cry.
I smile. I think I like Diego. “I’m Ellie.”
“Ellie,” he repeats, like my name is the key to resetting his expectations. Apparently, it is, because his face lights up with a smile so large, his cheeks threaten to overwhelm his eyes. “Okay! Nice to meet you, Ellie!”
The pretty one continues to observe from his spot in the lawn chair. “And you want to live here?” he asks.
While I can’t rightly say that want has anything to do with my current situation, I’m also not inclined to lay out that my boyfriend proposed “a break” while I wait to find out if my body has decided to turn on my nervous system, and that, frankly, I’d rather set myself on fire than spend another evening under the same roof as him. So I nod.
He considers this. Then shrugs. “Aight.” He gets back to his phone.
“That’s Alistair,” Diego explains. “He just got back from a shoot. He’s a model,” he adds, conspiratorially. I nod. Of course he is.
“So it’s the three of you? No girlfriends or…” I stop myself shy of saying actual adults?
“Nope,” says Grant. “Just us. Though my brother was here for a while. He had the back room while his place was getting remodeled.” He chuckles. “Ian was so ready to get out of here.”
Looking around at a living room that appears to have been furnished with the contents of the lost and found of a public pool, I don’t doubt it. Good for him.
“Is the back room the one that’s available?” I ask.
Grant’s brow wrinkles, then relaxes. “Oh, yeah! Do you want to see it?”
“It’s what I’m here for,” I remind him.
Grant brays out a laugh. “Right! Cool. Let’s—”
A vibration picks up in my purse. My chest squeezes uncomfortably, but my lips twitch into a smirk. Took him long enough. I’d already ignored the You okay? I received while waiting for my ride, and Cole’s Ellie??? had arrived as I’d messaged Grant about looking at the room.
Three pairs of eyes dart to the clutch humming at my side, then back to me. The only other sounds in the room are the tinny gunfire drifting from Diego’s headset and the incessant rock of the ceiling fan.
The phone stops, and the tension in my chest releases some.
“The room—” I start, and the buzzing picks up again, rattling against my hip. The guys cock their heads in tandem, a chorus line of curiosity. I sigh.
“Excuse me.” I fish my phone from my purse. Filling the screen is the familiar, handsome face of my abruptly, emphatically ex-boyfriend, Cole’s too-pretty lips captured in a smile. It’s a far cry from how I’d left him at the restaurant, eyes rounded in shock, my “Go fuck yourself” hanging in the air over our cozy two-top. His mouth had still been open when I excused myself from the table, which in retrospect I regret doing. He’d just dumped me in a public setting, thank you very much. He didn’t deserve politesse. I’ll have to consider that a moral victory.
I glare at the image, a sliver of hurt intruding on my anger. We were supposed to be celebrating. Even if today’s MRI results were more of a semicolon than the period I was hoping for, I was happy. I got dressed up; I’m wearing boob tape, dammit! We’d been on a downward trajectory for months; what was another night of willful ignorance? But before we could even order, Cole announced that he was “just not strong enough for this, too.”
The memory of that too cuts deeply enough that I wince. I swipe the screen to find the option to block his number.
“Ellie!” Cole’s voice explodes from the receiver.
I swear under my breath. Damn stiletto tips. I’m constantly flubbing on my phone because of my nails, but I just can’t give them up.
“Where are you?” he continues.
I frown. He doesn’t sound mad or worried, more… exasperated. Which is annoying. I’d like to think that one’s long-term partner’s sudden disappearance from a dinner together would register as more than an inconvenience. At least when that long-term partner is me.
“You can’t just leave like that in the middle—”
I end the call, and a few taps later, succeed in putting the thing on do not disturb. I’ll figure out how to block him later.
I look up to find that I am once again being observed like I am part of a zoo exhibit. I brace for the inevitable onslaught of questions.
Who was that?
Did he dump you? Why?
How do you feel about the dissolution of yet another relationship as a direct result of your defective body?
The imagined interrogation is enough to have me blinking back tears. Anger shudders through me. No. I’ve managed to get through this week without crying once. And while the greater implication of the breakup might be worth a few tears, Cole, who, despite two years of cohabitation, still doesn’t know where we keep the goddamn salad spinner, is not.
Steeled, I raise my chin and wait.
All three men dissolve into laughter.
Grant points to the phone, one side of his mouth hitched up in a smirk. “He sounded like a tool.”
“Right?” Diego chuckles, back to his eye-encroaching grin. Alistair snorts.
Grant nudges my shoulder gently. “Seems like you could use a beer.”
I look from bro to bro to bro. That’s… it? No commentary. “A beer?” I manage, still floored by their lack of reaction. What they overheard was downright delicious! If I’d listened in on that, I’d be dying for details.
“Ah! A beer!” Diego returns to his seat, deposits his headset and controller, and turns to me with a sweaty, unopened bottle.
I start to shake my head, then stop, letting my good eye land on the label. Shiner Bock. When was the last time I had a Shiner? Between Cole’s aversion to macrobrews and the never-ending supply of options that comes with dating a wine rep, I can’t think of the last time I’d had any beer. It sounds perfect. “That would be great, actually. Thank you.”
“My pleasure!” Diego twists off the cap and extends the bottle to me. I swear, he bows slightly as he hands it off.
I raise the beer appreciatively, and Grant does the same, while Alistair reaches back for the drink defacing the end table behind him and Diego scrambles to his chair for his bottle.
“Cheers?” I offer.
“Cheers!”
We clink bottles, though Alistair doesn’t deign to get up to toast. I drink. I don’t know that I consciously decide to chug the whole thing, but I commit, the mental middle finger to Cole and his snobbery and weakness and every other character flaw I’ve spent years overlooking absolutely worth the watering eyes.
I finish with a gasp, then blot my eyes. I silently thank the bighorn on the label. Good God, that hit the spot.
They’re staring again. Even Alistair gawks, dazzling features slack in shock.
“Dude,” they chorus, the single syllable coming out with no shortage of admiration. I’m oddly proud.
“It’s been a day,” I say flatly.
“No shit,” says Grant, and he lets out a little laugh. “So, you want to see the room?”
THE SPACE IS SIMPLE. Just a bedroom, as advertised, with honey-colored hardwood floors and exposed beams. No odor beyond the stale air of an unused space, and nothing so obviously unacceptable that my good eye can pick up on it. There’s a mattress pressed against one wall, wrapped in plastic, though I’m not sure if that’s good or creepy, and past it, a darkened doorway, what I presume is the bathroom. And the windows! I don’t know if it’s the influence of the beer, which I am absolutely feeling, or the sheer scope of the divided panes of glass dominating the south wall, but I could swoon. My plants would be so happy here.
Behind me, Grant clears his throat. “So, um…This is it? Bathroom.” He points to the door I noticed, then to the one we entered through. “And the rest of the house. Obviously.”
My apprehension sparks back to life. I’d made a point not to peek into any of the rooms we passed as Grant led me down the hallway, lest I spy something that would send me running from the place before I’d gotten a chance to scope out the one on offer. But a shared kitchen. If I go through with this, I’ll be sharing a kitchen, laundry room, and common areas with three unknown variables in lawn chairs.
My memory drifts to the substandard living conditions of male friends and guys I dated in my undergraduate days. Suspiciously stiff towels. Microwaves so crudded up, they had to be pried open. One guy I worked with had a pump bottle of dish soap in his shower in lieu of body wash.
Even Cole, who was, by most metrics, a functional adult when we met, fell soundly into the category of hapless male. Dishes made it to the sink but could never quite travel the last three feet into the dishwasher. Shoes abandoned in the living room, little land mines to tumble over in the dark when going to the kitchen for water. He couldn’t cook and barely cleaned, and I tolerated it all because in my mind, that was how I made up for my own deficiencies.
But it wasn’t enough. I’m not strong enough for this, too—
My face must betray some of the ugliness running through my head, because Grant’s brow puckers in worry. “There’s a lock?” He crosses to the door leading to the hallway, closes it, and turns the dead bolt. He makes a minor production of trying to pull it open, then unlocks it, letting the door swing into the room.
“Great!” The false cheer in my voice is grating.
“Cool. And you’re good with the rent?” He recites the price that had been on the sign, a mid-triple-digit sum I haven’t paid since my own undergraduate days. “And no deposit or first and last or anything. But there are utilities,” he adds, solemnly. As if a share of this place’s utilities would make a dent in the savings I’d get from reducing my rent by a good 65 percent.
“Absolutely,” I say, happy to contribute something fully genuine. And very happy to think about Cole’s rent skyrocketing. You strong enough for that, y’dick?
“If all this is too weird, you can just, like, bounce?” Grant points to a third door on the far wall. “That’ll let you out on the same side as the driveway.” I blink at the unexpected out, and he blanches. “Not that I want you to! But you seem… grown-up?” he says, which is very diplomatic. “And I’m sure we seem way not. So I get it if you aren’t into this. No hard feelings.”
Points for self-awareness, Grant. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Cool.” After another moment of silence, he starts to edge toward the door to the rest of the house. “I’ll give you a minute?”
“Yes!” The word comes out tight. Reality is threatening to close in, and I refuse to subject this innocent bystander to whatever that might look like. “Thanks.”
“Rad. See you in a few!” He laughs, adding, “Hopefully!” before stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
I take in one long, slow breath, holding it until the urge to scream passes, and exhale. This is fine! It’s stupid and impulsive, and I’m actively dreading the moment I’m going to have to look at the kitchen, but… it’s fine. I need it to be fine.
I stroll over to the mattress and scan the tag taped to a corner. Final Sale. Ian Hammond, pickup, and a date going back almost a year. I squint at the price. Damn. He got a good deal, but this thing was pricey. I send the room’s former tenant a silent kudos.
While I’m peering down, my left eye picks up a flash of light, and I angle my head toward my phone, still in my hand. I brace myself. Incoming call. Heather.
My stomach drops. If my notoriously call-averse friend has resorted to dialing, then I’ve already missed at least three texts of increasing intensity. Plus, she’s with Mark, her roommate. The man’s a drama teacher. He literally can’t help himself from escalating a situation.
I fake a smile as I answer. “Hey, H—”
“Ellie, what the hell?” Heather’s voice comes out sharp against my ear. “Why is Cole blowing up our phones, and why aren’t you responding? I’ve sent you, like, four texts.”
Called it.
“Why does Cole even have my number?” Mark grumbles, which bodes well. If he’s open to petty grievances, then we’re well out of range of hysteria.
“He’s asking if we know where you are? Weren’t you two going to dinner?”
“We were…” I say, and let the incomplete statement hang. I’ve been avoiding this conversation all week. I’d reached out to Heather that first morning, in case her biology background might hold the secret to my mysterious blindness. Instead, Mark joined the conversation and I found myself talking down two semi-hysterical secondary educators. And while calming them did a nice job of easing my own nerves, it didn’t seem like the time to introduce the possibility of a soon-to-be-dissolving relationship.
Now isn’t any better, but there’s no avoiding it. I take a crinkly seat on the mattress. “But before we could even order, he proposed that we ‘take a break’ from our relationship,” I say, loading Cole’s words with the disdain they deserve.
Twin gasps brush against my ear.
“Oh, my God, Ellie! Are you okay?” Heather asks. “Where are you?”
“I’m fine,” I say, sidestepping the second question. “I just needed a minute.”
“What did you say?” Mark’s voice is edged with wicked intrigue.
“I told him that he could go fuck himself.” There’s a bloom of pride in my chest at the recall. That was not very “Ellie” behavior. Kind of like everything that’s followed.
Mark’s laugh is a bright cackle. Heather snorts.
“It’s been a long week,” I say, and groan at the understatement. “It’s been a long few years, but this week in particular has been more than enough.” A bitter laugh pulls free from me. “Which is funny. That’s how Cole felt, too! ‘We’ve already been through so much,’” I quote. “‘I don’t think I’m strong enough for this, too.’” I grit my teeth. The final word twists just as painfully as it did at the restaurant.
The silence on the other end of the call speaks volumes. We don’t have to be face-to-face for me to know the look they’re giving one another, the wordless anxiety as they try to determine whether I’ve opened the floor to the subject of my notoriously uncooperative body.
Unbidden, my free hand comes to rest low on my abdomen. When Cole and I started dating, a degree of pain had already been a standard part of my cycle. He’d been so patient and understanding during the stretches of days I’d be “out of commission,” murmuring gentle words as he held me on the floor of whatever bathroom he’d found me doubled over in, soothing me in waiting rooms and doctors’ offices. When I’d finally been diagnosed with endometriosis and given a treatment plan, it had been a relief for both of us.
But there’s no curing the condition. Barring surgery, which my insurance isn’t quite convinced I qualify for, the most anyone can do is mitigate its symptoms. With the potential for pain lurking in the background of every intimate encounter, it became harder to connect physically. Add to that the fertility issues that are common with cases as severe as mine, the distance that accompanies the possibility that you won’t be able to provide what your partner wants in the long term, and the unspoken awareness that you’re only staying together out of convenience and respect for a lease agreement, and you have yourself a dealbreaker stew.
“I’m not sad,” I insist, but there’s a sliver of dishonesty in the words. “Or, maybe, for some past version of us.” Or just the past version of myself. The me that hoped that Cole would be different from the guys I’d dated since my symptoms started. We’d make it because he cared enough about me to stay, despite my traitorous body. I’d be enough to make him care. I could do enough and ignore enough and accommodate enough. But it really was only a matter of time.
“Oh, Ellie.” Mark turns my name into a sympathetic coo. “Fuck that guy.”
“But where are you now?” Heather repeats, inconveniently attuned to my earlier evasion.
“I’m looking at a room that’s available to rent. Near Hyde Park,” I add, hoping the allusion to the stately Austin neighborhood north of the university will inspire confidence.
“How did you find the space so quickly?” Mark asks.
“I saw the sign for it on Monday.”
Another loaded pause. Shit. I fall back onto the mattress, the plastic cold against the bare skin of my shoulders and back. Heather’s never outright expressed her dislike of Cole, but she never had to; her face always did it for her. So I am unsurprised when she asks, “And why were you noticing rental signs Monday?” with particular venom.
“When I came into the kitchen that morning, I was still trying to figure out what was going on. So I had my hand over my left eye.” I demonstrate, even though they can’t see me, and my field of vision is reduced to the sliver I’ve retained in my periphery. I drop my hand, bringing the ceiling back into view. “And when Cole saw me, his reaction was ‘Now what?’”
The rumbling of disapproval over the receiver is deeply satisfying.
“Ellie!” Mark says. “Why didn’t you tell us then?”
“I was half-blind and no one knew why,” I remind him. “It wasn’t a priority.”
“Ellie.” Heather’s voice is a warning.
“Why didn’t you just go to our place tonight?” Mark cuts in. “We’re not even there!”
A fair question. They’re at a teaching conference in Houston and won’t be back until tomorrow. And I had considered their address when I opened the rideshare app outside of the restaurant, but I’d dismissed the thought just as quickly.
I don’t know if it’s the buffer of the phone call or exhaustion— . . .
It’s the smell.
Another whiff and the scent clicks into place. It’s unmistakable, conjuring deep voices emanating from locker rooms, matte black cans of body spray, and multistep handshakes tailored to the narrow parameters of traditionally acceptable masculine intimacy.
It’s 100 percent grade-A dude.
And it’s not supposed to be here.
I turn, pivoting on the heel of my pump to squint at the “room for rent” sign at the end of the driveway, where the rideshare just deposited me. It’s there, in all of its hot-pink, bubble-lettered glory, the glitter highlighting the words private bath catching the fading twilight this Friday evening with the same flair that snagged my attention Monday afternoon.
The sign’s unapologetic femininity had me prepared for fellow ladies, the proximity to UT Austin and a single room on offer all but guaranteeing students. It would be perfect. The sunny coeds would keep me hip to social media trends, while I introduced them to overlooked rom-coms from the aughts. They would turn to me for guidance, and while my ten-plus years of life experience had left me a bit jaded, in time, I would be softened by their fresh enthusiasm. We’d end up as linked emotionally as our ovulation cycles would be synced.
Derivative? Sure. But I’d woken up blind in my right eye that morning and clocked the Pepto-pink sign while en route to the first of two specialists who would tell me that they had no explanation for my condition. My boyfriend of five years had responded to my situation with a resigned “Now what?” that made clear how misplaced my optimism had been when we signed a two-year lease on our apartment last fall. And if being a medical mystery in a domestic situation of dubious stability wasn’t reason enough to dabble in a little escapism, Wednesday’s neurologist diagnosed me with optic neuritis: swelling on the optic nerve that’s preventing my brain from interpreting what my eye is trying to see. The kicker? Fifty percent of the time, the condition is the first sign of multiple sclerosis.
I was tossed into an MRI machine the same afternoon, and in the panicky day and a half I waited for my results, that glittery posterboard became a touchstone. My immune system might have turned on my nervous system, and I may no longer be able to ignore that the doomsday clock on my relationship is seconds to midnight, but there could be sisterhood in my future, and evenings spent in shared admiration for Nancy Meyers’s kitchens.
It was freak out or fantasize, and I chose the latter.
So it’s with a touch of desperation that I scan the porch, hoping to disprove what my nose is telling me. A pair of dark blue sneakers sits to the side of the battered welcome mat, which, I realize, is conspicuously devoid of an L: WE COME.
Ick. Never mind. I get back to the shoes, which dwarf my silver Fluevogs. I try rationalizing. My college roommate had huge feet! Or… maybe they belong to a boyfriend?
Heavy footsteps sound from inside the house, and I gather more evidence. There’s a triangular rack of dumbbells in the corner, the numbers on the weights ranging from 25 to 50, and to the right of the front door, I note a flash of white. I angle my head to use my good eye and find that the mailbox has been labeled with a torn piece of paper reading THE DAWGHOUSE in incriminatingly masculine scrawl.
I cling to the hope of a house of endearingly raunchy, yoked ladies, one among them, perhaps, with a closet full of clodhoppers. I’m still struggling to spin the DAWGHOUSE signage when the door opens. The scent I’d identified hits me in a cloud of concentrated bro, and a young man towers over me from the doorway. He’s cute, with wide dark eyes and a blond fade that speaks of regular maintenance. Early twenties, I’d guess, based on the softness of his cheeks. He’s a baby. A dudeling.
He cocks his head. “Hi?”
My desperation morphs into defeat; my imaginary bestie squad has been deposed by the bro-iest of bros. He might be a puppy, but he’s the physical embodiment of the body spray I’d recognized. He’s even dressed for the gym, wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and armholes extending almost to his waist.
But I’m determined to recover some shred of that sidelined fantasy; The Proposal has something for everyone. I straighten and plaster on my winningest smile. “Hi! I’m Ellie.”
The dudeling continues to stare, the information, evidently, not meaningful to him.
“I’m here about the room?” I venture, feeling the corners of my mouth slip.
His wide eyes widen further. “You’re who texted about seeing the room?”
I screw the smile back into place. “Yes. Oh! Did I not include my name?” He shakes his head, and I offer an apologetic grimace. “Sorry about that…” I trail off, hoping to inspire an introduction in return.
“Grant,” he says, voice distant. He takes a step back, pulling the door open further. “Come on in?”
Despite the ongoing mental and emotional whiplash, some sense of self-preservation manages to bubble up. I am about to follow an unfamiliar man—a puppy of an unfamiliar man, but an unfamiliar man nonetheless—into an unfamiliar space without relaying my whereabouts to anyone who might come to my aid or collect my remains.
A week ago, this would have been madness. But a week ago, I wasn’t half-blind, freshly dumped, soon to be unhoused, and waiting to find out if I have a debilitating nerve condition. Because even though my MRI showed no sign of nerve damage, it’s possible that I’m in an early, undetectable stage of MS. Another flare-up in the next six months would be confirmation. My boyfriend, Cole, couldn’t hack it long enough to get through tonight’s semi-celebratory dinner, so here I am, having put all of my eggs in this fabulously misrepresented basket.
So I step into the bungalow.
Grant joins me, leaving the door open, which is appreciated. Inside, two more youths sit in lawn chairs, one reclining with his legs dangling over an armrest, eyes glued to his phone, while the other, whose seat is so low he’s basically on the floor, sits with a video game controller in his hands, attention firmly on the first-person shooter lighting up a massive flatscreen TV.
I scan the rest of the room, but there’s not much to take in. Nothing on the walls, no coffee table, and the only source of light is an audibly unbalanced ceiling fan. There’s a recliner toward the back of the room, just past the lounging guy, and between it and his folding chair, an end table I’m sure is meant to be a nightstand. There’s a beer bottle on the surface, and the lounging guy reaches back for it without lifting his eyes from his phone, takes a swig, and then puts it back down. No coaster. I suppress a twitch.
The one playing the video game turns his head nominally, offering an overly loud “Hola!” without looking away from the game. His curly dark hair is so voluminous, it buries his headset. The sound’s high enough that I can make out the rat-a-tat of gunfire.
The guy with the phone looks up. He stares at me. I stare back, because good God, this kid is stunning. He’s all chiseled cheekbones and dark-eyed smolder, with sideswept hair coiffed to careless perfection. I’m actually appreciative of my single-eye status; it’s like staring at the sun.
Granted, some of my awe wears off when his jaw slackens—dumb confusion isn’t a good look for anyone—and I wave. His brow furrows, and it’s another few seconds of silent observation before he takes in a breath, holds it, then lets it out on a thoughtful “Huh.” He extends a socked foot to nudge the guy playing the video game, who turns to face him. The pretty one bugs his eyes insistently, pointing toward me, and gamer boy finally looks my way.
“I already said—ohmigoodness!” He heaves himself forward to stand, and the tiny chair rises with him, the armrests gripping his backside. He staggers forward in a crouch, reaching back to free himself from the lawn chair with a high, self-conscious giggle.
“That chair is very small,” he says, and rises. We’re the same height in my heels, and he’s built like a compact linebacker, his barrel chest rising and falling in quick, panicked breaths. “I am Diego!” he announces in a shout that has me flinching. He frowns, then gasps. “Oh!” He tears the headset from his head, sending askew the blush-pink scrunchie partly restraining his curls. A few coils spring loose, and he smooths them back, heedless of his controller and headset.
“I am Diego,” he repeats. His volume is normal this time, but his chest is still heaving like he’s come in from a run. “So sorry for my rudeness. I didn’t know you would be…” The hand still bearing the headset extends toward me, making a vague, circle shape. But whether he’s indicating my gender, the ten-plus years I have on him, or the plunging neckline of the halter dress I selected when the evening’s direction had promised champagne and not sudden singledom, I don’t know.
He glares at Grant. “This is not a roommate!” he insists. “This is a pretty lady! You…” He returns to me. “You are a pretty lady.”
It comes out more as an accusation than a compliment, which is good; given the overwhelming suck of the past five days, a compliment from this puppy probably would have made me cry.
I smile. I think I like Diego. “I’m Ellie.”
“Ellie,” he repeats, like my name is the key to resetting his expectations. Apparently, it is, because his face lights up with a smile so large, his cheeks threaten to overwhelm his eyes. “Okay! Nice to meet you, Ellie!”
The pretty one continues to observe from his spot in the lawn chair. “And you want to live here?” he asks.
While I can’t rightly say that want has anything to do with my current situation, I’m also not inclined to lay out that my boyfriend proposed “a break” while I wait to find out if my body has decided to turn on my nervous system, and that, frankly, I’d rather set myself on fire than spend another evening under the same roof as him. So I nod.
He considers this. Then shrugs. “Aight.” He gets back to his phone.
“That’s Alistair,” Diego explains. “He just got back from a shoot. He’s a model,” he adds, conspiratorially. I nod. Of course he is.
“So it’s the three of you? No girlfriends or…” I stop myself shy of saying actual adults?
“Nope,” says Grant. “Just us. Though my brother was here for a while. He had the back room while his place was getting remodeled.” He chuckles. “Ian was so ready to get out of here.”
Looking around at a living room that appears to have been furnished with the contents of the lost and found of a public pool, I don’t doubt it. Good for him.
“Is the back room the one that’s available?” I ask.
Grant’s brow wrinkles, then relaxes. “Oh, yeah! Do you want to see it?”
“It’s what I’m here for,” I remind him.
Grant brays out a laugh. “Right! Cool. Let’s—”
A vibration picks up in my purse. My chest squeezes uncomfortably, but my lips twitch into a smirk. Took him long enough. I’d already ignored the You okay? I received while waiting for my ride, and Cole’s Ellie??? had arrived as I’d messaged Grant about looking at the room.
Three pairs of eyes dart to the clutch humming at my side, then back to me. The only other sounds in the room are the tinny gunfire drifting from Diego’s headset and the incessant rock of the ceiling fan.
The phone stops, and the tension in my chest releases some.
“The room—” I start, and the buzzing picks up again, rattling against my hip. The guys cock their heads in tandem, a chorus line of curiosity. I sigh.
“Excuse me.” I fish my phone from my purse. Filling the screen is the familiar, handsome face of my abruptly, emphatically ex-boyfriend, Cole’s too-pretty lips captured in a smile. It’s a far cry from how I’d left him at the restaurant, eyes rounded in shock, my “Go fuck yourself” hanging in the air over our cozy two-top. His mouth had still been open when I excused myself from the table, which in retrospect I regret doing. He’d just dumped me in a public setting, thank you very much. He didn’t deserve politesse. I’ll have to consider that a moral victory.
I glare at the image, a sliver of hurt intruding on my anger. We were supposed to be celebrating. Even if today’s MRI results were more of a semicolon than the period I was hoping for, I was happy. I got dressed up; I’m wearing boob tape, dammit! We’d been on a downward trajectory for months; what was another night of willful ignorance? But before we could even order, Cole announced that he was “just not strong enough for this, too.”
The memory of that too cuts deeply enough that I wince. I swipe the screen to find the option to block his number.
“Ellie!” Cole’s voice explodes from the receiver.
I swear under my breath. Damn stiletto tips. I’m constantly flubbing on my phone because of my nails, but I just can’t give them up.
“Where are you?” he continues.
I frown. He doesn’t sound mad or worried, more… exasperated. Which is annoying. I’d like to think that one’s long-term partner’s sudden disappearance from a dinner together would register as more than an inconvenience. At least when that long-term partner is me.
“You can’t just leave like that in the middle—”
I end the call, and a few taps later, succeed in putting the thing on do not disturb. I’ll figure out how to block him later.
I look up to find that I am once again being observed like I am part of a zoo exhibit. I brace for the inevitable onslaught of questions.
Who was that?
Did he dump you? Why?
How do you feel about the dissolution of yet another relationship as a direct result of your defective body?
The imagined interrogation is enough to have me blinking back tears. Anger shudders through me. No. I’ve managed to get through this week without crying once. And while the greater implication of the breakup might be worth a few tears, Cole, who, despite two years of cohabitation, still doesn’t know where we keep the goddamn salad spinner, is not.
Steeled, I raise my chin and wait.
All three men dissolve into laughter.
Grant points to the phone, one side of his mouth hitched up in a smirk. “He sounded like a tool.”
“Right?” Diego chuckles, back to his eye-encroaching grin. Alistair snorts.
Grant nudges my shoulder gently. “Seems like you could use a beer.”
I look from bro to bro to bro. That’s… it? No commentary. “A beer?” I manage, still floored by their lack of reaction. What they overheard was downright delicious! If I’d listened in on that, I’d be dying for details.
“Ah! A beer!” Diego returns to his seat, deposits his headset and controller, and turns to me with a sweaty, unopened bottle.
I start to shake my head, then stop, letting my good eye land on the label. Shiner Bock. When was the last time I had a Shiner? Between Cole’s aversion to macrobrews and the never-ending supply of options that comes with dating a wine rep, I can’t think of the last time I’d had any beer. It sounds perfect. “That would be great, actually. Thank you.”
“My pleasure!” Diego twists off the cap and extends the bottle to me. I swear, he bows slightly as he hands it off.
I raise the beer appreciatively, and Grant does the same, while Alistair reaches back for the drink defacing the end table behind him and Diego scrambles to his chair for his bottle.
“Cheers?” I offer.
“Cheers!”
We clink bottles, though Alistair doesn’t deign to get up to toast. I drink. I don’t know that I consciously decide to chug the whole thing, but I commit, the mental middle finger to Cole and his snobbery and weakness and every other character flaw I’ve spent years overlooking absolutely worth the watering eyes.
I finish with a gasp, then blot my eyes. I silently thank the bighorn on the label. Good God, that hit the spot.
They’re staring again. Even Alistair gawks, dazzling features slack in shock.
“Dude,” they chorus, the single syllable coming out with no shortage of admiration. I’m oddly proud.
“It’s been a day,” I say flatly.
“No shit,” says Grant, and he lets out a little laugh. “So, you want to see the room?”
THE SPACE IS SIMPLE. Just a bedroom, as advertised, with honey-colored hardwood floors and exposed beams. No odor beyond the stale air of an unused space, and nothing so obviously unacceptable that my good eye can pick up on it. There’s a mattress pressed against one wall, wrapped in plastic, though I’m not sure if that’s good or creepy, and past it, a darkened doorway, what I presume is the bathroom. And the windows! I don’t know if it’s the influence of the beer, which I am absolutely feeling, or the sheer scope of the divided panes of glass dominating the south wall, but I could swoon. My plants would be so happy here.
Behind me, Grant clears his throat. “So, um…This is it? Bathroom.” He points to the door I noticed, then to the one we entered through. “And the rest of the house. Obviously.”
My apprehension sparks back to life. I’d made a point not to peek into any of the rooms we passed as Grant led me down the hallway, lest I spy something that would send me running from the place before I’d gotten a chance to scope out the one on offer. But a shared kitchen. If I go through with this, I’ll be sharing a kitchen, laundry room, and common areas with three unknown variables in lawn chairs.
My memory drifts to the substandard living conditions of male friends and guys I dated in my undergraduate days. Suspiciously stiff towels. Microwaves so crudded up, they had to be pried open. One guy I worked with had a pump bottle of dish soap in his shower in lieu of body wash.
Even Cole, who was, by most metrics, a functional adult when we met, fell soundly into the category of hapless male. Dishes made it to the sink but could never quite travel the last three feet into the dishwasher. Shoes abandoned in the living room, little land mines to tumble over in the dark when going to the kitchen for water. He couldn’t cook and barely cleaned, and I tolerated it all because in my mind, that was how I made up for my own deficiencies.
But it wasn’t enough. I’m not strong enough for this, too—
My face must betray some of the ugliness running through my head, because Grant’s brow puckers in worry. “There’s a lock?” He crosses to the door leading to the hallway, closes it, and turns the dead bolt. He makes a minor production of trying to pull it open, then unlocks it, letting the door swing into the room.
“Great!” The false cheer in my voice is grating.
“Cool. And you’re good with the rent?” He recites the price that had been on the sign, a mid-triple-digit sum I haven’t paid since my own undergraduate days. “And no deposit or first and last or anything. But there are utilities,” he adds, solemnly. As if a share of this place’s utilities would make a dent in the savings I’d get from reducing my rent by a good 65 percent.
“Absolutely,” I say, happy to contribute something fully genuine. And very happy to think about Cole’s rent skyrocketing. You strong enough for that, y’dick?
“If all this is too weird, you can just, like, bounce?” Grant points to a third door on the far wall. “That’ll let you out on the same side as the driveway.” I blink at the unexpected out, and he blanches. “Not that I want you to! But you seem… grown-up?” he says, which is very diplomatic. “And I’m sure we seem way not. So I get it if you aren’t into this. No hard feelings.”
Points for self-awareness, Grant. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Cool.” After another moment of silence, he starts to edge toward the door to the rest of the house. “I’ll give you a minute?”
“Yes!” The word comes out tight. Reality is threatening to close in, and I refuse to subject this innocent bystander to whatever that might look like. “Thanks.”
“Rad. See you in a few!” He laughs, adding, “Hopefully!” before stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
I take in one long, slow breath, holding it until the urge to scream passes, and exhale. This is fine! It’s stupid and impulsive, and I’m actively dreading the moment I’m going to have to look at the kitchen, but… it’s fine. I need it to be fine.
I stroll over to the mattress and scan the tag taped to a corner. Final Sale. Ian Hammond, pickup, and a date going back almost a year. I squint at the price. Damn. He got a good deal, but this thing was pricey. I send the room’s former tenant a silent kudos.
While I’m peering down, my left eye picks up a flash of light, and I angle my head toward my phone, still in my hand. I brace myself. Incoming call. Heather.
My stomach drops. If my notoriously call-averse friend has resorted to dialing, then I’ve already missed at least three texts of increasing intensity. Plus, she’s with Mark, her roommate. The man’s a drama teacher. He literally can’t help himself from escalating a situation.
I fake a smile as I answer. “Hey, H—”
“Ellie, what the hell?” Heather’s voice comes out sharp against my ear. “Why is Cole blowing up our phones, and why aren’t you responding? I’ve sent you, like, four texts.”
Called it.
“Why does Cole even have my number?” Mark grumbles, which bodes well. If he’s open to petty grievances, then we’re well out of range of hysteria.
“He’s asking if we know where you are? Weren’t you two going to dinner?”
“We were…” I say, and let the incomplete statement hang. I’ve been avoiding this conversation all week. I’d reached out to Heather that first morning, in case her biology background might hold the secret to my mysterious blindness. Instead, Mark joined the conversation and I found myself talking down two semi-hysterical secondary educators. And while calming them did a nice job of easing my own nerves, it didn’t seem like the time to introduce the possibility of a soon-to-be-dissolving relationship.
Now isn’t any better, but there’s no avoiding it. I take a crinkly seat on the mattress. “But before we could even order, he proposed that we ‘take a break’ from our relationship,” I say, loading Cole’s words with the disdain they deserve.
Twin gasps brush against my ear.
“Oh, my God, Ellie! Are you okay?” Heather asks. “Where are you?”
“I’m fine,” I say, sidestepping the second question. “I just needed a minute.”
“What did you say?” Mark’s voice is edged with wicked intrigue.
“I told him that he could go fuck himself.” There’s a bloom of pride in my chest at the recall. That was not very “Ellie” behavior. Kind of like everything that’s followed.
Mark’s laugh is a bright cackle. Heather snorts.
“It’s been a long week,” I say, and groan at the understatement. “It’s been a long few years, but this week in particular has been more than enough.” A bitter laugh pulls free from me. “Which is funny. That’s how Cole felt, too! ‘We’ve already been through so much,’” I quote. “‘I don’t think I’m strong enough for this, too.’” I grit my teeth. The final word twists just as painfully as it did at the restaurant.
The silence on the other end of the call speaks volumes. We don’t have to be face-to-face for me to know the look they’re giving one another, the wordless anxiety as they try to determine whether I’ve opened the floor to the subject of my notoriously uncooperative body.
Unbidden, my free hand comes to rest low on my abdomen. When Cole and I started dating, a degree of pain had already been a standard part of my cycle. He’d been so patient and understanding during the stretches of days I’d be “out of commission,” murmuring gentle words as he held me on the floor of whatever bathroom he’d found me doubled over in, soothing me in waiting rooms and doctors’ offices. When I’d finally been diagnosed with endometriosis and given a treatment plan, it had been a relief for both of us.
But there’s no curing the condition. Barring surgery, which my insurance isn’t quite convinced I qualify for, the most anyone can do is mitigate its symptoms. With the potential for pain lurking in the background of every intimate encounter, it became harder to connect physically. Add to that the fertility issues that are common with cases as severe as mine, the distance that accompanies the possibility that you won’t be able to provide what your partner wants in the long term, and the unspoken awareness that you’re only staying together out of convenience and respect for a lease agreement, and you have yourself a dealbreaker stew.
“I’m not sad,” I insist, but there’s a sliver of dishonesty in the words. “Or, maybe, for some past version of us.” Or just the past version of myself. The me that hoped that Cole would be different from the guys I’d dated since my symptoms started. We’d make it because he cared enough about me to stay, despite my traitorous body. I’d be enough to make him care. I could do enough and ignore enough and accommodate enough. But it really was only a matter of time.
“Oh, Ellie.” Mark turns my name into a sympathetic coo. “Fuck that guy.”
“But where are you now?” Heather repeats, inconveniently attuned to my earlier evasion.
“I’m looking at a room that’s available to rent. Near Hyde Park,” I add, hoping the allusion to the stately Austin neighborhood north of the university will inspire confidence.
“How did you find the space so quickly?” Mark asks.
“I saw the sign for it on Monday.”
Another loaded pause. Shit. I fall back onto the mattress, the plastic cold against the bare skin of my shoulders and back. Heather’s never outright expressed her dislike of Cole, but she never had to; her face always did it for her. So I am unsurprised when she asks, “And why were you noticing rental signs Monday?” with particular venom.
“When I came into the kitchen that morning, I was still trying to figure out what was going on. So I had my hand over my left eye.” I demonstrate, even though they can’t see me, and my field of vision is reduced to the sliver I’ve retained in my periphery. I drop my hand, bringing the ceiling back into view. “And when Cole saw me, his reaction was ‘Now what?’”
The rumbling of disapproval over the receiver is deeply satisfying.
“Ellie!” Mark says. “Why didn’t you tell us then?”
“I was half-blind and no one knew why,” I remind him. “It wasn’t a priority.”
“Ellie.” Heather’s voice is a warning.
“Why didn’t you just go to our place tonight?” Mark cuts in. “We’re not even there!”
A fair question. They’re at a teaching conference in Houston and won’t be back until tomorrow. And I had considered their address when I opened the rideshare app outside of the restaurant, but I’d dismissed the thought just as quickly.
I don’t know if it’s the buffer of the phone call or exhaustion— . . .
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