counted as an actual celebrity—did. They talked on the phone, and then they told you about talking on the phone.
“So, hey,” he said. “Is there any chance you could give me a hand?”
Stevie blinked in confusion.
“With what?” she asked.
“My stuff.”
“Oh,” Stevie said, feeling the cold hand of panic on her neck. Already she sounded like a slack-jawed idiot. “Sure.”
She followed him to the common room, where his bags and boxes (nicer than hers and more of them) were waiting. He gestured to a box.
“You have to be careful with that one,” he said.
Stevie took this as a cue to pick that box up. It was a bit on the heavy side, full of some kind of equipment that was unevenly packed and slid around when she moved it.
“Yeah,” he said, taking a smaller bag and heading back down the hall to the right circular stairs at the end. “It’s been a weird summer. That’s why I was on the phone.”
“Oh,” Stevie said, “yeah. Sure.”
She tried to maneuver the box into the twisting space. The steps creaked loudly, and the box caught. Hayes moved ahead, but Stevie was stuck trying to pivot and angle without shaking the box too much. She paused for a moment, expecting Hayes to come back and give her a hand, but when he did not appear she took a deep breath and persevered, letting the box scrape along the wall.
Hayes’s room was Minerva Six, at the very end. It was much like hers, but hotter and with an extra window.
“Oh, great,” he said. “Set it anywhere. Thanks.”
“Your show is good,” she said. “I really liked it.”
This wasn’t entirely true. The show was okay at best.
In preparation for coming, Stevie had watched all the episodes. They weren’t long, maybe ten minutes each, and they were fine. The story was pretty good. Hayes’s acting, less so. Most of it was cheekbones and a low, sultry voice. Sometimes, that’s all that was required. Stevie always tried to be truthful, but she didn’t want to make her first acquaintance in her new house and say, “Your show was mediocre and overrated but I see why you are valued: for your looks and deep voice.” People tended not to warm to that kind of thing.
“Thanks,” he said, leaving the room in a way that suggested she was to come with him and get more stuff.
This was good. This was Hayes Major, internet star, talking to her. Also, this was Hayes Major, internet star, getting her to carry most of the heavy stuff, but still.
Another weird thing, Stevie thought, as she made her way back down the twisting steps—she knew about Hayes’s love life. Hayes had been involved in a publicized altercation over the summer at some convention when he got involved with another YouTuber named Beth Brave, star of a show called Beth Isn’t Here. Beth had been dating Lars Jackson from a show called These Guys. Some kind of argument broke out when Hayes got together with Beth that had been widely recorded, and the three of them had a screaming fight in a hallway. There was online chatter after speculating that Beth would be involved in a second season of The End of It All.
This was the kind of life Hayes led. It was very different from Stevie’s life.
“People in LA,” he said unprovoked, as they picked up some more boxes. “There’s been a lot of interest in the show for movies, so . . .”
He let that hang in the air until Stevie said, “Wow.”
“Yeah,” he said. “My agent wants me to make another series right away because there’s a lot of interest right now.”
Another trudge up the tight steps.
“More zombies?” Stevie asked as she caught her breath.
“I don’t know. . . . You can just put that on the bed. . . . I mean, I did that already?”
“You turned into one at the end,” Stevie said. “I think? It was kind of open-ended.”
“Yeah . . . ,” he said, and his tone indicated that he was no longer really warming to the conversation. “So, I just have to make a few more calls now that I’m here? Thanks a lot. I’ll see you around?”
“Yep,” Stevie said, wiping the sweat from her brow as she backed out of the room. “I’ll see you . . . you know . . . here.”
He was already dialing.
As she stepped out into the hall and went down the stairs, two things occurred to Stevie.
The first was that it was eight