Page 3 of GDL

Despite all that, I'm a professional, and I'm going to act like one. I have a lot riding on this, and I want this experience to be a positive one for Kynan, too. He ran into some issues with the media when he first got big, so this is my chance to help rightsome of those wrongs and change some of the misconceptions the public might have about him and the BBA crew.

Grayson's still smiling smugly at me.

"He's also straight," I point out. A fact I fact-checked repeatedly during my research. "So that rules out anything happening."

"It rules out nothing." He quirks a brow at the not-so-subtle hint to my bisexuality. "Young adults these days are…fluid."

"I wish I had a fluid to throw at your face right about now," I mutter, lifting the brass lion’s head knocker and tapping it against the door three times.

It's showtime, and I need to bring my A-game. I can't afford any distractions. Yes, Kynan ticks many boxes, including some I never knew I had—hello tattoos—but this is serious. I want to restore my career back to its former glory and show my kids their old man has still got it. I won't let anything stand in the way of that.

A baby-faced fellow opens the door. He's holding a phone in one hand, an iced coffee in the other, and has what looks like a baby blanket flung over his shoulder. He runs his icy blue eyes over us. "You're not Caviar."

"Caviar?" I whisper to Grayson, confused.

"Like DoorDash but fancier," he whispers back.

"No, we're not," I say to the young man. "I'm Sawyer Bannister, and this is my manag?—"

His eyes light up. "Oh, yeah. I follow you on TikTok. Sorry. Didn't recognize you with a shirt on. Hi, I'm Tharin. Come in, come in. We're shooting out back."

We follow him through the house that looks more like it's ready to be featured in a mid-century interiors magazine than being someone's actual residence. Grayson bumps me with his elbow. "Didn't recognize you with a shirt on. Tharin totally sassed you, BTW," he says, low enough for Tharin not to hear.

I roll my eyes. "You're too old to be using text acronyms in real life," I remind my fifty-four-year-old bestie.

We're led out onto the back patio. Tharin leaves us, and my eyes are immediately drawn to the photoshoot underway on the lawn. There's an elaborate setup with two cameras, lighting rigs, and a crew of four or five. It's a big change from the first video Kynan made where he was hanging clothes on a makeshift line in his dorm room, talking about how something as mundane as laundry helped quell his anxiety.

One thing that hasn't changed? He was shirtless in that first video, and he's shirtless right now. The LA sun beams down on his muscular body, lighting up his colorful tattoos to their full brilliance, and Jesus hold the peg bag, it's a stunning sight. Like a work of moving art.

Pressure builds behind my zipper as Kynan slowly hangs the white towels on the clothesline, his abs taut as his biceps flex, securing each towel with two pegs before bending down—the camera zooming in on his ass—and repeating it again, talking to the camera the whole time.

We're too far away to hear what he's saying, but it's likely one of two things: either care instructions about the best way to hang towels out on a line to dry, or something personal and motivational from his own life.

This whole setup could be trite and eye roll worthy, but it's Kynan's X factor that elevates it into something that millions of people around the world genuinely connect with. Side note, my clothes have never smelled better or been softer.

"Word to the wise, old man," Grayson mutters, rocking on his heels beside me. "People who aren't interested in someone tend not to drool."

"I am not drooling, motherfucker." I don't take my eyes off Kynan as I discreetly swipe my thumb along the seam of my lower lip, just to be sure.

I may be clear on the drooling front, but something tells me I may have seriously underestimated what I've gotten myself into.

2

Kynan

A cold shiver races up my spine, which is weird because it's so hot out we've had to stop shooting multiple times for the makeup artist to fix up my running foundation.

"That's it, that's it," Jeremy encourages from behind the rhythmic click-click of his camera. "A little bit over to your right. Good, good. Now lift your chin. Hold out the towel a little farther. Abs tight. Perfect!"

I follow each of his commands, even though I feel silly doing it, like I always do on any professional shoot. I'm way more comfortable when it's just me and my phone in my own backyard. But I have to mix it up a bit, and changing locations and doing a pro shoot is a great way to add some variety.

Never in a million years did I think I'd be renting out a house and hiring a professional team to shoot content. It all started off as a gag, me posting a few pictures and videos online, washing my clothes and hanging them up in my dorm room in my first semester at college. When I created the hashtag GDL—Guys Doing Laundry—I didn't think I'd get anything more than a fewthumbs-up and some laughing emojis from my friends. Doing laundry makes me feel better, eases some of the anxiety that's never too far from the surface. That's it.

I never expected it to blow up literally overnight, but it did. I went to sleep and had a couple of hundred followers and woke up the next morning to twenty-seven thousand. Within a week, I'd surpassed one hundred K.

It only grew from there, the start of a wild journey that's led me to where I am today. I dropped out of college and found a manager who introduced me to the content creator scene here in LA. There's a lot of fake people and industry drama that I tried to stay clear of, and it's through mutual connections that I ended up meeting Silas, Tanner, Rocky, Patrick, and Beckett, a.k.a. the BBA.

The six of us were starting out in the field at the same time, but our bond was strong and genuine right from the jump. We're all so different, yet when we come together, it works. When I get anxious, they lift me up. When Rocky lands himself smack bang in the middle of yet another PR crisis, we band around him. And when Tanner and Patrick want to either kill each other or fuck each other, we all leave the room.

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