The Bachelor Society Duet: The Bachelors Club

by Sara Ney

  Figuring me out.

  Considering, I’m sure, how I’m going to behave now that we’ve taken this friendship to a whole other dimension. New level won’t cut it—this is something entirely singular.

  Now what?

  How is he going to treat me tomorrow?

  Better question is: How am I going to treat him?

  18

  Desdemona

  God, that sound—it’s like two cats in heat. And I would know, because I am one—a cat, not one in heat. Still, the last time I heard screeching and caterwauling like that, it was me, the one and only time I got loose in the city and prowled the block for almost an entire evening before Girl found me and hauled me home.

  Ah, I remember it well.

  Sweet, sweet freedom.

  I found an orange tabby who was a little worse for wear (if I’m being honest) but liberal with the liberties—if you catch my drift.

  She let me stick my tiny—

  “Oh yeah,” comes a tortured moan. It’s so long and drawn out, it gives me pause, and I glance up from licking my paws.

  More muffled sounds come from the couch—in the same spot where I lie every afternoon, sunning myself, and now that spot is ruined because Girl is clearly defecating on it, or loose with the liberties.

  In my spot.

  My sacred spot.

  How. Dare. She.

  There are rules in this house, and she’s breaking them.

  Rule 1: What’s mine is mine.

  Rule 2: What’s hers is also mine.

  Rule 3: No pissing on the furniture (I learned my lesson the hard way, as a kitten, when I defecated on the furniture and spent the night locked in the bathroom with that grotesque contraption they call a litter box—gag).

  Rule 4: Don’t touch my stuff.

  Rule 5: It’s all my stuff.

  Rule 6: Don’t attack the company.

  I consider rule six up for interpretation; after all, what is company, really, but family who barges in unexpectedly and Boy, who bitches like a stray tom and smells twice as foul. He bathes in water way too often when his tongue would do the trick just fine.

  I spit, narrowing my eyes toward my spot—the spot where I lazily bask, day after boring day.

  Girl and Boy are there, except only one of them is on the couch. Girl has her bottoms off, sitting on the furniture, Boy is on the floor in front of her, and she’s hissing and twitching like she might need the veterinarian, or to be fed. Maybe she’s hungry; I’m never quite sure what humans want.

  My keen eyes scan a scratching post—I believe Girl refers to that one as a coffee table—food and snacks no longer in sight, and maybe that’s what’s wrong with her? She’s still hungry but he’s not feeding her? Typical. It seems everyone is always begging for food from Boy.

  The whole business of theirs is loud and inconvenient, and I contemplate sauntering over to break up the party, because let’s face it: now that I’m awake, my stomach is telling me I could use a scrap of tuna. Or that dry shit Girl feeds me.

  She’s too cheap to buy the canned goods. I wasn’t born yesterday; I know for a fact some cats get the good stuff. Trust me, I’ve seen the commercials on the talking box in the living room; I’ve seen the cat that looks exactly like me, eating from her crystal goblet. Where is my glass bowl? Where is my soppy, canned sustenance made with real fish and meat and juicy drippings?

  I lick my chops, mood getting sour.

  Real fish. Real meat. Juicy drippings.

  From pet owners who actually love their animals.

  I scowl.

  The one and only reason I haven’t attacked Boy’s dangling bits is the simple fact that he’s begun leaving me scraps. Sometimes Girl forces it on him, but lately, when she’s not looking, he hands me food from the palm of his stinky hand, and that’s why I keep him around.

  Boy is disposable.

  And Boy is causing Girl to make way too much fucking noise.

  I mew.

  Mew again, louder, because they’re mewing too and couldn’t possibly hear me over the squawking.

  Ugh.

  Get out of my spot!

  They have their places to sit, I have mine, and humans should know their places.

  Sullen, I march to Girl’s bedroom and jump on her bed, wishing I could slam the door shut behind me and drown out the horrific sound of their screeching.

  19

  Brooks

  My friends are in rare form tonight.

  From the minute I arrived at The Basement, I knew they were going to be a handful; it’s Friday night and none of us are in the mood to go bar-hopping, yet not a single one of us wanted to go home and be alone.

  Alone, Brooks? When are you ever alone? You have Abbott now, keeping you company.

  I swirl the ice around my highball glass, watching the amber liquid go round and round and round, mesmerized by it. Thirsty but not for alcohol.

  Thirsty for Abbott.

  The thought makes me frown, and when I look up, the guys are watching me; they exchange knowing looks. Phillip goes so far as to tap Blaine in the bicep to get his attention, and they both raise their brows at one another.

  “Our boy looks defeated.” Phillip grins, straight teeth a blaring white from over-bleaching. Shine a black light on the guy’s smile and he looks like the Cheshire cat, they’re so idiotically perfect.

  “Our boy looks like he’s got something on his mind.” Blaine agrees, nodding along. Stroking the facial hair he’s been unsuccessfully trying to grow for months. It’s patchy, looks ridiculous, and makes him appear younger, not older. “Or should we say someone on his mind?”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not defeated.”

  Have they found out about Abbott? Do they know I’ve been spending all my free time with her, or are they just giving me a hard time to feel out the situation?

  I haven’t been forthcoming with either of them in weeks, since starting the club. Haven’t given them any life updates, social updates, or work updates. Barely text them back, almost never call anymore. Even when one of them calls me at work, Taylor hasn’t been given permission to patch them through to my office. I just…haven’t been feeling it lately. Hate lying and hate the nauseating dip in my stomach, my loss of appetite, lack of concentration—but most of all, I hate the lustful thoughts I’ve been having about Abbott.

  I wish I didn’t have to let her down and disappoint her.

  So.

  I’ve avoided my friends and being in this place for far too long. Which is why I dragged my ass out tonight.

  I needed a well-placed reminder about my priorities and where my head needs to be, and I don’t mean between Abbott Margolis’ legs.

  “Sorry bro, you look like you’re going to become the first loser in the Bastard Bachelor Society.” Phillip crosses his legs, taking a drag of his scotch on the rocks. Sips it so loud I can hear it from my spot a few feet away, the pompous windbag.

  “You wish.”

  “Actually, I do wish. Jags spring training will be approaching soon enough and I, for one, am looking forward to catching a little preseason practice. Need to work on my tan.”

  The Jags practice facility is out west, and I try to fly out and watch a few games when the weather in the Midwest is complete shit but glorious and sunny where they train.

  I loathe Phillip right now. What a jackass.

  I rearrange myself in my seat, mimicking his pose, legs crossed, expression neutral. “What makes you think I look defeated?”

  Seriously, why would he fucking say that?

  “You haven’t called or texted in days. You don’t take our calls when you’re at work. You’re clearly not spending any time with us, so you must be spending it with someone else. Classic case of ‘I’m seeing someone new.’”

  It’s true that we tend to disappear when we like someone, desperate to spend all our free time with them. Which is absolutely the case with my friendship with Abbott right now.

  Friendship. I damn near chok
e on the word. “Whatever.”

  “Good comeback.” Blaine laughs. “What are you, ten?”

  Of course, they’re both right. I just can’t admit it or I instantly lose the entire bet, and my season tickets.

  Season tickets, season tickets, season tickets…

  I’m not even a baseball junkie; I like it well enough, but I’m not obsessed with it like some dudes. So what’s the big fucking deal?

  The big deal is, those tickets are worth a fortune and you could sell them if you weren’t interested anymore. You lose your ass if you give them away in a bet.

  I try to keep that in the back of my mind, too—the street value of the seats I hold.

  As a kid who grew up with nothing, I’m not about to hand off what can make me a sweet chunk of change. Retirement, a house, paying down my student loans—those are all things looming over me that I could use the money for if I were ever desperate enough.

  I am not.

  And I’m determined that I will never be as hungry or desperate as I was as a kid.

  “You don’t think I’d tell you if I was seeing someone?” I scoff, staring down into my glass. “Give me some credit.”

  “No can do, pretty boy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think you’d tell us jack shit if you were seeing someone.”

  “No one has called me pretty a day in my life.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject,” Blaine sneers, biting down on a giant olive. He holds it between his thumb and forefinger, boring into the pimento then sucking it into his mouth with a slurp.

  “Yeah,” Phillip brilliantly adds, “don’t try to change the subject.”

  “I’m not. And I’m not dating anyone, Scout’s honor.”

  “Let’s be real here, you were never a Boy Scout.”

  “Right.” My tone couldn’t sound more bitter. “Because we couldn’t afford the fees. We couldn’t afford jack shit, including school clothes or supplies, and certainly not the fees for me to play sports or participate in extracurricular activities.”

  My friends recoil, taken aback. Speechless, for once in their fucking lives.

  “Whoa, dude.” Phillip’s hands go up to coax me out of my tizzy. “Whoa. Not at all the path I was trying to lead you down. Relax, bro, relax.”

  It takes another drink for them to lift me out of my funk. Just one drink, though, because I have someplace else I’d rather be.

  I want to go home.

  To my apartment and home to Abbott.

  After counting down the minutes until it’s safe for me to rise, I take my leave, heart racing the entire trip, winded when the elevators of my building slide open and I see Abbott there, not unlike the morning we officially met in the hallway. Adorable at her door, balancing a grocery bag in her arms, purse hanging from one as she wrestles to get the key into its rightful spot.

  “Hey neighbor.” As I greet her, my hands get stuffed into the pockets of my glorious blue jacket.

  She turns, abandoning the task of getting inside her apartment to greet me in kind.

  Her teeth are pearly white, peeking out between glossy pink lips. Her eyes? Look at my absurd velvet smoking jacket. Then at my face.

  Jacket.

  Face.

  Jacket. Face.

  Her smile becomes secretive, now buried in the brown paper bag hefted in her arms. She gathers herself, reemerging, serious this time. “Whatcha doing there, buddy?”

  Buddy?

  And here I thought the day after oral was going to be awkward. How wrong I was—she’s still a total smartass.

  “I was…” I don’t want to tell her I was with my friends. She’ll mock me.

  “With your friends?”

  How did she know? “Yeah, how did you know?”

  Her eyes stray once more to my navy jacket. Get wide. Brows rise. “Lucky guess.” Abbott squints in my direction, shifting on her heels. “Random question: do you actually smoke when you’re wearing that thing?”

  I give the sleeve a whiff. “Occasionally.” Mostly on patios.

  “Interesting.” She smirks smugly.

  “How is that interesting?”

  “It just is.” Her back hits the wall, and she uses it for support. “I also think it’s interesting that you and your little buddies have a secret club—it reminds me of the gentlemen’s clubs I’ve read about in romance novels.”

  She needs to stop using the word little to describe me and my friends; it’s annoying.

  Her mention of a gentlemen’s club piques my interest because that’s exactly the angle my friends and I were going for! Of course, I can’t say that out loud. Abbott will think I’m loco. Crazy.

  A complete dipshit.

  Which, of course, we are—however, the last thing I need to do is add fuel to Abbott’s massively flaming fire. I can see in her eyes she’s in a great mood, and in the mood to tease.

  I cross my arms, the blueprint in my hand getting tucked snuggly under my armpit. “Oh yeah? What do they say about those clubs? I’ve never read one.”

  Abbott cocks her head, tilting it to the side, lights from the hallway creating a halo effect above her head. Her hair is straight today, and shiny, hanging in a flat sheet.

  “A few I’ve read have centered around these clubs. The guys are single and make these bets with their friends to remain single.” Abbott chuckles, unknowingly hitting the nail on the head. “Obviously that’s never what happens in the end.”

  “What happens in the end?”

  “One by one, the single gentlemen always fall in love.” Another laugh. “Honestly, the whole concept is ridiculous. You’d have to be bitter and jaded to start a club like that. Or a complete loser.” She annunciates the word loser, thoroughly repulsed.

  “Now now, let’s not be hasty, throwing out insults,” I start, aware that I’m about to argue my viewpoint while wearing a velvet smoking jacket, a uniform for a club doing exactly what she described from her novels. Her girly, historical romance, smutty novel bullshit. “You don’t know for sure those guys are losers.”

  Not that I have any idea what I’m talking about.

  “It’s fictional.” She rolls her eyes in my direction. “That would never happen in real life.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Are you kidding? No. These days, no self-respecting guy would be a member of a club like that. He’d be laughed out of town or roasted on social media.”

  Once again, here I stand in this dumb fucking jacket, like a jackass, listening to her drone on and on and on, cheeks now ablaze. I haven’t blushed in years, but I’m blushing now.

  “It could happen. In fact, it’s not the worst idea.”

  She gapes at me, incredulous. “Not the worst idea? It’s barbaric and archaic. Are you out of your mind?”

  Yes.

  The word, “apparently,” slips out of my mouth before I can stop it, but Abbott is too worked up to notice the blunder.

  “You would defend the concept? The plot, if you will?” Her lean sags deeper as she settles in to hear me speak. “By all means, do go on.”

  Is she patronizing me? It’s hard to tell because she’s smiling that megawatt smile, eyes sparkling with mischief. Cue a flash of teeth as she saucily bites down on her bottom lip.

  Anddd there it is!

  “All I’m saying is that as far as the concept goes, a few men having a club where they get together for a common goal—it’s not terrible.”

  “Right, but we’re specifically talking about them making a pact to be single.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  She huffs. “It’s not realistic.”

  “Why? Plenty of people don’t want to get married. Or have babies. Or have relationships.”

  Abbott considers this. “True.” She straightens herself, coming off the wall and balancing the bag in her arms, gripping it like she’s holding a toddler. I wonder what’s inside—dinner? Lunch for tomorrow? Snacks? Shit, will I ever find out, or is she going to torture me by not sharing
?

  “You know what’s archaic, Miss Know-It-All? The ideology that everyone has to be in a relationship to be happy.” I volley back, taken off guard and suddenly defensive. “That’s what’s archaic.”

  So there. Take that.

  “Most people aren’t like that. Most people want to meet someone.”

  “I don’t know who you’re hanging out with, but the guys I know don’t.”

  “Who?”

  “My best friends.”

  “Like I care about them.” Abbott is quiet for a moment, letting this new information soak in. “What about you?”

  “Same.”

  That one word lingers in the air, in the hallway, floating above our heads, a heavy weight suddenly thrust upon the light mood and clouding over.

  My cute neighbor forces herself to continue to smile, a big, fat, fake smile that I find unattractive. I prefer the fun, carefree Abbott—not this one, the one suddenly sullen in response to my declared singledom.

  Sure, I get it. No single young woman on the prowl for an eligible bachelor wants to hear there is one less candidate for her to sink her claws into.

  Even if Abbott is way out of my league, it still must sting that she can’t have me. Not that she wants me, but I can only assume…

  “You don’t want to be in a relationship?”

  “I thought you knew that.” Pause. “That whole friend-zone thing is for a reason.”

  “Oh. So you don’t just not like me?”

  “Abbott, if I were going to hand in my Bastard Bachelor card, it would be for you.”

  “Your what?”

  Shit. What did I just say? Why are her eyes so wide?

  “What’s a bastard bachelor?”

  Shit. Fuck. “A what?” I ask, hoping to throw her off the scent. Maybe she’ll think she misheard me if I pretend not to know what she’s talking about.

  “A bastard bachelor. You said ‘If I were going to hand in my bastard bachelor card, it would be for you.’”

  I did say that. I said those exact words, but try getting me to admit it.

  Deny, deny, deny. “What I meant was, I’d date you if I were dating. But I’m not, so…yeah.”