The Brooklyn Book Boyfriends

by Kayley Loring

  That was Thursday. That was before shit got weird.

  “Lady, lady, lady …” my roommate says as she collapses onto the sofa next to me. She’s got her going-out face on, she’s got her I’m-getting-laid-tonight musk on, and I can’t help but laugh. Roxy looks like Betty from the Archie comics, if Betty were drawn by a horny twelve-year-old boy who’s into manga. Blonde ponytail, pert nose, comically enormous boobs that are packed tight into a 1950’s teen-girl outfit, and a sweet smile that does nothing to hide the foul-mouthed vixen’s devious thoughts. She takes the empty donut box from me and says, “You finally got another fucking job. It’s a good thing. We should be celebrating.”

  That’s right. On Friday afternoon, I got a call from Elaine Hoffman. Elaine is the president of the boutique business consulting firm that I interviewed with on Thursday. I had been unemployed for nearly three weeks. I was deliriously happy when she offered me a position at her firm, because her company specializes in consulting for startups, and that was my focus in business school. The pay is great, the office is in Brooklyn, I loved her no-bullshit attitude and I just knew we’d be a great fit. And then she told me that the project she’s assigning me to, starting Monday, is for her important new clients: SnapLegal-NYC. Keaton and Chase’s company. They hired her company and they’re paying for an on-site project manager for a month. She hired me specifically because she needs a project manager to help them transition to a subscription-based model for their services, although she never mentioned this in our meeting. “You’re a Godsend,” she said. “You’re a perfect fit for this.”

  That means I get to see Chase McKay on Monday! I thought to myself. I wonder if he wears suits at the office? I thought to myself, before imagining him slowly taking off his suit.

  It wasn’t until after I’d hung up that I realized I’d also be seeing Keaton Bridges on Monday.

  I immediately called Roxy at work, and told her about my situation. She laughed so hard she didn’t even make a sound, then she snorted, then she hung up on me. The fifteen random emojis she sent afterwards made no sense and didn’t make me feel any better.

  I drank one cup of coffee spiked with just a tiny amount of Irish whiskey and a huge amount of cream, and I called Elaine back.

  “I just had my HR woman send a courier over with your paperwork and a company cell phone,” she said when she answered. “Please don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind about working for you, Elaine, not at all. I just have a bit of a dilemma here, and I felt that I should tell you that I actually know the founders of SnapLegal, a little bit. I met them socially, and Keaton Bridges pursued me for a few weeks, but I finally made it clear to him that I wouldn’t go out with him. He was always a perfect gentleman and it was a friendly parting. No hard or deep feelings at all, and I promise you that I am fully capable of doing the job your company has been hired to do for them. I just … you know … full-disclosure.”

  “And what about Chase McKay?”

  “What about him?”

  Oh shit. Did I accidentally verbalize my little Chase McKay in a suit fantasy without knowing it? Did I think those dirty thoughts so loud that my new boss could hear them?

  “You said that you know the founders socially.” I could hear the strain in her voice. She was trying so hard not to yell at me. “Did Chase McKay also pursue you?”

  “Oh God, no! No no nooooo.” I wish. “No, I just know him because he’s Keaton’s best friend. I mean, I actually met him half an hour before I met Keaton, but that was it.” And I overanalyzed his reasons for not wanting to pursue me endlessly.

  I heard her exhale slowly. “Okay. So that’s your big dilemma? You dated Keaton Bridges a few times, and now you are not dating him, but it’s a friendly break-up?”

  “Yes. I mean, no! It wasn’t even a break-up because we never dated. We’re just not dating. End of story.”

  “Okay. Here’s a short story for you: I once had to work for the man who ran over my dog. I wanted to murder him, but I did my job because I am a professional who is capable of compartmentalizing. That is why I did not spit in his coffee once, as far as he knew.”

  “I’m … so sorry about your dog.”

  “Okay.” I could hear her tapping on her desk with her pen. “Listen. I have three kids and I am currently the main breadwinner in my family because my husband has decided that it’s finally time for him to write The Great American Novel, and I haven’t slept for more than four hours a night in months, so I don’t have time to filter my thoughts on this and then get back to you. I like you. I had a good feeling about you. You have the perfect resume for this position and fantastic references. And you are literally, on paper, the best person for this SnapLegal job. So, if you are honestly telling me that your personal dynamic with our clients will not affect your ability to do your best work and represent my company in a professional manner, then I seriously don’t give a shit about your private life, as long as you keep it private. So just sign and return the contract. Your company e-mail address will be set up by Monday morning, and I will meet you at the SnapLegal offices at ten on Monday morning for a quick meeting with the founders. But if they try to get out of my contract with them because of you, then obviously I will be firing you.”

  She hung up before I could thank her for understanding. I also sort of wanted to ask her to marry me. If she was cool about the situation, now all I had to do was make sure that Keaton would be cool with it. And I was nearly positive that he probably would be. I just wished there was one person that I could talk to about how to approach this, someone who knows Keaton better than I do, someone with impossibly beautiful wavy hair and rich, dark bedroom eyes and a deep smooth voice that always sounds like he’s talking dirty on the phone—even when he’s grumbling to you about Moscow Mules and walking away from you.

  “I need to talk to Chase,” I say, reaching for my phone. I’ve already called him twice and texted him three times today.

  “Has he responded?”

  I sigh. “No.”

  “Send him a boob pic.”

  I bark out a laugh. “That’s your answer to every man problem.”

  “That’s the answer to every man problem. You can send him one of mine if you’d like.” She smiles big and bats her eyelashes at me.

  She’s joking. She’s never actually taken or sent boob pics. It’s a joke. I’m pretty sure it’s a joke.

  Roxy is an angel. She’s an angel disguised as the little blonde devil perched on my shoulder. The one who convinces me that a shot or three of tequila and going dancing are the answer to all of my problems. And they were! When we were in college.

  Roxy works just as hard as she plays. She’s the manager of customer loyalty for an online retail company, and she makes a buttload of money, some of which she has been using to pay for most of our meals for the past few weeks. I am eternally grateful to her. Except for one thing.

  “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t bet me that I couldn’t give a guy my number, I wouldn’t have gone out that night and maybe I would have met Chase another time, when Keaton wasn’t around.”

  I had only been out on a few dates since moving to New York, because I seem to be really good at attracting guys that I’m not really attracted to. Roxy dared me to go home with a guy that I met in a bar. When I refused to acknowledge that one, she dared me to give my number to a guy that I actually liked and to give a fake number to any guy I didn’t like if he asked me for one. That was the one and only time I had ever actually taken her advice ...Well, sort of … Minus the fake number part.

  I can’t not stay in touch with people. I still send Christmas cards to my friends from kindergarten. I send thank you cards to former bosses when I’ve been laid off. Every stationary store in New York is still in business because of me.

  But I couldn’t give Keaton a fake number, because I didn’t want him to tell Chase that I was a sneaky b-face.

  She brushes the hair out of my eyes. �
��If you want Chase, go get him.”

  “I can’t get Chase. I have to go to work with Chase and Keaton tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t you just ask your new boss to assign you to a different project?”

  “She specifically hired me because she needs someone on this one.”

  “Then quit. You’ll get another job.”

  “Wow. You are full of great ideas. Maybe I should also do heroin while I’m at it.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it until you try it.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Sorry. Don’t do heroin. But you should definitely do Chase. I mean, the man quit smoking for you.”

  “He did not quit smoking for me.”

  “You said he quit smoking.”

  “Keaton mentioned that he did, when we were on the phone.”

  “Right after he met you and you criticized him for smoking.”

  “I’m quite sure I’m not the only one who’s ever criticized him for smoking. He obviously hates me, or he wouldn’t have bolted from the bar like it was on fire.”

  “Maybe he’s secretly burning for you.” She grins and waggles her perfect eyebrows. “Call him again.”

  “I’ve already texted him three times to tell him that I really need to talk to him and called twice. He probably thinks I’m a stalker now.”

  “Did you leave a voicemail?”

  “Nobody leaves voicemails.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Not exactly.”

  I just want to tell Chase that I have a new job at the consulting firm that they hired for implementation consultation and that I’ve been assigned to their project. I just want to make sure he’s okay with it and discuss how best to approach this with Keaton. I want to have this conversation with him, because I need this job and I’m a professional and he’s a professional and we’re all grown-ups. Also, I want to hear his voice and smell him just a little.

  “I think I might know where Chase is…” I say, hesitantly.

  “In your dirty dreams every night?”

  “At that bar in Carroll Gardens.”

  Roxy claps her hands so loud that it echoes around the room. “Yes! That is where you need to go. That is what you need to do. And I know exactly what you need to wear when you go there to do that.”

  “But it’s seven o’clock. On a Sunday. I start a new job in the morning.”

  “Yeah! Woohoo!”

  “But I mean … we’re twenty-seven years old.”

  “Girl. Do not make me slap you.”

  3

  Chase

  There’s something pathetic about walking into a bar at seven-thirty on a Sunday night. Why would anyone go out alone to drink on a Sunday night unless they were trying to avoid something or someone that they don’t want to deal with? That’s avoiding your current problems by creating future problems. And what kind of idiot returns to the scene of the crime to try to forget about the thief of his heart?

  This kind of idiot, apparently.

  I powered off my phone as soon as I got home from the gym. Removed the SIM card and put it in an envelope in a drawer. Now I’m at Bitters, handing over my phone to Denny so he can put it in the safe in the back office. I’m giving him fifty bucks to keep the Irish whiskey coming and an order to not give the phone back to me tonight—no matter what. No matter how drunk I get, no matter how much I beg and plead with him to give me my phone so I can call the girl who just shot down my best friend, he must not let me have it.

  I may look and fuck like a bad boy, but I’ve done the right thing my whole life, because I couldn’t afford not to. Not when I was a kid and my parents were working their asses off at the restaurant every day and night. Not when I was in high school when I realized being successful meant being smarter and working ten times harder than the entitled rich guys who were invading Brooklyn. Not at Wharton or law school when I realized the aforementioned situation would never change, even though the snobby girlfriends of those entitled rich guys secretly eye-fucked me while smoothing down their cashmere sweater sets. And not even now that I’m at a point in my life where I’m starting to wonder—what’s the point of being successful if I don’t have a woman I love to share that success with?

  Tonight, I’m going to keep doing the right thing, no matter what. For the sake of my friendship with Keaton. For the sake of my company and my partnership with Keaton. For the sake of everything I’ve worked for up until now. No matter how much it’s killing me.

  “What would you say to that girl if you allowed yourself to talk to her now?” Denny asks, as he pours out three more fingers of the good stuff.

  “Don’t be a bartender shrink with me, man,” I say as I’m hunched over the bar like a guy who’s desperate for a bartender shrink.

  “We’re just talking. It’s slow tonight, come on. Indulge me.”

  “I’m not gonna talk to her.”

  “Hypothetically. If she walked in here right now?”

  Fortunately, a few ladies come up to order, so I’m spared the humiliation of pouring out my soul to a bartender. I’ve never done it before and I’m not going to start now. But what would I say to her?

  Love was the last thing on my mind until I walked into this bar that night. All I cared about at that point in my life was getting my business to thrive. I’ve never fallen in love at first sight before or since, but I felt it when I saw you walk in here. You looked nothing like the women I usually go for, but I couldn’t look away. I could tell you weren’t the kind of woman who needed to be stared at, and I could tell I wasn’t your type of guy, but I just wanted to know you. And when you walked right up to me it felt like everyone and everything around us was dimming and fading out.

  Every word out of your mouth—and there were so many of them—made me want to kiss you. I should have just kissed you. I should have stayed after Keaton showed up. I should have fought for you. But Keaton and I were partners in a new business that was less than two years old, a business that I’d spent years planning and that he invested his own money in. I couldn’t risk taking a stand that night if Keaton really liked you too, and I could tell that he did. I couldn’t blame him for that.

  I tell that guy when he’s being an idiot or an asshole all day long every day, but getting between Keaton and a woman that he likes is never a good idea.

  I’m sorry I never responded to your text the next day. I had already heard from Keaton that he got your number. I figured I’d hold off and see if it went anywhere for you guys or not. My money was on ‘not.’ I didn’t expect him to keep pursuing you for so long, but he thought you were just playing hard to get.

  I don’t usually have regrets. I’m usually a lot better at moving on. I’ve passed on job offers from Fortune 500 companies. I’ve turned down generous investors because I didn’t like their politics. There are ten million women in New York, and all of a sudden, I was hung up on one of them.

  For that first week after I walked away from you, I was so fucking messed up I was listening to Coldplay. Coldplay, Aimee.

  And then I forced myself to accept the consequences of my choice. Every time Keaton told me about how sweet and great you were on the phone, I died a little inside. I tried to hate you for not being direct with him right from the start, but I couldn’t. I only hated myself for not being more assertive with him and I couldn’t believe he was blowing it even after I’d taken myself out of the equation. I was glad he was bombing with you, but honestly, at least it would have been worth the sacrifice if he ended up with you. I know Keaton, and if he likes you but he can’t have you, you will still be off-limits for me, for life.

  I managed to stop picturing you in bed with my best friend. I almost stopped imagining you in bed with me. I convinced myself that you were all wrong for me, and maybe you are. I convinced myself that I’d meet someone I like more than you, and maybe I still will. But I can’t seem to fall out of love with what could have been.

  This has been the longest month ever.

>   I finally quit smoking because of you, so I’ve been in a shit mood for two reasons.

  A couple of weeks ago, I was inside a coffee shop on Court Street and I looked out and saw you alone on your Schwinn bicycle with a basket on the handlebars, probably going to the market. I thought of my favorite Jimi Hendrix song “Little Wing,” because you looked all butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairytales, riding with the wind. You stopped to talk to someone who was walking her puppy, and you were so friendly and happy and cute with that dog. I told myself I’d count to ten slowly and if you were still there by the time I was done, I’d run out to you and tell you how I felt because—fuck it all—at least you’d know. But you were pedaling away before I got to seven, and there wasn’t enough coffee in the world to get me out of the funk I fell into for the rest of that day.

  I’ve been listening to the blues ever since Keaton told me what you said to him. I encouraged him to go out and hook up with someone else. He never stopped seeing other women. To be honest, he met a socialite named Quinn soon after he met you. But she wouldn’t sleep with him unless they were exclusive and he liked you enough to see if it would go anywhere with you. Now he’s off in the Hamptons with her.

  I’ve been fighting the urge to call you and let you know how much I want you, just to avoid a fight with Keaton.

  I spent three hours at the gym, yesterday and today, to keep myself busy and tire myself out. I still can’t stop thinking about you, but I have to.

  So tonight, I’m going to force myself to go home with someone else, and this whiskey is going to get me there. Because that’s what it’s going to take to keep me from trying to find you tonight. Even though I never did stop seeing your deep blue eyes when I shut mine at night. Even though, without wanting to, I still look for you everywhere.

  “Having a good night?” a sultry voice asks, as I’m overwhelmed by perfume. Big curly hair. Big grin. Big everything. That fucking Chainsmokers song comes on and everyone in this place starts nodding their head and singing along. Sure. This will do. For tonight. It’s not what I want, but it will have to do.