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“I guess I can strike a vibrator off the Christmas list then, huh?” her dad remarks, startling us all with his overzealous candor.
“Dad!” Holley snaps, embarrassment hitting her like a whip. Me, though—I’m bemused beyond belief.
I glance to Holley’s father with a huge smile on my face, and I awkwardly whisper into the room while everyone looks on. “You must be Holley’s father. It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
“Pleasantries later, son,” he says without blinking. “Time now to deal with the angry mob.”
Gloria is the first to break the invisible barrier force field we have going, stomping over to Chloe and me with quick feet. She lowers her voice to a whisper, but I’m not sure it does any good. The room has gone so silent again, you could hear a pin drop.
“What the hell is going on, Holley?”
Holley clears her throat, but instead of answering her editor directly, she apologizes with an, “I’m sorry, Gloria,” and steps forward, pulling me with her thanks to the clamp of my hand, to address the room. I would have expected her to take some sort of a baby step—explain to her editor first—but I guess when you have this kind of interaction in the middle of a crowd, you have to expect a time of reckoning will eventually come home to roost.
Voice loud enough for everyone to hear, Holley does her best to make amends for the confusion. “I…I want to, first, apologize for bringing everyone here under…well, as it turns out, false pretenses. It wasn’t on purpose, and it wasn’t planned, but…Bachelor Anonymous won’t be choosing a bachelorette tonight. In fact, he won’t be choosing a bachelorette at all. I’m so sorry—”
Surprisingly, it’s Rachel, my four-wheeling, clean-eating date, who speaks up first, cutting into Holley’s speech to disagree. “It looks like he picked one to me.”
All four other women chime in in agreement, and the rest of the room goes silent once again.
“Me too.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Same.”
“Looks obvious.”
“I’m…” Holley swallows hard, walking toward the women to address them directly. I think, out of everyone here, she feels the most remorse toward the five of them. “I’m so sorry for doing this to you guys. You have to know I had absolutely no intention of… I would never dream of purposely dragging you along through a pointless contest. I…I didn’t recognize my own feelings, and for the position that’s put you in, I’m sorry.”
Bianca, Lucy, Elle, Rachel, and Lydia all consider Holley closely, but I’m surprised when Elle turns to me. “And you feel the same about her?”
I nod apologetically. “I’m truly sorry for wasting any of your time. That wasn’t my intention at all.”
It’s tense for about ten seconds while Holley and I stand there, the weight of an entire roomful of people’s eyes threatening to crush us, but as always, I can count on Chloe to have my back. And as it turns out, Holley can count on her to have hers, too.
She starts to applaud, and before I even know what’s happening, everyone has joined in. Even the women in front of us. In fact, Rachel’s lips even turn up into a smile. “I can’t believe the two of you didn’t realize.” She laughs. “Truth is, it was clear as day to me.”
“Me too,” Lydia agrees. “As soon as I walked up, I could tell there was something between them.”
Elle shrugs. “No big deal. We only went on one date, anyway.”
Bianca smiles, but when I take a closer look, I see it’s because she has her phone out, taking a selfie.
It’s not a big crowd, just the employees and the core group of people involved in the contest, but before we know it, everyone is back to chatting like none of our little exposé ever happened. It feels like a relief to know it’s not going to end in complete catastrophe.
Chloe laughs as she sidles up to us, offering up, “So, do I need to write another ad? Single dad seeks different Juliet?” as a kind of mocking question.
Problem is, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous anymore.
“No,” I say with a smile. “He found her.”HolleySingle Dad Finds Juliet
As the Bachelor Anonymous contest at SoCal Tribune comes to a close, the staff and contestants alike have been left reeling—me included.
That’s right, folks. Our first run at a social experiment, where a bachelor is selected based on a single personal ad and farmed out on several dates with the best of candidates, is a success. Bachelor Anonymous found love!—on unplanned date #6.
I know you weren’t expecting another contestant in Bachelor Anonymous’s journey, but the truth is, in order to take a detailed look at his time with her, we have to go back to the beginning.
To the day I met Jake Brent.
That’s right, me. The lead contributor to the Bachelor Anonymous contest and a longtime employee of the SoCal Tribune, Holley Fields. I hope you’ll all pause your jealousy long enough to congratulate me—because as it turns out, Jake Brent is the love of my life.
