Page 1 of The Groupie

Zak

Aslick magazine with my photo on the cover slides across the table landing in front of me. Fucking Boston Magazine Bachelor of the Year edition. One of the guys snickers, and the others take notice with loud whistles and hoots.

I toss the magazine aside.

“There have to be a hundred other bachelors in this city more deserving of that fucking award than I am. I don’t get why they picked me.” I speak to the table at large filled with various teammates from the Boston Brawlers hockey team. After winning our fourth straight game, we’re out at our usual haunt, The Tea Party.

“Maybe it’s your notoriously well-traveled dick that got you into the running,” Finn says. The equally notorious goalie for our team has a lot of balls calling me out.

I flip him the finger. “Hey, didn’t Delaney coerce you into a fake engagement to get you and your dick out of trouble?”

He flips me the finger back and squeezes his arm around his wife and former victim of Delaney’s fake engagement plan. “Watch out, or it could happen to you, too.”

I snort a laugh, and the others at our table laugh at my expense. My teammates are clearly enjoying my recent award more than I am. Maybe that’s because they’re not the ones who need to stave off random marriage proposals from women they’ve never met.

Jonas is here with Mindy, his bride, an ex-puck bunny. Finnegan Reed always shows up, and even the old men, Rafe and O’Rourke, showed up tonight, along with another half dozen younger single guys. Sheila and her regular crew of groupies are here—and I use the term groupies fondly because they’re actually super-nice super fans—and they’re all gorgeous, friendly, and fun.

Sheila has the balls to slap another copy of the offending magazine in front of me.

“How about an autograph from the famous Bachelor of the Year for a friend?” She bats her eyelashes to mock me because that’s how it is between us.

“Really? Et tu, Sheila?” I shove her magazine back to her. “This is crap. They should’ve picked that other guy, the runner-up, what’s his name…?”

“No one is the pretty boy you are, Mr. B.O.Y. of Boston,” Jonas says.

I flip him the finger. I hate the moniker Candice Montgomery, Boston Magazine’s editor, christened me with in front of the entire team at her party last night and the way she paraded me around like chattel. I don’t remember being so fucking irritated by a woman before in my life until as I did in that moment. That’s what a woman drooling, with fangs bared while she sharpens her knife, getting ready to eat you for dinner will do to a guy who normally worships at the altar of all females.

“You are a notorious flirt,” Sheila says, nudging me in the ribs.

“It’s the flirting with one particular woman that got me into trouble. I never should have… Never mind.”

My phone pings, and I slip it from my jeans pocket to check it. A text from Candice. Shit.

“Let me guess,” Finn says, eyeing my frown. “It’s the magazine lady.”

I nod and read it over.

Candice: I’m still waiting to give your hockey stick a test run. Would you be interested in a late-night visit? My place or yours?

How do I respond to that without getting into trouble? No way do I want to get involved with that woman. She has “serious relationship” written all over her flirtations, but I have to figure out how to turn her down without causing any drama. This fucking magazine award of hers, and her, have turned my previously blissful life upside down. Things used to be so simple. I take a deep breath. Then I slip the phone back into my jeans pocket. No way am I responding tonight.

But I can’t afford to ignore her forever since she has juice in the media business, and the Brawlers’ PR vice president, Delaney, warned me to play nice. I went to Delaney to ask for help in getting out of the whole Bachelor of the Year thing—especially the award night—but she was no help at all. To Delaney, I’m an opportunity for the Brawlers to gain positive publicity and raise awareness.

“You never should’ve taken Candice what’s-her-name home for the night,” Finn says.

“Candice Montgomery. Tell me something I don’t know.” I don’t tell him that nothing ended up happening between us, thank fuck, due to the fact that she ended up borderline, fall-down drunk, and I don’t do drunk women.

O’Rourke shakes his head. “I could see that train wreck coming. What were you thinking?”

“In my defense, I was buzzed, and she was hot, and it never occurred to me to do anything differently than I would normally do in that situation.” That situation being an opportunity to take a hot lady home at the end of the night for a shot with my hockey stick. But I only do casual hook-ups, no dating, and that message somehow got lost in her excitement over the whole award thing. She’s the kind of lady who believes the whole Pride and Prejudice thing—the universal truth that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must want a wife.

I figure I’m at least a decade out from that universal truth coming into effect.

Yeah, I know all about Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice. Good story. I have three sisters in Minnesota, where the winters are long, so when we weren’t playing hockey, we did a lot of reading. My mom and sisters influenced some of my reading and also my deep appreciation for the female of the species. They’re a kind, generous, caring lot.

Except when they’re in husband-hunting mode. That’s what Pride and Prejudice taught me. Now I feel like Darcy times a hundred, thanks to social media. I can’t go out anywhere without being accosted—by that, I mean I’m the target of purposeful flirting, and the purpose is marriage or at least a serious relationship.

Maybe I should take all their numbers and get back to them in ten or fifteen years. But patience doesn’t seem to be part of the deal when a female is husband-hunting. They all have clocks ticking. And they’re all in competition, and I’ve seen what that can be like. I have the torn shirt to prove it.