Just Friends

Didn’t mean he liked it.

But he had to pretend he did. For one Saturday a month, Zack joined his brothers and father at the local country club to relive those bygone days of hazing and partying with so many substances that it was a miracle they remembered college at all.

“What are you doing sitting over here by yourself?” his father, Isaiah, asked. Cigar smoke wafted in the bright hall overlooking the croquet courts. Cognac splashed into glasses. Masculine laughter rang out while the occasional male couple broke off from the party to discuss current business dealings or to warn an old brother away from a certain woman. “Mind yourself around that Welsh woman,” Zack had overheard earlier. “More than one of us have put our fingers into that honeypot, if you know what I mean. Poor Merange over there got roped into having a baby with her.”

Zack, who hadn’t worn anything more than Valentino trousers and a button up shirt, sat up in his seat and turned down a glass of cognac from his father. “Didn’t get much sleep last night,” he claimed. “I’m on a deadline.”

Compared to his father and brothers, Zack was broke. Between all of them, there was one giant private plane, two isolated islands, three mansions, and six boardrooms. Zack didn’t have any of those things. He had taken his healthy trust fund and used it to start his business while investing the rest as smartly as he could.

“A deadline.” His father shook his head. “Son, staying up half the night to paint pictures isn’t a deadline. Come on. At least say hello to some of your brothers.” He patted his son’s shoulder with one hand and sloshed his half-drunk cognac in the other. “You never know when you might need to rely on them one day.”

Zack shrugged. He might as well get this over with.

He had been raised to schmooze men of his station. When he was young, he was a natural at it. To the point his father joked that he was going to promote his youngest son ahead of his brothers simply because of how much charm he exuded. A charming man was a dime a dozen in that lofty world. But a man who could charm billions of dollars out of a hardened businessman’s pockets? Priceless.

Yeah, Zack had those skills. But he had chosen to use them for seducing and charming art critics over the years. He hadn’t been in a boardroom since he was in undergrad, shadowing his father and brothers and working up the nerve to say he was going to art school instead of business school as soon as he had his BA.

Speaking of undergrad…

There were only a few men he had called his frat brothers in attendance that day. Summertime meant he didn’t see as many of the ol’ pals. Summer meant the likes of his father and the men he partied with fifty years before. Zack could handle them. He had no love for them, but at least they didn’t remind him of what hell college was.

The two men standing by the window snickering about money and pussy, however? Zack had to say hello to them, and he would rather eat his covered toes.

“Feldman!” Ian Mathers almost choked on his drink between laughing at one of James Merange’s jokes and noticing an old frat brother in attendance. “Look at you! In a button up shirt.” Fine thing coming from a man who refused to wear neckties.

“They turn the air conditioning up so high in here that even I’m inspired to cover up,” Zack said with the drollest voice he could muster. “A man doesn’t like shivering.”

Ian gestured to one of the country club servers walking by. “Grab a drink and join our conversation. Reliving the glory days. Cause we’re not allowed to do anything else here.” That last bit included a knowing eye-roll. Ian’s father was also in attendance. So was James Merange’s. Beta Kappa Phi was big on legacies.

“Right. Glory days.” Mentioning that meant Zack went to grab a drink.

Glory. Fucking. Days.

What was so glorious about being hazed for six whole months? One of the best days of Zack’s college life was when James and Ian graduated. Only then did Zack know some peace. Peace was more glory than parties and enough contraband to kill a man. I don’t know how these bastards are still alive. The only time college-aged Ian had said a nice word to Zack was when he thanked his savior for pulling his blacked-out drunk ass out of their snowy yard after a bender. What? Like I was going to let him freeze to death out there?

His brothers had warned him that the major downside to joining this frat was the hazing. The more money a young man was promised, the bigger the family he came from, and the more handsome he was, the more he was hazed to hell and back. A far contrast from the other frats he had heard about over the years, where men matching that description were pampered from the moment they rushed in their sophomore years.

Ian and James were definitely hazed when they joined two years before Zack. Their billion-dollar families saw to that. But Zack had been alone when he rushed. The only classmate who came closest to his social standing was Peter Scully, the son of a local politician. His father may have been the former mayor, but he was a small fry compared to Zack’s grand legacy. The chapter president’s two right-hand men (Ian and James, of course) had taken one look at their pledges and immediately singled out Zack for that year’s grand hazing.

And I’ve still got the scars to prove it. There was one on his right shin from when they made him run laps around the track until he literally collapsed, scraping his knee so badly that he needed stitches. The fact these young men immediately took him to the emergency room did not make it any better.

That wasn’t the worst offense, though. When Zack thought about that one, he had to hold back the urge to punch Ian Mathers right in the fucking face.

“Lovely summer, isn’t it?”

Zack was a beast at small talk. Especially intentionally awkward small talk, which he enacted now.

“One of the best in recent memory.”

“Can’t think of a better one.”

Zack raised his eyebrows. “Planning on marrying that girlfriend anytime soon?” he asked Ian.

“Hmph.” Ian put his empty glass down. “It’s a good thing I’m used to rejection, because I’ve got asking her to marry me down to a science. Sometimes I mix up what day of the week I ask on, though.”

That made James laugh. Zack didn’t otherwise react. Still deserves better than you. Had Ian thought anything like that ten years ago when he met Zack’s girlfriend at a party?

My fist. Your face. Let’s do this.

“And how’s that bouncing baby boy of yours, Merange?”

James stopped smiling. “Fine,” he said, curt. Ah, yes, Zack knew how to hit those sore spots. Until that past Christmas, James didn’t even know that he had a son with one of his old best friends. The scandal that erupted when the truth came to light almost ruined James Merange. Socially, anyway. Everyone assumed he had an illicit affair with one of the most promiscuous heiresses in America. A scandal only because he and his girlfriend Gwen were one of the city’s darling long-term couples, and naturally, it was easy to assume that one had cheated on the other. Zack had heard that Cassandra Welsh had stolen the poor schmuck’s genetics from a sperm bank, but he didn’t know if he believed it.

“Good! Enjoy fatherhood, eh?”

James redirected the topic to his best friend. “Trying to get Mathers on board the baby train, but I guess his girlfriend’s not into the idea.”

“One step at a time, boys,” Ian said through gritted teeth. “One miracle, actually.”

“And what about you, Feldman? Which Victoria’s Secret model are you dating this week?”

“Jealous that you can’t be public with your supermodel girlfriends?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

It’s fun fucking with guys in serious relationships. God knew the bastards deserved it. Was it Zack’s fault that they were going out with women way too good for them? Nobody expected James and Gwen to tie the knot after going out for nearly eight years now. But Kathryn and Ian were always in the betting pool around the country club. Zack’s neighbor, however, was soooo not the marrying type, and that cracked him up.

Suffer, dickcheese.

Before this forced conversation could get any more awkward, Zack’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” He turned around, pulling his phone out. “This is important.”

He had only said that to get out of talking to them. What he didn’t know, until he looked at his phone, anyway, was that it truly was important.

Because Rachel had texted him.

Zack excused himself from the room, choosing to read Rachel’s follow-up text in the hallway near the men’s restrooms. Other country club members came and went, but none of the women in summery dresses or men in linen suits paid him any mind. Good. Because the boyish grin on his face was liable to give away how excited he was to hear back from Rachel.

When I told my dad that I couldn’t sleep last night, it wasn’t because of work. All right, so it had been a little bit. Zack had sat down in his studio late Friday evening, intent on getting back to work. Preferably work that he could show off somewhere in the near future.

His thoughts kept going back to Rachel. Their friends-only date hadn’t been anything special, all things considered, but damn if Zack still wasn’t struck with inspiration!