Prologue
Dear Gents,
See that remote in your hand? Yeah, the one that’s covered in pizza sauce and last night’s Buffalo wings? I want you to take a good look at it. Do you have it memorized? Good, now bend at the waist, set it on the coffee table, and stand up. Don’t you dare look at that remote again, don’t even glance at it. And the Xbox that’s calling your name, go ahead and forget about that as well, because guess what? You’re starting a new journey and it doesn’t include television, video games, or high-fiving over a bubbly belch from the bowels of your intestinal tract. Forget everything you’ve ever known about being a man, forget the hall passes you have for being a man, and forget every natural instinct you carry inside your bones. Because I’m here to refine you, replenish your knowledge on the male species, and turn you into a modern gentleman: a well-respected, polished, and confident individual with an epic sex appeal and killer style that will woo any female with a simple flash of your honest charm.
Stick with me, gents. I’m starting a revolution and it begins with you.
Sincerely,
The Modern Gentleman
Chapter One
WES
“Dude, you’re drinking a Mang-o-Rita.”
I stare at the can in my hand and shamelessly nod. Yup, I am. I’m also wearing cut-off sweatpants and a neon orange Hawaiian shirt I wore once for a destination wedding in Hawaii. It’s a far cry from my usual impeccably tailored suit and tie.
Caden, my best friend, continues, “It’s not even a Lime-a-Rita. It’s mango, chick-flavored piss-water, man.”
Don’t I fucking know it.
It’s without a doubt, a chick drink, and yet, it’s the only thing I have left of her.
“And what’s with the lady scarf?”
Ehh, okay, so I have her scarf too. I found it in my hall closet and sniffed it for about an hour and a half last night while I tipped a carton of cold lo mein noodles into my mouth for dinner. Sniff, tip, sniff, tip. It was a process I repeated until I was out of noodles. And then I proceeded to pick the missed noodles off the floor and eat those as well. Can you see where this is going? I’m a hot mess.
“And why is the scarf wrapped around your head?”
Because that’s how she would wear it . . .
“My head was cold.” I stick my chin up in the air. Yes, good answer.
“And the Joni Mitchell playing in the background? Clouds and illusions? What kind of crap is that?”
Depressing, that’s what it is. It’s depressing crap. But I can’t help but sniff the tail end of the scarf wrapped around my head, hold my lady can to my chest, and sway . . . fucking sway.
“I really don’t know love at all . . .” I sing softly with my head tilted to the sky, memories of the woman I love floating through my mind.
I miss—
A pillow whips me in the face, dislodging my headscarf and making me spill my lady drink all over my offensively colored Hawaiian shirt.
“What the hell?” I hold the dripping can away from me and sit up on my couch, just as Caden sits next to me.
“Dude, you need to get your shit together.” Caden looks around my apartment. “When was the last time you cleaned in here? It smells like rotten goat cheese with a touch”—he sniffs the air—“of Doritos.” Maybe because I was crushing Doritos in my palm last night, letting the tortilla shards indent my palm, anything to take away some of the pain in my heart. They didn’t do the trick. “I leave town for a few days and this is what I come back to? An unshaved, stanky version of The Modern Gentleman. What the hell happened?”
Everything. Everything that was not supposed to happen happened. And I should have known it would pan out like this. Anyone reading my column could have easily guessed the outcome of my future, the outcome of my “experiment.” Most of them probably tuned in every week and laughed at my words, saying, “Oh this is going to backfire, this is going to backfire sooo badly.”
It did. Oh boy, did it backfire.
Meeting someone over a pile of dog crap doesn’t necessarily scream, “This is the start of the world’s most epic romance.” Yup . . . should’ve known.
Dog doo-doo. You read that correctly. I met the love of my life over dog doo-doo.
And I lost her because of my boss’s “brilliant” idea he proposed to me to “amp up” my column.
I sigh and take another sip of the piss-water. “She broke up with me, man.”
His eyes widen and he opens his mouth briefly, then shuts it, considering how he wants to approach this conversation. I know what he really wants to say. Cringing, he finally asks, “Did she find out?”
I nod, knowing what’s coming next. “Yup. And if you say, ‘I told you so,’ I’m going to knock your nuts off your body.”
He smirks. “What about I warned you?”
“Same fucking thing.” I slouch on the sofa, regretting every decision I made over the last two months.
We sit in silence, the weight of my loss hanging heavily in the room. She wasn’t just special to me; she was special to my group of friends. She exuded a bright, fun, innocent energy no one could resist, especially Caden, who told me so many times to come clean, to tell her what I was doing. But I was scared of losing my damn job.
Fuck, I was scared of losing her.
And oh the power of hindsight, because that fear was completely valid. Caden folds his hands in his lap and exhales.
“Seems like you only have one option left. You have to get her back.”
I shake my head. Not going to happen. “She specifically told me to crawl into my own scrotum and drown in my sperm. I’m pretty positive when a girl wants my unborn children to kill me, she’s not going to want to talk to me again.”
“So you’re going to give up? That’s not very modern gentleman of you. Tell me, what would he do right now?” Caden gives me a once-over. “He sure as hell wouldn’t be wearing a scarf around his head and listening to Joni Mitchell.”
No, no, he would not. Fucking Modern Gentleman persona.
Resigned, I say, “The Modern Gentleman wouldn’t have taken such a dishonest job from his boss in the first place. God, this entire experiment is the antithesis of what The Modern Gentleman would have done. I’m a freaking oxymoron.” I finish up my drink. “No . . . I’m a moron.”
“I’m not going to argue with that.” Caden perks up and looks at me, hands still folded. “But, dude. This”—he waves his hand over my pathetic self—“needs her back in your life. What you’ve got going on right now isn’t working.”
“I know.” I sit up as well and run my hands over my face. “She’s impossible to get in touch with though, so how the hell am I going to fix this?”
Caden pats my shoulder with a smile. “With some old-fashioned wooing, bro. Your modern ways aren’t going to work with this girl.”
Isn’t that the statement of the year? My modern ways never worked with her. She’s a rare breed, the type of girl who comes around once in a lifetime, a woman so damn perfect for me that all I can do is hope and pray I can earn her respect, proving I am the right man for her. The only man for her.