Sweet Romance14 min read
The Bat-Cat, the Viral Clip, and the Red Mole
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I do not expect a cat to ruin and remake a life, but then my life and the cat called Bat have always been a little odd. "Bat" is what I call him because the patch around his eyes is black on snow-white fur, like a tiny mask. People on our block started calling him Bat-Cat after he made a name for himself on a local show, and I still laugh too loud when I think of how seriously he takes the work of a professional thief.
"Stop staring," I tell him, and he blinks slow, perfect cat-blinks at me.
"He's your accomplice now?" Corbin asks from the hallway when I open the front door to let Bat sun himself on the sill.
"No," I answer. "He is chaos in fur. He is not my accomplice."
"Then why are there seven pairs of underwear in the kitchen drawer again?" Corbin sits on the sofa and flips channels like he's trying to find the one quiet thing on television.
"I drew a line at eight," I say. "Seven is still..." I consider the word "manageable" and then shrug it away. "Don't laugh."
Corbin laughs.
"Have you put up posters about your wanted cat?" he says, nodding at the paper I stuffed in my pocket this morning and later smoothed on my way past the lobby bulletin board.
"No," I say. "I ripped down one. Someone wrote something nasty on the back."
"You mean, like—?" Corbin frowns. "You mean someone threatened the cat?"
"Yes. Very dramatic. Very medieval." I rub my forehead. "And the person said they'd cut its—"
"Don't say it." Corbin lifts his mug. "Don't say the thing."
I shut my mouth. Corbin is right. But the paper's words were ugly, and someone in the stairwell had taped a photo of Bat with a hand pressing him down, and beneath it a polite-sounding note: 'Please stop your cat from sneaking into my home. Thank you.' And on the back, scribbled in a different hand, a threat that made my whole jaw go cold.
"I tore it down," I tell Corbin. "I thought no one should write such things about a cat."
"You did right." Corbin sets the mug down. "You did."
A long time ago, before Bat decided he liked flowered briefs and banana prints, I wanted to keep to myself. I liked the routine of the convenience store bell and my small-salary rhythm. I liked seeing my own reflection in the glass doors and believing that little things would stay little. Then the day I walked into that convenience store and bumped into a tall man in a deep gray hoodie, the world tilted.
"Here you go," he said, holding a small cardboard box at the counter while his friend stepped aside. He didn't smile much—his eyes did the thing that made a stupid part of my chest flutter; they curved like a crescent and looked at the world as if it understood a secret. I had seen him five times before in the block. I had admired him from fifty feet away. I had never thought to talk.
"Do you want me to pay?" I blurted and then felt sick.
"No, it's fine," he said, and then fumbled with his phone. "There's no signal."
The friend laughed and left them at the register. I saw my chance to be tiny and brave at once.
"Do you want me to pay?" I offered again, more flustered.
"Thank you," he said when I put my tray down. He scanned my phone's payment code like it was a secret handshake. "I owe you one."
"Don't worry," I said, and then, like an idiot, I asked for his WeChat. "Your—we can exchange contacts?"
"Sure." He posted his profile and added me back straight away.
He named himself "Grayson." Grayson Browning. Ordinary and not at all ordinary. I mumbled my name—Eloise Callahan—and kept the conversation small and pink in my chest.
"Where do you live?" he asked, quietly.
"Building twelve," I said, pointing at the block. "You?"
"Ten," he said with a gentle smile.
We parted, and for three days I walked on sugar. On the fourth day, Bat brought home a white sock. The sock had a floral bit sewn into it like a treasure flag, and it smelled like laundry detergent. When I held it I thought of Grayson in that gray hoodie and of the hand that had been steady on the counter when my hands shook. I became jealous of a sock.
"I swear," I said to Bat as he hopped to the sill, "if you steal his underwear, I will—"
He blinked, and then darted after the flutter of a moth.
Days passed. I tried to keep Bat contained. I locked cages, I checked windows, I did everything except put him in a box and move to the moon. Bat broke out. He always did. And one evening, as I walked past the lobby TV the local talk show 7878 Golden Eye had a segment going.
"Have you heard about the cat that steals underwear?" the host said with a grin. The footage rolled. There was my cat's face—my Bat, my ridiculous mask—on the screen, an exaggerated cartoon eye mask over him. The title flashed: The Underwear Thief of the Block.
"That's mine," I said, the first words leaving my mouth. I felt hot.
I went down to see the man who'd been at the convenience store. He was being interviewed right then, in front of cameras, and the whole team had come to his doorway. Grayson looked surprised to see me. His smile flickered and then a small private grin warmed his face when he noticed me.
"You know him?" the producer asked when I hovered near the doorway.
"He's my neighbor," I said. "I—" My heartbeat did a strange drum. "I feed a stray around here."
"Really?" Corbin was right behind me suddenly—he had come because he thought I might be in trouble—and in one motion the cameras pivoted.
"What's your name?" Grayson asked, quietly, to me.
"Eloise," I blurted.
He smiled. "Eloise, thank you for your help," he told the reporter later on. On screen he talked about the cat and about how odd it was for a cat to target men's underwear. I stood in the doorway and watched everything that followed unravel.
Bat, as if on cue, appeared on the balcony with a new trophy and froze, the cloth exactly like the footage had shown before. He saw me and dropped it at the edge and looked back at me with guilty glory.
"I don't know this cat," I said too fast, too loud. "I can't explain—"
"She looks like she knows him," the reporter said, and the camera zoomed on me. I wanted the ground to open.
"She's the one," someone whispered. I felt everyone's eyes. The camera took a long shot of me and of Bat and of Grayson standing there like someone calm in a storm.
"Is this your cat?" the reporter asked.
"No," I said too quickly. "I mean, yes, I feed him, but I don't—"
Bat jumped down and trotted straight to me, rubbing against my leg. The reporter laughed. "Looks like he's attached."
"I don't want any trouble," I told Grayson, my cheeks hot.
"Take him down," Grayson said softly. "He seems like he'd prefer me second best."
We laughed. The laughter felt like breaking and mending at the same time.
After the piece aired, Bat was famous. Comments piled. Someone from the block had even taped a wanted poster with a funny drawing of Bat and stuck it to the elevator. That person had also written, on the back, an ugly sentence that made my stomach turn.
I scrubbed all the trophies and washed and ironed the colorful underwear myself. I lined them up in a small box and decided to return them. If I returned them, perhaps the problem would be solved. It was midnight when I snuck out, wrapped the box tight, and walked to Grayson's building alone. I felt like a spy.
He was there, in his pajamas and slippers, tapping on a car that had hints of expensive paint. A woman stepped out with a face like a mask; she looked like she belonged on magazine covers. They argued; a sharp slap landed before I had time to think. I had hidden behind a hedge and watched, paralyzed.
"Wow," I said to myself. "There is drama here. Maybe I should go back."
I left the box in my hands and walked away. The woman drove off. Grayson walked back, and something in his face closed like a fist.
I took the box back upstairs and put the underwear in a small bag by the door. I did not give them away. I kept each one neatly folded. I worried about Grayson, about the woman who had hit him, and about myself for caring.
Marta called the next morning, her voice a rush. "Eloise! You remember that man who scammed my friend? Guess what—they caught the guy."
"Who?" I asked, picking a banana from the fruit bowl I had bought to deliver earlier.
"The scammer who used fake photos to charm women," Marta said. "He got caught because one girl insisted on the lights on in a hotel and he bolted. The camera caught him. Turns out he bought photos online, used them like a mask."
"Photographs?" My throat closed. "Who did he steal from?"
"Some model," Marta said. "He used a model's face as bait. The police say there are dozens of girls. The pictures looked familiar to me. I thought—"
"Do you think it's the same person as on TV?" I asked.
"Send me the clip," Marta said. "Let me look."
I sent the video. Marta sent a string of messages with the speed of someone piecing a puzzle. "That's him," she wrote. "That's exactly the same face used in those stolen photos. But the cops say the real man is the model, not the scammer."
My hands trembled. My mind went back to the banquet at the company's party, when Grayson sat quiet at the end of the table. Had I been wrong about everything? Had the internet lied again? Or had I nearly ruined a good man with assumptions?
I avoided Grayson after that for a while. He messaged me once to thank me for bringing fruit. I didn't reply. I let him fade into the gray background of my life for a few awkward days.
Then the scandal broke wider. The show aired a live special investigating the scammer. The studio filled up with women who had been hurt. The host put the videos in front of them. The comments filled the live feed with pity and anger.
The police traced the scammer's digital footprint to a man they named Cassian Carr. He was handsome in a way that made people's chests ache, but he was a liar. He had bought someone's modeling photos and built an entire life with them, using charm and script to take money from women who thought they were in love.
"They found him because one girl had the courage to open the light," Marta told me over video. "She said, 'I want to see who I'm with.' He tried to run. He thought no one would find him. He was wrong."
They dragged Cassian in front of cameras. I watched the live feed with a glass of tea in my hands, a knot of dread tightening. The woman who had shoved the attacker in the street—Keilani Ferguson, a tall, fierce woman—stood among others who had been deceived. The host asked them to speak one by one.
"He used me," one woman said, voice steady. "He told me I was the only one. He asked me for money for a fake emergency. He stole my photos. He promised weddings."
Another woman held up a stack of messages. "Each one had the same pattern: the same lines, the same tricks."
People in the crowd shifted. Someone clapped once, then the studio filled with whispers.
Cassian stood there, the kind of man who had practiced charming people in a mirror. He looked smaller in person, the camera revealing flaws that photos hid. He smiled when cameras turned to him.
"You're a coward," someone called.
Cassian's smile flickered and then hardened. He had rehearsed denials. He thought he could lie. But the women had evidence—a screenshot, a bank transfer, a hotel record. They had each other. They had the courage of being seen.
The host asked him to answer. "Why did you do this?" she demanded.
Cassian opened his mouth. "It wasn't like that," he began. "They all wanted—"
"Answer her," a woman snapped.
"You're a thief," Keilani said, stepping forward. "You dressed in lies and you took from my friends. Look at them. Look at what you did."
The public punishment began not as a violent thing but as a dismantling. I want to describe it because I stood there and watched it on live television and it felt like the last piece of a chain breaking.
"Do you understand the damage?" the host asked.
Cassian's expression changed. The lines around his mouth tightened. He said words he had spoken before in private to manipulate—"I regret it," he said—but now his voice sounded small and rehearsed.
One by one, the women told their stories. The room grew heavy with proof and with pain. The host asked for bank statements. They showed them. The show's producer connected a series of transfers on screen like a bright, ugly ribbon. The crowd gasped. Comments flooded the live stream.
"He has been impersonating a model," one woman said. "He used a face like a puppet. He made us feel seen and then took what we had."
"Why did you think you could do this?" another woman demanded.
"Because I could get away with it," Cassian said, and then, for the first time, his eyes darted. He realized the cameras were not easy to charm. The applause that followed was not for him; it was for the women who had persisted.
The show's legal consultant explained things plainly and clearly. "This man created a criminal pattern," the consultant said. "He used fraudulent photos, he solicited money under false pretenses, and he targeted multiple victims. What you see tonight is the beginning of legal action."
At that point, the audience did not shout for revenge. They told their stories. The woman who had forced him to stop in that hotel cabin stood up and walked toward the glass wall overlooking the studio seats. She had the evidence: a recording from the hotel corridor, the moment he tried to escape. She handed it to the host.
"Play it," the host said, and when the video played, it showed Cassian trying to flee, his face caught in ragged motion as security closed in. The live feed rewound and circled back to his face. Cassian's bravado crumpled. He looked suddenly terrified.
"You knew it," the woman said. "You knew you'd be caught one day."
Cassian's reaction shifted through stages: arrogance, defiance, denial, and then panic. "It's a mistake," he said. "I can explain—"
"No," someone said. "You explained it well enough in private."
As the producer read aloud bank transfers and messages, the studio filled with the sound of betrayed laughter that had turned into anger. The cameras moved in and the lights felt like a spotlight on the underside of a lie. Cassian's hands trembled. He tried to insult one of the women, and she looked at him with a calm fierceness that made my palms sweat.
"Do you have anything to say to us?" the host asked, and the silence stretched.
Cassian stammered and then, for the first time without his polished voice, begged. "Please," he said. "I didn't mean—"
A woman in the crowd, who had once been charmed by him, walked up and placed a small envelope on the table in front of him. "This is what you owe," she said. "Not to me. To everyone." The host read off a list and the amount was not small. The court of public opinion had made its tally.
People took their phones and filmed him. They whispered. Some cried. Some laughed. It was messy and human and right in a way that felt like a balm.
Cassian tried to stand tall and then started to shrink. He tried a last defense: "You all attacked me because I'm handsome." The room exploded in scorn.
"You're a liar," Keilani said. She walked up to him and without raising her hand she delivered a final word: "Shame."
That was the word that wrapped around him and stuck.
"Do you promise to pay back what you took?" the legal consultant asked.
"Yes," Cassian mumbled. He looked to the cameras, to the women, to no one in particular.
"I want to make a statement," the host said. "Cassian Carr, from now on you will have your name associated with this. The victims will be allowed to confront you on camera. The police will be given these recordings. The law will do the rest."
Cassian's face, which had once been the one that charmed, was now a map of shame. Men in the audience stepped forward and demanded explanations. The man who had been his friend in the footage stood away from him. The public was unforgiving and exhausting, but it was also a kind of healing for the women at the center.
"You're being recorded," someone told him again, and Cassian flinched.
He was led out of the studio under watch. He kept saying the words "I can fix this," as if his promises were a patch. The live feed followed. Comments called him names. The police took him in. The host explained the next steps, and the women left one by one, each a little lighter for having spoken.
When the cameras cut, I sat on my couch and felt tired in a new way. I felt the day reset itself. The false man was taken down, and the real man—Grayson—was left to be himself.
He reached out after the show with a four-word message: "Do you want tea?"
I said yes.
He came over on his motorcycle. He wore a plain T-shirt that showed the little red mole at the base of his collarbone. I had noticed that mole the first time he helped me dodge the errant ball. I had thought it was a small burn of color, a place like a punctuation mark on a face. That mole had become, for me, a signal of steadiness and of a private puzzle I wanted to solve.
"Are you okay?" he asked, and that simple question felt enormous.
"No," I said. "Yes. Both. I panicked. I judged wrong. I watched terrible things happen on TV. I'm sorry."
"Don't." He handed me a thermos of tea. "You told the truth. You helped."
"I told lies with my silence," I said, because it was true. "I avoided you when I should have asked."
He shrugged. "We both had reasons," he said. "You had a cat with a talent for drama. I had a face someone else used."
We laughed, and the sound was small and warm like the tea.
The romance that followed did not feel like the dramatic kind on television. It was small and patient. Grayson taught me to ride on the back of his motorcycle; I learned to hold on, not only to his waist but to small confidences. He teased me about my spider-sense for drama. "You always find the most colorful underwear in the building," he said once.
"I don't choose the fashion," I replied. "I just return the goods."
We cooked together. He was better at chopping carrots than I expected, and I discovered how much I liked doing small things for him—folding his shirts in a way he found amusing, bringing him weird flavors of snacks he had never tried. The apartment smelled like garlic and oregano and sometimes like the faint perfume of laundry detergent that clung to forgotten socks.
"Bat is terrible," Grayson told me once, when the cat had brought yet another trophy to our balcony. "But I like terrible things that are sincere."
"I like him because he's honest," I said. "He is unapologetically a thief."
One evening, sitting on the sofa with Bat in my lap, Grayson touched the red mole by his collarbone. He looked thoughtful.
"Do you know what that is?" I asked.
"A birthmark?" he said.
He smiled. "Do you remember when you first saw me and you thought I was cold?"
"I thought you were fascinating," I said. "And cold."
"It's a false reputation." He looked at Bat and then back at me. "Bat's the same. People call him thief. They make headlines. But he's just being a cat."
I felt the world condense into a point between us. "I was afraid," I admitted. "I thought beauty meant false things a lot of the time."
Grayson laughed a little. "Some people wear masks. Some people have moths around their light." He turned serious. "I do not want to be a fake for you."
"Don't be a fake," I said. "Be Grayson, with the red mole and the bad hoodie and the gentle ways."
"I will," he promised.
We settled into our odd little rhythms. The public punished Cassian. The police sorted the mess. Cassian was made to face the women, to make restitution, to be shamed on camera for what he had done. That day in the studio, when several women confronted him one by one, the air in my chest unclenched a little. Cassian begged and sputtered, then shrank, and the viewers watched him fall apart. The crowd recorded him with their phones, and the world finally had something besides his charm to show for his life.
"Do you want him punished more?" someone had asked on the comments feed.
"You can lock him away," someone wrote back, "but the thing that matters is he can't charm like that anymore."
A few months later, during a rain-sweet evening, Grayson took my hand and we walked under the strip of café lights toward the corner convenience store where it had all started. Bat trotted ahead, proud of a new sock.
"Remember when you paid for that thing?" Grayson asked.
"I do," I said. "I remember thinking I should die of embarrassment."
"You could have," he said, with mock gravity. "But you didn't."
We stopped under the same flickering "Welcome" sign. He took my hand, cupped it against his chest, and whispered, "Do you remember the first thing I said to you?"
I thought. "Thank you?" I ventured.
"Yes," he said. "And the second thing?"
"You asked for my WeChat," I said.
"No." He smiled. "I said, 'I owe you one.'"
"And you still do," I said, but this time it was a different kind of owing.
"Then let's balance accounts," he said, and leaned in to press a gentle, perfect kiss to my forehead, near the red mole.
Above us, Bat climbed the railing and dangled a soggy sock like a flag. People walking by laughed. Someone on the sidewalk pointed a phone at him and said, "Bat!" The cat looked down like a tiny crowned bandit.
"He's ours," Grayson said, and I knew exactly what he meant. Bat, the red mole, the gray hoodie, the stolen socks—all of it. The thefts and the misjudgments and the television and Cassian's fall—they had been necessary steps, messy and painful, toward a steadier place.
"Promise you'll keep returning the goods," Grayson murmured.
"I promise," I said.
We laughed, and Bat dropped the sock into my hand like an offering. The smell of detergent, the tiny bit of banana-print fabric, and the warmth of Grayson's palm on mine made the night feel like a perfect, ridiculous little miracle.
The End
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