Page 126 of Shadows in Bloom

Fuck this. I’m tired of myself and the self-pity I’m unable to shift.

In need of the toilet, I place the watch on the counter and slip off the chair. The barman collects my empty glass, towel flung over his shoulder.

I make my way down the hall to the restroom. It’s getting late, and most, if not all, customers have headed out in favor of a nightclub.

I take a piss, aiming for a skid mark in the porcelain bowl. My wife declared war on the limescale early in our marriage, but it’s a different story here—caked on and dark brown.

After rinsing my hands and cursing the empty soap dispenser, I return to find a glass of amber liquid waiting for me. Sliding onto the tall chair, I shoot a questioning glance at the barman currently pouring a glass of wine. He screws the lid back on the bottle and tells me that a young man paid for it.

With a frown, I peer around the almost empty bar. Except for me, a middle-aged woman, and her partner, there’s no one around.

“He must have left.”

My watch is gone, too.

How typical, but maybe it’s a sign to leave the past behind and move on.

Chuckling at my pathetic thoughts, I swig the drink, wincing as the amber liquid burns my esophagus. Christ, that’s strong. I rarely drink whiskey, but I welcome the bitter taste tonight, needing something to take my mind off…things. I made the mistake earlier of checking social media, and there she was, in his arms, sipping martinis on a cruise.

A woodsy scent with base notes of cedarwood, moss, and vanilla surrounds me as a young man slides onto the chair beside mine and taps his knuckles on the sticky counter to get the barman’s attention. I try to lift my head, but it’s heavy, and the hazy room spins. Everything is a blur. I shouldn’t be this drunk from what I’ve had to drink.

“Rough day?” His familiar baritone drifts around me like lapping waves at a pier.

CRUZ

Marshall Kirk, a history professor and my father’s best friend, tries to shake his head to clear the poison running through his veins. Nightshade. A powerful plant that grows in spades behind the back of the university building. Consumed in too great quantities, certain death is guaranteed. But when used sparingly, like now, it causes slurred speech and hallucinations.

“Rough month,” he replies, swaying into me slightly, the point of contact burning me in the best way possible. His eyes widen with recognition. “Cruz? I’ll be damned.”

I’ve worked hard to get us to this moment. It has taken a lot of planning, not to mention stalking, to catch Marshall’s wife, a dental hygienist, in the throes of passion with a senior dentist.

When I say that I worked hard, I mean that I installed spyware on her phone and stalked her emails and social media for a little over a year. My mother taught me that patience is a virtue, and she was right for once.

One day, Mrs. Kirk received a highly interesting WhatsApp message from none other than her dentist friend. I’d been in class then, scrolling mindlessly through social media, when the notification popped up on my screen.

They exchanged explicit messages over the following week, boring me half to death, until they finally arranged to meet up. One rendezvous soon turned into more.

That’s the thing about affairs. Not too dissimilar to serial killers, the people involved become less careful with time. They take more risks. Seek ways to deepen the thrill.

Fucking on the plush couch in Dr. Pinnegar’s living room in full view of his surveillance camera soon became mundane, like all things in life. They decided a spot of sunshine wouldn’t hurt, so they drove to a lookout spot on the outskirts of town during Mrs. Kirk’s lunch hour. Not that I can argue with their logic. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient, after all. However, if that was their purpose, they should have thought to open the windows to let the rays in while they fucked in Dr. Pinnegar’s car.

Slouched behind the steering wheel of my Land Rover, I filmed Mrs. Kirk riding her colleague like a buckaroo at a seedy bar, wondering briefly if she fucked Marshall with such enthusiasm. I dismissed that thought. She barely gave it up to him, if at all, from my observations over the last year since my pesky little fixation began. These days, she only spreads those legs to keep the peace, and Marshall is a good man. If his wife isn’t in the mood, he won’t push it.

His wife is in the mood, alright.

Just not for him.

Mrs. Kirk is a disrespectful whore.

She has no clue how lucky she is to have Marshall’s full attention and devotion. I would chop off an arm to get him to look at me the way he looks at her after decades together. Even when she ignores him, he pecks her on the cheek in passing.

Marshall and my dad are childhood friends who grew up on the same street. Now, in their late forties, their friendship has stayed solid despite life pulling them in different directions. My father left town to study at a prestigious university before returning to start his law firm. Marshall stayed behind with his childhood sweetheart, got married, and worked his way up to become a professor at the local college.

Every Wednesday, they play golf like a bunch of boring, middle-aged men before returning to my father’s or Marshall’s house for a meal. Marshall is predictable, dull, and without much excitement in his life. Even so, he intrigues me. I can’t take my eyes off him when he enters a room. The way he rolls up his sleeves over his corded arms or the way he gazes absentmindedly at the window, observing the clouds as they roll across the sky before clearing his throat and calling the class to attention.

Don’t get me started on when he sits on the desk with his ankles crossed and his knuckles curled around the edge. There’s something toe-curling about how he looks up from beneath his dark lashes and sweeps those blue eyes over the room.

“Want to talk about it?” I ask, getting my fill of him.

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