Page 27 of Bloom: Part 1

“You did what?” The words exploded out of me, and I clutched my chest. My blood boiled at the mental picture of Bloom on his knees, his lips locked around another man’s dick.

Over.

My.

Dead.

Body.

“I won’t actually do it.” He limped over to my desk and stroked the front of my pants. “If it’s not your dick, Doc, I don’t want it.”

I batted his hand away and took a step back.

“You should go.”

Bloom let out an exasperated sound. “Why? Are you mad? I was only looking out for you. I saw how tired you were when you came in. If you don’t take care of yourself, how are you supposed to take care of your patients?”

Huh? Bloom was making sense. Was I still asleep? “Wait a minute, what do you mean you saw how tired I was when I came in? Didn’t you say the janitor opened the door for you?”

“I lied. I wanted to see your reaction to me sucking another man’s dick.”

And I’d walked right into the trap. I swallowed hard. Why did I think this boy was simple-minded? He was anything but.

“Where were you hiding?”

“In the closet.”

Of course. He hadn’t been in the bathroom, so that left only the closet. “So you just sat in the closet, watching me without announcing yourself?”

A wave of discomfort washed over me, crawling over my skin like a swarm of ants. The thought of Bloom, concealed inthe closet, silently observing my every move, injected a chilling unease into my veins.

“I didn’t mean any harm. Besides, I was polite to that jack-man who came to your door.”

“Polite? You called him an asshole. That man’s my boss.”

“I said sir.”

I closed my eyes and raised my head to the heavens, begging for divine intervention I didn’t believe in.

“Bloom.” When I opened my eyes, he was chewing on his bottom lip. For a second, he looked so vulnerable I forgot what I was about to say. Every time I told myself this would be the last time I considered his feelings, I looked into those blank green eyes and wanted to see life in them. Oh, he laughed, he got angry, and he could be stubborn, but deep in those eyes, he seemed to have sealed away a part of him that wouldn’t allow him to feel.

If he couldn’t feel, how could I take his pursuit of me seriously?

“You were saying, Logan?”

I blinked. “I still have a lot of work to do. Go home.”

“I can hel—”

“You've helped enough. I just want to be left alone. Can you do that for me? Can you leave?”

He slid off the desk. “Okay, if that's what you want. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“No, Bloom. I mean, when you leave, I don’t want to see you back here. This is my professional space, and if you can’t respect the lives I have to save, there’s nothing more we have to say to each other.”

“But people aren’t that important. Only a few. Like my brothers… like you.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Arguing with him was useless. A wire must have been crossed somewhere inside him. Themoment we met I’d known he was different. Too different. His level of unpredictability was a hazard in my field. In my life.

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