Only You by Jerry Cole (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📕

The day after the Van Gogh Museum was even more enjoyable than the museum had been. The two men rented bicycles and spent the entire day riding through the main streets of Amsterdam, following the canals and traversing the gorgeous parks that made up large swarths of the city. When they were done with that, they moved out of the city and Sherman took Bradley on the path he had travelled the previous day with his tour group.

“How was that?” Bradley had asked when Sherman had brought it up.

To this, Sherman rolled his eyes. “Boring,” he sighed. “Oh, so very boring.”

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Bradley smirked. “Because I’m not on it, right?”

“Obviously,” Sherman had agreed as if he meant it. He then blew dismissively through his lips. “Just the people on it. All middle-aged men and women, all as boring as the heel of a shoe.”

“The heel of a shoe?” Bradley frowned in confusion. He had no idea what that meant. This happened a fair bit with Sherman, who was a little smarter than Bradley.

“Boring, dull, uninteresting,” Sherman laughed. “Unless you find shoe heels interesting.”

“Not lately,” Bradley laughed. “I’m more of a sneaker’s guy anyway.”

That night, they went to dinner. It wasn’t anywhere fancy, just a café on one of the canals. They had a few drinks, ate enough to feed five people and really just enjoyed one another’s company.

When dinner was over with, they both decided it was time to do what everyone did in Amsterdam, and that was get high. There were literally hundreds of venues to buy weed in the city and it was a crime that they hadn’t done so yet. As such, they went into the first place they found, bought a joint, walked together to a nearby park and lit up like it was legal... because it was.

“Have you ever done this before?” Bradley asked cautiously as Sherman lit the joint between his lips.

It was still reasonably early in the evening, but the sun had well and truly set by now, throwing the night sky into the complete darkness. But where the city was lit up nice and bright, Bradley and Sherman had tucked themselves away in the corner of the park, hidden by the darkness.

The view however was transcendent. Not only could they see actual stars in the sky, as well as what had to be a full moon, but the lights coming from the city were a mirage of yellows and oranges and even reds. Dull music played out from the interior and laughter and cheering could be heard in the distance. It was as good a spot to get high as existed.

“Yeah,” Sherman chuckled. “Of course.” He sucked in lightly and then blew out a small cloud of smoke. As he did, Bradley could see Sherman’s body relax. “I’m not that boring.”

He handed Bradley the joint and Bradley took it gingerly. It was silly, but this was his first time ever smoking weed and although he wasn’t embarrassed by that fact, for some reason he thought he should be. Sherman looked so cool and collected smoking, like an old pro. The last thing Bradley wanted to do was make a fool of himself.

But that just raised another question. Why did Bradley even care? If this were the real world, he wouldn’t have looked twice at Sherman, yet for some reason he found himself caring what the man thought of him.

“What?” Sherman asked when Bradley didn’t take a hit of the joint. “Have you never... is this your first time?”

“No,” Bradley had said quickly. “It’s just been a while.” He then quickly shoved the end of the joint between his lips, took in a huge drag and nearly spewed up his lungs.

“I thought you actors smoked weed all the time?” As Bradley coughed and choked, Sherman slapped him on the back a few times.

“They do – we do, I mean.” A few more deep coughs to clear out the phlegm. “Just not me... never really got into drugs.”

Sherman took the joint and had another long, satisfied drag. “Good,” he said. “This stuff will kill you.” Then he winked.

Maybe it was the weed talking, but it was around this point that Bradley started to feel panicked. When he had met Sherman, he decided to lie about what he did for a living... or at least exaggerate it, a lot. He had told Sherman that he was a working actor, making it seem like he had worked on countless projects. He also told him he lived in Melbourne, but failed to mention it was with his mother.

Basically, Bradley had lied about who he was, and where that shouldn’t have been a problem seeing as he would never see Sherman again after this, for some reason he was feeling as if it were. He felt guilty, like he owed Sherman the truth. And most of all, he worried what Sherman would say if he found out.

He tried to ignore it. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter because this was just a vacation and Sherman should have just been grateful to be hanging out with him, and who cared what he thought of him. But none of that helped whatsoever. Bradley had lied to someone he was starting to develop feelings for and it was eating away at him.

They remained in the park alone for another hour or so. Sherman smoked most of the joint, while Bradley had one or two more puffs. Some of that hour was spent in silence, with the two men staring at the night sky and basking in the ambience. Some of it was spent in conversation, juts bits and pieces as they detailed what the rest of their month was going to look like here in Europe. And the rest? Well, it was spent by two men, previously strangers, now