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

Sherman wasn’t usually like this at meetings. He hadn’t gotten to where he was at the rather youngish age of thirty-two because he couldn’t sit through a couple of extended meetings. No, no. The reason for Sherman’s current attitude, his desire to escape as if the world were about to end, was on account of... well, to be fair, there were several reasons for it.

First and foremost, he was in Bali. Having arrived a little over three days earlier, Sherman had so far spent 99% of his time in the tropical island paradise locked away in boardrooms, listening to men in suits drone on about numbers and averages and what-have-you, and stressing over paperwork. Having never been to Bali before either, Sherman had heard so many great things and was desperate to try all of them.

There was one window in the meeting room and although the curtain was pulled shut, the bright, warm sun from outside still managed to peak through the cracks and remind everyone of just how gorgeous the day outside was, and what they were missing. It was torture!

But there was no way that Sherman could skip these meetings either; that’s why he had come all the way to Bali after-all. DreamLine Travel were investing a lot of money in a series of different travel packages through several Balinese tour agencies and Sherman had to be here to ensure that a) the numbers checked out and b) to sign off on everything... literally, everything. He’d signed his name so many times over the past few days that the action itself had lost all meaning.

The second reason for Sherman’s intense struggles was... embarrassing to say the least, and not something he was willing to end the meeting early for, although it was also the hardest to ignore. Even now, Sherman could feel his leg bouncing, his eyes watering and his nose itching at the thought and desire... fuck, how he wanted it. Bad!

Cocaine. It was as simple as that. Since arriving home from Europe some four months ago, Sherman had developed a small drug problem that was quickly spiraling into a much larger one. As of the moment, cocaine was his poison and God damn how he loved destroying his body and mind with it.

It had started small, just a bump or two after work to get him through the night. But then he got Mad Dog Dan’s number, started buying in larger amounts, and started doing more as a result.

He told himself he could stop whenever he wanted, that this was just a phase. And he believed it too! But it was a frustratingly addictive phase that had him romanticizing about the bathroom and how much he’d love to be locked away in one of the cubicles, snorting a fat line off his phone screen rather than listening to Dewi carry on about literally nothing.

If it wasn’t for how important this meeting was, and the fact that it was also the last of the trip, Sherman might have called it early. But he didn’t. Instead, he remained in that chair, leg bouncing, forehead sweating, eyes glazing over as he watched the seconds hand on the clock slowly tick over, gradually, carefully, painfully dragging him closer and closer to the finish.

But there was also a light at the end of this tunnel, and it had nothing to do with drugs or even Bali. It was the third reason that Sherman couldn’t wait for this meeting to end and it was without the doubt the most resounding reason of all.

Bradley was arriving today, in two hours' time to be precise. And when he did, it was going to be just he and Sherman, alone, together for an entire week! There were no more meetings. There was no more travelling. There was no more lying, or exaggerating, or anything else that might threaten to ruin their time together. It was just going to be the two of them taking advantage in every way possible of their vacation and time together.

The last week had gone the slowest. Every day of that week, Sherman had woken up, looked at the calendar on his phone and sighed aloud that the day hadn’t come yet. He’d tried to fill in the time by planning activities for the two to do, booking nice places, reserving fancy restaurants and ensuring the week would be all it could be. And it helped... if only a little. Truly, Sherman knew he wouldn’t be happy until Bradley was by his side, in the flesh.

It spoke a lot to how Sherman felt too that he didn’t even care that they were in Bali. Honestly, if Bradley had just been visiting him in Sydney, or the two were meeting in the middle of nowhere, he wouldn’t have given a shit.

When the meeting did finally draw to a close, Sherman could hardly believe it. Surely, it was a dream? Some sort of optical illusion designed to trick him? But no. Dewi turned off the projector and began to pack his things up. The moment Sherman saw him do this, he was up and out of his chair, thanking everyone with a quick handshake, ensuring them that he’d email everyone soon and then, without further delay, he got the hell out of there.

The meeting room was attached to a middling hotel located about twenty-minutes north of Kuta, which put it about five minutes away from the airport. Bradley, in all his eagerness, rushed straight there, which had him arriving roughly twenty minutes before the plane was set to land.

Those twenty minutes dragged too. And even when the plane did touch down, there was another twenty minutes of waiting for it to dock, for the doors to open, for the crew to exit and then for the passengers to slowly trickle on out. By the time that Sherman spied Bradley strolling through