Chapter 1: Phone Call Betrayal
The air in the greenhouse was a wet, living thing. It clung to David’s skin, a film of moisture and the thick, sweet rot of compost. Jasmine scrambled up rusted metal trellises, leaves pressing against the fogged glass like they were trying to get in, or maybe get out. The single fluorescent bulb overhead buzzed and flickered, casting jumpy shadows across Meghan’s back as she bent over the scarred wooden potting bench.
Her hands, nails packed with dark soil, gripped the edge. David moved against her, his own calloused palms on her hips, the rough denim of his jeans around his thighs. It was a practiced, silent rhythm, broken only by the creak of the bench and the rush of their breathing. This was how it always was with Meghan—all heat and sweat and unspoken history, a transaction that felt like comfort and punishment all at once.
His phone, discarded next to a tray of wilting seedlings, lit up. The vibration was a furious buzz against the wood.
He saw the name: Kathryn.
His body went rigid. Meghan felt it and twisted her head, a wild curl sticking to her damp cheek. She saw the screen. A slow, wicked smile spread across her face.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered, but it was a challenge, not a plea.
David stared at the glowing name. Kathryn’s voice, when he’d heard it last night, had been soft, laced with a loneliness that mirrored his own but felt cleaner somehow. Two thousand miles of distance gave it a haze, made it safe. He answered.
“Hey, you,” he said, forcing his voice into a low, steady calm. He didn’t stop moving. Meghan’s eyes flew wide, then narrowed with defiant amusement. She bit down on her own knuckle, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter or effort, he couldn’t tell.
“David. I was just thinking about you,” Kathryn’s voice came through, clear and sweet as a bell. It felt alien in the humid, perfumed dark. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, not much. Just finishing up a job.” The lie came easily, coated in a familiar guilt he chose to ignore. He focused on the cadence of his own words, on keeping his breath even. Meghan, however, had other ideas.
She pushed back against him, harder, a clear rebellion. He swallowed a grunt.
“A late one,” Kathryn said. “You work too hard.”
“Gotta keep busy.” He closed his eyes, trying to partition his mind. One part here, in the slick heat, the other in the quiet of his own kitchen where he usually took her calls. Meghan suddenly dropped to her knees, turning to face him. The look on her face was pure, incendiary mischief. He shook his head, a frantic, minute movement.
Her hands went to his belt.
“No,” he mouthed, soundless.
She ignored him. Her movements were deliberately slow, deliberately noisy. The rasp of the zipper was thunderous. The flickering light caught the dirty green of her eyes, daring him.
“I miss you,” Kathryn said, and the earnest pain in it sliced through him. “It feels like you’re a world away.”
“I miss you too, Kat.” He meant it, desperately, even as he looked down at the crown of his ex-wife’s wild hair. The contradiction was a physical ache in his chest. “I hate all this distance.”
Meghan took him into her mouth. The shock of it, the wet heat, the sheer audacity, made his knees buckle. He braced a hand against the cool glass of the greenhouse wall. A soft, traitorous sound escaped him before he could choke it back.
“You okay?” Kathryn asked.
“Fine. Stubbed my toe. On the toolbox.” He clenched his jaw, his teeth grinding. He tried to signal Meghan to stop, to be quiet, but she was performing now. She made loud, obscene, gulping sounds, her eyes locked on his, glittering with victory. She was almost trying to get him caught, to force the conflict into the open, to prove whose ground this really was.
“You should be more careful,” Kathryn laughed softly, unaware. “So, next weekend. My video call. You’ll be home, right? I want to see your face.”
“Yeah. Yes. I’ll be there.” His words were coming in short, tight bursts. He could feel the pressure building, a treacherous tide. He wanted to push Meghan away. His hands, coarse and scarred from a lifetime of pipes and wrenches, hovered by her head, trembling. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t stop her.
He was a spectator in his own ruin.
Meghan’s rhythm became relentless, a parody of affection. The sounds were unmistakable. He prayed to a god he didn’t believe in for a bad connection, for Kathryn not to hear.
“David?” Kathryn’s voice shifted. A faint, uncertain note. “Is… is everything alright there? It sounds… strange.”
“Just… a bad signal. In this old building.” The lie was brittle, cracking. He was drowning in the scent of jasmine and soil. The climax hit him, vicious and unforgiving, a wave of shame so intense it was indistinguishable from pleasure. He was utterly silent, his body bowed in a taut arc, every muscle locked.
Meghan drew back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, that triumphant smile never fading. She rose to her feet, graceful as a cat.
“David?” Kathryn’s voice was small now, a thread of doubt spun from two thousand miles away.
“I’m here.” His voice was hollow, scraped raw. “Listen, Kat… the client’s here. I gotta go.”
A pause. It stretched, filled with the hum of the light and the sound of his own pounding heart. “Oh. Okay. Sure. Talk tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
He ended the call. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the drip of water from a hanging fern. He slowly tucked himself in, zipped his jeans, his movements robotic. The guilt arrived, not as a sharp sting, but as a heavy, cold sludge filling his guts.
Meghan picked up a trowel, poking at the soil in a nearby pot. “She sounds nice,” she said, her voice light, conversational. “Needy, but nice.”
David looked at his phone, the screen now dar