The ex-boyfriend

Mark stepped out of the gents, the stink of piss and bleach still burning in his nostrils, and froze.

The booth wasn’t the same. Emma was still there, but she wasn’t alone anymore. Her face was pale, her eyes wide, her lips pressed tight like she was holding back a scream. And sitting opposite her, slouched with his thick arms spread wide across the back of the cracked leather bench, was a man Mark hadn’t seen in twenty years.

Dean Holloway.

Emma’s first real boyfriend. High school sweetheart. The prick she’d finally dumped when she realised he had no plans beyond cheap beer and bragging about past football glories. Mark had punched him once, years ago, outside a club, after Dean wouldn’t stop sniffing around Emma long after they were married. That had been the end of it, or so he thought.

But there he was.

Dean was forty-five now, but looked a decade older. His hair, once thick, was thinning in clumps, slicked back with too much grease. A faded Guns N’ Roses T-shirt clung to his belly, the edges of his jeans frayed and stained. He still wore a leather wrist cuff like he was eighteen, but it only made his arms look softer, fleshier. His skin had the red blotchy look of a man who drank more than he ate.

And in his hands was the envelope.

Mark’s stomach dropped.

“Get the fuck out of that booth,” Mark snapped, marching across the floor. His fists were already clenched, his jaw tight. “Now.”

Dean held up one hand, mock-calm, like Mark was overreacting. “Easy, big man. No need to start swinging again. I just saw you drop something on the table by the john. Thought I’d be a good citizen and bring it back.”

Emma’s eyes flicked up to Mark’s, pleading.

Mark froze. Shit.

“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “That’s not mine. Don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Dean frowned. “Not yours?” He turned the envelope in his hands, weighed it like he could feel the filth pressed between the sheets of paper. “Funny. Saw you with it. Saw you leave it. And now…”

He slipped a finger under the seal and tore it open. The flap peeled back with a soft rip that sounded like thunder in Mark’s ears.

Emma gasped.

Dean pulled out the first photo. His mouth split into a grin, teeth yellow, lips cracked.

“Well, well, well.” He turned the picture to the light. “I’d know that ass anywhere.”

Emma flinched.

Dean flicked to another picture. His tongue darted out, wetting his lips. “That little mole on the small of your back, Em. You always hated it. I always loved it.”

Emma’s cheeks flamed red, her body pressed tight against the side of the booth as though she could sink into the leather and disappear.

Mark’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles cracked.

Dean chuckled low, greasy, full of satisfaction. He flicked through more photos, his eyes shining with recognition and hunger. He lingered on one, whistled through his teeth. “Fuck me, look at you. Bent over like a whore. Can’t believe you let him take these.”

Emma buried her face in her hands.

Dean tossed the stack onto the table, leaned back, and spread his arms again. “You know what? I think I’ll stay right here.” He looked up at Mark, smirk plastered across his face. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and get me a drink. Pint of lager. None of that light shit.”

The bar was suddenly too quiet, the clatter of glasses and the murmur of voices drowned by the pulse hammering in Mark’s ears. Every instinct told him to drag Dean out of the booth by his greasy hair and smash his face into the bar. But Emma’s trembling eyes caught him, wide and terrified, and he hesitated.

His teeth ground together.

He nodded once, curt, seething. “Fine.”

Dean smiled like a king who’d just won a throne. “Good lad.”

Mark turned toward the bar, his hands shaking, rage boiling under his skin. Behind him, he could hear Dean flipping through the photos again, low chuckles rumbling in his throat. And Emma was trapped in the booth, her shame laid bare in the hands of the last man in the world she’d ever wanted to see her like this.