“Hey.” Sid waited for Dante to turn, then slid his arms around his waist. “Where did you go?”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“I’m right here.”
Sid pulled Dante closer, mashing their bodies together, biting his lip at the warmth that pooled in his groin. He had too much to do that day to tire himself out already, but god, it felt good just to hold this complicated,frustratingman in his arms. “All right,” he said around a sigh. “I’m not going to push you anymore, but you know you can talk to me, don’t you? About anything. I might not understand at first, but I want to, and I’d try so fucking hard.”
Dante’s face fell, and he looked away, tension flooding him as if it had always been there. “I know you would, but I don’t want you to have to... compromise yourself to understand the fucked-up world I come from. It’s not right.”
“Says who? And it’s not a compromise to give a damn about you.”
Dante shook his head. “I can’t do this, not today.”
“Why not?”
“I—I justcan’t.I’m not—fuckingshit, I can’t even speak.”
“Because you’re not okay, are you?”
Dante said nothing, but it was all the answer Sid needed, and his heart sank.What? You thought some magic dick in the middle of the night would fix this? He’s hiding something and he’s struggling. Help him.
But how? Sid wrapped his arms tighter around Dante and squeezed him in a bone-crushing hug as if he could hold Dante together until he could do it himself.
“I’m sorry,” Dante whispered. “This isn’t how I wanted it to be after... we fucked, you know? I wanted to be a better man.”
“Shh.” Sid pushed Dante’s face into the crook of his neck. “I don’t want to hear that bullshit anymore. Be silent if you need to, but don’t beat yourself down, not to me.”
A full-body shiver rocked Dante. Sid held him and held him and held him, but nothing changed.
He pulled back and kissed Dante’s cheek, then he stepped away and opened the fridge for something to do. Bare shelves greeted him, aside from the courgettes and chard Dante had sliced the night before. “I’m sorry I slept through dinner,” he said absently.
Dante chuckled. “That’s okay. I’ll make it tonight... if you want?”
“I always want.”
“That right?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna need to go shopping after work, though. It’s like Mother Hubbard’s evil sister in here...” Sid trailed off as it dawned on him how much of a ball ache that was going to be. On top of his standard workload, he still had the pumpkin field display to finish and a thousand other—
Dante reached around Sid and shut the fridge. “I’ll go shopping,” he said. “If you tell me what you need.”
“What?”
“Write me a list. I’ll probably still get the wrong shit, but I’ll give it a go.”
“You make it sound like you never went to the supermarket before.”
A new—to Sid, at least—wistful half-grin lit Dante’s face. “When we were kids, we had no money and my mum was gone for days at a time, so it was my job to con the old lady next door into giving us random tins of stuff and Luis’s to figure out what to do with it. After that, I was a road boy, then a king of a real shitty kingdom, and I didn’t spend much time kicking it down ASDA.”
“That’s the weirdest anecdote I’ve ever heard.”
“Sorry.” Dante winced but held Sid’s gaze. “Let me go shopping for you, though? Please? I must eat half your food these days.”
Sid scoffed. “Hardly. I eat twelve times what you do because I’m a greedy fuck.”
“Greedy fuck?”