Dante shrugged. “If you say so.”
Sid did. Times a thousand. Some shit he just knew. Like the fact that the longer he stood still in the warm spring sunshine, the more another round of heavy conversation was beyond him.Keep moving. Use it or lose it.He pointed at the greenhouse. “I need to go in there and pot on the seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago. Come with me if you want or meet me at the barn tomorrow for breakfast. Unless you’re busy planning your next murder, that is, in which case you’re on your fucking own.”
He took off before Dante could reply.
* * *
Dante followed Sid out of the barn and trailed him across the yard to the polytunnels nestled behind the greenhouses. There were four in total, double what Dante had left behind at the prison.
They were crammed with four times as much produce too. Dante stuttered to a stop in the first and gazed at row upon row of young plants—tomatoes, spinach, chard, courgettes. There were even sapling peach trees. Dante touched the healthy leaves and crouched to inspect the juvenile trunks. They were strong and unyielding and for some reason reminded him of Sid.
Because that makes sense.
Not.
Dante snapped a picture of the peach tree he’d already decided was his favourite and turned to find Sid watching him. “Therapy.”
Sid nodded as if it made sense.
Perhaps to him it did.
Perhaps he was the one person on earth who would understand the hope Dante felt every time he watched a plant thrive and grow.
Or maybe he thought Dante was a bizarre human being and he was super accomplished at hiding it.
Whatever.
Dante drifted to where Sid was already gathering the plastic trays of kale plants from the raised platforms. He took them to a table built from pallets and disappeared out of the tunnel before returning with a giant bag of compost on his shoulders.
Broad shoulders that made Dante look twice.
Three times.
Until he couldn’t look away.
He watched Sid heft the compost against his torso and open it with a Stanley knife he produced from his pocket.
“Benjamin didn’t tell me to hide the knives.” Sid shot Dante a droll smirk. “More evidence that you’re not a serial killer.”
Dante leant against a sturdy platform housing germinating chilli plants, if the barely legible scrawled labels were to be believed. “If I was, you think I’d kill you with a knife? What about the twine over there? Or the fuck-off mallet behind you?”
Sid upended the compost into a nearby wooden trough. The action appeared easy, but there was something... off about the way he came upright again, as if he’d taken a detour to get there.
Dante filed it away and compared it to what he’d already noticed about Sid over lunch. His tense gaze when he’d talked about his medication, the energy that seemed to come and go like whiplash, and the careful way he’d risen to his feet and walked away after, moving as though he expected to be hit by a truck at any moment.Something’s wrong. If he hadn’t known it before talking to Benjamin, he did now.
Sid staggered a little and tossed the empty compost bag aside. He scowled at his hands, then began to turn and swing his obvious frustration onto Dante when he caught him watching.
But he’d never catch Dante watching, because that was Dante’s other skill—to observe and learn without being noticed. In his old life, it had kept him alive until ego and complacency had taken over. In prison, it had saved so much more.
Cold heat shivered through Dante. He pushed off the platform he was leaning against and returned to the tomato plants before Sid faced him again. Young shoots were sprouting on some of the main branches. He pinched them out, then examined the soil they were planted in. “Do you add potash to your tomato plants?”
Sid glanced up from the kale he was potting on. “It was next on my list, as it goes. It’s over there.”
Dante traversed the polytunnel and retrieved the bag of fertiliser from the stash at the back, sensing Sid’s gaze on him with every step he took.He’s worried I’m going to fuck it up. The theory made Dante laugh, on the inside at least. There was no way Sid would catch him doing that either. Not if it was at his expense.
He added the fertiliser to the tomato plants, then checked over the spinach and courgettes. Aided by the warm polytunnel, the courgette plants had grown too big for their beds. “Do you want me to split these up?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll do it after this.”