He turned to Asa and held out his fist. “For what it’s worth, man, if you’d asked me again to help you at the side of the road, I’d have said yes.”
Asa blinked, raising his fist on autopilot. “Why?”
“Because I don’t deserve a second chance if you don’t get one too.”
24
“I can’t believe you two are so naïve.” Anna pounded her petite fist on Sid’s kitchen counter. He’d yet to fully understand what sheandBenjamin were doing in his house in the middle of the night, but here they were. “I like Dante, as much as I know him, but wedon’tknow him... not really. We have no idea who he’s been talking to while he’s been here, and there’s any number of reasons why he might’ve left.”
“Like what?” Sid snapped. “Since when are you the fucking expert on someone you’ve met twice?”
“Since when are you? You don’tknowhim.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
Fury collided with the searing anxiety throbbing in Sid’s nerves. He opened his mouth, but Benjamin stepped in front of him, hands spread in a placating gesture, to Anna, not him. “Sid spends every day with Dante. If he thinks there’s something wrong, we should believe him until we know otherwise.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe him,” Anna retorted hotly. “Just that we need to consider every possibilityandbe realistic. On paper, how does it look that Dante disappeared the moment Sid gave him his debit card?”
Sid scoffed. “Are you for real? You think he’s done a bunk for the sake of the three hundred quid I’ve got in my account?”
“Have you checked?”
“What? No. Why would I do that?”
“It would help to know if he ever made it to the supermarket,” Benjamin said. “In case we need to call the police.”
“We’re not calling the police. If he’s walked away, that’s his choice. I’m not putting him back in prison for it.”
“You should at least cancel your card,” Anna said.
“Fuckoff.”
Silence fell over the tense room. Sid couldn’t stand it. He plucked the rolled joint from behind his ear and stepped outside. It was raining, but the drizzle felt good against his frustration-heated skin. He took his T-shirt off and stood in the open, the smouldering joint jammed between his lips. He wasn’t even smoking it, not really, he just needed a moment alone.
“Sid?”
He sighed and turned towards Anna’s voice without opening his eyes. “What?”
She slid her hand over his arm and squeezed his elbow. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Even after how you were together at my place, I didn’t realise you’d grown so close.”
Sid cracked an eye. “What’s changed your mind in the thirty seconds I’ve been outside?”
“Nothing. I’ve just stopped being an overprotective dick.”
“Overprotective?”
“Look at the facts,” Anna said. “He’s a convicted criminal who’s disappeared with your bank card. I forgot for a moment that he’s a human being who’s been nothing but amazing the whole time he’s been here and that I really,reallylike him. I’m sorry, okay? I just hate seeing you upset.”
Sid took a drag on the joint. There was no answering buzz. It was like he was dead inside. “I— Fuck.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It just makes no sense. He had no reason to run out on me, and that bloke who came to see him, he was... I don’t know, sinister as fuck. It’s got something to do with him, I know it has.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know. I asked his brother’s boyfriend if he knew, but he didn’t answer, and he hasn’t called me back yet.” Sid pulled out his phone to check and scanned the message thread between him and Paolo Cilberto.
Sid:This is Sid at Wilburn Manor. Can someone call me please?