Paolo:Why? What’s wrong?
Sid:Dante is missing. I’m worried about him
Paolo had called after that and listened to Sid’s stilted explanation of the last twenty-four hours. Then he’d said nothing for a long moment before he’d hung up with a promise to call back.
That had been hours ago. The last weak moment Sid had checked the time it had been past midnight. He couldn’t see Paolo calling back now.Maybe Dante was right, and no one cares about him any more than he cares about himself.Sid wanted to cry, but not in front of Anna. He finished the joint and stuffed it in the pot. “You should go home. I don’t even know why you’re here, or Benjamin. You shouldbothgo home.”
“We will,” Anna said. “But not until we know you’re okay.”
We.Something in that word registered in Sid’s brain, but it was too crowded with Dante to contemplate why. “I’m fine,” he lied.
“You’re not.”
“So? What fucking difference does it make while he’s out there somewhere?” Sid didn’t mean to shout, but his voice echoed in the night all the same.
Anna’s frown deepened. “What’s going on with you two? Has something happened?”
“Like what?”
“Like something... sexual. I’m not blind, bro. Dante’s gorgeous, and he looks at you like you’re the only man he’s ever seen.”
Sexual didn’t come close to what Sid had shared with Dante. He closed his eyes again, picturing the earnest, selfless desire in Dante’s eyes as he’d pushed inside Sid, and shook his head. “I can’t talk about it. Just leave me alone... please?”
Anna sighed and gave him a hug. “Promise me you’ll rest?”
“I will.”
“All right. We’ll go, but you know we’re going to have to tell the probation service Dante isn’t here when they come looking for him tomorrow, don’t you? Ben can’t lie for him forever.”
Ben. Again, something clicked in Sid’s mind that he couldn’t compute. He nodded slowly. “I know. Maybe I should’ve called them straight away. What if something awful has happened to him and all I’ve done is stop him getting help?”
“There’s no right answer,” Anna said. “But if Dante knows you at all, and I think he does, he’ll know that whatever you’ve done or not done, it’s for the right reasons.”
Sid found no comfort in Anna’s attempt at reassurance. He didn’t watch her leave. He stayed outside, smoking straight tobacco instead of weed and hating himself until his phone roused him sometime later.
He blinked back to awareness, flailing around to locate the buzzing device. It was on his chest, flashing obnoxious light into his heavy eyes. The screen lit up with a name Sid’s slow brain was still trying to place.
Paolo Cilberto.
Jerking upright, Sid answered the call. “Hello?”
“Hey.” Paolo’s London voice, rougher than Dante’s, came down the line. “Did you hear anything?”
“No. Did you?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you were right to think Dante’s visitor was trouble. Luis thinks it was Asa, and now Asa’s off-grid too.”
“Asa? Who’s that?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Sid gripped his phone. “Yes, I do.”
“Okay, let me rephrase it then. It won’t help you to know, and it’s probably better you don’t.”