Dante nodded. “Yeah. I hate being woken up, so my subconscious kind of trained itself to get in there first, but it wasn’t always nice about it.”
“Nightmares?”
“Maybe, not that I remember, though. It’s more like a bomb going off in my brain thirty seconds before someone twats me round the head with a pipe.”
“Did that happen to you?”
“No. It happened to Luis.”
Sid took a breath as the painful conversations they’d had last night—this morning—whenever it had been filtered back to him. Dante had done most of the talking while Sid had listened, equal parts spellbound andhorrifiedas Dante had whispered his life story to him. He was trying not to think about the most recent instalments and needle mark on Dante’s arm, but there were some things even Sid’s brain couldn’t forget. Luis’s fate was one of them. “You feel guilty when you’re sleeping?”
“I guess so.”
Sid waited for Dante to say he deserved it, but he didn’t. Dante said nothing at all, and a moment later, he was asleep again.
Emotion Sid couldn’t describe filled his chest. He needed to get up and put himself back together. Eat and drink and clear his day so he was a hundred per cent present for Dante when he woke up, but leaving him was... fuck, it was impossible.
Sid lay back down,just for a moment, and coaxed Dante closer. “Come here. I’ve got you.”
Dante made a soft sound and rolled over, wincing in obvious pain, to hide his face in Sid’s chest, where he stayed sleeping soundly until the real world forced Sid away.
He left Dante in bed and retreated to the kitchen to forage for food and catch up on the daily maintenance he needed to keep living. Drugs. Water. Mindfulness.
The last was the hardest—how could it be anything else when all he wanted was to hold Dante while he slept? But Sid was stronger than wants and desires. He had to be. Danteneededhim, and Sid was no good to him if he fell apart.
He did what he had to do, then opened the fridge, expecting to find it as bare as he’d left it but hoping for a miracle.
A miracle that made itself known in the form of fresh eggs and vegetables that hadn’t been there eight hours ago.
Anna.It had to be, unless Benjamin had been creeping around while Sid and Dante had slept, and Sid couldn’t imagine that. Actually, he didn’t want to. He didn’t give a single fuck who Benjamin saw him in bed with, but he had no idea how out Dante wanted to be, andfuckbacking him into a corner. Dante had endured enough of that the past few days to last a thousand lifetimes.
He’s hurt, Sid’s brain supplied as if he could forget.Does he need a doctor?Sid’s gut said no, but worry speared him anyway, and he padded back to the bedroom to check, leaning in the door, gaze fixed on Dante, tracking the rise and fall of his bruised ribs as he slept on, face buried in the crook of his elbow. His hair was a riot. Sid’s fingers itched to tangle in the silky strands again, but mindful of what Dante had told him earlier, he stayed where he was, watching and waiting for him to wake up on his own.
I miss him.
I love him.
God, how he fucking loved him.
Sid backed away and returned to the kitchen. He’d left his phone on the counter. In his absence, it had lit up with a message.
Anna:Food in the fridge. Let me know you’re both okay. We love you xx
Sid frowned. Again with thewe. Sometime soon he was going to have to sit down and figure out what that meant, but that time wasn’t now.
He shut the message thread and opened the one he shared with Paolo Cilberto. It was short and not even close to anything sweet.
Sid:he’s back, I found him in the car park
Paolo:is he okay?
Sid:I don’t know
The last message had delivered and been read in the early hours of the morning, but Paolo hadn’t replied. Sid had been too wrapped up in Dante to contemplate it much, but it annoyed him now. Dante had done bad things and hurt a lot of people—Sid understood that, finally, perhaps, where he might’ve been naïve before—but Paolo’s earlier concern didn’t match his silence now.Why don’t they give a shit?
“Don’t frown like that.”
Sid jumped.