“Don’t guess.Know. You’ve got the bug, I can tell, and I already told you I can help you with the weed thing.” Sid rose and wandered off again.
Dante watched him go, as drawn to him as he was to the earth scenting his fingers with wood and sand. Seven days had passed since he’d been released, and he still couldn’t decide how he felt about it. At night, wide awake and smothered by deafening silence, he missed prison and hated himself for it. But the days... fuck. With his hands in the earth and Sid close by, somehow this strange new life seemed almost normal.
He tried not to dwell on how he felt every time Sid ambled away from him.
How hemissedhim.
You don’t have the right to miss anyone.But Dante’s subconscious wasn’t listening, and he shivered as Sid meandered back to the rose bushes he’d been muttering to all day, and not from cold.No, this tension was something else. A prickling sensation that let him know someone was coming up behind him. Someone that wasn’t Sid.
Don’t turn round. You’re safe. No one here wants to kill you.
The problem with the most logical logic, though, was that it was often the hardest to accept.
Dante spun around, fists clenched.
Benjamin was two feet away. “Your probation officer is at the front gate. Someone is bringing him across. Take him for a coffee, if Sid can spare you, so you can talk in private.”
Worried someone might see him?“Okay. Thanks.”
Benjamin nodded and continued on his way. A few moments later, he came up on Sid who was wiping rose leaves down, one by one, with a soft damp cloth. Dante sat back on his heels, observing their exchange while every sensible instinct told him to look away, but he’d learned over the past few days that averting his gaze from Sid was a newfound and constant struggle. The man was addictive, even when he was sharing friendly banter with a dude Dante had decided could sit on a spiked dildo.
Rude.
Yeah, well. New start or not, Dante had never claimed to be polite.
Sid said something that made Benjamin laugh. Benjamin clapped Sid’s shoulder. Sid’s broad grin was like the sun, but Dante didn’t miss the way Benjamin’s clumsy touch made him rub the back of his neck. The way his cornflower blue eyes flickered with the kind of pain he didn’t want anyone to see. The pain Benjamindidn’tsee. But Dante did, and the urge to put himself between them was so strong he finally found the will to look away.
He went back to turning over the fertilised soil in the bed where Sid was going to plant out his new dahlias. Growing ornamental flowers was a new experience for Dante, but Sid’s excitement about them had him interested enough to lose himself in the task until he sensed a new presence behind him.
Rami Stone was Dante’s probation officer. With his twinkly brown eyes and compact build, he was the kind of attractive that usually got Dante excited, but with his attention still fixed on Sid in his peripheral vision, Dante felt nothing as Rami took his turn to kneel beside him and dissect how he was spending his time.
“I don’t know anything about gardening,” Rami confessed.
“Neither did I two years ago.” Dante dusted his hands as clean as he was going to get them without soap and water. “I read a lot of books and outdated copies ofGardeners World.”
“That’s as good a way to learn as any. How are you getting on with it here? It’s quite different to what you’re used to, even before prison.”
Dante turned away from Rami—and, by default, toward Sid—to gather his tools. “I’m outside more than I’ve ever been, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I’m not getting at anything, Dante. I’m just here to see how you are.”
“You’re here to check up on me.”
“That too. But I won’t do it often. Next week it’ll be up to you to come and see me in town. Do you think you’ll be able to do that?”
“I know how buses work.” Dante stood and made for the tool shed, trusting that Rami would follow. He dumped his tools in the box Sid hadspecificallyearmarked for trowels and forks, then pointed at the barn. “The boss wants us to talk in there.”
Rami nodded. “Lead the way.”
Irritation rippled the cool lake Dante had hidden behind most of his life, though he couldn’t say why. He’d been expecting Rami’s visit. Had prepared for it, knowing the questions he’d have to answer and the responses he’d get to his answers. But entering the barn without Sid a heartbeat ahead of him felt so unnatural he nearly stopped dead, rooted to the spot. Only the desire not to make a fool of himself kept him moving.
Inside the barn, the team who provided staff lunches paid him no heed as he preceded Rami to the back table where he shared breakfast and lunch with Sid. Dante sat in Sid’s usual seat, then regretted it as every noise and movement behind him made him squirm.
And Rami noticed—he was pre-programmed to. How could he not be when he had Dante’s entire life printed out in the folder he laid on the table. “Your PTSD therapy finished six months ago,” he said casually. “Have you thought about having some more? Big life changes can be triggering, and I’d imagine there aren’t many more drastic than the last few weeks has been for you.”
“Your imagination is shit then.” Dante eyed the closed folder. “Losing a limb would’ve been more drastic, among about a hundred other things.”
“You did almost lose your foot once. When you were shot.”