Sid took his turn, sucking down the smoke and relaxing, nerve by nerve, as the slow buzz hit him in all the right places. Post-work fatigue wasn’t going anywhere, but the weed combined with Dante’s presence was enough to make him feel brand new.
He let out a slow breath and ran his gaze over Dante again, taking in every facet of him in case he’d missed anything the first thousand times he’d studied him.
Shower-wet hair was a good look on him. So were the faded T-shirt and cargo shorts he now wore.He has nice legs. “You’ve caught the sun,” Sid said. “On your face and your arms.”
Dante smiled a little. “I haven’t been outside this much in my life.”
“Not even when you were growing up?”
“We lived in a flat.”
“You didn’t play out?”
“Not during the day. We ran riot at night, though.”
Sid smoked more of the joint, then passed it back to Dante. “You were always a wrong-un then?”
“Pretty much. Maybe I started out with good intentions, but it’s hard to remember that now.”
“I get that. No, you finish it.” Sid waved the joint away as Dante offered it to him. “Sometimes I forget I wasn’t always this person who walks into things and falls over, that I lived without second-guessing every movement, you know? It’s annoying.”
“You don’t deserve that.”
“How do you know?”
Dante stubbed the joint out and tucked the butt into the tiny clay pot Sid kept behind the solar lamp. “That you don’t deserve a chronic illness? Whywouldyou deserve something like that?”
“You don’t know me.” Sid accepted Dante’s outstretched hands and let himself be gently eased to his feet. “I might be a right bastard who deserves a slow, painful death.”
“Are you?”
“What do you think?”
Dante flushed and looked away.
Startled, Sid forgot himself and squeezed Dante’s hands instead of letting go. “Sorry. I’m a chatty weirdo when I smoke before dinner.”
“You’re not a weirdo, and I like that you talk.” Dante stared hard at something before he brought his gaze to Sid. “It’s too quiet when I’m on my own. I, uh, it kind of scares me.”
Sid was still clutching Dante’s hands. He rubbed his thumbs over Dante’s knuckles as if holding hands was something they did all the time. “Because you were never alone in prison?”
“Probably. And before that too. I mean, I was by myself a lot, but there were always people around. Road boys don’t sleep.”
“Road boys?”
“Gang shit.” Dante tracked Sid’s thumbs as they made a second pass over his knuckles. “It’s not exactly office hours, and I never slept alone.”
“Girlfriend or boyfriend?”
“Both, or someone else’s. I already told you I’m a piece of shit.”
“Youwerea piece of shit.” Sid forced himself to release Dante’s hands. “Past tense, dude.”
Dante said nothing, perhaps tired of having the same conversation multiple times in the space of a week, but Sid wasn’t tired of it at all.
“I can do this all night, you know,” he said.
Dante’s brows cinched. “Do what?”