“I like that fantasy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But that’s all it is. You’re hot stuff, andyoudeserve hot stuff in return, not anunreliablemess who falls apart every time the sun comes out.”
Dante applied more pressure to Sid’s spine. “That’s not how you see yourself.”
“It is today.”
“Today can go fuck itself then.”
Sid turned, taking his hand and glorious back with him but gifting Dante with an unshadowed view of his face. “That’s probably the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I am sweet.”
“I know, Dante. Iknow.” Sid pressed his lips to Dante’s unshaven jaw, then his cheek, and finally his lips, but it wasn’t a kiss, not really. It was regret and sadness and pain. And goodbye. “See you in the morning?”
Dante nodded and touched Sid’s face, just once, a trailing drag of his fingertip along Sid’s cheekbone. “I’ll be there.”
11
“You know, I forget sometimes when you’re like this.”
Sid glanced up as Benjamin spoke, hands full of the seed packets he was planting for next summer. “Forget what?”
“You know,” Benjamin repeated, waving his arm in a vague gesture.
Sid rolled his eyes. “You forget I have MS?”
“Yes, and I feel terrible about it.”
“Poor you,” Sid retorted dryly. “It must be fucking awful not to have my worst symptoms rubbed in your face all the time.”
“I’m trying to tell you that you look really well.”
“Why not just say that then?”
“Because you called me a condescending twat last time I did, so I’m trying a different approach.”
“Try harder.” Sid flashed a grin to let Benjamin know he wasn’t serious and crouched to mine a seed trench for the Welsh poppies and calendulas. “Did you decide if you wanted yellow or orange over here?”
“I figured you could decide.”
“So you can bitch about it next year? No, thanks. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”
“Yellow, then.”
Sid scowled.
“All right, all right.” Benjamin raised his hands. “Orange. Whatever. I told you—youdecide. I don’t care what colour anything is.”
Neither did Sid. It was hard to give a shit about the beds closest to the main house when the only reason Benjamin had shown up to watch him work them had been to check that Sid was doing it alone, and Dante was elsewhere, away from the public eye.“It’s not my decision, Sid. You know that. But it’s the rules. He can’t be this close to the house without a clear DBS check, and let’s face it, he’s never going to get one of those.”
Sid had called him a judgemental bastard, but hard truth was that Benjamin was right, and there was nothing Sid could do to change that reality.
Not that Dante had expressed any interest in joining Sid on his seed-sowing expedition. He’d been quiet the last few days, as in, pretty much silent. It was as if he’d spoken too much and run out of words. Or maybe lost enthusiasm for having conversations with Sid that ended in stalemate.
Or fuck-hot kisses that go nowhere.