“No. I want you to come with me in my car so I have someone to rescue me if I’ve forgotten how to drive.”
“You have a car?”
“Stop deflecting me with questions.”
Dante smirked and went back to adding drainage layers to big clay pots. “The only way I can rescue you is if you want me to put you over my shoulder and carry you home. I can’t drive without insurance. I’ll get banged up.”
“I can add you to my insurance if you ever want to drive anywhere. I mean, it won’t help us tonight, but—”
“I don’t need to drive anywhere unless it helps you out, and anyway, I’d have to clear it with my probation officer first.”
Sid hadn’t thought of that. He let it go and latched onto the first part of Dante’s counter argument. “Helping me out isn’t the only reason you exist.”
“It is while I’m here.”
While he’s here.The devil raised his head again.
Sid poured cold water on him and spread his hands. “It really isn’t. I want you to come to Anna’s with me because I want to spend time with you, and if I invite you to my place I’m probably going to jump on you, and I’ve already made enough of a tit of myself about that. There. Happy?”
“You could’ve just said that in the first place.”
“Right. Cos you’re Mr Fucking Communicative.”
Dante turned the volume up on his smirk, and the temperature, letting it warm his face for a blissful few seconds before he shuttered his expression again. “I’ll come with you.”
“For real? I was expecting more of a fight.”
Dante shrugged. “Your sister is nice. And I kind of want to see you driving. You get angry, right? Shout at everyone who gets in your way?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“What did Anna say to you when you met her?”
“Nothing about your driving.”
Sid scowled, but without malice. It was hard to be annoyed when he had everything he’d wanted out of this conversation: the prospect of a dinner he hadn’t had to think about or cook himselfandan evening with Dante. “Whatever. I’ll come get you around six?”
“Okay.”
Dante turned back to his pots, diligent as always, and it struck Sid again howimpossibleit was to see him as anything less than the man he was now. As Dante worked, Sid backed up and leaned against the wall of the potting barn, caught in the magic of watching a man move earth with his bare hands. Was there anything sexier? Probably not, but it was more than that. Dante was a puzzle Sid would never have all the pieces to, a book that was out of print, butfuck, Sid wanted that book. All of it. Every page.
“Am I doing something wrong?”
Sid blinked. “Hmm?”
“You’re watching me,” Dante said without looking up. “If you want me to do it a different way, just say so.”
“Do what?”
Dante hoisted another giant pot onto the table. His lean biceps popped, and his newly tanned forearms rippled with strength. “Fine, man. Have it your way, but you must have something better to do.”
“Than what?”
“Than glare at me all day.”
Nope. And I’m not glaring, I’m leering. There’s a fucking difference.