As tempting as it was to listen in, Sid backed up and turned around, giving Dante privacy. He drifted back to the bungalow, dumped the spinach in the slow cooker, and went straight for the weed tin. As promised, Dante had left a joint ready to go.
Sid took it to the back garden and lit up. The heady smoke hit him in a slow wave, and he settled against the wall, enjoying the scent of the colourful phlox as the sun went down. It was nearly dark when Dante roused him by plucking the spent joint from his fingers. “How much do you actually smoke? Every time I see you with a spliff, you’re asleep.”
“I wasn’t asleep.” Sid sat up, wincing as his stiff joints protested. “But it’s a fair question. Maybe I just like to hold it.”
Dante smiled his magic smile, slow and sweet. Private. As if it was just for Sid and no one else had ever seen it. “Thought so.”
“Yeah? What else do you think?”
“That you should come inside. It’s gonna get cold tonight. I heard it on the radio in the barn.”
“I like the cold.”
“Nah, you just think you do because getting too hot hurts more.”
“Get out of my brain.”
“Make me.”
Sid could think of multiple ways to do that, but his curiosity about the phone call and concern for Dante’s wellbeing outweighed the addicting current thrumming between them. He let Dante help him up, then led him inside and shut the door behind them. “How did it go? I mean, if you want to talk about it. It’s okay if you don’t.”
Dante followed Sid to the kitchen and watched him take bowls from the cupboard while he retrieved the forks like he always did.Domesticated as fuck.“It was... good. Better than I thought. I was right about Luis thinking I was playing him, though.”
“Just Luis? Paolo didn’t think so?”
“Not exactly.”
Sid dished up and slid a bowl of hot food across the kitchen counter. “What did he think?”
“That I knew better than to believe I could get to Luis through him. He still thinks I’m a piece of shit, but he’s never called me stupid.”
“Is he going to help you with whatever you asked him?”
Dante’s face brightened so suddenly it took Sid aback. “Yeah. He is. I thought he might tell me to go fuck myself, but it turns out it’s the one thing we have in common... sort of anyway, or at least, we might do one day.”
Sid struggled to catch up and decipher the twists and turns of what Dante was telling him, but it was late in the day, he was stoned, and he hadn’t had dinner yet. Not to mention he was still reeling from coming like a motherfucking train in the shower. He settled on a grin. “Progress then, yeah?”
Dante’s smile widened a touch, lighting up his handsome face. “Yeah, I think so.”
They ate in companionable silence, then Dante washed up while Sid flopped on the couch. He put the TV on and watched nothing he could focus on or remember while he had half a mind on how natural it felt to have Dante move around his kitchen like he’d always been there.
Dante caught him off guard when he appeared in the doorway holding his boots.
Sid hauled himself upright. “You’re leaving?”
Dante shrugged. “There’s something I need to do.”
What is it?But Sid swallowed the question. Dante was a grown-up. If he had somewhere else he needed or wanted to be, Sid wasn’t going to give him shit for it. “Take the jam tarts in the bag by the door. Rhonda made them for you.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“She would’ve done if she knew you’d grown the raspberries yourself.”
“I didn’t grow them. I picked them.”
After you spent a month rescuing them from spur blight, but okay, have it your way. Believe you’re just a fucking passenger.Sid eyed Dante, noting he still had the subtle glow he’d brought back from talking to Paolo. It made his casual self-loathing easier to take. “See you in the morning?”
“Of course.” Dante padded to the couch and crouched in front of Sid, hands on his knees, luring him in for a kiss that didn’t seem to end. But when it did, Dante’s smile had morphed into a smirk that was half-filthy, half-shy. “Next time we’re, uh, doing stuff, will you make me come like that again? Like you did in the shower?”