Angelo put his beer bottle down and folded the towel Dylan had given him into a neat square, setting it carefully next to the empty bottle. “I’m in your house because you asked me to be.Younever told mewhy.”
He had apoint.
Judas Priest shattered the heavy air between them before Dylan could answer. He reached for his phone, and Sam’s scowling face flashed up on the screen. Dylan swallowed thickly. Until Angelo, only Sam had ever made him feel this way?—like his skin belonged to them and not him. Like he couldn’t breathe until he touched them again.Fuck this.He silenced the call and set his phone face down beside Angelo’s towel. “I don’t know what Iwant.”
“Well it ain’t to talk to whoever just called. Isn’t a debt collector is it? ’Cause they were calling me 24/7 before I binned my phonecontract.”
“It’s a friend, actually, but I can’t talk to him for awhile.”
“Because you lovehim?”
Dylan snapped his eyes up to find Angelo gazing at him, his molten eyes shrewd, like Dylan’s every thought made perfect sense to him. “He’s my bestfriend.”
“Is hestraight?”
“Mostly.”
Angelo smirked. “That’s the worst. Queer enough to hook up, but too straight to give a shitafterwards?”
“It’s not likethat.”
“No? So how isit?”
Dylan wouldn’t know where to start, which was just as well, as it seemed that Angelo’s question was rhetorical. He stepped into Dylan’s personal space. For a moment Dylan wondered if he would kiss him, but he didn’t. His fist touched Dylan’s shoulder, and then he was gone. The front door banged a few seconds later, leaving Dylan to contemplate how he’d feel if he never saw himagain.
* * *
Helen broughta plastic cup of sludgy instant coffee to Dylan’s desk. “I can see you’re upset that your mug gotbroken.”
“Hmm?” Dylan glanced up from his pile of financial statements. “Oh, thanks, but I’m okay, really. It was just amug.”
Helen raised an eyebrow. “So why the long face? You’ve been quiet allweek.”
I’m pissed off because the best fuck I’ve ever had came into my life in the most fucked up way possible, and I can’t see a way of fixing that. And by the way, he’s a client.“I’m a bit tired. I went to The Pit at the weekend. Haven’t quite recoveredyet.”
That got rid of Helen. She was the nicest woman in the world, but Dylan’s passion for grungy metal music baffledher.
He went back to his paperwork and was instantly lost in the reason he’d been scowling all morning: He’d fucked up. Angelo’s paperwork had come back from the Romford office with a glaring snag that threatened to derail the plan Dylan had worked out with his Romford counterpart. A year ago, Angelo had made a payment to the deli, prioritising the family business over creditors he’d owed thousands to for longer. It would seem a small point to a layman, but Dylan had seen DROs refused forless.
“Do you want to call him?”the Romford advisor had asked, eager to get out of giving a client bad news. But Dylan had shut her down. His connection to Angelo was screwed up enough, and the sooner they took Angelo’s financial dire straits out of it, the better.Right. Because you’ll be BFFs after.And removing himself from Angelo’s case didn’t stop him worrying. Angelo had said little in his interview with Dylan, but the notes from his telephone consultation painted a picture of a desperate man with nowhere left to turn. Without the DRO, his creditors would hound him into the ground, and then what would he do? It had been six years since Dylan had endured his first client suicide, but it haunted him, evennow.
The rest of the day passed in a haze of client meetings and phone calls to ruthless creditors. Dylan had learned to handle himself over the years, but he was still pretty strung out by the time he left the office. The train home from Stratford was packed with fellow commuters glad to escape the rat race for the weekend. Dylan tried to hitch a ride on their muted enthusiasm, but it was a lost cause. Over the summer, he’d spent most weekends with Sam and Eddie, and with that option out, he didn’t feel like facing hisdad.
That left locking himself away in the flat for two days straight, which sounded ideal after a long-arse week, but he knew he’d be climbing the walls by Saturday night.You could always go to theclub?—
But he nuked the idea before it took hold. Playing at the club had been his happy place in recent years, but the shitstorm with Angelo had changed that. Part of Dylan wished they’d never fucked that first time?—that someone else had railed him and then disappeared out the door, never to be seen again. But it was a very small percentage of his brain. The rest of him, and definitely his dick, would give just about anything to confine what had happened between them to the four walls of the heady bunker room. That way, Dylan could’ve gone back and taken a chance on Angelo coming back formore.
Yeah, because when it came down to it, that was all this was. A fuckhot play session that had spilled out into real life,right?
On the cramped train, Dylan almost believed it, but then he found himself walking the long way home from the bus stop and slinking past Giordano’s Deli. On his first go around, Angelo was nowhere to be seen, but as Dylan crossed the street under the pretence of ducking into Waitrose, his creepy behaviour paid off. Angelo was at the serving counter, handing someone a wrapped package and a paper cup of the kind of coffee that Dylan dreamed of when he was stuck in theoffice.
He trailed to a stop, blocking the supermarket’s entrance. Angelo was dressed in skin-tight black jeans that clung to his slim hips and dancer’s calves. A plain white tee with rolled up sleeves sat perfectly on his leanly muscled torso, covered by a forest green apron that probably made his dark eyes gleam.Damn it. The week since their last chance encounter had done nothing to ease the burn in Dylan’s veins, the ache in his chest, and the heat in his blood. Angelo Giordano was so fucking beautiful ithurt, and only the muttered exclamation of someone behind him broke thespell.
Reluctantly, Dylan tore himself away and braved the Friday night crowds in Waitrose?—harried yuppie parents who’d forgotten to buy dinner on their lunch break and loved up couples planning a cosy night in. When he emerged a little while later, clutching a ready meal for one and a bottle of gin, the deli was closed and Angelo wasgone.
* * *
Dylan madeit to Saturday afternoon before he turned stalker again. A weekend with no plans meant running the bazillion errands he’d spent weeks avoiding, which gave him an excuse to wind up loitering outside Giordano’s. At least, that’s what he told himself when the irony didn’t choke him. And as luck would have it, or not, Angelo was there this time and looked up at just the right moment to catch Dylan staring at him from across the street.Brilliant.To walk away would have appeared more stalkerish than ever, so he swallowed his pride and crossed theroad.
