“I am,” Dylan murmured. “I locked the doors too. Did youforget?”
“Maybe I left them open foryou.”
Dylan chuckled. “Maybe, but I’ve locked them now, so how about we clean this place up, then go get somedinner?”
“You’re obsessed withfood.”
“I’m obsessed withyou.”
Dylan’s voice had tied Angelo in knots from the start, but combined with Dylan’s hands snaking under his flour-dusted T-shirt, never more than it was right now. He gripped Dylan’s hands and squeezed them. “I’m up for dinner. But you’re not cleaning this place. You’ve done enough for metoday.”
He braced himself for a row, but Dylan merely kissed Angelo’s cheek and then perched on a counter stool, apparently engrossed in his phone while Angelo finished closing the delidown.
“I just need to mop,” Angelo said. “Then I’mdone.”
“Okay.”
Dylan didn’t look up, and so Angelo mopped around him and chucked every other stool up on the tables. When he was done, he swiped Dylan’s phone from the counter and then braved making a grab for Dylan too. Dylan felt heavier than he had in the club, and Angelo’s muscles screamed in protest, but he barely felt the pain as Dylan’s whoop of laughter rangout.
“Put medown!”
“Nope.” Angelo carried Dylan carefully across the wet floor and into the kitchen where he deposited him on the counter. “I didn’t want you to slip,” he said in the face of Dylan’s mockoutrage.
“Right.” Dylan smoothed his hair. “So you went caveman on me? I’ll rememberthat.”
“Yeah?”
Dylan dropped his hands and hooked Angelo closer with his legs. “Yeah. There’s going to come a time when you don’t have the upper hand, youknow.”
“I thought we just spent all weekend likethat?”
“As if. Angelo, I’m never going to think any less of you when you’re unwell. It’s part of who you are, but it doesn’t defineyou.”
Angelo hid his face in Dylan’s sweet-scented neck. “You sound more adjusted to it than I’ve everbeen.”
“It’s not me that has to live with it,” Dylan said. “But I’m used to grouchy hot dudes with life-changing illnesses. My mate isdiabetic.”
“The one you hook upwith?”
“Usedto hook up with. I quit a while back. Got a little crowded, youknow?”
“But you still lovehim?”
Dylan sighed. “That’s the second time you’ve asked me that, but... yeah. Of course I love him?—he’s my friend?—but messing around together was never about love until his missus camealong.”
“And then he ditchedyou?”
“Far from it. If anything, we were tighter... for a while, at least. I misshim.”
Angelo wrapped his arms around Dylan and held him close. He’d been trying to get a handle on Dylan’s feelings for the friend he’d brought up multiple times. Jealousy tickled his veins, but he pushed it aside. “I’msorry.”
“Whatfor?”
Angelo shrugged. “For being a liability when you need amate?”
“You’re not a liability. And wearefriends, even if you don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me since wemet.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talkingabout.”
