“Hey yourself.” Dylan inhaled Angelo’s scent and brushed his lips along his darkly stubbled jaw. “You lookgood.”
“Saysyou.”
“What does thatmean?”
Angelo stepped back and speared Dylan with a heated stare, running his gaze over Dylan’s skinny jeans and grungy vest combo. “I’m never sure which skin you’re gonna show upin.”
“Yeah, ’cause that clears it right up.” Dylan rolled his eyes. “And you’re one to talk about skins. Am I partying with Angel tonight or has Angelo come out toplay?”
“You tell me. Angel ain’t something I’ve ever calledmyself, isit?”
He had a point, but as they made their way to the club, Dylan couldn’t help noting every inch of the mask as it descended over Angelo’s features. He knew that Angel would burn him alive when they played, but what did that mean if Angelo wasn’t there too? Did it even meananything? At this point, Dylan had no fuckingidea.
Inside the club, a man who knewAngelby name waved them past without taking the entrance fee, and though the club was as familiar to Dylan as his mother’s house, walking in with Angelo felt like the first time all over again?—the lights were lower, the bass line deeper, and the eyes that followed them to the bar pierced holes in hisback.
Angelo bought drinks with a screwed up tenner, and Dylan swallowed the urge to push Angelo’s money aside and swipe his card over the contactless paymentmachine.
“Next round’s on me,” hesaid.
Angelo scowled. “Yeah,yeah.”
Perhaps they wouldn’t get that far. Dylan claimed his beer bottle and glanced around the club. It was early yet and some corners were quiet, but it didn’t take long to spot Rhys on his back with his legs in the air, getting pegged by a girl who reminded Dylan of Eddie. For a moment, he imagined that it was her and that she was thrusting her big black strap-on into Sam and that Sam was loving it, warming himself up to take Dylan’s cock. How different would their lives have been if Sam’s sexuality had been moreflexible?
But even before the question had solidified in his mind, he knew the answer. Their lives would’ve rocked out exactly the same because Sam’s sexuality was irrelevant. Eddie was his soulmate and Dylan his friend, and no amount of dick could changethat.
Angelo tapped Dylan’s temple with his own icy-cold beer bottle. “Who are you thinkingabout?”
“What makes you think I’ve got anyone else on mymind?”
“Because you’ve got that orgy-BFF scowl on yourface.”
Dylan wondered when he’d become so transparent, or perhaps his mind was just open to Angelo. “Do you really want to talk about Sam again? It feels like all we everdo.”
“When we’re not discussing my shit show, youmean.”
“Don’t be likethat.”
Angelo shrugged. “It’s true. You’ve seen all my dirty laundry and listened to my tales of woe, but I don’t know much about you apart from that you dress like a banker by day and a metalhead bynight.”
“And that I used to have threesomes with my best mate and hismissus.”
Angelo glowered and swigged his beer, his expression a world away from the last time Sam had invaded their conversation. “I can’t see you in a mosh pit. You’re too... I dunno.Nice?”
“I’m nasty enough to bend over in a fuck club,” Dylan retorted. “And I can’t see you pirouetting toSwan Lakeeither, but that’s myproblem.”
He hadn’t meant to speak so harshly, but Angelo’s only reaction was a slight twitch in one eyebrow, and Dylan sighed. “The bad luck in your life doesn’t define you,Angelo.”
“No?”
“No. Nor does the fact that you can pretty much make me come just by looking at me, but I reckon there’s a lot more to both of us,eh?”
Angelo said nothing, and frustration rippled through Dylan. Complex individuals crossed his path all the time, but he’d never met anyone as hard to read as Angelo. They’d come to the club to play, but the air between them was heavy, weighed down by something that Dylan couldn’t quitedecipher.
He necked his beer and reached for Angelo’s hand just as Rhys came up to them, his grin a mile wide. “Evening,gents.”
Angelo pulled his hand away milliseconds before Dylan managed to grasp it and stepped back to make room for Rhys. “All right,mate?”
His tone was flat, his face devoid of the smirk he’d greeted Rhys with the last time they’d met, but Rhys didn’t seem to notice. He barely glanced at Angelo, and his friendly gaze zeroed in onDylan.
