“What makes you think I’m so selfless,eh?”
Angelo shot Dylan a hard look. “Every moment we’ve ever spenttogether.”
“Bollocks. Maybe it’s just you I’m sweeton.”
“So it’s a coincidence that you waited for your BFF to find his soulmate before you steppedaway?”
“An unintentional one.” But was it? Dylan had lost many nights to worrying about Sam. Had that changed when he’d met Eddie? Or had he got caught up in fucking them both as a way of holding on? “I don’t know. Sam was too easy to fret about, and angsting over shit is like an addiction sometimes. I know I’m not doing anyone any good, but I can’tstop.”
“How do you feel about Sam moving toPoland?”
“Sad. Relieved. Lonely.” There were other emotions that Dylan couldn’t quite decipher. “But I don’t worry about him so much anymore. Eddie takes good care ofhim.”
“Who takes care ofyou?”
“What?” Dylan looked down to find that Angelo had somehow hauled himself upright again. “What do youmean?”
“I mean that you spend all day at work fixing people’s problems, then you go home and keep doing it. What aboutyou? When does it stop,Dylan?”
A thousand words passed through Dylan’s mind, but none of them fit. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Angelo’s. “When you’re insideme.”
For a long moment, Angelo simply stared, then a slow smile spread across his face. “That’s sweet, and the world comes to a standstill then for me too, but you’ve got to have other ways of taking abreak.”
Dylan sighed and reluctantly pulled away. “I’m working onit.”
“Areyou?”
“No, but I’ve got plansto.”
Angelo rolled his eyes. “I s’pose that’ll do for now. I’m not exactly in a position to be doling out lifeadvice.”
“You should probably lie down,” Dylan observed. Was it his admittedly overactive imagination, or had the rasp in Angelo’s chest got louder? “Jade told me not to tire youout.”
“Was she taking thepiss?”
“I don’t think so, and we should probably humour her. She threatened to put Sam in restraintsonce.”
“I like that shit.” But Angelo lay back down all the same, though his smirk remained, glinting through his obvious fatigue like a devilish beacon. “Can I ask yousomething?”
Dylan covered Angelo with the blanket. “Sure.”
“When did you first realise that you like fucking in front of other people? I spent a decade on tour with a hoard of horny queer teenagers, so it came with the territory, but it must’ve been different foryou.”
“Your way soundsfun.”
“It was, and I’ll tell you about it sometime, but I’m too tired now. I wanna hear youtalk.”
Dylan smiled, as much for the memories as for Angelo. “It was a long time ago?—back when I was a student. I wasworking?—?”
“As a waitress in a cocktailbar?”
“Shut up. As a kitchen porter in a student canteen, actually, but that’s hardly the point. Anyway, I got friendly with one of the owners, and after I’d left the company, we met up again and ended up shagging... and, uh, his fella saw us doingit.”
Angelo whistled. “He caughtyou?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. They had a cool-as-fuck open relationship, and he never bottomed, so he got a kick out of watching Cass top otherblokes.”
“And you got a kick out of him watchingyou?”
