Dylan blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.” Angelo pushed his chair back and walked to the door. “Thanks for your help today,Dylan, but I gotta say, you did more for me a week ago when I railed you at Lovato’s. You have a nice day,now.”
* * *
Wanker.Angelo pressed his fists into his eyes, like he could unsee the horror he’d left on Dylan’s face when he’d walked out on him with legs that had only just made it outside before they’d given way. He’d barely made it to the trainstation.
Serves you fuckingright.
Of course it did. The first rule of Lovato’s was that there was no Lovato’s, and yet Angelo had taken it to Dylan’s work and thrown it in his face. The gravity of his own woes had outweighed his shock at recognising Dylan, and then his treacherous temper had intervened, and he’d hurt the man who’d haunted his fantasies all weeklong.
Angelo stretched his aching legs out in front of him and made a half-hearted attempt to massage the pain out of his thighs. For a while it seemed that he’d be spending the night on the bench he’d collapsed on when he’d stumbled off the train, but eventually he found the energy to get up and trudge the two miles back to Gallows Corner, trying not to dwell on the fact that Dylan knew he couldn’t afford thebus.
At the deli, his mother was waiting for him, already drowning in the lunchtime rush. “Angelo! Where have youbeen?”
Angelo pushed passed her and grabbed his apron from under the till. “I told you, Ma. I had to go to Stratford for somebusiness.”
“Whatbusiness?”
“What do you think?” Angelo snapped before the guilt at having left his mother alone in the deli all morning kicked in. “I went to Citizens Advice,remember?”
Theresa Giordano frowned. “What do you need to go telling our business to strangers for? Your father would turn in hisgrave.”
“Then he should’ve paid the damn bills when he wasalive.”
Angelo regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was too late. His mother’s eyes filled with tears and she turned her back on him, leaving him to face the rest of the day on hisown.
It was late by the time Angelo made his escape. The Giordano house was a mile away, but the walk seemed to stretch on much farther. Angelo was so tired he felt sick, and the long stagger to the tatty garage he called home seemed like it would killhim.
He was halfway there when a figure hopping off a bus caught his eye. His heart stopped and then restarted with a painful thud.Jesus. Twice in one day? Surely not. But as Angelo fell into step behind the slim blond, the back of his head grew more familiar. After all, he’d spent the best part of their first encounter staring atit.
Angelo wondered where Dylan was going. He’d said that he lived opposite Romford’s Citizens Advice Bureau, but that was in the wrong direction for Angelo’s home, and there was no need to follow him...right?
He was half a mile out of his way before he saw reason, and by then the converted Railstore development where Dylan likely lived was at the end of the road. Angelo thrust his hands into his pockets and thought about turning around. But he didn’t. He trailed Dylan all the way to the entrance doors, intending to walk straight past, but a startled exclamation from Dylan halted him in histracks.
A pile of folders and paperwork hit the pavement. Angelo turned right at the moment that Dylan looked up. Their eyes met, and in the murky light of the early autumn evening, Angelo’s world stopped. His heart raced, and his breath caught in his chest, and no coherent thought graced his brain as Dylan stared at him, his blanched skin and red-rimmed eyes caught in a devastating mix of shock and horror. “What the hell areyoudoinghere?”
Any hope that Angelo might’ve had that Dylan hadn’t connected his vicious parting words with the dick that had slammed him in the club evaporated. He swallowed and took a hesitant step forward. “Um... I livehere.”
“Your mother’s house is a mile in the oppositedirection.”
“So? Doesn’t mean I have to spend all my time there, doesit?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure there’s laws against stalking people, so I suggest you find somewhere else tobe.”
Dylan gathered his things from the ground and turned to his front door, jabbing a key at the lock with shaking hands. Angelo retreated and watched from a respectable distance, but when Dylan dropped his keys, the daft twat that had followed Dylan from the bus stop in the first place sprang to life again, and even his fatigue-addled legs betrayed hissanity.
He scooped up Dylan’s keys and jammed the biggest one in the lock. “There yougo.”
“How is that fuckingoff?”
Despite the aggression lacing Dylan’s tone, the way his voice wrapped around the words erased the torturous morning they spent together in the stuffy Citizens Advice office and took Angelo back to the start?—back to the basement room where the first he’d seen of Dylan was his leonine body, arched andready.
Ready forme.
“I’msorry.”
“For what?” Dylan snapped. “Turning up at my work? Blasting me with shit that should’ve stayed at the club? Or following mehome?”
