Angelo chewed his lip. “I’msorry.”
“Whatfor?”
“I don’t reallyknow.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across Dylan’s drawn face. “If it’s for telling the police you’re my boyfriend, you can stop that shit right now?—unless you didn’t mean it, of course. Then you can go fuckyourself.”
There was no malice in his tone. Angelo squeezed his hand and stepped into his personal space, pressing their bodies together, his chest so tight against Dylan’s that he felt his hammering heart. “I don’t know how to be a boyfriend. I’ve never had time, until now. But there’s nothing I won’t do for you. You know that, don’tyou?”
Dylan shook his head slightly. “I don’t know much right now. My brain’sfried.”
And as Angelo lost himself in Dylan, the truth of that statement made itself known. He’d seen Dylan panic before?—in the club when his hands had been tied?—but this was different. This wasworsebecause Angelo didn’t even halfway understand it. “Will you tell me what happenedtoday?”
“The policedidn’t?”
Angelo kissed Dylan’s forehead and then stepped back, tugging Dylan towards the kitchen. “Just that a client had come into your office with a machete. It was all over by the time they told me that, though, and you seemed so freaked out when I got there that I just wanted to get youhome.”
“I’m glad you did.” Dylan let go of Angelo and drifted past him to the kettle. “I was losing my fuckingmind.”
I could tell. But Angelo said nothing. Just watched as Dylan made tea with shaking hands and waited for him totalk.
“I don’t know who he was,” Dylan said eventually, still mechanically stirring over-brewed tea. “I went through the records after they took him away. He’d never been in before, nor had his wife, though he seemed to think shehad.”
“Hiswife?”
“Yeah. That’s why he was so angry. Her tax credits had been stopped and they were losing their house... at least, that’s what hesaid.”
Angelo searched his brain for what Dylan had told him about tax credits over the last few weeks. “This was the government thing you were worriedabout?”
Dylan nodded. “It’s always chaos, but it’s never kicked off like that before. He hardly touched me, but I honestly thought he might kill me before the police tasered him. And then I thought thatthey’dkilledhim, and somehow that wasworse.”
“Why?”
“Because he was desperate, not evil, and that isn’t his fault.” Dylan dropped the teaspoon on the counter and turned his back on the tea. “He wasn’t my client, but he could’ve been. Do you know how many cases I couldn’t fix this week? How many people face months with sanctioned incomes because there was nothing I could do forthem?”
“Um...no?”
“Neither do I, because I lost count. Shit, I need to call my dad. And why the hell am I still shaking?” Dylan stared at his tremblinghands.
Angelo was beside him in an instant. “You’re shaking because what happened today scared you. But none of it was your fault. You didn’t create the system, and you can’t solve everyone’s problems when the world is so messedup.”
“But I’m supposed to be able to help the people who walk through that door. That bloke gottaseredbecause he hit rock bottom and lost his head. How is thatfair?”
Angelo had no answer to that because the last twelve months had kicked the shit out of him. His only blessing was that his bad luck had brought Dylan into his life, but the man who’d been tasered? That he’d hurt Dylan made Angelo want to kill him, but an eye for an eye made everyone blind, and none of it was fuckingfair.
Dylan shuddered. Angelo put his hands on his face and let his agitation crackle through his own nerves, like he could take it all away. Dark smudges under Dylan’s eyes told Angelo that he was exhausted, that he needed to sleep and forget this day ever happened for a while, but as he held Dylan and absorbed his excess energy, he realised there was no way Dylan was sleeping anytime soon. “Call yourdad.”
“Okay.” Dylan stared at hisphone.
Angelo took it off him and found Mick’s number. The call went to voicemail, and when Dylan shook his head, Angelo typed out a text messageinstead.
D:If you see the news, don’t worry. Home and safe withAngelo
Dylan smiled. “Home and safe. I like the sound ofthat.”
“Me too. I think you should show me round your place,though.”
“What? Why? You’ve been herebefore.”
