A flush crept under Angelo’s skin. Performing had once been second nature, but these days he was more at home with his dick out in a club than prancing around a stage. “Jevon dared me to see what I could still do.”
“Did it hurt?”
“No more than most things.”
“Good.” Dylan dropped to a crouch in front of him. “Because I’m gonna ask you to do that flippy-spinny thing for me pretty much every day.”
Angelo kissed Dylan hard enough to fade their surroundings into nothing. Eyes closed, lips searching for the peace he only found when Dylan smiled at him like this. When he held Angelo like he was whole and strong.
Only the need to breathe made him stop, and when he opened his eyes, they were alone. “Where’d everybody go?”
Dylan blinked and gazed around too. “In for dinner, maybe? That’s why I came up here—to fetch you all in.”
Angelo’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since their shared plate of Marmite toast that morning. “Jevon made curry.”
“I know. I smelt it as soon as we walked in the house. I’m starting to think that man was sent here to save us all.”
“Perhaps he was.”
Angelo had grown out of believing in a higher power, his Catholic roots long abandoned, but the spirit in Jevon stirred something in him—in all of them, perhaps. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”
They trudged back to the house. Dylan usually had something to say about the mud squelching around his favourite Vans, but he was quiet now—and apparently content. Hope tickled Angelo’s heart. He nudged Dylan gently. “Where’ve you been all day?”
“Window shopping.”
“And?”
“And what?”
Angelo rolled his eyes. “There’s no way you managed to get Rhys to spend all day window shopping, especially on crutches.”
Mischief gleamed in Dylan’s gaze. “True, but do you think Harry would spend all day in the pub either?”
“Okay... maybe not. So whatdidyou do?”
“A bit of both,” Dylan said. “We genuinely did go to the shopping centre, but Rhys got tired, so we went to a juice bar, andthento the pub. I didn’t drink, though. Harry said I could practice driving his car, so I got him drunk instead.”
“You drove Harry’s car?”
“Yup. I have a licence too,you know.”
More hope danced across Angelo’s soul. He took a breath to catch it, but Dylan kissed him before he could speak, then pulled away with a wicked grin. “No more angst today, babe. Just curry, beer, and banging.”
He skipped into the house before Angelo could respond.
Four
“Hot enough for you?”
Dylan met Jevon’s gaze across the table and countered it with a cheeky wink. “Just about.”
Jevon smirked and went back to whatever he was doing under the table that was making Rhys squirm in his seat.
Dylan shoved his last bite of scotch-bonnet-laced curry into his mouth and flopped back in his seat, invigorated by the chilli heat spiking his blood, the cold beer washing it down, and Angelo’s hand resting innocently on his thigh while his little finger brushed his cock with evil, feather-light strokes.
The sensation was driving Dylan slowly and deliciously mad. He sucked in a breath and replayed the afternoon he’d spent with Rhys and Harry—two brothers who were alike only in their dark good looks and deceptively gentle hands. Despite clearly knowing all about Dylan’s current predicament, Harry had said nothing, but Rhys hadn’t been quite so kind. “Stop being a prick. There’s no reason you can’t pick up your work and move it down here. Whatever reason you don’t want to do that has nothing to do with mud and horses.”
He had a point... kind of. But what did that actually mean? Dylan’s job was more than a nine-to-five—had been since he’d left the banking world behind to work in community debt relief—but he wastired. Running Romford’s sole advice centre had been a bigger challenge than he’d ever anticipated, and Dylan didn’t have much left to give.
