Angelo spun around.
Harry blocked the doorway with his large frame, handsome face amused. “Dylan got caught by Sal. She’s taken him inside for tea and cake.”
“Sal’s back?”
“Only for the day. She came to tell Joe she’s spending Christmas with Bob.”
“Ouch.” Angelo winced. “What did Joe say to that?”
“About his mother ditching him to shack up with her fella? What do you think?” Harry grinned, but his face said it all. “Put it this way, I’m glad we have a full house to distract him, even if she hasn’t gone very far.”
“Me too.”
“I bet. You’ve been counting down the weeks, eh?”
“You know it.” Angelo sat on the edge of the bed, the energy he’d ridden to the station suddenly deserting him.
Attuned to the entire world as ever, Harry frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar. What is it? Something sore?”
“No... it’s not that.”
Harry waited, believing Angelo, as always, but giving him time to figure out the real answer.
“I’m scared,” Angelo admitted when the silence became too much.
Harry knelt in front of him. “Of what?”
“Of telling him I don’t want to go home.”
Understanding dawned in Harry’s gentle eyes. “So, you’ve seriously considered my job offer?”
Angelo nodded. “Of course I have. I’d be a fool to turn you down—and I don’twantto—but I can’t see how it’s ever going to work.”
“You don’t have to decide any time soon,” Harry said. “We’d be lucky to have you, so it’s an open-ended offer.”
“It’s a ridiculous offer,” Angelo muttered. Flexible hours, free accommodation, and a competitive salary, it was a disabled therapist’s dream job. It wasAngelo’sdream job, and Harry was wrong about having unlimited time to decide. “My sick pay at the Blackberry Clinic is about to expire. They’ve said they’ll keep my position open for a while, but if I’m not back by spring, they’ll have to replace me.”
“You’ve only been gone a few months.”
“I know, but I didn’t have a good summer. The heat got to my muscles and I couldn’t get out of bed for most of August, remember? Besides, I wasn’t coping there anyway. I love the job, but the commuting is killing me. That weekend Rhys broke into my flat, I fell off the bus on the way home.”
“You never told me that.”
“Yeah, well. I figured I’d embarrassed myself enough by needing your brother and his new boyfriend to babysit me, then pretty much dying inyourboyfriend’s mum’s bed.”
Harry grunted, clearly remembering the dark days a few months ago when Angelo had been so weak he could hardly raise his head. “That’s whatever at this point. You needed help, so your friends helped you. It’s not like you haven’t returned the favour by working here for free.”
“In exchange for your undivided attention, and I’m still getting a fucking good deal.”
Harry opened his mouth to argue but seemed to think better of it. “We could ride this circle all day. Bottom line is you’re as helpful to me as I am to you, but I know it’s not that simple—hence the open-ended offer. Have you talked to Dylan about it at all?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
