Angelo settled the donkeys in the paddock and drifted back to their stall. Mucking it out didn’t take long, and his muscles sizzled with life by the time he was done, energy he never took for granted.
“Suits you.”
Angelo jumped. Dylan was leaning in the doorway, wrapped up in one of Joe’s old coats, his expression unreadable.
“What does?” Angelo slid the manger back to its rightful place. “Being covered in mud?”
“No, though it is weirdly hot. I actually meant being outside and working with your hands. I haven’t seen you this mobile first thing in the morning for months.”
“I think the clean air helps.”
“And the freedom to move? I mean, like, really move instead of shuffling from place to place with the traffic and crowds?”
Angelo eyed Dylan, absorbing the speculative gleam in his gaze, and found himself suddenly and irrationally irritated. “Are you trying to say I’ve looked like shit every time you’ve seen me before?”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m not.”
“Right.”
Dylan walked away. Angelo stared after him, annoyance fading to bewilderment. He’d been so happy to see Dylan the night before that reality had danced just out of reach, but in the cold light of day, it was unforgivably clear that Dylan wasn’t happy. And Angelo knew why—of course he did. Angelo didn’t want to go home, but Dylan didn’t want to stay.
Dread seized Angelo’s chest. The idea of returning to London life terrified him, but Dylan being unhappy frightened him more. Devastated him.
You selfish fuck.Do you really want him to abandon his whole life just so you can have a job on your doorstep?
Angelo’s brain had lost the ability to cope with stress. When shit got real, it emptied itself, leaving him dazed and confused and more useless than he was when his legs didn’t work. The brush in his hand fell to the floor. He bent to retrieve it and blood rushed in his ears. He’d spent weeks with his head in the sand, taking his own recovery a day at a time, but while he’d been busy with his treacherous muscles, Dylan had been keeping their life together—a life that was as much his as Angelo’s.“Talk to him. You might be surprised by what he has to say.”
Right. Harry had been halfway there, but Angelo was fairly certain he knew what Dylan would say to the idea of spending the rest of their lives on a Cornish horse farm.
Heart pounding, he stood slowly and leaned the brush on the wall. Dizziness rushed over him, but it wasn’t equilibrium-sucking waves that came with the worst of a bad day. No. This was pure panic, a gentle tornado of fear—of the future, of the past repeating itself, and of a present he couldn’t escape. Angelo loved Dylan more than the moon loved the stars, but he couldn’t go home.
* * *
“Sit down.”
Dylan glanced up, but it took a few moments to realise Rhys wasn’t talking to him, even though he’d been the only one standing the last time he’d looked around the kitchen. Somehow he’d missed Angelo drifting in from the yard, muddy and cold, his lovely face marred by the mental fog Dylan often forgot about when Angelo’s body worked like it was meant to. When his elegant frame carried him like the world-classballerinohe’d once been.
He’s upset.
Guilt weighed Dylan’s heavy step forward, but Rhys got there first, faster than Dylan, even with a dodgy ankle. He didn’t even stand—just reached up from the table, grasped Angelo’s elbow, and guided him to a seat between him and Jevon.
Angelo sat down and buried his face in his arms. Jevon, apparently the most empathetic dude on the planet, didn’t look up from his plate as he draped a comforting arm around Angelo’s shoulders, and Dylan was torn between falling a little bit in love with him and punching him in the face.What the fuck is wrong with me?
He was no closer to figuring it out when Joe came in, his face the fiery opposite of Angelo’s blank distress.
Harry rose immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“Fucking numbnuts accountant,” Joe growled. “He’s pissed off to the Maldives for six months without setting up the tax payment due in January.”
“The big one?”
“Yeah, the one we’ll get fined a bazillion quid for if we don’t pay on time.”
“Why didn’t you pay it in April when he did your accounts?”
Joe shot Dylan a murderous stare. “Because he told us to earn interest off the savings, remember? And you said it was a good idea.”
