“Yeah?”
Dylan dropped his hands and hooked Angelo closer with his legs. “Yeah. There’s going to come a time when you don’t have the upper hand, you know.”
“I thought we just spent all weekend like that?”
“As if. Angelo, I’m never going to think any less of you when you’re unwell. It’s part of who you are, but it doesn’t define you.”
Angelo hid his face in Dylan’s sweet-scented neck. “You sound more adjusted to it than I’ve ever been.”
“It’s not me that has to live with it,” Dylan said. “But I’m used to grouchy hot dudes with life-changing illnesses. My mate is diabetic.”
“The one you hook up with?”
“Used to hook up with. I quit a while back. Got a little crowded, you know?”
“But you still love him?”
Dylan sighed. “That’s the second time you’ve asked me that, but . . . yeah. Of course I love him—he’s my friend—but messing around together was never about love until his missus came along.”
“And then he ditched you?”
“Far from it. If anything, we were tighter . . . for a while, at least. I miss him.”
Angelo wrapped his arms around Dylan and held him close. He’d been trying to get a handle on Dylan’s feelings for the friend he’d brought up multiple times. Jealousy tickled his veins, but he pushed it aside. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
Angelo shrugged. “For being a liability when you need a mate?”
“You’re not a liability. And we are friends, even if you don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me since we met.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dylan pulled back, his sunny face twisted in a glare that went straight to Angelo’s cock. “Pay attention then. I was miserable when I came to the club that first time. I’d walked out on the best friends I’ve ever had because I couldn’t stand seeing them so happy together, and I was scared, depressed, and fucking lonely. Then I met you, and I stopped wishing things could be different.”
Angelo wanted to seal Dylan’s words with the kiss that he’d been craving all day, but then he pictured himself stumbling into Dylan’s bed and sleeping like a dead man. “I wish you’d met me two years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a different person then.”
“I like you as you are.”
Angelo shook his head, like he could block out the reality that had hounded him out of America with pure denial. “You shouldn’t.”
“Well, I do.” Dylan wriggled out of Angelo’s embrace and slid off the counter. “So you can either come home with me and spend the night or you can piss off and wallow in self-loathing. Either way, we’re going for dinner first.”
* * *
They squabbled over who paid for dinner, and for once Angelo came out on top. He took Dylan to Romford’s best-kept secret and bought two polystyrene trays of Greek gyros for less than a fiver.
Dylan ate the chargrilled, garlicky chicken like sin, licking his lips and sucking on his elegant fingers. Angelo barely tasted his own dinner and instead passed the time imagining wrapping his own tongue around various parts of Dylan’s anatomy.
“I’ve been reading about chronic fatigue syndrome today,” Dylan said when he was done driving Angelo insane.
“You didn’t have any real work to do?”
“I had plenty, but ME is something our office has come across often, but not ever truly understood, so I figured it would help lots of people if I read up on it.”
Angelo knew Dylan well enough by now to believe that he was entirely serious. “What good is you being an expert on my bullshit to anyone else?”
“Plenty. We have plenty of clients who can’t work because of conditions like ME and fibromyalgia. If we can persuade creditors—and the government, actually—to take them more seriously, then sufferers will be a lot better off. Imagine if I could persuade your credit card lenders to wipe your debts?”
“That won’t happen. You think they give a shit that I can’t dance in tights anymore?”
“I’m using you as an example, a bad one, I know, as your shit hit the fan across the pond, but still. Don’t heckle me. I’m tired.”
Angelo nudged Dylan’s foot under the tiny plastic table. “I’m not heckling. I guess I’m just embarrassed that you know all my darkest secrets. The only time I feel halfway human compared to you is when we’re in the club.”
Dylan’s eyes flashed. “Are you serious? You run a town-centre deli single-handed all the while battling a debilitating condition with no support whatsoever, medical or otherwise. I couldn’t do what you do, Angelo. I have to go kip at my dad’s for a week when I catch a cold.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Well, you should. I know it pisses you off when I bring up Sam, but you’re just like him in this sense. Stubborn as a fucking mule.”
“It doesn’t piss me off when you bring up Sam.”
“No?”
The challenge in Dylan’s electric gaze was clear. “That’s a shame. It would piss me off if you had a friend you’d been lusting after for years.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you all to myself.”
“You have me all to yourself—” Angelo’s hand twitched. The muscle spasm ran up his arm and into his shoulder, leaving a trail of pins and needles behind. He glowered at his arm and braced himself for the tingling to spread.
Dylan touched Angelo’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You know my bullshit filter is the latest model, right? So it’ll be quicker for both of us if you just tell me you’re not interested.”
“What?”
Dylan withdrew his hand. “I’m kinda throwing myself at you here—in real life, not in the club. If I’m making a twat of myself, just say.”
Angelo’s arm shot out and grabbed Dylan before his brain formulated a coherent response. “It’s—fuck—it’s not that. Jesus, no. If anyone’s a twat here, it’s me.”
“It’s okay if it is. I can take it.”
“I know you can.”
Dylan responded to the innuendo with a devilish smirk, but his humour was fleeting, and he frowned as he threaded his fingers through Angelo’s. “What’s wrong, then? Are you in pain?”
Angelo shook his head. “Not exactly—it’s hard to explain.”
“Try.” Dylan popped a can of Lilt open with his spare hand and poured it between two paper cups. “I want to understand.”
Why? But Angelo didn’t say it. Dylan’s earnest empathy was beginning to seep into him and penetrate the armour he needed to get through each day. “My legs are buzzing. I don’t think that’s the technical term, but I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“Buzzing?”
“Like the nerves are short-circuiting. It doesn’t hurt, but I wish it did. I can deal with pain, but this shit freaks me out.”
“Can you move them?”
Angelo shrugged. “It makes it worse, though. It’s fatigue that makes the muscles jump, but it doesn’t feel like that when they’re like this. It’s like this cruel illusion of energy . . . it’s the worst symptom that I get.” Acknowledging the false life in his legs seemed to make it more real. Angelo let go of Dylan and clamped his hands down on his tingling thighs. “It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud.
“It doesn’t sound stupid to me. Sam—” Dylan stopped and covered his mouth.
Angelo rolled his eyes. “I thought we’d established that it was cool for you to talk about him?”
“Maybe I wish it wasn’t.”
“Why?”
“So then I’d know that you were as crazy about me as I am about you.”
Angelo didn’t know what to say. Dylan was the only light in the mammoth tunnel his life had become, and he spent every waking moment thinking about him. But what did it mean? Where could it go? Angelo
was a mess, and Dylan deserved the whole fucking world. “I am crazy about you, but—”
“Don’t.” Dylan moved his palm from his own mouth to cover Angelo’s. “Don’t say whatever negativity you’re about to come out with. Just let things be, okay? Give yourself a chance.”
Angelo had no answer to that. He nodded slowly as Dylan dropped his hand. “I think I need to go home.”
“My place or yours?”
The temptation to crawl back to Dylan’s pristine bed was so strong Angelo could taste it. “Mine. I need to get myself together for the rest of the week.”
Dylan smiled. “Okay, mate. I’ll walk you.”
Chapter Nine
Dylan tossed his phone on the bed that still smelled of Angelo, glad that it landed screen side down. It was Thursday—three days since Angelo had kissed him outside the derelict garage he apparently slept in, and apart from a couple of vague WhatsApp messages, Dylan hadn’t heard from him. Though, what he’d been expecting, he wasn’t entirely sure. After all, Angelo hadn’t exactly professed his undying love.
Undying love? What are you? Fucking twelve?
Dylan kicked off his shoes and lay down on his bed. Despite knowing better, he reclaimed his phone and opened WhatsApp. Angelo hadn’t been online since the arse crack of dawn, and though Dylan knew he was likely still working, it was hard not to worry . . . at least when he wasn’t convincing himself that it wasn’t even his place to henpeck a dude he’d pretty much only just met.
But still. Dylan worried. How many times had he assumed that Sam had gone to bed early, only to find him half dead in the morning? Too many. Dylan shuddered, and his thumb hovered over the Call button, but his phone buzzed before he could press it, and he jumped a mile.
The phone flew out of his fingers and sailed over the side of the bed, landing on the hardwood floor with a sickening clatter. Dylan scrambled to reach it and toppled onto the floor, thwacking his knee on the radiator just in time for the call to ring out. He grabbed the phone and turned it over. Angelo. Dylan’s heart skipped a beat. He called straight back, but it went to voicemail without even ringing. He tried again and again, but the calls didn’t connect.
Restless, he hauled himself off the floor and went to the kitchen. His dad had brought over a pie from the butchers the day before, but he ignored it in favour of a big bottle of fruity cider—the shit kind that tasted like Vimto. He has halfway deep in it and peeling tiny bits of the label from the bottle when his phone rang again.
He jumped on it like a starving man. “Angelo?”
“It’s me.”
Relief rushed out of Dylan in a whoosh of breath. “Sorry I missed your first call. I threw my phone by accident, then fell off the bed trying to catch it.”
“Erm . . . okay? Are you drunk?”
“Nope. Just a twat.”
“Fair enough.” Angelo didn’t sound convinced. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you sooner. I didn’t have any minutes left on my phone, and I keep crashing out as soon as I get home.”
“How are you doing with that? Do you feel better?”
“Actually, yes. I’ve been locking the door for an hour every morning to take a nap in the stock room, and I think it’s helping.”
Dylan pictured Angelo trying to get his head down amongst the vats of olive oil and giant jars of sundried tomatoes. This isn’t right. “What about your legs?”
“Well, I haven’t cut them off and hurled them under a bus yet, so I suppose they’re all right.”
“Gallows humour, eh?”
“Well, I am on Gallows Corner, babe.”
Babe. Jesus. This dude kills me. It had been a long time since a male lover—if Angelo could even be defined as that—had called Dylan babe. On the rare occasions his dirty nights in with Sam and Eddie had spilled out into a stolen kiss or touch from Sam, it had always been mate or brother, and the emptiness Dylan had felt then now made sense. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Accounts. I’m trying to get my mum to sit down with me, but she ain’t having none of it. Makes me want to start smoking again.”
“When did you quit?”
“Eight years ago,” Angelo said around an ironically timed cough.
“Wow.”
“I know. Not sure what that says about me or her.”
Dylan went to the fridge and opened it, staring blindly inside at the contents before he grabbed another cider. “Do you want to maybe meet up later? We could get a drink, or . . .”
“Or what?”
“I don’t know. Go to the Thursday night gangbang party at the club and have crazy-mad sex? What are we doing here?”
Angelo laughed, which made Dylan feel a little better about the determined bunny boiler who fell out of his mouth every time he spoke. “I have no idea what we’re doing. You told me to let things be, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m stuck with my mum tonight, but if you want to do something tomorrow—drink council pop at the bus stop or sit on a park bench, ’cause that’s all I can afford right now—I’m game for whatever.”
“So you’re not going to the club?”
“Are you? Because I’m pretty sure I’m game for that too.”
The romantic in Dylan wanted to ditch the club and take Angelo out for dinner. Get a bottle of wine and leer at each other over spicy food until they stumbled home to bed. But the realist in him knew that Angelo would never agree to a night out on Dylan’s wallet, and as much fun as the bus stop sounded, the club would do far more for Angelo’s fragile self-esteem.
Besides, going to the club wasn’t exactly a hardship. Fuck no. It was the best offer Dylan had heard since the last time, and they made loose plans to meet near Lovato’s the following night. And after they’d hung up, Dylan took a shower with a grin and boner he wouldn’t touch until he had his mouth around Angelo’s cock.
* * *
The change in Angelo was startling. Dylan watched him spring over a bench as he approached the club, and for the first time truly saw him as the incredible athlete he’d once been. He stepped out of the shadows and into Angelo’s path. Nerves shivered through him and he opened his arms, willing Angelo to step right into them.
Angelo did exactly that, and his embrace warmed Dylan’s bones. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” Dylan inhaled Angelo’s scent and brushed his lips along his darkly stubbled jaw. “You look good.”
“Says you.”
“What does that mean?”
Angelo stepped back and speared Dylan with a heated stare, running his gaze over Dylan’s skinny jeans and grungy vest combo. “I’m never sure which skin you’re gonna show up in.”
“Yeah, ’cause that clears it right up.” Dylan rolled his eyes. “And you’re one to talk about skins. Am I partying with Angel tonight or has Angelo come out to play?”
“You tell me. Angel ain’t something I’ve ever called myself, is it?”
He had a point, but as they made their way to the club, Dylan couldn’t help noting every inch of the mask as it descended over Angelo’s features. He knew that Angel would burn him alive when they played, but what did that mean if Angelo wasn’t there too? Did it even mean anything? At this point, Dylan had no fucking idea.
Inside the club, a man who knew Angel by name waved them past without taking the entrance fee, and though the club was as familiar to Dylan as his mother’s house, walking in with Angelo felt like the first time all over again—the lights were lower, the bass line deeper, and the eyes that followed them to the bar pierced holes in his back.
Angelo bought drinks with a screwed up tenner, and Dylan swallowed the urge to push Angelo’s money aside and swipe his card over the contactless payment machine.
“Next round’s on me,” he said.
Angelo scowled. “Yeah, yeah.”
Perhaps they wouldn’t get that far. Dylan claimed his beer bottle and glanced around the club. It was early yet and some corners were quiet, but it didn’t take long to spot Rhys on his back with
his legs in the air, getting pegged by a girl who reminded Dylan of Eddie. For a moment, he imagined that it was her and that she was thrusting her big black strap-on into Sam and that Sam was loving it, warming himself up to take Dylan’s cock. How different would their lives have been if Sam’s sexuality had been more flexible?
But even before the question had solidified in his mind, he knew the answer. Their lives would’ve rocked out exactly the same because Sam’s sexuality was irrelevant. Eddie was his soulmate and Dylan his friend, and no amount of dick could change that.
Angelo tapped Dylan’s temple with his own icy-cold beer bottle. “Who are you thinking about?”
“What makes you think I’ve got anyone else on my mind?”
“Because you’ve got that orgy-BFF scowl on your face.”
Dylan wondered when he’d become so transparent, or perhaps his mind was just open to Angelo. “Do you really want to talk about Sam again? It feels like all we ever do.”
“When we’re not discussing my shit show, you mean.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Angelo shrugged. “It’s true. You’ve seen all my dirty laundry and listened to my tales of woe, but I don’t know much about you apart from that you dress like a banker by day and a metalhead by night.”
“And that I used to have threesomes with my best mate and his missus.”
Angelo glowered and swigged his beer, his expression a world away from the last time Sam had invaded their conversation. “I can’t see you in a mosh pit. You’re too . . . I dunno. Nice?”
“I’m nasty enough to bend over in a fuck club,” Dylan retorted. “And I can’t see you pirouetting to Swan Lake either, but that’s my problem.”
He hadn’t meant to speak so harshly, but Angelo’s only reaction was a slight twitch in one eyebrow, and Dylan sighed. “The bad luck in your life doesn’t define you, Angelo.”
“No?”
“No. Nor does the fact that you can pretty much make me come just by looking at me, but I reckon there’s a lot more to both of us, eh?”
Angelo said nothing, and frustration rippled through Dylan. Complex individuals crossed his path all the time, but he’d never met anyone as hard to read as Angelo. They’d come to the club to play, but the air between them was heavy, weighed down by something that Dylan couldn’t quite decipher.
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