You let the devil show.
And Sid hadn’t blinked.
Dante wasn’t sure how he felt about that either. Or about the fact that they hadn’t seen each other outside of working hours since. Sid seemed to disappear every evening when he finally downed tools, and Dante spent his nights alone, staring at the ceiling.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Sid said suddenly, breaking the quiet. “You need to eat before we can talk. It’s not healthy to play with your food.”
Dante had stirred the food on his plate into a big green mess. He started to push it away, but Sid’s playful glare stopped him.
He ate the pasta, steering around the biggest green bits.
Sid nudged his knee under the table. “It’s good for you.”
“All right, all right.” Dante cleared his plate and, as had become his habit as the days had flown by, checked Sid wasn’t still hungry before he sat back in his seat. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I’m not going to ask because it ain’t my business, and I’m not going to hear it from anyone else because you’re the only mofo who talks to me.”
“Benjamin talks to you.”
“About work. Not your personal shit.”
“Where are you from?”
“Lambeth.”
Sid took a long, slow drink from the water bottle closest to him. “That’s London, right? Anything further south than Nottingham is a mystery to me.”
“You don’t travel much?”
“I’m happy here.”
“You should be. It’s nice.”
“Even though no one talks to you?”
“Maybe that’s why I like it.” Dante watched Sid take another drink. Man, he has the nicest neck. Is that a thing? Fuck, I have no idea.
Sid lowered his water bottle. “Can I ask you something else?”
“If you like.”
“What do you think is wrong with me? Like, you’ve been with me a while, so you’ve seen me falling around all over the place . . . so, I don’t know. I guess I’m curious what it looks like to someone who doesn’t know.”
“I don’t think anything is wrong with you—hey, let me finish.” Dante raised his hands to quiet the protest forming on Sid’s lips. “I know you’re off balance sometimes and in pain, and from watching you, I’d say it was something in your brain—an injury, or a condition that affects your mobility and, I don’t know, maybe how you think too?”
Sid reached for his water bottle, then seemed to change his mind again. “That’s better than the last person I worked with who grassed me up for being drunk all the time.”
“Who was that?”
“A posh git friend of one of the trustees. He told Benjamin I was drinking with my breakfast in the morning and I could hardly stand up by the end of the day.”
Dante was good at concealing his emotions, so good that often not even he knew how he truly felt. There was no mistaking the fury that flooded him now, though, and he didn’t want Sid to see it.
He got up and retreated to the fruit barrow. The display was dark purple with the latest crop of blueberries Sid had grown in the hottest polytunnel. He complained daily that it felt wrong to force them but ate them after lunch anyway.
Dante grabbed a bowl and returned to the table.
Sid hadn’t moved, save that hand that had crept to the back of his neck again to rub it.
Dante passed him the blueberries. “Does it hurt?”
“What? Oh. Nah, not really, at least, not right now. It’s more a sensation that freaks me out. Like boiling water being trickled over my skin.”
“Nerve pain?”
“Yeah.” Sid rolled a berry between his finger and thumb. “You were right about everything you said. I have multiple sclerosis.”
Saying the words seemed to shift something in him. A dozen emotions rampaged in his dancing gaze before two settled—grief and a sad defiance that made Dante want to cry. Don’t. He doesn’t need sympathy. But what did Sid need? It was a question Dante had asked himself since they met, and searching for the current answer drew Dante’s eyes to Sid’s forearms, strong, corded, and brown from the sun. He wanted to rub his palms over them, cup his elbows, and tug Sid closer to him.
The door behind him opened with a bang and a sudden influx of loud voices.
Dante flinched.
Sid frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah. Fuck this. Let’s walk.”
Sid stood before Dante could argue and stomped away.
Dante felt him leave the barn. Counted to ten.
He got to seven before the pull in his gut was too strong to ignore and followed Sid outside.
6
The sun had gone in while they’d been inside. In fact, it had disappeared behind the clouds the moment Dante had left the gardens with his probation officer. Sid didn’t much believe in signs, but it was an omen he couldn’t seem to ignore.
He sensed Dante at his back as he walked towards the lake. The house was busy with school trips and old people out for their fresh air and tea cakes, but Sid knew the grounds like the back of his hand, and there were a dozen places they could go where they wouldn’t be disturbed.
The abandoned heron watching post was his favourite. It had a broad tree trunk he could lean against while he dipped his legs in the cool water.
He didn’t do that today, though. He just sat and waited for Dante to join him.
Dante crouched at the lake edge, dangling his fingers in the crystal-clear water. He kept his back to Sid, but Sid didn’t mind, save the fact he enjoyed looking at Dante’s face. “Sorry I dumped that on you. Maybe you didn’t need to know.”
“I didn’t need to know unless it was the best thing for you,” Dante said. “You don’t owe me an explanation for anything that happens at work.”
“Not even if I trip and send you flying too?”
Dante finally looked at him. “You’re never close enough for that to happen.”
Not by choice. Sid pursed his lips. Fuck, don’t say that. “Whatever. I just mean it’s not fair to not tell you why I am the way I am.”
For once, Dante’s face disagreed with Sid far more than words ever could. And he said nothing, apparently engrossed with the lake water dripping from his fingertips.
Frustration bubbled in Sid’s gut. “Do you know why they hired you?”
“To help you.”
“Yeah, but why? I’ve worked here for five years, so why now?”
“Because something happened,” Dante said without the inflection of a question. “Something that made however you were doing this before unworkable.”
Sid laughed without humour. “I lost sensation in the entire left side of my body and dropped face-first into a muddy puddle. I was alone at the time. Benjamin didn’t find me until three hours later. I had hypothermia by then, which turned into bronchitis, and I couldn’t breathe without help for a week after.”
“When did this happen?”
“Six months ago. It was the worst relapse I’ve ever had.”
“Relapse?”