Dante leant against a sturdy platform housing germinating chilli plants, if the barely legible scrawled labels were to be believed. “If I was, you think I’d kill you with a knife? What about the twine over there? Or the fuck-off mallet behind you?”
Sid upended the compost into a nearby wooden trough. The action appeared easy, but there was something . . . off about the way he came upright again, as if he’d taken a detour to get there.
Dante filed it away and compared it to what he’d already noticed about Sid over lunch. His tense gaze when he’d talked about his medication, the energy that seemed to come and go like whiplash, and the careful way he’d risen to his feet and walked away after, moving as though he expected to be hit by a truck at any moment. Something’s wrong. If he hadn’t known it before talking to Benjamin, he did now.
Sid staggered a little and tossed the empty compost bag aside. He scowled at his hands, then began to turn and swing his obvious frustration onto Dante when he caught him watching.
But he’d never catch Dante watching, because that was Dante’s other skill—to observe and learn without being noticed. In his old life, it had kept him alive until ego and complacency had taken over. In prison, it had saved so much more.
Cold heat shivered through Dante. He pushed off the platform he was leaning against and returned to the tomato plants before Sid faced him again. Young shoots were sprouting on some of the main branches. He pinched them out, then examined the soil they were planted in. “Do you add potash to your tomato plants?”
Sid glanced up from the kale he was potting on. “It was next on my list, as it goes. It’s over there.”
Dante traversed the polytunnel and retrieved the bag of fertiliser from the stash at the back, sensing Sid’s gaze on him with every step he took. He’s worried I’m going to fuck it up. The theory made Dante laugh, on the inside at least. There was no way Sid would catch him doing that either. Not if it was at his expense.
He added the fertiliser to the tomato plants, then checked over the spinach and courgettes. Aided by the warm polytunnel, the courgette plants had grown too big for their beds. “Do you want me to split these up?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll do it after this.”
“What about those blueberry bushes? Do you add something to make the soil more acidic?”
Sid’s expression grew complex again. Annoyed and yet delighted too. It made no sense, but Dante wasn’t a man who had to understand everything. He absorbed it and waited for Sid to decide how he felt.
“Leave the blueberries,” Sid said eventually. “But be careful with those courgette plants, okay? Don’t break all the roots up.”
The better man Dante was nurturing wanted to reassure Sid. To smooth the anxious lines from his lovely face and tell him he’d treat his precious plants like his own kin. But that man was small and weak. And the man Dante really was had treated his own kin like absolute shit.
He nodded and left Sid to his potting.
4
The day was long, but Sid ended it with more energy than he was used to, mainly because he’d done half the work.
He walked home from the equipment store on steady legs, his rumbling stomach the only thing concerning him, along with the fact that he’d lost track of Dante since he’d told him they were done for the day. He probably went home to unpack those two pairs of jeans and a T-shirt he was telling you about. Not everyone has to count equipment in and out of the shed in case someone stole their favourite bucket. That’s literally just you.
Anna was good at ribbing Sid from afar. Maybe it was a twin thing. Or maybe it was the tiny rational part of his brain reminding him that it really was just a bucket.
It’s a good bucket, though.
Sid let himself into his bungalow and tried not to think about the fact that he could see into Dante’s living room from his bedroom window. He took a cold shower, then inspected the contents of the fridge and discovered that along with forgetting his injection the night before, he’d neglected to get dinner out of the freezer too.
That left 101 ways with rice and a tin of baked beans. Sid sighed, set up his rice cooker, and resigned himself to going out again to raid the polytunnels.
He dressed in weathered jeans and boots and left the house shirtless, not giving a single fuck now the house and grounds were closed for the night. The cool evening breeze made him shiver, but it was a natural reaction, a healthy one, and he’d take it a thousand times over the searing pain of overheated nerves.
The polytunnel was an Aladdin’s cave of vitamins and antioxidants. The kale wasn’t ready yet, but there was young spinach and the first crop of rainbow chard. He hadn’t brought a bag to carry it home in, though. Bellend.
Sid stuffed iron-rich leaves in his pockets and emerged from the tunnel in time to see Dante crossing the yard with a bag-for-life in one hand and his lunchtime water bottle in the other. The light of the fast-setting sun cast a shadow across his handsome face, hiding his expression, but it was clear, even from twenty feet away, that he was lost in thought.
Careful. Sid’s heart kicked against his chest. A warning, perhaps? Or maybe it was the Copaxone again. The palpitations from the shot had worn off hours ago, but it still made more sense than the intrusive brain alarm telling him that coming up behind Dante Pope was a bad idea.
He settled for a low whistle that Dante didn’t hear. Then calling his name.
Dante startled and spun around, leaving Sid glad he’d kept a distance between them.
Fuck, he’s beautiful. And tattooed beyond the lightning bolt on his face, evidently, now he’d ditched the sweatshirt he’d worn all afternoon for a faded red T-shirt. Dante wasn’t a big man, but his inked arms were strong and corded to match hands that were more work-hardened than Sid had expected when he’d first set eyes on them that afternoon. They’d been apart for a couple of hours since then, but it seemed to Sid that Dante had left a piece of himself behind. An intangible fragment that Sid had inexplicably latched onto and couldn’t let go.
And he didn’t bulldoze my courgettes.
Winner.
Unable to resist, he closed the space between him and Dante, stopping a mere foot away. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Dante’s gaze glimmered in the darkening light. His voice was smooth as silk and yet rough with a London accent that was as working class as Sid.
Man, he’s so fucking hot. Sid’s legs threatened to wobble, and for once not from his tenuous balance. In need of a distraction, he eyed the bag Dante was clutching. “Did you walk all the way to the little Tesco in the village?”
“All the way? It’s not that far.”
“It’s two miles there and back.”
“Is it? I wasn’t counting. I just . . .” His expression closed down. A pause stretched out. Then he seemed to focus on Sid for the first time and his face did something too complicated for Sid to decipher. “Is there a reason you’re wandering around like Popeye’s snack bitch?”
“What?”
Dante arched a brow and gestured to Sid’s bare chest. Then he touched Sid’s hip with his finger and thumb and turned him slightly to show the bouquets of green vegetables stuffed in his pockets.
Sid shrugged. “It’s not a snack, it’s dinner. What are you having?”