“I need to get up.”

Dylan nipped Angelo’s neck. “Maybe I don’t want you to.”

“Cute.” Angelo let his head drop to the pillow and tried to lose himself in the sensation of Dylan’s lips claiming every part of his body they’d missed the first time round. “You won’t be saying that in an hour or so if you don’t let me wash all this mud, sweat, and jizz off me.”

Scowling, Dylan relented and let Angelo sit up. Then he stood and helped Angelo out of bed, his keen eyes zeroing in on the obvious tremor in Angelo’s legs. “Wow.”

“What?” Angelo snapped.

“Your legs. They weren’t doing that an hour ago.”

“So?”

“So . . . what’s doing that? Stress?”

“Probably. I wouldn’t want to eat me right now if I was a cannibal.”

Dylan opened the bathroom door and switched the shower on. “Is that supposed to make sense to me?”

“No, just don’t talk to Harry about stress hormones and factory farming. It’s precious time you’ll never get back.” Angelo fought the spasms threatening his quivering thigh muscles and won. He took Dylan’s outstretched hand and limped to the shower.

Hot water was magic. It pummelled his renegade body with heat and brought him back to life.

He leaned back on the tiles and gazed at Dylan through the steam. “Don’t you ever get bored with it?”

“Bored with what?”

“With the constant nannying I need to function.”

Dylan speared Angelo with a glare that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Do you get fed up with chasing my ridiculous anxieties round in circles?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I love you and I don’t care about any of that. I just want you to be okay.”

“You want more than that—you want me to be happy, to feel loved and safe, even when life is hard, and I want that for you too, boo.” Dylan punctuated his words with the kind of kiss that could easily put Angelo back on his arse if he lost his tenuous grip on his balance.

He widened his stance. Despite already coming like a train that morning, his cock rose, and Dylan was on his knees before Angelo could blink.

With his slick tongue and pillowy lips, Dylan had always known how to pull Angelo away from everything except the sensation of tight, wet heat and grazing teeth. He swallowed Angelo down, sucking his cock and playing merciless games with his fingers. Angelo didn’t bottom much, but when Dylan teased his prostate like that? Yeah, he was down for just about anything.

Dylan pulled off Angelo’s dick and stood. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You want more?”

“Yeah.”

Smirking, Dylan coaxed Angelo away from the safety of the tiles and turned him around. “Fox.”

Angelo gasped out a laugh. They’d never had need to use their safe word, but they never forgot it, and Dylan’s gravelly whisper went straight to Angelo’s dick. He braced himself on the wall and dropped his head, his nerves already crying out for the assault Dylan was about to inflict on them.

And Dylan didn’t make him wait for long before he dropped to his knees again and replaced his fingers with his tongue in Angelo’s hole.

“Fuck.”

Dylan was the goddamn king of rimming, and it didn’t take long for him to turn Angelo’s limbs to jelly for all the right reasons. Angelo hung his head and gave himself over to the dizzying pleasure. Waves of sensation washed over him, and he clung desperately to the slippery tiles until he couldn’t take another swipe of Dylan’s devilish tongue.

Attuned to him as ever, Dylan rose and stepped briefly out of the shower for the bottle of lube they had stashed in every room. He moved fast, and Angelo had hardly caught his breath before Dylan was buried inside him, fucking him with short, sharp strokes.

Shower sex was always like this—quick and dirty, though it had been a while since Angelo had bottomed. Not that he was complaining. Dylan fucked like he did everything else—like a motherfucking dream—and Angelo fell to bits in two minutes flat. “I’m gonna come.”

“Do it,” Dylan ground out through clenched teeth. “I wanna feel you.”

He didn’t have to ask twice. Angelo let the pressured coil in his gut fly and came with a wild yell, spurting hot come everywhere without ever laying a hand on his dick.

“I love it when you come hands-free . . . you clench me so tight . . . fuck.” Dylan released inside Angelo, pulsing wet warmth where they were joined.

Angelo gasped and jerked forward. Alone in the shower, he would’ve fallen, but Dylan held him up, soothing him with gentle kisses until he could see straight. “Wow. If my shitty balance doesn’t break my neck one of these days, getting fucked by you will.”

“I can think of worse ways to go than in the shower with my favourite cock inside me,” Dylan quipped as his dick slipped out of Angelo, but when he turned Angelo around, his expression was earnest. “I’d never let you fall.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

They were talking about something far deeper than screwing around in the shower, and they both knew it, but Angelo’s brain was too mushy to articulate anything intelligent.

So he let Dylan lead him out of the shower and deposit him on the bed, drying them both off the way only he could without making Angelo feel like a child.

It was kind of hot too, and Angelo itched to ask Dylan to crawl back into bed and write the whole day off to fucking and napping, but the restlessness in Dylan was impossible to ignore—his jittery gaze and tapping fingers. Angelo kissed him, then lay back and reached for the remote. “Go on. I’m gonna stay here for a bit.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Only you.”

“You have me, I promise.”

Dylan pulled the covers up the bed and then left the chalet, leaving Angelo to his juddering legs and muddled thoughts. He dozed in front of shitty Christmas TV for a while, but eventually the solitude got under his skin. Over the last few months, he’d missed Dylan more than he could ever say, but he’d grown used to the constant company on the farm. Even on his bad days, laid up in this very bed, Harry, Joe, and even Emma had rarely allowed him to be alone.

When he was sure his legs had regrouped enough to hold him, he got up and dressed and ventured across the farm to the yard. Despite being up since the early hours with a rescued mare, Joe was still working, but he waved Angelo’s admittedly limited help away. “Go indoors. Jevon’s cooking something with those lava chillies he was talking about the other night.”

Given the amount of rum that had flowed since Jevon had arrived on the farm, Angelo was surprised Joe remembered but heeded his advice anyway and went inside to find Jevon in Sal’s customary place at the stove. “Where’s Rhys?”

“Truro. He was going stir crazy, so Harry and Dylan took him out.”

“Out?” Angelo had a misty memory of Dylan appearing by his bed and saying something about that. “To Truro?”

“Yup. Harry thought the city boys needed a break from the mud.”

“Fair enough.” Angelo bypassed his favourite seat at the battered table and peered over Jevon’s shoulder into his bubbling pot. “What are you making?”

“Curry goat—without the goat.”

Relief washed over Angelo. The farm seemed to have a revolving population of stray goats, and he wasn’t sure he fancied eating any of them. “What did you use instead?”

“Harry’s bottomless veg box and a tiny bit of mutton to keep Joe happy.”

Angelo laughed. The regular food battles between health-conscious Harry and carb-addict Joe was a constant source of amusement on the farm. “It’ll keep Dylan pretty happy too. He loves a ruby.”

“Good man.”

Jevon went back to his pot, and Angelo kept him company while learning how to make a vat of rice and peas. When the food was ready for whenever the troops came home, they decamped to the living room to shoot the shit.

“Rhys is so different with you around,” Angelo remarked while Jevon built a fire.

“You think?” Jevon glanced over his shoulder. “The last few months have been so crazy, it’s hard to tell what’s real sometimes.”

“He loves you.”

“I know. I’m a lucky man.”

Angelo knew what lucky felt like every time he woke up to find Dylan beside him, and Jevon’s easy affection when he spoke about Rhys was as warming as the flames licking the crackling logs. “When do you go back to your job overseas? I know you’ve already told me, but I forget stuff.”

“I’m flying out the day after Boxing Day. I’d stay longer, but it doesn’t really work like that.”

Angelo searched the Jevon section of his brain. Refugees, children, clowns. “When do you think Rhys will be able to join you?”

“Not for a while. Even without his ankle injury holding him up, the paperwork takes months.”

“I can see Rhys working in a refugee camp. He’s way nicer than he thinks he is.”

“Who’s nice?” Joe ambled through the door and flopped heavily on the couch. “If you’re talking about George, don’t be fooled. He’s a crafty old git.”

“I was talking about Rhys.”

Joe nodded slowly and scrubbed a hand down a face weary enough to make Angelo feel guilty for his afternoon in bed. “Fair point. He’s as sweet as Harry beneath all the growling and sarcasm.”

“Like you?” Jevon flicked a pinecone from the kindling pile in Joe’s general direction.

Joe caught the cone with a shrug. “If you say so.”

Jevon said nothing at all. Just stoked the fire high enough to cast an orange glow about the room and retreated to the other end of the couch while Joe slumped lower, his dark hair falling into his face.

Angelo nudged him before he fell asleep. “It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. Is there anything you need doing for Christmas Day? Harry said you’ve got eighteen coming for dinner.”

Joe opened his eyes with a groan. “Fuck. I forgot to pick up the turkey.”

“Get it tomorrow, man,” Jevon said. “You’ve done enough today.”

Angelo hummed his agreement. “I’ll fetch it and anything else you need from town. Write a list.”

“You can’t read my tiny handwriting, remember? It gives you migraines.”

“Get Harry to write it then.”

Joe grumbled something unintelligible and closed his eyes again. Angelo let him be, and when he wound up stretched out with his head on Angelo’s thigh, chucked a blanket over him.

“I like that,” Jevon remarked softly.

“What?”

“How good you all are to each other. I thought it was a sex club thing with you and Rhys, but you’re all like it.”

“Are we?”

“Yup. And I get the feeling Joe wasn’t the type to fall asleep in his mate’s lap until you lot came along.”

Angelo knew Joe well enough by now to believe that. The bloke was soft as shit beneath his fiery temper, but he’d been lonely before he’d met Harry—almost as lonely as Angelo’s life before Dylan.

Disquiet sparked in Angelo’s chest. A few hours of naked reconnection hadn’t fixed the issues that had drawn them apart in the first place, and despite Dylan’s reassurance that they’d find their way, Angelo was petrified. He’d move back to London in a heartbeat for Dylan—he’d do anything for him—but Dylan was right: one man falling on a sword would kill them both.

“Fuck’s sake, mate.” Joe groaned and covered his face with his arms. “I can hear you bellyaching in my sleep. You’re going to give yourself a stroke.”

Angelo scowled. “Nice.”

Joe sat up, looking far too rumpled and cute for a farmer pushing thirty. “Never said I was. Are you still freaking out about going back to London?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Joe slid off the couch and left the room. He came back a few moments later and dropped a dusty photo album into Jevon’s lap. “Rhys told me you pulled a Nellie. Have a look at those—you might see something you recognise.”

Jevon seemed as mystified as Angelo until he opened the album. Then his face lit up with the kind of smile that made it so fucking easy to see how Rhys had fallen in love with him. Rhys’s shadows were complex—Angelo had missed them for the first few months they’d known each other—but Jevon’s light was simple and free.

“Is this your grandfather?” Jevon turned a page. “Rhys told me he rode horses in Romani circuses.”

Nelly. Elephant. Circus. Joe’s nursery-rhyme slang clicked in Angelo’s laboured brain.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Joe said. “I’m probably related to a few of the others too, but I don’t know their names. My grandparents came here on their own.”

Jevon was clearly fascinated. He tapped a page with his finger, tracing the skyline. “I’ve been here, but not with the circus. This is Macedonia, close to the Greek border. It’s where I was before I went back to Lesbos.”

Joe peered at the page. “What’s it like now?”

“Hideous.” Jevon’s sunny expression faded. “But I’m trying to forget about work for a while.”

“Good luck with that.” Joe eyed the phone that seemed to ring for him every other night, dragging him out into the darkness to rescue more horses in need. “I’d drink a hell of a lot more if my old man wasn’t a raging pisshead.”

Jevon grinned. “Rum helps, eh?”

“It does.”

Angelo watched the exchange like a spectator, switching his gaze back and forth. Then a page in the photo album caught his attention, and he elbowed Joe in the ribs. “Budge up.”

“Piss off. Go round.”

Rolling his eyes, Angelo clambered over him to sit beside Jevon. “I love acrobats. We used to have this bloke from Memphis come and train us every couple of weeks when I was with the English National Ballet.”

“A Beale Street Flipper?”

“Yeah. He was fit.”

Jevon chuckled. “Rhys likes acrobats. I’m thinking of doing backflips as foreplay.”

“Seems legit.” Angelo pictured Jevon and Rhys together, but intrigue outweighed the horniness of his imagination. “Thought you were a clown, though?”

“I’m a play specialist these days, but I started as an acrobat.”

“Can you still do it?”

“Some days. I’m not as slick as I used to be, but I practice when I can.”

“I’d like to see that. Harry had me doing cartwheels a while ago, but I don’t think I can flip anymore.”

“Nah, it’s like riding a bike.” Jevon closed Joe’s precious photo album and carefully set it aside. “Let’s go try.”

“Now?” Angelo blinked in surprise.

“Where?” Joe said at the same time. “Harry will do his nut if one of you breaks your neck.”

“Let’s go to the clinic,” Angelo said. “There’s mats in there, and I have the keys in my pocket.”

Joe sighed. “Jesus Christ. Okay then, but I’m bringing my beer, so don’t get all sanctimonious and healthy on me as soon as we step over the dark side.”

It was a running joke that Joe rarely set foot inside Harry’s recovery clinic. He brought horses to the exercise yard for balance therapy and fetched and carried anything Harry needed, painted walls, and mended fences, but the mindfulness-themed indoor space pressed his rebel buttons, and it had been collectively decided it was best if he stayed outside.

And no one suited the outdoor life more than Joe.

They left the house and tramped across the farm to Harry’s clinic. The exterior security system lit up as they approached, and Angelo unlocked the doors. Inside, he flicked more lights on and pointed to the exercise mats stacked up in the corner. “You can use those if you want.”

Jevon laughed and kicked off his shoes. “Okay, mate.”

Like he needed them. Jevon threw himself across the room in a series of flips and somersaults, and Angelo was fucking mesmerised. He’d seen some acrobats in his time, but something in Jevon’s tumbling set him apart. There was perfection in the flaws, and Angelo’s limbs itched with grief. He’d never had Jevon’s skills, but he’d had his own.

Jevon came to a nimble stop in front of Angelo. “Your turn.”

“Piss off.”

“Nope. I can see it burning up inside you. Just move, man. Don’t think about it so much.”

“You don’t understand.” In Angelo’s peripheral vision, Joe slouched on a bench—Joe who had scraped him off the floor and held his hand when Dylan and Harry hadn’t been around. Joe who had no real idea of what Angelo’s body had once been capable of. “I can’t move like that anymore.”

“But you can cartwheel? Walk on your hands?”

“Maybe—”

Jevon gripped Angelo’s face in a way that might’ve been hot in other circumstances. “You know the difference between your physical limits and the roadblocks you’ve set up in your mind. Try it.”

Even before ME, Angelo knew better than to throw himself into acrobatics without warming up. He escaped Jevon’s encouraging grip and retreated to a treadmill at the back of the room, thankful he’d nursed the beer Jevon had given him while they’d cooked.

Running was among his least favourite things to do but warmed him up fast. A few gentle stretches later and he was ready to go, much to Joe’s obvious amusement.

“You’re fucking nuts.”

“It’s no crazier than galloping on that mad stallion,” Angelo retorted.

“If you say so.” Joe drank more beer and reclined on the bench until he was pretty much horizontal.

Angelo ignored him and considered the mats in the corner, but a rush of recklessness let him ignore them too. He eased his body into a slow cartwheel. His shoulders piped up a half-hearted protest, but Angelo was stronger than that. He rotated again and again until he was upright on the other side of the room.

Jevon nodded his approval. “Nice. You’ve got that dancer elegance, man. Don’t you think so, Joe?”

Joe grunted, but his gaze was keen. “Do something else.”

Angelo walked the perimeter of the room on his hands, then eased into a backwards walkover. His joints creaked and his muscles shook, but there was fluidity there—promise . . . hope. He shook his head as he came upright. “Wow. I haven’t even thought about doing that in years.”

“Throw some ballet shapes,” Joe called out.

Angelo gave him the finger but accepted the challenge, taking care to heed everything he’d learned about testing his body since Harry had set his life back on track. His legs lacked the spring they’d once had—the agility that clearly overflowed in Jevon—but despite the fatigue and pain, the natural flexibility he’d fought so hard to remember was still there.

Energy zinged through Angelo’s veins. He spun and leapt around the room until his lungs gave up on him and he collapsed at Joe’s feet.

Only then did he notice the new face in the room—Dylan, naturally, his sunny grin a mile wide, eclipsing the angst they were both dragging around right now. “I’ve never seen you dance like that before.”

A flush crept under Angelo’s skin. Performing had once been second nature, but these days he was more at home with his dick out in a club than prancing around a stage. “Jevon dared me to see what I could still do.”

“Did it hurt?”

“No more than most things.”

“Good.” Dylan dropped to a crouch in front of him. “Because I’m gonna ask you to do that flippy-spinny thing for me pretty much every day.”

Angelo kissed Dylan hard enough to fade their surroundings into nothing. Eyes closed, lips searching for the peace he only found when Dylan smiled at him like this. When he held Angelo like he was whole and strong.

Only the need to breathe made him stop, and when he opened his eyes, they were alone. “Where’d everybody go?”

Dylan blinked and gazed around too. “In for dinner, maybe? That’s why I came up here—to fetch you all in.”

Angelo’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since their shared plate of Marmite toast that morning. “Jevon made curry.”

“I know. I smelt it as soon as we walked in the house. I’m starting to think that man was sent here to save us all.”

“Perhaps he was.”

Angelo had grown out of believing in a higher power, his Catholic roots long abandoned, but the spirit in Jevon stirred something in him—in all of them, perhaps. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

They trudged back to the house. Dylan usually had something to say about the mud squelching around his favourite Vans, but he was quiet now—and apparently content. Hope tickled Angelo’s heart. He nudged Dylan gently. “Where’ve you been all day?”

“Window shopping.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Angelo rolled his eyes. “There’s no way you managed to get Rhys to spend all day window shopping, especially on crutches.”

Mischief gleamed in Dylan’s gaze. “True, but do you think Harry would spend all day in the pub either?”

“Okay . . . maybe not. So what did you do?”

“A bit of both,” Dylan said. “We genuinely did go to the shopping centre, but Rhys got tired, so we went to a juice bar, and then to the pub. I didn’t drink, though. Harry said I could practice driving his car, so I got him drunk instead.”

“You drove Harry’s car?”

“Yup. I have a licence too, you know.”

More hope danced across Angelo’s soul. He took a breath to catch it, but Dylan kissed him before he could speak, then pulled away with a wicked grin. “No more angst today, babe. Just curry, beer, and banging.”

He skipped into the house before Angelo could respond.