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Oh.
Hell.
Shiloh was going to murder Dom with this. The costume was obviously cheap—probably belonged in the pound bin even when it was in season last September, but…bloody hell. Though Shiloh wasn’t wearing it, the red against his skin—olive from working in the sun every weekend—was the perfect complement. And the lace was just so, the skirt short and the bodice low but the pinafore giving it a look of confused innocence.
ItwasShiloh.
“There’s also a cape,” Shiloh added. “I hung it up after I realized I’d made the dress too wrinkled by stuffing it into my wardrobe.” He frowned down at it, then sighed. “Maybe I should just get something else. I could go as Sherlock Holmes or…”
“Stop,” Dom said urgently. He reached for Shiloh’s wrists again and held them tight as he captured his best friend’s gaze. “I bet Sarah has a way to get wrinkles out of the costume without ruining the fabric. She’s brilliant at shit like that. And it…it’s going to look good, Shiloh.You’regoing to look good.”
Shiloh blinked up at him, his mouth going a little less tense in the corners. He swallowed thickly. “You think so?”
“Yes,” Dom said, then squeezed again. “Yes, I do. I think you’ll look beautiful.”
Something flared to life in Shiloh’s eyes, and he almost looked lost as he leaned in for a second. Dom braced himself for what was coming, but before Shiloh got any closer, he shook himself out of it. “Thank you. Thanks. I…This is all a lot, but I mean, it’s just Halloween, right? No one has to know that I’d like…that I might want to…”
Dom squeezed him one last time before drawing away, feeling the empty space between them like a canyon. “No one has to know unless you want them to. Unless you trust them.”
“So just you, then,” Shiloh said with a crooked smile, and Dom’s heart thumped again. “Will you come with me?”
Dom frowned. “To the party? Yeah, mate. I already told you we’d go matching.”
“No, I mean…” Shiloh slapped a hand over his face and dragged it down with a groan. “I never asked if that date Sarah tried to set up…erm. I just…thought it might be easier if we wenttogethertogether. Not just matching. But if you’ve said yes, then of course you should…”
“No,” Dom blurted, then slapped a hand over his face. He swore he was going to choke on his own tongue, and he forced himself to acknowledge that Shiloh wasn’t asking him on a date. Just for company like always. “I,” he started, prepared to tell Shiloh that Sarah had gone through with texting Kellen, but he couldn’t force the words out. “Of course we can go together.” He reached out and let the tip of his first finger touch the lace before dropping his hand back to his side. “Why don’t I come as the granny-wolf, yeah?”
Shiloh grinned, and every moment of his aching heart was worth it for that smile alone. “Really?”
“Yes,” Dom said again.
Shiloh dropped the dress and flung his arms around Dom, holding tight. “Thank you. This…Well, it’ll be good.”
Dom didn’t bother trying to hide the way he buried his nose in Shiloh’s hair and breathed him in. “Yeah,” he said, and God, that tasted like a lie because he didn’t think it would be good at all. “It will be.”
Six
“Shove over. I need to be dramatic,” Sarah said, hip-checking Shiloh on the bench.
He shifted as she dropped down, and he knew she was pouting because she’d come to bring Jules his lunch, but he’d gotten stuck in an emergency parent-teacher conference with one of his more unruly students. He offered her half his sandwich, which she took and tore off a bite.
“Dom’s?”
“Isn’t it always?” he asked.
“Did he write you a limerick today?”
Shiloh fished out the paper swan from his little lunch box and unfolded it to show her. It was sadly blank apart from the smallest little heart traced in pencil, which was impossible for him to see in the afternoon sun, but he’d already looked at it earlier.
“I guess he’s falling out of love with you,” she said.
Shiloh tried not to flinch, but he didn’t think he managed it. “He’s never been in love with me.”
“You both drive me round the fucking twist, darling. Like, I literally want to pull my own face off sometimes because of you.”
Shiloh’s brows furrowed, and he shaded his eyes to try and see her a bit better. “Why are your knickers in such a twist? You’re not usually this mean to me on a Tuesday.” And he really wasn’t in the mood for it. He’d had a nice long weekend with Dom, the thousand-ton weight lifted from his shoulders now that his best friend knew his secret and hadn’t thrown him out like rotten fruit.
He was still a little shaken by it, but he’d known he had to confess to Dom before he showed him his costume. Shiloh had never been good about hiding his emotions, and Dom would have read him like an open book the second he saw Shiloh standing there in the dress and tights.
