AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” he said a little more sharply this time. He could have happily gone through the rest of his life quietly pining for his best friend, but Sarah could never just let things lie.
She scoffed and her heels clicked as she crossed from the counter to the prep table, staring him down. Her scent was heavy and floral after working in her shop all morning. On Fridays, she made all her shop’s soaps and usually smelled like lavender and roses all weekend. And he found he quite liked it at the moment. Her presence was distracting him from the fact that he hadn’t seen his best friend in an entire week, and he was starting to get a bit twitchy over it.
Again. Like did every time Shiloh went out of town.
He tossed the rock-hard ball of dough into the bin and sighed. “Well, one batch ruined. I hope you’re happy,” he snarked, finally glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.
“You and I both know those are stress scones, Domenico.”
He winced as she full-named him.
“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”
Letting out a sigh, he didn’t bother pretending like he had no idea what she was talking about. His love for Shiloh was a secret only to the man himself. And it wasn’t because Dom had been subtle about it. He was like a bull in a china shop and always had been when it came to tripping over his heart.
He’d been that way since he was eleven, lumbering through the classroom door and around desks, about six inches and a stone bigger than all his classmates who were glowering at him like he was some sort of hill beast they were meant to slay. It was double maths, though, so everyone was miserable and needed someone to take it out on. Dom, of course, was brand new from Naples, and his ‘funny accent’ and big arms made all the girls stare and all the boys seem to collectively hate him.
Except one boy, of course. The smallest boy, who he soon learned lived on a farm. He had wispy brown hair and glasses so thick they made his eyes look five times their usual size. They were also tinted red, which Dom thought was kind of cool, but it was obvious that was one of the reasons none of the boys were friendly with him either.
Not that he seemed to mind much—or he’d just grown used to it and didn’t notice anymore.
He smiled at Dom, though, like he wanted him there. And he laughed when Dom casually threw some back-chat at the teacher and got his first-ever detention. Shiloh’s laugh was sweet, and it was warm, and Dom knew he was going to get a lot of detentions after that just to hear the sound.
“Why don’t you mind being in trouble?” Shiloh had asked him the next day.
Dom had just shrugged. “Doesn’t seem worth it to keep my mouth shut. And anyway, my parents don’t mind. Reckon yours do, though, don’t they? Is that why you never tell those tossers to piss off when they come after you?” He asked it because after school, Shiloh had been bullied by a couple of boys who were big enough to be in upper sixth, but he seemed so…nervous when Dom told him he should stand up for himself.
He later learned Shiloh’s mum was gone—she’d left him when he was a baby. His dad and his gran ran the farm. Their family had owned it for ages. They were also Deaf, which Shiloh then confessed was one of the reasons the kids bullied him—the other being he had poor eyesight and couldn’t see colors at all.
It was the first time Dom wanted to beat the absolute shit out of everyone who even looked at his new best friend wrong, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Instead of making Shiloh explain himself anymore, though, he just threw an arm around him and tugged him toward the courtyard. “Well, I’ll beat them up for you then, alright?”
Shiloh had just rolled his eyes and elbowed him. “It’s fine. I’ve learned to ignore them anyway.”
“Well, how about you teach me how to talk to your dad then, yeah?” Dom had told him, and his heart felt like it was too big for his chest when Shiloh’s grin lit up his whole face. “Then he’ll let me stay over on weekends, and we can forget about those wankers. I can probably manage farm stuff. I bet I’d be great with chickens.”
Shiloh stared at him a moment, then elbowed him back. “Best leave you to the squash.”
They were inseparable after that, and twenty years later, Dom was well aware that was part of the problem. They’d spent every waking moment of their childhoods together. They’d talked about running away some nights and staying when they were feeling weak, the idea of homesickness feeling worse than leaving their little town. One night, when the dark made him feel safe, and long after Dom confessed that he fancied blokes, Shiloh finally whispered that he did too. It was the first time Dom had felt a spark of hope, though he wasn’t foolish enough to believe it would get him anywhere with his bright, beautiful best friend.
But they were growing up, and the future wasn’t so much a fantasy anymore. They had decisions to make and paths to follow.
For Shiloh, he knew leaving Benld was an inevitability—moving away from home, going to uni in the city, becoming the adult he was always meant to be. Shiloh was meant for great things—that much Dom had always known. He was so smart, and he was too good for that little farm in their little town.
And bloody hell, how could he compete with that future? All Dom would ever have to offer was his little bakery and the cottage down the road. It was all he was ever good at—all he would everbegood at—and Shiloh didn’t deserve to be held back.
So he braced himself for what was to come. Losing Shiloh to the world would be like losing a limb, but at least when it was over, he could start to heal and move on.
Only…well, it didn’t actually happen. They passed their exams and talked about uni still like it was this abstract idea that they’d get to one day. But Shiloh was too afraid to leave his dad now that his gran had passed, and Dom was just terrible enough, and just afraid of losing Shiloh enough, that he didn’t try to stop him.
And then, it was just life. Shiloh started working as an English teacher, taking over the farm on weekends, and Dom was left his parents’ bakery. They spent every Thursday night at the local, drinking too much beer and moaning about it the next morning. Dom helped Shiloh with the honey harvest every spring and collected chicken eggs on Saturdays.
Sundays, Dom joined Shiloh and his dad for tea because, in spite of how wrong he knew their life currently was, this was his family.
It felt like borrowed time in all the best ways, and every time he told a story that made Shiloh laugh, Dom sold another piece of his soul for whatever extra hours the universe was willing to give him.
Like the year before on Halloween, when he and Shiloh had been standing in the kitchen with flour in all their grooves and edges, and Dom was recounting his most recent shit date—when the guy he’d met on Grindr kept calling him grandpa during his hand job, and Dom realized the man had only agreed to go out with him because he was all grey and the fucker had afetish.
