Zac nodded, though his heart knew Jamie was a long way from even wanting to be clean. “So I’ll see you when I get home?”
“Sure.” Jamie chewed on his lip like he wanted to say more, but something over Zac’s shoulder caught his attention. “Shit. I’ve got to go. Can you give me a score so it looks like I sold you some skunk?”
Zac pulled his last twenty out of his pocket and handed it over without question, and without giving the stink eye to whoever was making Jamie so jumpy. “Is that enough? Or have you gone posh since your fairy godmother took over? Flogging Waitrose weed, eh?”
“Very funny. You’ll be careful in London, won’t you? You won’t go near the station?”
“Mate, I’ll have to pass through to get to Farringdon, but I won’t get off there, I promise.”
Jamie stuffed Zac’s money in his pocket. “I’ll pay you back.”
Zac rolled his eyes. He’d heard that before. “Don’t worry about it. Just don’t make me come looking for you again, yeah? I fucking hate this place.”
“All right, all right.” Jamie started to turn away. “Fleece Mr. Rich for everything you can then, yeah? Then maybe we can both take some time off.”
Zac climbed the steps to the swanky converted building and checked the address against the one he’d scribbled down when Liam had called nearly a week ago. Seriously? Liam lived here? Maybe Jamie had been right and he really was Mr. Rich. Either that or he was an axe murderer after all, luring Zac to the luxury apartments to fuck him, kill him, then stash his body in a suitcase in the basement car park.
Idiot. Zac snared his runaway nerves and pressed the intercom for flat six, wiping his sweaty palms on the jeans he’d swiped from River Island on his way home from Norwich the day before. On the train down to London he’d questioned his return to the bad old days of shoplifting at will, but he was glad he’d bothered now. Liam was probably going to answer the door wrapped in a gold sheet or some shit if he lived here.
The door buzzed. Zac took a deep breath and stepped inside the minimalist foyer. Liam had told him the stairs were quicker than the lift, which apparently took a week to figure out which floor you’d called it to, so he found the door Liam had described and jogged up two flights to the second floor.
Liam was waiting on the landing, dressed in ripped jeans and a white T-shirt with nothing on his feet. So much for the gold sheet. “You made it. Did you find it all right? Come in.”
He disappeared down a corridor. Zac followed him until they came to the last door and Liam ushered him inside.
“Wow.” The exclamation escaped Zac before he could stop it. “You live here?”
“Sometimes,” Liam said. “Not if I can help it, though. The city isn’t for me.”
“Know the feeling,” Zac muttered absently as he stared around Liam’s flat. With its bare bricks, white floors, and chrome fixtures and fittings, it was probably the coolest place he’d ever seen. “This is lush.”
“Yeah?” Liam gestured for Zac to follow him again and led him to an übermodern kitchen. “It was just redecorated. Today is the first time I’ve seen it in months.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“At home in Holkham.”
“You live in Holkham?” Zac stopped eye-fucking the décor and turned his attention to Liam, trying not to stare at the outline of his strong chest beneath his thin T-shirt.
“Why do you sound so surprised? Did you think I lived in King’s Lynn?”
“No, I thought you were passing through. We didn’t exactly make small talk.”
“True.” Liam’s brown eyes flashed before he seemed to temper whatever emotion had ignited the reaction. “Well, I do live in Holkham, right near the beach. Do you know it?”
“Not really. I try to stay close to home.”
“Why?”
Zac shrugged. How could he explain that the small Norfolk town he’d made his and Jamie’s home was the safest place he’d been in years? That to stray too far from it felt like tempting the worst kind of fate? “Guess I’ve had no need to.”
Liam shrugged and went to the fridge. He retrieved a couple of beers and slid one across the shiny marble counter to Zac. “So . . .”
“So,” Zac echoed.
“Did you decide on your price? I’m assuming you want cash up front?”
“Erm, yeah.” Zac thought quickly. He’d been so distracted, wondering what Liam had in mind for him, that he’d forgotten to hammer out a final number. Some businessman you are. “It’s three hundred for the whole night, plus travel and any, um, extras so—”
