“Pad thai—rice noodles with eggs and tofu. It’s got peanuts and chilli too.”
“What’s the lime for?”
“To squeeze over and stir in before you eat it.”
Zac picked up a wedge of lime and squeezed it over the noodles, then loaded a fork and took a tentative bite. “Oh wow, that’s lush.”
“Isn’t it?” Liam pointed to the remaining containers. “That’s chilli tofu, a green fish curry, and coconut rice, oh, and prawn crackers.”
“Prawn crackers? I’ve heard of them.” Zac snagged a handful. “What’s with the tofu? Are you vegetarian or some shit?”
“Some shit. I try not to eat a lot of meat. It isn’t good for the planet, man, all those beef farms and battery chickens. It ain’t right.”
“But you eat fish?”
“Sometimes, and I do eat meat too, when I can’t resist a roast or a bacon sarnie.”
Zac nodded slowly, like he was filing it away for later, then stuck his fork in the tofu, the rice, and the green fish curry. “God, that’s amazing too. Eat some, please, or I’ll smash it all.”
Liam picked up his own fork and for a while they ate in companionable silence, though Liam ate as little as he could get away with, leaving much of it for Zac, who put away enough food for three. “When did you last eat?”
“Hmm?” Zac looked up from scraping the pad thai container clean. “Oh, um, yesterday, maybe? I can’t remember.”
“Yesterday?”
“Probably.”
Probably. Flipping heck. It was no wonder Zac was so bloody skinny. Liam got up and went to the fridge. Inside he found the cheesecake the cleaning lady always left him when she knew he was coming, bought from the Slovakian bakery down the road.
Zac peered curiously at it. “What’s that?”
“Slovakian cheesecake.”
“Slovakian? What’s Slovakian about it?”
Liam shrugged. “Fuck knows. But it’s nice. Here, try some.”
He grabbed a clean fork and hacked a piece off, being sure to get all the layers of buttery pastry, vanilla, and blackberries. He held the fork to Zac’s mouth, sliding it between his lips in a gesture that suddenly felt far too intimate.
Zac didn’t seem to notice. He ate the cheesecake, and his eyes closed. “Damn, that’s good.”
“Isn’t it?” Liam put the fork down and forced himself not to stare at Zac, not to gaze at him like the bloody moron he was clearly becoming. “Do you want a slice?”
Zac opened his eyes and shook his head with a regretful grin. “I want to eat the whole thing, but I reckon I’d probably puke. Man, I’m so stuffed. Thank you for dinner.”
“No worries. What do you want to do now?”
“Isn’t that up to you?”
Liam suppressed a sigh. Really? They were back to that? Part of him wanted to bend Zac over the kitchen counter and fuck his brains out again, but as hot as that would be, it didn’t feel quite right, and an odd urge to take care of Zac swept over him, even if he could only do it for the short time they had together. “How about we get in bed and watch a film? I know it’s late, but we’ve got all night, eh?”
“Right.” If Zac was surprised Liam didn’t want to fuck any more yet, he didn’t show it. He put his fork in the sink, followed Liam back to the bedroom, and threw himself on the bed with the lithe recklessness of a teenage boy. “What are we watching?”
“Whatever you like.” Liam opened a drawer under the huge TV unit in the bedroom. “I don’t have a TV in my bedroom at home, but I like to have it here. Drowns out the noise.”
“Yeah, London’s like that, isn’t it? Took me ages to get used to the quiet in King’s Lynn. First morning there I thought I’d dropped off the face of the earth.”
“You used to live in London?”
