It was the first time he’d raised his voice in anything other than coming like a train. Zac stopped short, though he couldn’t contain his anger. “Why? For your benefit? Fuck that. Don’t try and make me something I’m not to make yourself feel better.”
“Make myself— What the fuck?” Liam’s usually kind brown eyes darkened. “I don’t want you to call yourself a whore because I reckon there’s far more to you than that, not because I’m under any delusion that I haven’t paid you to pretend you enjoy fucking me.”
“I do enjoy it.”
“Yeah?” Liam stepped closer, so close Zac could feel the warmth radiating from him. “And does that make you feel like a whore? Do I? Do I treat you like one?”
“No,” Zac said sullenly. “Doesn’t change who I am, though, does it? You can call me what you want. I’m still a fucking hooker.”
“I’m going to call you Zac,” Liam said. “I don’t care if it’s not even your real name, I’m never going to call you a bloody whore.”
It was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said to Zac, but it didn’t change the fact that he had to leave, or that their night together was ending on a strained note. Zac stepped around Liam and put his hand on the solid front door, but something—everything—made him turn and face Liam’s steady gaze. He had no more words, no explanation for yet another emotional shit-storm, so he just grasped Liam’s T-shirt and pulled him closer until their faces were inches apart.
He pressed his lips to the corner of Liam’s mouth with the barest brush of a forbidden kiss. “Thank you for treating me like I matter. I won’t forget it.”
It took Zac nearly four hours to get home. A fallen tree delayed Zac’s already late train, and it was five o’clock by the time he reached his own front door. He rummaged in his pockets for his key, but the door flew open before he found it.
Jamie’s furious glare greeted him. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“Hello to you too.” Zac shoved him out of the way and went inside. “You know where I’ve been. I came and told you, remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Jamie snapped. “Why else would I be here checking you hadn’t been bloody murdered or some shit?”
“What?”
“You said it was an overnight. I thought you’d be back this morning.”
“Why? What do you need? I’m not giving you my money.”
“That’s why you think I’m here?” Jamie’s gaze narrowed, eclipsing the crazy-blue eyes that made him so strikingly attractive. “I told you, I came to make sure you got home okay. Why are you being such a dick?”
Zac stared hard at Jamie, searching for any sign that he was being played, but all he saw was concern, mixed in with the fatigue of someone who clearly hadn’t slept in days. “Sorry. I’m okay, mate. I promise.”
“Really? ’Cause I bloody lost my shit when your phone was switched off. Thought you were fucking brown bread and buried in some weirdo’s back garden. I was ready to dig you up and feed you to the swans . . . set you free in the river.”
Zac laughed, he couldn’t help it. Jamie’s way of thinking had always been an odd, sadistic poetry, even when his fierce intelligence was dulled by the junk. “Can you chuck me off a bridge instead? I’d rather fly than swim. I don’t like the cold.”
“Good.” Jamie’s gaze turned guilty. “’Cause I turned the heating on.”
“The heating? Dude, it’s barely October.”
“So? I’m freezing.”
That made sense. Jamie was coming down from what was likely a week-long junk binge, and nothing was colder than withdrawing from a bellyful of smack. Zac tried not to notice the other signs that Jamie had been kicking around the flat for a while: the sofa cushions scattered on the floor, half-empty glasses of water on every surface. “Have you eaten?”
Jamie shook his head. “Nope.”
“Okay.” Zac went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard where he kept their paltry provisions. Inside were their trusty Super Noodles and a tired packet of crumpets. It wasn’t exactly authentic Thai, but it would do. Like it always did.
He cooked them up a couple of blocks of instant noodles and toasted the crumpets. They didn’t have any butter, but neither of them cared, used to going without. They took their feast to the couch and inhaled their food. When they were done, Jamie took the plates to the kitchen, then reclaimed his space beside Zac, stretching out and dumping his head in Zac’s lap.
“So . . . how was it? Did you have to fuck all night? I can run you a bath if you want?”
Zac played absently with Jamie’s grubby hair, repressing the urge to tell him he was the one who needed a wash. “I’m okay, honest. We fucked a lot, but nothing too heavy.”
Jamie didn’t look convinced, and before Liam, Zac had thought the same: that hooking, whatever way you dressed it up, was just about sex. The john wanted as much as possible for his money, and the tom as much cash as he could get away with asking for. But it hadn’t been like that with Liam. Not even close. They’d had a lot of sex, but not as much as Zac had imagined they would. On paper, without the cash, their night together could’ve been a date if Zac had been anything close to the kind of bloke Liam deserved.
“You like him, don’t you?”
