“Hmm?”
Jamie wriggled around so Zac could see his face. “Don’t get emotional, man. It’ll fuck you up.”
“I’m not getting emotional.”
“Bollocks. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve connected with him and you think it means something. It doesn’t, Zac. Don’t forget who you are.”
Zac sighed. “I’m not anybody.”
“Not to him, maybe. You’re my best mate, though, if it’s any consolation.”
“I’m your only mate.”
“True.”
Jamie closed his eyes and shivered. Zac pressed his hand to Jamie’s clammy forehead and his heart sank a little more. If Jamie had been here all day waiting for him, he’d missed his afternoon fix, the extra-large hit he needed to get him through a long night on the street. Which meant he’d be feeling it now, craving it, clinging to his addiction like an obsessive lover, knowing it was wrong, but too far gone to let go.
Don’t write him off. You beat it. So will he . . . eventually. But it was the eventually that was so terrifying. Jamie was fading fast, and Zac knew too well that he was only a strong hit away from his last high. He stroked Jamie’s hair back from his face with a heavy soul. If the worst happened, would Zac ever know? Or would Jamie just be another anonymous dead junkie? A statistic that meant nothing to anyone but Zac?
Jamie shuddered again and curled in on himself, a sure sign that it wouldn’t be long before he gathered his few possessions and left Zac to make the two-hour bus journey back to Norwich. It was on the tip of Zac’s tongue to beg him to stay, but it would only fall on deaf ears. Jamie loved him, as much as an addict could love anyone, but he needed the junk more.
“I need to go.” Jamie rolled off the couch, lurching unsteadily to his feet. “Can I borrow some money for the bus?”
“Borrow?”
Jamie scowled. “Don’t be tight. It’s only a score.”
A score was twenty quid. It cost less than a tenner to get the bus to Norwich, and there were no prizes for guessing where the change would end up. Still, Zac supposed he was lucky Jamie hadn’t waited for him to fall asleep and simply helped himself to the roll of cash Zac had added to the stash in the cistern. It wasn’t like he hadn’t stolen from Zac before.
Zac went to the kitchen and found the jar he kept a few quid in for moments like these. He retrieved the last two tenners and took them back to Jamie. “Do you need anything else?”
Jamie shook his head and kept his gaze averted. Zac could almost see the guilt creeping into his soul, merging with the pain only a fellow addict would understand. He relented, knowing his good intentions were making things worse, and went to the hallway, grabbing the coat he’d stowed away in the cupboard, saving it for when the weather turned and Jamie’s ruined jacket was no longer enough to keep him warm at night. “Here, take this, but don’t sell it, got it?”
Jamie rolled his eyes, but took the coat and immediately put it on, wrapping it around himself like a water-tank insulation jacket. He didn’t say thank you, but Zac didn’t need it, didn’t want it, because saying it would acknowledge how skewed their relationship had become, how moments like these were getting less frequent and each good-bye could be their last.
The buzz of a phone that wasn’t Zac’s shattered the silence. Jamie pulled a phone Zac had never seen before from his back pocket and squinted at it, like the light from its tiny screen hurt his weary eyes. His expression hardened, but not in time to hide the flash of apprehension in his bloodshot gaze.
“Nice phone,” Zac said. “Where’d you get it?”
“The market. Irvine said I had to have one.”
“Irvine?” It took Zac a moment to compute. “That your pimp?”
“He’s the boss’s pit bull. What do you care?”
“Are you fucking serious?”
Jamie flinched. Zac rarely raised his voice, even when things went horribly wrong. “Don’t bitch at me.”
“I’m not—” Zac caught his temper before it boiled over. He didn’t want to row with Jamie when he had a foot out the door. “Listen, be careful, okay? I don’t like worrying about you. It makes me twitchy.”
Jamie closed the distance between them and pressed his forehead to Zac’s. “No, it doesn’t. Nothing makes you twitchy because you’re better than that. You’re better than this, Zac. Now let me go . . . please? I don’t want you to see me like this.”
Zac could have pointed out that they’d seen each other in plenty worse states than simply jonesing for a fix, but he let Jamie go all the same.
Jamie spared him a last tired grin before he left, shutting the door with a quiet click behind him. Zac listened to his soft tread on the stairs and the thud of the exterior door. He pictured Jamie on the bus to Norwich, and then heading out into the city centre to score the brown that would take the pain away. For a moment, Zac was jealous, still tied to that first euphoric high, even though the hundreds that had come after had paled in comparison, but then he recalled the bright January morning he’d woken alone in a utilitarian London hospital, strung out in a bed with the world’s meanest methadone prescription coursing through his veins. Fuck that shit.
Zac waited by the bar for the woman to come back. She’d told him her name, but buoyed by a long evening of drinking sugary alcopops in the crappy club, he’d forgotten it. All he knew was that she was nice, willing, and ripe for a mark. He hadn’t broached the subject of payment yet, but reckoned one more drink would give him the balls.
