Liam kept his eyes trained on the road, but something in his tone made Zac sit up and take in the tightness around his eyes and his white knuckles around Hettie’s steering wheel. “Why don’t you like Newquay?”
“What makes you think I don’t like Newquay?”
“Okay,” Zac countered. “Why don’t you like talking about Newquay?”
Liam sucked in a deep breath and let it go slowly without meeting Zac’s gaze. “It’s not Newquay I don’t like, it’s everything it represents. Me and Cory—my partner—we lived there before he died, and we were happy, you know? It never occurred to me that there was anything else.”
“Happy?” Zac stretched his legs out and dumped his feet on the dashboard. “You’ll have to tell me what that’s like.”
“Are you not happy, Zac?”
“Wouldn’t know.”
“Oh, I think you would. I reckon you’ve seen the dark side, mate, and you can’t see light without the dark.” Liam grinned in a slightly manic way. “Got that nugget in a Christmas cracker. Good, eh?”
“If you say so.”
Liam snorted. “I do today. But I should warn you, I haven’t been up there since Cory died either, so people might be surprised to see us.”
“Is that why you needed company? To distract them?”
“More to distract me, actually. I’d have fucked off home by now if you weren’t here.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
Zac sat up a little more. “Why me? Don’t you have anyone else who could’ve come with you?”
Liam appeared to consider the question, then he shook his head. “Plenty of people would’ve come with me if I’d asked them, but the only folk I can handle most days are my dogs, and they’re not allowed in the factory.”
Fair enough. Zac let it go and settled back into his nest of pillows. He watched the road whizz by and fought the heaviness in his eyelids, but after a while, when Liam flicked a switch that blew wonderfully warm air across his face, the hypnotic rumble of the van—Hettie—overtook him and he fell asleep.
They were in Sheffield by the time he woke sometime later. At least, he assumed they were, as the van was parked outside a large white building with a vaguely familiar logo splashed across the front. “Is this your factory?”
Liam looked up from his phone. “Ah, there you are. I was about to wake you. Yep, this is it. Welcome to SRP.”
“SRP?”
“Sea Rave Productions.”
Zac frowned and fingered the leather bracelet he still wore on his right arm. “Sea Rave? As in the festival? You never said you worked for them.”
“I don’t work for them. I own them. Technically, I’m the CEO, but I try and avoid that shit as much as possible.”
“Oh.” And it was a big “oh.” Zac knew fuck-all about fuck-all, and he’d never heard of Sea Rave before Liam, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that his suspicions about Liam being a big deal in the world had been bang on. Owned the company? Surfboards, clothes, festivals . . . damn. Was Liam the Norfolk equivalent of Richard bloody Branson? “Are you going inside?”
“If you’ll come with me.” Liam seemed apprehensive.
Zac frowned and nudged his arm. “I’ll do whatever you want me to. Anything.”
“Yeah?” Liam smirked, and the disquiet in his gaze was gone like it had never been there at all. “Maybe later. I would like you to come in with me, though, if you don’t mind. I’ll be stuck there for hours otherwise, and I can’t be arsed.”
That was good enough for Zac. He sat up and made an attempt to tame his hair. “Do I look okay?”
“Hmm?” Liam had gone back to his phone. “Look okay? Course you do. Sorry, I was trying to figure something out before we went in. Take a butcher’s at these . . . which is better?”
Liam held up a phone that had a bigger screen than the tiny TV Zac had at home. He pointed at the two T-shirts on display. Zac squinted at them, his eyes still scratchy from his impromptu nap. “What am I butchering at?”
