“And that’s what I am, remember? I’m a dirty old john, like the others.”
Zac yanked Liam back into his personal space and took Liam’s face in his hands. “You’re not a dirty fucking john.”
“No? Then what am I, Zac?”
“My friend.”
Liam laughed, but it was bitter and cold, and nothing like the warm chuckles Zac dreamed of when he was alone. “Then why do I feel like I’m taking advantage of you every time we touch?”
“You don’t feel like that.”
“Don’t I?”
Zac pulled Liam to him and kissed him again, slow and sweet, as if they’d kissed a thousand times before and had never been apart. “Does this really feel wrong? Does it feel wrong when we fuck? When we hold hands and fall asleep together?”
Liam held Zac’s stare for a long moment, his forehead pressed tightly against Zac’s, then he sighed like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “It never feels wrong at the time, it’s just after, you know? You deserve so much better than this.”
“What makes you think that—”
“Don’t. Don’t call yourself a whore and tell me you’re a fucking scumbag, Zac, because I won’t believe it. If you are what you say you are, then so am I.”
There was nothing dirty about Liam—except the good kind of dirty—and the shame in his gaze broke Zac’s heart. He fumbled in his pocket and held out the roll of notes Liam had given him that morning. “You’re not a john.”
Liam pushed the money back. “Then you’ll never be my whore.”
A lifetime seemed to pass before Zac relented and stuffed the money back in his pocket. Liam blew out a long sigh, though the relief was laced with an emotion he couldn’t quite name. There was no doubt in his mind that Zac needed the money, but knowing next to nothing about why he needed it so badly was still unnerving, especially with Zac’s forbidden kiss still bruising his lips.
Liam swallowed and stepped back, trying to put some much-needed distance between them, and this time Zac let him be, his own gaze distant and lost.
“I should go,” Liam said.
“Why?”
Liam shrugged. “Are you working tonight?”
“I have to. You gave me a lot of money, but rent, electric, gas, water . . . there’s so much to pay for.” The flash of guilt in Zac’s face broke Liam’s heart, and he couldn’t live with the shame he saw next. He had his own cross to bear, but his woes weren’t Zac’s.
He pulled Zac close, wrapping him in the kind of embrace he’d never thought he’d find again, kissing Zac’s hair and breathing him in. “I’m gonna go before this gets out of hand. I can call you later, though, if you like?”
Zac blinked and looked around him, peering beyond Liam to the block of flats behind him. “I hadn’t even realised we were home.”
Liam forced a smile. Zac had been away with the fairies for most of the day, and it wasn’t hard to see that he hadn’t slept much recently. Unless it’s something else. But Liam killed the thought before it took hold. Society taught that prostitution and drugs came hand in hand, but he’d yet to see much in Zac that led him to believe that was true. “Do you need anything before I go?”
Zac shook his head. “You’ll call me later?”
“If you want me to.”
“I do.”
It was all he needed to say. Liam held Zac a little tighter, then let him go. He desperately wanted to kiss Zac again, kiss him like Zac had kissed him that first time, and the second, brutal and hard . . . then slow and sweet, stealing Liam’s breath with every brush of his lips and sweep of his tongue.
Leaving felt so fucking wrong. But he had to. His brain was about to explode, and the last year had taught him that he was better off alone when shit like that went down.
He left Zac by the roadside and drove away, forcing himself not to glance back as his heart began a stampeding tattoo in his chest, throbbing up his throat and into his ears. He’d known today would be tough: visiting the factory, facing all the people who’d worked so hard for them—for Cory—to make their dreams a reality. Just taking Hettie further than Hunstanton had felt like a nosedive into the past, until Zac had slid into the van with his heavy eyes and grubby jeans, looking for all the world like he’d just rolled in from a big night out.
Perhaps he had. ’Cept he wasn’t having fun with his mates, was he?
Liam rummaged in the van door for his cigarettes and lit up with shaking hands, blowing the smoke out the window. He didn’t often smoke in Hettie, but fuck if he didn’t need a fag right now. Zac’s kiss alone would’ve been enough to drive him to it, even without the bullshit that came before . . . and after, and would probably never go away.
