Another rush of anguish swept over him as he turned towards Holkham. The desperate need to get home and lock himself away was consuming and merged with the crippling sensation of leaving the battered remnants of his heart with a man Liam couldn’t be sure wanted them. Oh yeah, Zac kissed him first, but why? Because he wanted to? Liam had meant it when he told Zac he’d never be his whore, but that didn’t mean he understood Zac’s motivations any more than he did his own.
He crossed the boundary into Holkham. The house was at the other end of the village, and he remembered just in time that he needed to fetch the dogs from Rosa before he could go home. Great. He loved his twin to death, but he wasn’t in the mood to have her see straight through him—or think she did—and give him the look that reminded him far too much of their long-dead mother.
Thankfully Rosa’s car wasn’t on the drive. Liam let himself into their cottage to find Mike asleep in front of the TV—when he should’ve been revising advertising budgets—with Jazz pinning him to the couch.
Dave met Liam at the living room door, greeting him with a lick and low whine, letting him know she didn’t, however much she’d no doubt enjoyed her day with Uncle Mike, approve of being left for so long. Liam scratched her ears and whistled softly for Jazz, hoping for a quick getaway, but no such luck. Jazz used Mike as a springboard to leap from the couch, and Mike woke with a groan.
“Bloody brute!”
Liam had to laugh. At six foot four and fifteen stone, Mike was a bit of a brute himself. “You shouldn’t let him on the couch. I warned you it was asking for trouble.”
“Dick.” Mike brushed himself down and sat up. “Like you don’t have them in your bed.”
He had Liam there. Even before Cory died, they’d spent most nights jostling for space in the bed Liam had chucked on the bonfire with Cory’s fishing boat.
“You all right, bud?”
Liam came back to earth to find Mike had hauled himself from the sofa and come to stand in front of him. “Hmm?”
“You’re on another planet. How did today go?”
For a brief, heart-stopping moment, Liam thought he was asking about his day with Zac, then he remembered Mike was the only soul who’d known he was braving the trip up to Sheffield, and that had been because Mike was the only person who wouldn’t have given him shit if he’d bottled it and stayed at home. “It was fine. Nice to see everyone, and Carol-Anne accepted my design for the summer line. Winner.”
“Bosh.” Mike raised his hand for a high five. “Told you she’d love it.”
Liam snorted, remembering the jovial disdain of SRP’s new creative director. “She said it would be good in the winter sales.”
Mike laughed, a real, deep belly laugh that sounded unnaturally loud in the airy living room. “Not everyone’s got the gift of the gab, mate.”
And how well did Liam know that? One of the reasons Cory had become the face of the company instead of Liam was because he’d possessed all the charm and patience Liam lacked, the ability to sit through endless bullshit meetings without calling a twat a twat.
“You look like you need a beer,” Mike said. “Come on.”
In that moment, there was nothing Liam wanted more than a cold can of whatever Mike had stashed in his fridge.
He followed Mike to the kitchen and accepted a beer. Mike stared at him, then pulled a bottle from a nearby cupboard too. “Fuck it. Let’s get on the whiskey.”
Liam hadn’t drunk whiskey since that first charged night with Zac, spent throwing each other around Zac’s bed. Had the booze been behind the madness that had seen him take Zac’s hand and follow him home? Did it matter? Liam had loved Cory with all his heart, but there was no denying Zac had stamped his own place in his soul. Even if he never saw Zac again, he’d never forget him. Never. But you don’t know jack shit about him—
“Liam?”
“What?”
Mike raised a good-natured eyebrow. “What the fuck’s up with you? I know you’re not Mr. Chatty, but you’re taking the piss today.”
Liam opened his mouth. Shut it. Mike had been the closest he’d had to a best friend for more than a decade, but he was Rosa’s husband first, always had been. Liam couldn’t put this on him and expect him to keep it to himself.
“Right.” Mike filled two glasses with healthy shots of whiskey and passed one to Liam. “Get that in yer, then we’re going down the juicer.”
Liam necked the whiskey, then rounded up the dogs to slope off to the quiet village pub at the end of the road. Except it wasn’t that quiet when they got there. The Hope and Anchor was playing their rival pub at darts and the place was packed with old-school, ale-swilling locals, the kind who’d never quite come to terms with the local lad and his dreadlocked husband. Burly, ruddy-faced men who still eyed Liam like he was going to shag their damned sheep. And it didn’t help that Jazz had no manners when it came to pub etiquette. As far as he was concerned, an unattended glass was fair game.
Liam had rescued three pints from Jazz’s slobbery nose by the time they found a couple of seats in the back corner, away from the rowdy darts game.
“Come on, then,” Mike said when they were settled. “And don’t go giving me those big cow eyes either. I know you’re my boss and I knocked up your sister, but I’m still your mate. Spill.”
Liam could hardly complain about Mike getting Rosa pregnant when she’d been twenty-eight at the time. “I slept with a hooker.”
Mike froze in the process of swallowing a gulp of beer. His eyes bulged and his face turned red, and it seemed an age before he figured out how to stop himself from spraying a mouthful of Old Speckled Hen all over the dogs.
