He put his glass down and wiped his mouth. “I’d ask if you’re taking the piss, but I don’t reckon you are.”
“I’m not.” Liam reached for his own beer and downed half of it. “Say what you like about me, but I’ve never been a bloody comedian.”
“True that. So . . .”
“So?”
“You slept with a woman?”
“What? No! Why would you think that?”
Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. The only hookers I’ve ever seen are women. Is it the same for blokes? Standing on street corners and whatnot?”
“Probably, but it wasn’t quite like that. I met him at The Stables.”
Mike pulled a face. “What were you doing in there?”
“Your brother made me go.”
“Sounds about right.” Mike rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me Sean talked you into this hooker thing?”
“Course he didn’t. I was on my way out when I met Zac.”
“Zac?”
Oops. If he’d had any hope of keeping the story vague, he’d buggered it now. “That’s his name.”
“His real name?”
Liam shrugged. “I think so.”
Mike blinked a few times, then took another long gulp of his drink. “Let me get this, er, straight. You, the bloke who married the first dude who asked, went up town and came home with a hooker?”
“We went to his place, actually, and leave Cory out of it, but yeah, that’s about the size of it.” Liam didn’t need reminding that, until Zac, Cory had been the only man he’d ever laid a hand on.
“And you slept with him . . . and paid him? Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Something like that. To be honest, I was pretty wasted, but I knew what I was doing. He told me what he was before we got to his place, and shit, it kinda made sense at the time.”
“Does it make sense now?”
“Some days.”
Mike blew out a gusty sigh. “Listen, I’m not going to pretend I understand what you’ve been through. I can’t imagine losing Rosa or the boys, but I don’t think there’s any shame in blowing off some steam. So you banged a hooker? It’s no big deal, right? It was only that once. It’s not like you’ll ever see him again . . .”
Mike’s voice fell away as he met Liam’s gaze and comprehension dawned in his face. “Oh shit. That’s the problem, isn’t it? You’ve been back for more.”
Liam nodded. “A few times, but not only for sex. I took him with me to Sheffield today.”
“Why?”
“Why not? I needed the company, and that’s what he offered me.”
“Company? Is that what they call it these days?”
“Piss off, Mike. Don’t sit there and judge me. Do you think I didn’t see you with those strippers on your stag do? You might not have fucked them, but you wanted to, and that makes you no better than me.”
The hurt in Mike’s gaze was instant. The guilt in Liam’s gut came a few seconds later. He closed his eyes briefly, then closed his hand around Mike’s wrist. “Sorry, mate. I didn’t mean that.”
