“I don’t see it often. I work the night shift.”
Liam’s thumb faltered so briefly Zac was almost sure he’d imagined it, until Liam reclaimed his hand and got up, dumping dirty plates and cutlery in the sink. Zac watched him carefully, taking in the tense set of his shoulders. He didn’t like it and reckoned he knew what had put it there, but Liam was back before he could think of a way to fix it, bringing with him a familiar roll of notes.
“What’s that?”
“What does it look like?” Liam tossed the money on the counter. “Did you think I’d forgotten?”
“I hadn’t thought about it at all.” It was true. When he’d taken Liam’s call the night before, money had been the last thing on his mind. “I . . .”
Liam frowned. “What?”
“Um.” Zac bit his lip. Was he really about to admit he’d somehow imagined Liam had asked him over for anything other than a casual trick? “I . . .”
The power of speech seemed to have deserted him.
Liam stared hard at him for a long moment, and then comprehension dawned in his face. “I don’t think of us like that anymore, I’m not sure I ever really did, but I’m offering you the money because I figure you probably need it.”
Zac shook his head. “I don’t need anything as much as I needed to come here today and not be a hooker.”
“I needed to come here today and not be a hooker.” Liam had never felt like a bigger wanker. The roll of notes between him and Zac seemed to burn a hole in the kitchen counter and the uncertainty in Zac’s face, a crater in his heart. “I’m sorry.”
Zac shrugged. “Don’t be. I’m the idiot here.”
“How so? Because you sensed something had changed between us, and you didn’t know what it meant? Jesus, Zac. I got that money out of the safe six times before I settled on giving it to you.”
“Why?”
“Why did it take me so long to decide?”
Zac nodded.
“Because I don’t want to feel like a john any more than you want to feel like a hooker. I don’t give a shit about the money—I have more than I’ll ever need—but I don’t want to pay you to be here . . . I want— Shit, I just want you.”
Zac said nothing, as he picked up the roll of notes and spun it between his fingers. “Are you really that rich?”
“Define ‘rich.’ I have money, but it doesn’t mean much without the things that matter.”
“You say that because you have it.”
“I had fuck-all ten years ago, and I reckon I was much happier.”
“Let’s burn it, then.”
“What?”
“Burn it.” Zac slid off his stool and padded to the couch, hopping lithely over it to the fireplace. He dangled the money over the smouldering logs. “We could argue about this shit all night, but what’s the point? I don’t want your money and you don’t want to give it to me.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Liam protested. “I don’t want you to be with me for the money, but I want you to have it if you need it.”
“Why? The fact that I’ve only got a fiver to my name isn’t your problem.”
“A fiver?” Liam couldn’t contain his surprise. He’d given Zac eight hundred quid just a few days ago. Where the fuck had it gone?
But Liam didn’t quite have the balls to ask. What Zac did with his money was no business of Liam’s, unless . . . But he didn’t have the guts to finish that thought. Zac wasn’t one of the junkie hookers he’d seen drifting around Norwich—he wasn’t a hooker at all, he was Zac.
Liam was as sure as he could manage. The idea of Zac with other men turned his stomach, but it wasn’t a woe he owned. Zac had sold his body, but his soul was his to keep. “You can fire it to the moon for all I care. Keep it or burn it, and come upstairs when you’re done, yeah? I’ve got something to show you.”
He knew Zac would follow. His heart remembered every touch and kiss, every shy grin and heated stare, and when he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him, he glanced over his shoulder and smiled. Zac had tiny flecks of soot on his face. So he did burn it. A faint beacon of hope broke through the grey cloud Liam had lived with for so long. Friends, lovers . . . Liam couldn’t find the right word to define what they’d become, but they were hooker and john no more, and for now, that was enough.
