Rosa listened in silence until Liam’s sorry tale was done, and then she sat back and folded her arms, a sure sign she was about to say something Liam wouldn’t like. Not that she could say much that would make him feel worse. Recounting it all out loud had cast a different light on the anger he’d been so quick to assume. And even if the worst had been true, if only he’d stopped to listen, he could, perhaps, have even helped Zac—
“Have you considered the possibility that the syringe wasn’t his? Or at least, that he didn’t have it for the reasons you thought?”
Despite Liam’s train of thought, it was the last thing he’d expected Rosa to say. “That’s what you want to talk about here? Not the fact that I hired a hooker to keep me company?”
“The fact that Zac’s a hooker is kind of irrelevant now, don’t you think? It’s obvious that you were drawn to him because you’re lonely.”
“Lonely?”
Rosa rolled her eyes. “Don’t. Your husband died. You’re lonely. Deal with it.”
“By banging a hooker?”
“No, by accepting that you did it for a reason, and that reason won’t go away just because you bloody want it to. How did you feel when you were with him?”
Liam shrugged. “I felt alive.”
“And?”
“For fuck’s sake, Rosa— Okay, I felt alive when I was with Zac, like nothing else existed. I didn’t care how many others he’d been with. I only cared about him.”
“And now? Do you miss him?”
Liam snorted. “Do I have any right to miss him? I only knew him five minutes.”
“So?” Rosa plucked an orange from the fruit bowl, though she made no move to peel it. “Those five minutes changed you. Surely that’s worth something?”
“Even if he’s a fucking junkie?”
“You don’t know that he is, or why he had the syringe. For all you know, he could’ve found it in the park and pocketed it to stop a kid from doing the same. Don’t let losing Cory make you believe the worst is inevitable.”
Liam parked Hettie in the library car park behind Norwich High Street and shut the engine off, resisting the urge to rest his pounding head on the steering wheel. Jesus, he hadn’t had a hangover this bad in years, but that was what he got for spilling his guts to his sister, then hitting the Hope and Anchor for a night of solitary heavy drinking.
And it hadn’t helped his wayward sense of perspective either. Rosa’s parting words were echoing in his head, and more than that, he missed Zac. He’d been on his mind from the moment they met, but thinking about him now felt all wrong, like he’d lost the right to remember their short time together and didn’t deserve the memories.
That’s what you get for being a dick. And Liam couldn’t deny that, when it had taken a lecture from Rosa for him to realise he’d assumed only the worst before he’d torn Zac apart. He’d ripped Zac’s head off, then left him high and dry, blocking his number and changing the locks on the house. Yeah, ’cause it wasn’t enough to assume him a junkie, was it? Gotta be a thief too.
Liam got out of the van and drifted to the car park’s ticket machine, digging in his pocket for change. The urge to hang his head in shame was strong, but there was little point. Rosa’s riot act might’ve led to an epiphany, but her words of wisdom had come too late. Short of hammering on Zac’s door and begging forgiveness, there wasn’t much he could do—though what was stopping him from doing just that?
“Because you’re a stubborn arsehole, like Dad, unless, of course, you’re worried Zac’s gonna send you packing . . .”
Rosa was right, but he’d had enough of her voice in his head for the time being. Arsehole or not, he had shit to do; shit that made up the mile-long to-do list that had brought him to Norwich in the first place.
He navigated his way through the crowds of lunchtime shoppers on the high street, searching out the minimalist window display of Sea Rave’s only UK store outside of London and Cornwall. As was his habit, he paused when it came into view, observing it for a few moments, as if he’d never seen it before. Usually, he arrived at the store as the friendly grim reaper, bearing a list of things they’d fucked up since his last impromptu visit, and a box of doughnuts to ease the pain, but today, as he stared at the window, he couldn’t find it in him to care that the mannequins weren’t perpendicular with the signage. Because really, what the fuck did it matter? He was only there because a long-serving staffer was leaving the family to go travelling in Oz.
Liam crossed the street and entered the shop, head down, hiding beneath the baseball cap he’d jammed over his wayward hair, hoping to take a surreptitious look around before he caught the staff’s attention, but as the glass door swished shut behind him, a commotion at the tills caught his attention. Sammy, a duty manager, was remonstrating with one of the many homeless men who hung around the city centre.
Fuck’s sake. Liam moved quickly to intervene. He stayed out of the day-to-day running of Sea Rave’s stores, trusting the retail teams they had in place, but he wouldn’t tolerate this crap.
He stepped in front of the man, who slammed his hand down on the counter beside him.
“I don’t give a fuck where he is. I need to see him now!”
“All right, mate.” Liam pushed the grubby hand off the white counter. “That’s enough shouting. What’s your problem?”
The scrawny man’s haunted, bloodshot gaze flickered over Liam. “Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter who I am. What do you want? Are you buying something? Or hanging around? Because if you’re after somewhere to chill out, there’s a shelter down the road in the crypt under the church.”
