Discovering Dalton (Manchester Menage Collection #2) (2 page)

“I know I'm doing a good job when I get that look. Don’t give me shit, Officer. Keep going.”

“You just love bossing me around, don’t you?” Dalton could guess what background Liam had. It was the type most lads around there had. Growing up on some God awful council run estate where the parents drank too much booze and didn’t give a shit about their kids skiving off school, not aspiring to anything other than getting benefits and staying home watching daytime TV.

“I gotta admit, I do love pushing coppers around.”

“Makes a change it being this way round, don’t it?” Dalton puffed out as he lifted his last set of three, only to get a stony look from Liam.

“You get six more for that.”

“Fuck!”

“Another one for swearing at me.”

Dalton gritted his teeth, biting back another bitchy response, but deciding another punishment wasn’t worth it. In the end, he always ended up doing what Liam wanted. Dalton would never tell him this, but he secretly loved how bossy Liam was with him. It was something Dalton rarely got in his life, unless it came from Milo, and now he was in a position above Dalton at work, it felt different. Liam on the other hand, well, it felt just right.

Chapter
2

L
iam bounded through the door to his apartment, slinging his gym bag to the floor and kicking off his trainers as soon as he got inside. Looking around the spacious rooftop loft, he called out to Troy. “You home yet, T?”

“Yeah, back here.” Troy’s voice came from outside.

Liam made his way across the apartment, walking through the open plan sitting room slash game room. Troy was splayed out on the terrace, bottle of beer in hand, sunglasses over his eyes, wearing just shorts. It was hot. A rarity for Manchester, even in the summer, and Troy always made the most out the sun.

“How long you been lazing around up here?” Liam flung himself onto the lounger beside him, stripping off his t-shirt and grabbing a beer from the ice bucket in between them. Troy was a super star. This was just what Liam needed after spending all day cooped up and sweating it out in the gym.

“I closed early. Too hot in that small room to work. The sweat blinded me as I was bending over inking the last guy. I need air con, man. I lost a stone in weight this morning.”

“Slight exaggeration, T. You should do what I do for a living. Now that’s fucking hard, and H.O.T.” Liam failed to mention the expensive air conditioning at work, and he glanced at Troy, seeing he
wouldn’t
fail to bring it up at all.

“You have air con,” Troy threw back at him with a hard glare. “And what I do ain’t easy, Liam.”

“Fine. Put some of your barely there profits from Living Ink into an air con unit then. I'm sure there’s some cheap secondhand ones you can get.” Liam knew his foster brother had talent and worked hard. Not many people who worked as a tattooist had his artistic flair and eye for detail, and also owed their own business. Liam just liked giving him shit about it.

“Yeah.” Troy drained his bottle then grabbed another.

Something was up. Liam could read Troy’s moods like his own after so long together, and he guessed by the row of beer bottles on the floor and the empty pack of twenty cigarettes crushed on the table, it was something to do with the prick he’d been seeing. “So…” Liam trailed off purposely because they both knew what was coming.

Troy shook his head as he snapped the lid off his beer. “Not now.”

“Is it about what’s his name?” Liam really didn’t like saying
his
name. Troy thought it was because he never paid attention or took anything in when they talked, but Liam always listened. He listened to everything Troy said, he always had done. “Come on.” He kicked the lounger Troy was lying on and got a grunt back in response. Liam drank half his beer, then grabbed a handful of ice from the bucket and rubbed it all over Troy’s hot flesh, his shout of obscenities filling the terrace.

“Fuck off, Liam.”

“So, was it really the summer heat knocking it out of you, or has that two face shit fucked off?”

“I really hate you.”

“Sometimes.”

“No.” Troy sat up, brushing off the icy water and lifting his sunglasses to his forehead, green eyes weighing heavily on Liam. “I would say more than sometimes, like, possibly even
all
the time.” He half grinned, then, before Liam could do anything to stop it, Troy tipped the ice bucket over his head. Liam was drenched and the sound of his yelps and whines were deafening him until he shook the bucket off his head, seeing Troy running for it.

“You little shit!” Liam was up and running after him. The last thing he saw of Troy was the bathroom door slamming shut and the lock being slid shut.

“Do not kick this door down… again.” Troy yelled through the door.

“I'm gonna get you back for that. Just you wait.”

“I'm waiting.” Troy laughed hard as soon as he said it, but Liam’s foot connecting with the door made him shut up. “Do not break this door, Liam. I mean it.”

“Fine, but you need to get out, I want a shower.”

“I'm having one. Go use your own.”

“I prefer this one, it’s bigger. You’re the smaller out of us two. You're supposed to use the ensuite.”

“It’s in your bedroom, dickhead. Hence why you should use it.”

“Hence? What’s with the snobby word? Hence forth I shall be known as Lord Troy. Master of Ink and Beer. Lord of skiving off work by using pathetic excuses.” Liam grinned at the long groan he got back. “I knew I should’ve held out for the other bedroom.”

He stormed off to his room, discarding his jogging pants to the floor before starting up the shower, cold and fresh, much like the bucket of ice Troy just poured over him. After a long hot day in a sweaty gym, that bucket of ice felt damn good, not that he’d tell Troy that though.

Stepping into the cramped cubicle, Liam huffed loudly, thinking back to the first time they’d looked around the empty shell of a loft and planned out their new home. On paper, the ensuite looked bigger, and the second bedroom didn’t have space for an ensuite, so Liam thought himself clever when he’d snapped up the first room, leaving Troy to use the smaller second and the full size bathroom opposite it. Big mistake, and one Troy made sure Liam paid for over the six years they’d lived together.

The cold water felt good running over him. The water pressure was shit, but that didn’t change from this bathroom to the bigger one. They needed to revamp the plumbing, but they never seemed to have time, and any money they got recently was put back into their own businesses. Troy with his newly opened tattoo studio, Living Ink, and Liam with Aspire—the gym he’d taken over when their foster dad Terry passed away two years ago. Despite leaving a good amount of cash, it had taken more than the thirty grand passed down to them in their inheritance to get it updated and ready for new members.

Terry and the older members who went loved the slightly run down, less flashy style, but new paying members demanded more and so that’s what Liam and Troy decided to do. Now it looked just as good as any other gym with its new equipment and remodelled space.

As he soaped up his arms and chest, Liam smiled, thinking how far they’d both come since they first met, since they first walked into Terry’s gym as snot nosed, skinny kids. Looking over his body now, it was a far cry from the fifteen year old chubby one he started off with. He’d always been tall, but a bad diet of fried food and no exercise left him overweight and he had an attitude which would make a saint lose their patience. Terry had a way of dealing with him, with both of them, and it was through him and his wife Alice they found a home for the first time ever.

He owed his foster parents a lot. More so because they hadn’t just let Liam and Troy fly the nest when they reached eighteen. They kept them close, encouraging them like real parents would do. Helping them find jobs and pushing them to keep going and do better.

It was because of them Liam ended up going to college and becoming a personal trainer and fitness teacher. With it, he could have done a few things, a sports teacher in a school was one option he thought about, but he knew in his heart he would choose to stay with Terry and work with him in the gym.

Terry was getting on in years by then and he needed someone he could trust to take over, so for the last ten years, Liam worked there, taking on more and more responsibility as Terry stayed home more or took well-earned vacations abroad.

Now it was Liam’s and he felt proud of what he’d achieved, but he still felt a wave of loss creep over him thinking how it had changed. He hoped Terry would look down on him and feel happy with what he’d done, but he also worried he’d changed it too much and cast aside the working class values Terry worked so long to achieve.

He didn’t want Aspire to be some prissy gym for suits to come to after work. Yeah, they had some, but they catered to the local people, the more down to earth men and women. Women. Now that would irk Terry.

All the time Terry had run the gym it had been men only, and Liam had kept to that rule for a bit, but they lost money to other gyms further away because of their men only rule, so slowly, Liam changed it. At first just having classes for women only, then mixing them when he got one male member who showed interest. Now the entire gym was mixed, leaving only the weight room as more male only. It wasn’t a rule women couldn’t go in, but they chose not to because it still felt a little intimidating, but Liam knew in time a few women could be persuaded to go in and give it a go. Maybe he could even set up a female only room to ease them into it.

Stepping out of the shower, Liam dried his short cropped, brown hair roughly before towel drying his chest and legs. It was still hot, so he opened the double floor to ceiling patio doors in his room before laying naked on the bed, letting the breeze wash over him and finish drying his clammy skin.

He was going out tonight. Manchester had a great night life, one he took advantage of too often, but he would much rather be out in town than stuck at home, especially on a nice night like this.

They could spend the evening drinking in the beer gardens outside their favourite pubs before moving onto something heavier later. Liam smiled as he looked outside. He was dragging Troy with him whether he liked it or not. He needed time out of the house and if Liam’s suspicions about the most recent boyfriend fucking off were right, Troy could pick someone else up and forget about his heartbreak for a few hours.

Troy was always involved in a relationship. Every time he would return home with that stupid grin on his face and a new man on his arm, it was happy days, and he drifted around the place like a kid on Christmas morning.

It all changed a few weeks down the line when the bloke pissed off though. Troy gave his heart too easily. He also jumped from one relationship to another without pause. Liam always bugged him about it. Like tonight, if he did come out, Liam was sure Troy would find his next big love affair and it would all begin again.

Troy needed space, but try telling him that. He never listened. The guy was incapable of being alone. He hated it. He found his own worth through the eyes of others. Probably because, despite all his achievements, he felt like he had no self-worth at all. It no doubt stemmed from his childhood, and the fact from an early age he felt pushed away, second best and forgotten by those who should have loved him. Liam tried to fill the gaping hole in Troy’s chest, but despite how much love and attention he threw at Troy, it wasn’t enough.

Liam was the opposite. He always stayed away from relationships. One night stands or a couple of weeks with the same bloke if they held his interest were as far as he went. He didn’t give his heart to anyone, never wanted to. He’d only ever loved three people in his life. Terry, Alice, and Troy. Now there was just Troy, and Liam felt even more tied to him because of it.

Liam was happy with his life as it was. He had Troy to come home to and joke around with. They helped each other with their struggles, talked about shit they would never talk about to anyone else, and then Liam had his pickups for sex.

He hated it when Troy would let his recent man hang about the house, treating the place like they owned it. Liam brought people back, sure, but it wasn’t like they loafed in front of the TV or took long showers and used up all the hot water. They stayed in his room where they fucked, then, if they were lucky, they got coffee before they buggered off home.

When Liam mentioned it, and he had,
several
times, Troy would talk about moving out, getting his own place, and that stopped the conversation dead, because Liam couldn’t let Troy leave. He’d miss him too much. Liam wasn’t ready to just watch him pack up his shit and go somewhere else. They’d only end up living together again after a month anyway. As soon as Troy’s recent guy had packed up and split, he’d be back with Liam, slouching around in his sweats and moaning about the recent ex, asking Liam what was wrong with him.

Liam could never answer that question. There was nothing wrong with Troy. He was perfectly fine. Good looking, great personality, he’d bend over backwards to help anyone who needed it, and he had a warm heart. Despite the ink he was covered in from head to toe, he wasn’t anything like what people imagined, and maybe that was the issue. Other people had ideas of what Troy should be like, and he always surprised them.

Troy wasn’t hard as nails, never spent time in prison. Hell, he’d never even pinched a penny sweet from the corner shop when they were kids. They both rode custom made choppers and fucked about, causing a few problems with their loud personalities, but they weren’t law breakers. They were hard-working, responsible men. Troy wasn’t a bad boy, but he looked like one, and if that’s what drew the men he brought home, it only took them a few weeks to see the real Troy and they soon pissed off.

Liam always saw Troy as the long haired, olive skinned kid when they first met. Those big sea green eyes were wary like his, searching the room as he fidgeted nervously. Liam understood him as soon as they met, and he could see they’d come from the same place in life, just different homes.

He knew they’d fit together with Terry and Alice, it just took time for both of them to let their guard down and be friends. Until that happened, they would fight and argue. After almost a year, and running down the patience of Terry, they eventually found common ground and stopped pissing about and actually talked.

They told each other shit they’d never tell another person, and through that, they became inseparable. Even now, they seemed unable to let go of the other. They were both thirty, both still tied at the hip. At least Troy made an effort to find someone. All Liam did was push them away.