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Ouch.
Liam had phrased that wrong, right? He’d meant they’d just have to see enough of the Pretend Ambrose to know that the Pretend Ambrose wasn’t right for Liam Connelly. Not the real Ambrose. But of course Liam didn’t know that tonight he’d got the real Ambrose. So Liam didn’t mean anything by it.
“Sure,” Ambrose said, and forced a smile. “A bit of a dick, but not a complete dick. Maybe three inches of dick. I can do that.”
“Great,” Liam said with a smile, then peered at a red Prius that hummed to a stop nearby. “This is me, I think. I’ll text you later in the week, and we’ll figure out if I’m picking you up from your place, or if you want to come to mine, or whatever.”
“Sure,” Ambrose said, his forced smile still plastered on his face. “We’ll figure it out.”
Liam got into the car, and it drove away.
Ambrose shoved his hands in his pockets and ignored the sudden strange ache in his chest and waited for his Uber to arrive.
Chapter Six
Liam
Liam checked his bags one last time and tamped down his jitters about the weekend. Bridget and Orhan were picking them up from Liam’s place tomorrow at lunchtime—by leaving on Thursday, they’d beat the Good Friday traffic—but Liam had packed tonight, unable to relax, a weird sort of itch under his skin making him jittery and unsettled. It wasn’t that seeing his family made him nervous. Despite the ribbing he always got from his sisters and the inevitable hangover after drinking with Grandad, he normally loved spending a weekend at the winery with them, getting to unwind properly in a way he couldn’t in Sydney.
No, family wasn’t what had him twitching so much as wondering how his family would react to whatever fuckery Ambrose had planned for the weekend. Maybe it was just anticipation over spending the weekend with Ambrose—or maybe even Ambrose himself.
Ambrose was a puzzle that Liam couldn’t figure out. He was hot, he was funny and he was equal parts clever and annoying, and Liam wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. One thing was certain. The guy who’d had dinner with his family was the polar opposite to the dickhead Liam had waited on at Bayside. The Ambrose at Bayside had been obnoxious and terrible, but the Ambrose at family dinner had been funny and charming and clever, and every time he’d laughed, Liam had wanted to laugh right along with him. Liam had liked that guy. But one of the two Ambroses had to be an act, and Liam was damned if he could figure out which one it was.
Not that it mattered. After this weekend, it wasn’t likely he’d see Ambrose again, which was kind of a shame because Ambrose was—quite possibly—a decent guy. But Liam also wouldn’t have Mum breathing down his neck about dating, and that was the point of this whole thing, right? They’d break up, he’d tell his mum that he was heartbroken, and she’d coo over him and commiserate for a week or so. Then, any time she started asking if he’d met someone, he’d just have to sigh and say, “After Ambrose…” and she’d back off.
That was the theory, anyway.
He ended up putting on a TV show he’d watched a dozen times before and letting the familiarity soothe him as he half-watched, resisting the urge to text Ambrose and check he was still coming, until finally it was late enough, and he was tired enough that he managed to get to bed and actually fall asleep.
The following morning, for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Liam found himself tidying the flat, putting away the pile of shoes near the door, gathering the assortment of coffee cups and plates that he’d left scattered around the place and loading them into the dishwasher, and throwing out the tower of junk mail that had been steadily growing on the coffee table. He even changed Tobermory’s litter box and sprayed some Glen-20 around while the cat glared at him, seemingly offended by the implication that his shit did actually stink. Mrs. Isakson, the elderly widow who lived in the flat next door, had a spare key to Liam’s place and she was going to feed Tobermory while he was away. Tobermory and Mrs. Isakson pretended to hate each other, but Liam had once got home early from a weekend in the Hunter Valley and found them sitting together on his couch eating cheese and crackers and watching Parliament Question Time, so he didn’t believe it for a second.
As Liam swept the dust bunnies off his floor, he told himself he was only cleaning so Bridget wouldn’t tell Mum he was living in a pigsty. It had nothing to do with impressing Ambrose at all. In fact, for the five hundred bucks Liam was paying him, Ambrose had better bloody well pretend to be impressed.
Liam was impressed. He couldn’t remember the last time the flat had looked so clean.
At eleven o’clock Liam’s phone rang. It was Ambrose. “I think you gave me the wrong address,” he said.
Liam frowned, “Why? Where are you?”
“I’m at this really swanky building. Byron Hall?”
“Yep, that’s me. I’ll buzz you in, and you can come up. It’s number twelve.”
There was a moment of silence, then Ambrose said, “I’m afraid to ask, but what the hell are they paying waiters these days if you can afford to live here? Have I been in the wrong game all along?”
Liam laughed. “No, Grandad bought it ages ago because it was going cheap, and he hung onto it long enough that it got trendy.”
“Oh!” Ambrose’s tone brightened. “My place is like that too, except I’m pretty sure my landlord keeps it as a hovel and rents it to students just to fuck with the neighbours. He’s that perfect storm of old and spiteful, which is kind of great because it means cheap rent for Harry and me.”
“Harry?” Liam’s chest tightened inexplicably. “Your boyfriend?”
“Nah, he’s just a mate. I’m single. Sort of comes with the job.”
That was a waste, when Liam thought about it. Then he told himself to stop thinking about it, because it was none of his business.
Ambrose cleared his throat. “So are you gonna let me in? Because there’s a lady watching me from the balcony and frankly it’s creeping me out.”
“Hang on,” Liam said, and walked over to the security panel to buzz Ambrose in. He always felt like something of a fraud when he made use of the building’s security features—he was pretty sure that as a twenty-three-year-old uni student he wasn’t at risk of anything more deadly than exam stress and terminal eyestrain. He opened the front door and debated leaving it propped open, but then caught the gleam in Toby’s eye as the cat nonchalantly settled three feet from the door.
