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He loved his mum, he did. He just got the feeling that most people didn’t have to remind themselves of that at least a dozen times a day.
He resisted the urge to turn around and look at Liam, the one person who knew he wasn’t a total arsehole. After fobbing his mum off, he thought that he kind of needed that right now, that one person. But he didn’t turn and look, because he wasn’t certain his bladder could handle the pressure, and mostly because he wasn’t sure if Liam really did think he was sort of an okay human being. He hadn’t been happy about the Orhan thing. Ambrose hadn’t liked it either, but he’d still done it, hadn’t he? And he didn’t like what that said about him. This whole professional dickhead thing was supposed to make him look bad, not hurt anyone else. There wasn’t supposed to be collateral damage.
“Um,” he said, sounding more uncertain than he intended. “Can we stop? I really need to pee.”
Orhan cut him a look, then checked the mirrors and pulled over at the side of the road.
It was pissing down rain, but clearly Ambrose had used up all of Orhan’s goodwill, and this was the best he was going to get. He opened the door and stepped down into the mud at the side of the road. Then he darted for the nearest tree, squelching through more mud to get there.
He unzipped and pissed as quickly as he could, groaning with relief even as first his hair, then his shirt, was plastered to his skin with rain.
“Please don’t drive away,” he muttered to himself. “Please don’t drive away.”
He was incredibly relieved to see the HiLux was still there when he’d finished. He squelched over to it and squeaked as he slid back into the leather seat. A rivulet of water ran down the back of his neck, and he tried not to shiver.
Orhan flicked the air conditioning to a slightly warmer setting, and they continued on their way.
The sat-nav screen said they were still fifty-six kilometres away from Pokolbin, which Ambrose presumed was their destination. Apart from the rain, the countryside was beautiful. Okay, so the rain was beautiful too—it made everything look soft and dreamy like a Frederick McCubbin painting—but Ambrose would have liked it more if none of it had ended up in his arse crack where it was currently squishing around in there like it was developing its own ecosystem.
“Does anyone have a towel?” he asked, pushing more confidence into his voice than he felt.
A cloth nappy landed on his head.
“Thanks.” Ambrose supposed he should be grateful that it was clean. He scrubbed it through his hair, then around the back of his neck, then, twisting awkwardly in his seat, as far as he could down the back of his jeans. “Great weather for ducks.”
“Great weather for fucks,” Bridget muttered.
Liam said something too low for Ambrose to hear, but he hoped he was telling Bridget to lay off. Yeah, Ambrose was a dick—that’s what Liam was paying for—but it was a lot easier being a dick in a restaurant with both a front entrance and a back door out the kitchen than it was trapped in a moving vehicle with some very pissed-off people. Ambrose really should have put more thought into a game plan for this weekend, except he hadn’t bothered because usually by the time the consequences of his actions were becoming apparent, he was already making his escape.
And he liked Bridget and Orhan. And they’d liked him too. For the first time since starting Bad Boyfriend Inc, Ambrose wasn’t enjoying it. He’d stick to single dates from now on, he decided, because something told him this weekend was going to be a nightmare, and not just for the horrified Connellys.
Balian let out a tired wail, and Bridget sighed. “He’s had enough of being in the car.”
Ambrose could relate. He stared out the window as they drove, glancing every now and then at the screen of the sat-nav as it counted down the kilometres until their arrival.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been outside of Sydney. Primary school trip to Canberra, maybe? The scenery really was breath-taking. The last time he’d seen this many trees, it had been on TV. He was a city boy, through and through. His hands plucked nervously at the fabric of the now-damp nappy, and he found himself folding and unfolding it until he forced himself to stop and rest his hands in his lap. The irony of the radio playing April Sun in Cuba while it pissed down outside wasn’t lost on him.
He cleared his throat. “So, Orhan, should I really be worried about Grandad Billy and his winery tour?”
It was the right thing to say. Bridget snickered. “It’s no good asking him,” she said. “He barely knew his own name by the end of it.”
“She’s not wrong,” Orhan said, the corners of his mouth ticking up into something like a smile. “It was all try a little of this, and oh, that’s a nice drop, we’ll have another glass, and you wouldn’t spit out my life’s work, would you now? And the next thing I knew Bridget and Will were carrying me up the porch steps, and Billy was laughing his arse off while I tried not to be sick in the pot plants. I’m pretty sure he did it on purpose.”
“Oh, he definitely did it on purpose,” Liam said, and Ambrose warmed at the sound of his voice, glad to have someone in his corner. “Grandad Billy thinks it’s hilarious, getting visitors tipsy.”
“Tipsy?” Bridget snorted. “Try absolutely smashed. And then the next morning he plays all concerned and offers you a Panadol and a cup of tea, like he wasn’t the one there with the bottle of semi-sav practically pouring it down your neck. He’s a menace, but we love him for it.”
“And he is genuinely proud of his wines,” Liam said. “Just resign yourself to at least one hangover, okay?”
“And do your best not to say anything too stupid while you’re drunk,” Orhan added, with a raised eyebrow that suggested Ambrose wasn’t quite forgiven, not yet.
“Yeah, I deserved that. Listen, can we chalk it up to nerves and pretend I wasn’t a colossal wanker earlier?”
Orhan sighed. “I suppose. But only because Liam likes you, and God knows it’s been long enough between dates that he can hardly afford to be picky.”
“Hey!” Liam sputtered.
“It’s true. Someone forgot to tell Liam that he’s supposed to be having fun in the big city, and his idea of a wild time is getting the two-for-one deal from Domino’s on a Tuesday night,” Bridget said with a laugh.
