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The baby giggled along with her, and the tension in the air eased enough that Ambrose felt like he could take a breath. “Well, lucky for me then, because it means I get to date someone pretty great,” he said.
“Aaaw,” Bridget said, “someone finally appreciates you, Li.”
“I mean, look at him,” Ambrose said. “He’s a cutie.”
Liam was cute. He was tall and lanky and had pale skin and messy brown hair and brown eyes, and nothing about him was extraordinary, but somehow, when you put it all together, it made up a completely endearing guy. Maybe it was the shy smile, or maybe it was the dimples, or maybe it was the way he flushed pink when he was embarrassed, but whatever it was, Ambrose definitely found him attractive. Not that he was thinking about that right now, because it didn’t matter if he found Liam cute or not, because they weren’t actually dating.
Liam was a client. Ambrose wasn’t here to think about the way Liam’s face lit up when he laughed or the way his smile dug dimples into his cheeks, and he definitely wasn’t here to speculate about Liam’s cute arse. He was here to be a bad boyfriend. He took a deep breath and sighed.
Balian gurgled happily and let out a fart far too big for the size of him. Moments later, he made a low, grunting sound, and Ambrose’s senses were forcibly assaulted by the fragrant stench of fresh baby poo.
Bridget let out a groan. “Really, Balian? You couldn’t wait ten minutes and make this Grandma’s problem?”
Liam gasped dramatically and mimed choking. “Jesus, that’s rank! What do you feed him?”
“Hush, you, you were worse. What came out of your arse as a baby could peel the paint off a wall.”
Well, Ambrose supposed that was one way to stop him thinking of Liam’s arse in a sexy way. He turned in his seat and offered the damp, folded nappy square. “I guess you’ve probably got another one, but, wiping?”
Bridget shook her head. “It’s fine. Orhan, love, can you pull over somewhere, and I’ll change this little monster?”
The little monster in question cooed and farted again, and it had a distinctly liquid sound to it. The smell got eye-wateringly worse somehow, and Liam cracked his window, heedless of the rain. He screwed up his nose at Ambrose, and Ambrose wrinkled his back, and they shared a smile of commiseration. “I think I should put this out there right away, Liam. We’re never having kids,” Ambrose said.
Liam’s face got beet red, and his mouth opened and closed for a minute, until finally it snapped shut without him saying a word.
Oh, Ambrose thought, he wants kids. He hadn’t embarrassed Liam by making the joke—it wasn’t even a blip on the Ambrose Is Offensive radar—he’d embarrassed him by accidentally homing in on something that was incredibly personal to him. Liam Connelly wanted kids, and Ambrose’s chest flooded with warmth, because imagining Liam holding a baby was not only hot as hell for some weird reason, it also felt right. Liam was a great guy. He’d be a great dad too. And a great partner, for the guy lucky enough to snag him.
Orhan pulled over, and Bridget unfastened the straps of Balian’s seat so she could wrestle him out of his tiny jeans. Then she got to work wiping, while Ambrose tried really hard not to smell whatever was going on back there.
“Need a hand?” Orhan asked.
“Nah, I got it,” Bridget said. “You can get the next blowout. I think it’s leaked onto his sock.”
“What, he does this regularly?” Ambrose asked, halfway between fascinated and horrified.
“We started off with disposable nappies,” Bridget said. “Then we thought, fuck it, we want there to still be a planet when he grows up, right? We’re still getting the hang of cloth nappies. There have been some leakage issues. I blame Orhan for folding them wrong.”
“And I accept that blame,” Orhan said, “because I am afraid for my personal safety if I don’t.”
Yeah, his words said he was afraid for his personal safety, but the warm smile as he watched his wife change their son said the total opposite. Ambrose wondered if his mum had ever changed a leaky nappy, and if she’d sounded fond while she did it. He doubted it. There wasn’t anyone to sound fond with—Ambrose’s dad, whoever he was (and hadn’t the tabloids had fun with that question?) hadn’t stuck around any longer than Mum’s Gold Logie prospects. Neither had Isadora’s before him.
It had been tough for her. Ambrose knew this, because his mum had told him repeatedly, “Not that I resent you, but my career never recovered.” Ambrose wondered sometimes if it might have been different if he’d had a dad around, but he normally tried not to think too hard about it, because it was frankly depressing thinking about what he might have missed out on. Anyway, there were lots of families with one parent, and they did just fine.
Of course that parent wasn’t normally a borderline alcoholic with a history of drug abuse and recurring mental health issues. He loved his mum, he reminded himself again, he just wished that she’d been there for him when he was growing up in a way that other kids’ mums all seemed to be—at least from where Ambrose had been standing, watching those kids jealously. It was no good having your mum on the cover of Woman’s Day if she didn’t bother turning up to the sports carnival. Or if you had to beg your older sister to show you how to make your lunch for school, when she barely knew how herself.
By the time he was eight, Ambrose could make a mean Vegemite sandwich.
He watched as Bridget wrestled the offending nappy into a nappy sack, tied the top, then pinned the new one in place. Balian didn’t seem to mind being shuffled around in the back seat of a four-wheel-drive, sucking on his fingers contentedly. He really was the chillest kid ever, and Ambrose found himself wondering what it would be like to hold him.
“Okay,” Bridget said, settling Balian back in his seat and snapping the complicated-looking belt shut. “Let’s get this circus back on the road.” And because she obviously hadn’t quite forgiven him, she held out the nappy bag to Ambrose. “Hold that.”
And Ambrose, who really did fear for his physical safety where Bridget was concerned, took it without protest. For the rest of the drive, it sat on his lap, warm and disgusting, a tiny toxic time bomb, while Orhan glanced across and grinned widely.
Luckily it wasn’t far to their destination, and soon enough Orhan was pulling off the road and into a deep dip. They splashed through it and up onto a wide, sweeping driveway that looked like it belonged on the set of Gone with the Wind apart from all the gum trees. And the lack of a civil war. Ambrose’s jaw dropped as they drove up to the house and he took in the wide verandas, the perfectly tended rose bushes, and sheer size of the place.
Orhan parked as close to the porch as he could and got out of the car. He hurried around to help Bridget get Balian out in the rain. Ambrose steeled himself and followed, heading for the back, where Liam was lifting bags out of the boot.
“Well, this is it. Connelly Estate,” Liam said, like there wasn’t a carved wooden sign saying exactly that right there in front of them. He rubbed a hand down the back of his neck, almost like he was nervous. Or maybe he was just chasing away the rain. Ambrose couldn’t be sure.
