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Asleep Ambrose apparently didn’t have the same reservations as awake Ambrose. Sometime in the night he’d rolled over, and now he was pressed against Liam’s back. He had one arm flung possessively over Liam, and his breath was warm on Liam’s neck. Liam lay there quietly and debated whether it made him a bad person if he didn’t wake Ambrose up right away.
It had been a long time—fourteen months and six days, not that he was counting—since Liam had woken up in anyone’s arms, and it felt good. Just because he wasn’t looking for a relationship didn’t mean he didn’t miss someone touching him and holding him. Was it creepy if he let himself enjoy being held for a bit more? At what point did this become weird?
Ambrose let out a snuffle-snort and pressed in closer, and that was when it did become weird, because now there was something pressing against Liam’s arse, and he was one hundred percent certain it was Ambrose’s dick.
Okay, so morning wood was a thing, and Liam knew it had nothing to do with him personally, but it was still as awkward as fuck—especially now that, having woken up slightly more, he was aware of his own erection. Getting out of bed and away from Ambrose immediately went from optional to imperative.
Careful not to wake Ambrose, he lifted his arm up, shuffled forward out of his hold and eased himself out of bed. Ambrose mumbled something about Bert Newton (Liam made a note to tease him about it later), and rolled forward into the space Liam had left and buried his face in the pillow.
Liam scurried to the bathroom, embarrassed at his arousal even though there was nobody here to see it. Surely if he ignored it, it’d go away, just like it did every other day. He turned on the shower and stood under the stream of hot water while he pointedly thought unarousing thoughts—about Balian’s nappy, about that time his mum had gotten a frizzy perm that made her look like a Brillo pad, about the uni assignments he had due—anything except the warmth of the arms that he’d woken up in, the press of Ambrose’s body against his and how nice it had felt to have someone caring for him again.
Not that Ambrose cared. Ambrose was here for Ambrose. He was selfish and shallow and generally rude, and Liam didn’t need to waste his time thinking about him.
Except, that wasn’t quite true, was it? Arsehole-for-hire Ambrose was rude and shallow and selfish. Regular Ambrose Newman was, well, he was a decent guy, at least as far as Liam could tell from the glimpses he’d had. He’d been willing to sleep in a chair last night, and he’d apologised repeatedly over the Orhan thing.
And Grandad Billy liked him, which was more puzzling than anything, because Grandad’s radar for bullshit was legendary. More than once he’d met someone who seemed perfectly normal only to state, “I don’t like him. He’s a bastard, mark my words.” And inevitably, days or weeks or months later, he’d be proven right. It was uncanny. But he wasn’t saying anything about Ambrose, who was patently here under false pretences and absolutely acting like a bastard, and what was that about?
Liam turned off the water and was relieved to see that his dick had once again decided to behave respectably. He dried himself and brushed his teeth before realising he’d left his clothes in the bedroom. Ambrose was still asleep, he reasoned. He’d just go out in a towel and grab them, then duck back in here to get changed.
He wasn’t sure why he was so shy about Ambrose seeing him undressed, but he suspected that it was because next to Ambrose, he wasn’t much to look at. Ambrose had actual muscle definition and a chest like you’d find on a Staffy, whereas Liam was more of a whippet. He wrapped the towel around his waist and went back into the bedroom, hoping Ambrose was still asleep.
He wasn’t. He was sitting up in bed, rubbing the heel of one hand against his eyes and talking on his phone. “It’s half past six in the morning, Mum. I wasn’t ignoring you. I was asleep. I didn’t hear the phone, that’s all.”
Liam busied himself getting a clean shirt and underwear out of his bag and pretending not to listen.
“I’ll call you when I can, but I can’t answer my phone during rehearsals, you know that,” Ambrose said, which made Liam wonder again why Ambrose was lying to her and exactly what was going on with Ambrose’s mum—Bella Newman, actress, he remembered.
Not my business, he reminded himself, and ducked back into the bathroom. He took his time dressing and when he came out again, Ambrose was off the phone and bent over the fridge in the kitchen peering inside, which had the unfortunate effect of highlighting the curves of his pert arse in ways that Liam did his best to ignore.
“There’s a cheese platter and all sorts of good shit in here,” Ambrose said, closing the fridge and turning with a dimpled grin that was somehow even more distracting than the view of his arse had been. “Your mum went all out.”
“Yeah, she’s a feeder,” Liam said. “Expressing her love one cheese wheel at a time.”
“Aw, she likes me,” Ambrose said. His smile faltered just for a second, but then it was back. “For now, anyway. What do you say, I keep up the current level of inappropriateness for today and tomorrow, and then when they have the big family engagement dinner on Sunday night, I drink too much and ramp it up, do something truly outrageous? Oooh, maybe I’ll make a move on Neve’s fiancé? That’d be heart-breaking enough for you, right?”
Liam pulled a face. “Nobody would believe it. And besides, if you overdo it, Bridget won’t let you in her car, and you’ll end up having to take the train back to Sydney. Trust me, you don’t want to do that.”
“Fine, no cracking on to the brother-in-law. I’ll figure something out.” Ambrose stretched, his shirt riding up so an enticing strip of belly skin was on display, and said, “I’m going for a shower. I hope you left some hot water. You were in there forever.” And with that he wandered into the bathroom, leaving Liam doing his best not to wonder what Ambrose would look like wet and naked.
When they got to the main house for breakfast, Grandad Billy was rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Eat up, boys,” he said, “and put a good lining on your stomachs. We’ve got the wine tour today.”
“Now, Dad. You can’t take the boys drinking at the crack of dawn,” Fi scolded mildly as she presented them with plates loaded with scrambled eggs and toast. “You can wait till Neve and her fellow get here.”
“Fine,” Grandad grumbled. “The pair of them can help me fix some of the reticulation in the meantime. And then we’ll drink.” He stabbed at his toast mulishly, and Liam smiled to himself. Grandad pretended to hate it when he didn’t get his own way, but it was mainly front and bluster for the look of the thing. In reality, Liam’s dad did most of the day-to-day running of the winery. Grandad mainly took care of the tour groups. And he was good at it, too, his larger-than-life persona and Irish accent making the whole thing an unforgettable experience.
Liam knew that he could never run a wine tour like Grandad did—he didn’t have the personality for it. He knew that if he explained the oenology process it would come off like he was reading from a textbook. Oenology. He winced internally—that right there was a prime example. Other people would just call it wine-making, but not Liam. Whereas he’d heard Grandad refer to it more than once as, “Bashing the hell out of the grapes to get the good stuff.”
People liked that sort of thing. They liked their information packaged as entertainment, with style and flair and a little bit of flirting for them to giggle over as they sipped their shiraz and pretended they could taste the difference between that and the other shiraz they’d just tried, or the one before that.
Ambrose would be great at wine tours. Liam wasn’t sure where the thought came from, but he could see it in his mind’s eye. Ambrose had all the qualities needed to deal with groups of tourists in spades. If they really were together, Ambrose would fit right in.
“Eat your breakfast and stop wool-gathering, Liam,” Mum said, and prodded his shoulder. “You’re away with the fairies.”
He looked up to see Grandad beaming at him. “Leave the boy alone, Fi,” he said, a wicked glint in his eye. “He’s just spent the night in the honeymoon cottage, after all. Of course he’s distracted.”
“Oooh, how was the cottage?” Mum asked. “Did you have everything you needed? How was the gift basket?” She leaned forward eagerly, elbows on the table, and Liam felt himself flushing beet red.
Not Ambrose, though. He leaned back in his chair and made those fucking finger guns at her. “It was aces, Mrs C. Great stuff in there. Bed was excellent, too. Nice solid frame.” He winked. “Sturdy.”
