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Alastair looked sceptical. “I guess.”
As they watched, Ambrose started waving his hands animatedly. “Yeah,” he said at a volume level more suited to a dance club than a restaurant, “I’m definitely too good to settle for any old job. I mean, look at me. I’ve modelled, for Christ’s sake.” He pulled his shirt up to show off a lean torso and sculpted abs. Liam might have been impressed, except he suspected that the only reason Ambrose was so fit was because he was constantly running away from people who wanted to punch him in the face.
“I’m dating a model, Mum,” Kelly said. “Aren’t I lucky?”
Tom looked unimpressed. “Yeah? I’ve never seen your face anywhere.”
Ambrose gave a sheepish grin. “Well, I say modelling, but it wasn’t exactly mainstream. And it didn’t exactly feature my face as the main attraction. It was more off-grid, online, pay-per-view, take-yourself-in-hand kind of work, you get me?”
There was stunned silence. “You mean…?” Jeanette started.
“I guess you old people would call it porn, yeah. It was pretty successful, too.” He reached for his phone. “Wanna see?”
“No, we bloody well don’t,” Tom snapped.
Something in his tone must have gotten through because Ambrose just shrugged and said, “I’ll leave it up to your imagination. Or you can ask Kell.” He gave a filthy wink to Jeanette, along with the inevitable finger guns.
Liam checked his watch and willed them to leave. Surely two hours was enough of this torture? He was relieved to see that Ambrose was standing, possibly in preparation for departure, but his heart sank when Ambrose cleared his throat, shook out his arms, and declared to anyone who was listening, “I’m gonna do a magic trick!”
With a determined set to his chin, he grabbed the corner of the tablecloth.
“Oh, Jesus,” Liam groaned, and sprinted across the room. “Sir!” he bellowed, not caring how he looked, “please don’t attempt to remove the tablecloth! It never works!”
“It’ll work for me! It’s gonna be amazing!” Ambrose insisted. And with that he pulled at the cloth, which, instead of sliding out from under the crockery in a dazzling display of finesse, dragged everything along with it, sending plates, glasses and cutlery crashing onto the floor and a glass of red wine into Jeanette’s lap. Ambrose stared at the wreckage, and Liam could have sworn he was genuinely shocked.
“Well, fuck,” he said loudly. “That didn’t happen on YouTube.”
Watching Ambrose being asked to leave the restaurant by Lin the manager almost made up for cleaning up his mess—almost. As he shoved smashed bits of plate into a bin bag, Liam watched and waited to see if Kelly would finally grow a set and send her awful boyfriend packing, but to his confusion she did no such thing. Instead, she patted the back of his hand and told him to keep practising, and then kissed him on the cheek and called him an Uber while her parents scowled their disapproval.
It was weird.
He wondered how his own parents would react if he brought someone like that home and sighed quietly. They’d probably still welcome him with open arms, because they were desperate to ‘see him happy,’ which in their world meant paired up, no matter who with. He’d tried telling them he was content to be single, but still, every time he called his mum she asked, “So, are you seeing anyone?” Whenever he said he wasn’t, she’d make her patented disappointed noise.
It wasn’t that Liam didn’t want to date. It was just that he was shit at it. He took forever to figure out when someone was flirting, and even when he did pick up on it, his choices had proven to be less than stellar.
His last boyfriend had cheated on him—in Liam’s bed. It had ended with tears and accusations, and it had hurt, leaving him feeling stupid and worthless and unattractive. Liam had decided afterwards, as he nursed a nice bottle of red along with his battered heart and bruised ego, that he was done with romance. He wasn’t willing to risk feeling that way again.
He hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell his parents what had happened, ashamed and embarrassed in equal measure, so now his mother continued to wonder aloud if Liam couldn’t try and get back together with that lovely Jonah. Liam was left fobbing them off with excuses about being too busy with uni and work to worry about dating.
Alastair crouched next to him and started helping him sort out the mess. “You gotta ask yourself,” he said quietly. “If that was how this guy acts when he meets the parents, what’s he like the rest of the time?”
“He’s a fucking nightmare,” Liam agreed, bundling up the linen. “I don’t know what Kelly sees in him.”
“Wait, you know her?”
“Yeah. I thought she had better taste than this though. She normally takes no shit, but she was practically fawning over this guy.”
Alastair’s brow furrowed. “Maybe it’s because he’s good-looking? Still, you should check in with her, make sure she’s okay.”
Liam, who’d been thinking the same thing, nodded. He’d track Kelly down at some point and find out why she’d broken up with Greg and had started dating Ambrose, the colossal arsehole.
Maybe she owed him money, or she’d joined a cult, or maybe Ambrose was terrible at magic but some kind of hypnosis master, and he’d woo-wooed Kelly into thinking he wasn’t a total fucktard. There was definitely something shady going on, because the guy was, objectively, a complete and utter wanker, and Liam hoped he never had to lay eyes on him again.
Chapter Two
Liam
“I’m just saying, I’ve seen much worse-looking men than you that don’t even have a personality, and they manage to get dates. Your cousin Tommy has a face like a slapped arse, and he’s engaged to that lovely Chelsea!”
