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Ambrose slid under the water, putting a sudden end to that line of conversation, so Liam figured he might as well do the same. For all the weather was damp, it wasn’t actually cold, and the water was refreshing on his skin. He swam the length of the pool underwater and popped up near Riley. Ambrose had climbed out and was drying himself off. He was in a pair of Liam’s old boardies, and they’d slid partway down, exposing not only the slope of a nicely curved arse, but also part of a vaguely tribal tattoo across his lower back that suited him more than it had any right to.
“Nice tramp stamp, Ambrose!” Marcus called out. “Got any more?”
Ambrose ignored him as he draped the towel around his shoulders, and Liam didn’t blame him. Marcus was turning out to be a bit of a dick. Liam knew Ambrose was still suffering from the night before, so he hauled himself out of the pool, went over to the outside fridge and grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to him. “Here.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Ambrose said, twisting the top off the bottle and downing most of it in one go. Liam tried not to stare as Ambrose’s throat worked and a trickle of pool water ran down the side of his neck, but it was easier said than done—it was a sight worth staring at. He was aware that behind him, Bridget had lifted Balian out of the pool—he could hear him rustling around in the bushes with John Phillip, and making those cute little inquisitive noises he did, as though everything were new and exciting. Which he supposed it was if you’d only existed for fifteen months. But he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Ambrose’s throat.
“I…” Liam became aware not just of Ambrose’s throat, but of his slick, gleaming skin, of his shoulders and his torso, of the dips and valleys of his ribs and muscles, and of the trail of dark hair that led from his bellybutton down into his borrowed boardshorts. And especially of the way the wet fabric clung to his dick, filling Liam with a sudden and desperate desire to see if the dimensions matched his imagination exactly or not.
Ambrose’s gaze held his, and Liam almost thought they were having a moment here at the side of the pool. Then Ambrose ruined it by darting forward, pushing Liam out of the way and yelling “Balian!” at the top of his lungs as he leapt into the bushes.
Chapter Thirteen
Ambrose
“Ouch,” said Ambrose, wincing at the sting as he sat on one of the pool loungers while Bridget dabbed Betadine on his skinned knee. Balian sat next to him, painting his face, the lounger and Ambrose’s thigh with a melting green ice block.
Riley laughed from the steps of the pool.
“To be fair,” Ambrose said, “I did think it was a snake.”
“You did,” Bridget said, and looked up at him with her head on an angle as though she were seeing something new in him after all, and not just his inability to tell the difference between a snake and what had turned out to be a very large skink. “Okay, I think you’re good to go.”
“Eh. I might sit out for a bit.”
Bridget rose to her feet and scooped Balian up into her arms. “Still hungover?”
Ambrose gave an affirmative groan. He watched as Bridget and Balian headed back into the water, Balian waving his ice block like a sword. Liam came and sat down on the lounger next to him, looking all damp and tousled and amused.
“Are you going to laugh at me too?” Ambrose asked.
“It was pretty funny,” Liam said. His faint smile faded, and he said, seriously, “But also, it was brave.”
Ambrose’s heart did a weird flip-flop thing at being called brave by Liam. “Nah,” he said. “It was a skink.”
“But you didn’t know that,” Liam said.
No, Ambrose hadn’t known it. He’d just seen its head, way too close to Balian’s little bare foot, and he’d thought it was a snake. So he’d pushed past Liam and careened into the bushes, lifting Balian up and twisting away in the same movement, only to end up tripping and landing on his knees on the rough pebbling beside the pool.
“Snake,” he’d managed, hugging Balian tightly to his chest so he didn’t drop him as the baby squawked indignantly at being grabbed.
Liam had been right there, hands held out to help Ambrose up even as he’d scanned the garden beds warily. Orhan and Bridget, probably thinking Ambrose was attempting to abduct their child, had both rocketed out of the pool, only to freeze when they heard Ambrose’s pronouncement. Then the undergrowth had rustled, and the shiny silver-grey head Ambrose had spotted before emerged again, except this time it was followed by a shiny silver-grey body…and four legs.
Liam had sagged in relief, like a balloon deflating. “It’s a skink.”
So Ambrose felt like an idiot, then and now, but he liked the way that Liam’s expression softened when he looked at him. And he liked the way that Liam had called him brave, even if it turned out there had been nothing to be brave about in the first place. He liked?—
Oh shit. There it was.
He liked Liam Connelly.
And he had a feeling that Liam Connelly liked him too, even if there was a good chance he hadn’t quite realised it yet.
And suddenly, Ambrose didn’t care about being a bad boyfriend. At least not right now, when he thought that Liam felt the same way. So instead of remembering what he was paid to be here for and blurting out something loud and dickish, Ambrose just smiled. Then he reached out, took Liam’s hand, and twined their fingers together.
Liam looked startled, but he didn’t pull away.
Let him think this was just a little PDA to set the scene for the rest of the Connellys. That was fine.
