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Liam leaned closer so he could knock their shoulders together. “Well if it’s any consolation, you’re doing an absolutely shit job of making my family hate you. I think Mum wants to adopt you after you rescued Balian from the skink, and Grandad’s asking what your plans are for Christmas.”
Ambrose sighed and his brow furrowed. “It’s hard, with your family. They’re all so nice. Upsetting them’s like, I dunno. I’d say kicking a puppy, but Grandad’s more of a pit bull under all that Irish charm, isn’t he?” Ambrose gave himself a shake. “Anyway, my point is, I’m very good at my job. It’s just that your family likes to think the best of people, which is very inconsiderate of them in this case. Totally unprofessional.”
“Oh, they’re total monsters,” Liam said. “Awful. How dare they have faith in human nature? Utter bastards, the lot of them.”
Ambrose stared at him for a second, then said, “Where were we going with this again? I’ve forgotten.”
Liam grinned and grabbed another sandwich. “I think we were going for you’re not awful,” he said. “Annoying, but not the worst.”
“And don’t forget hot,” Ambrose said, and grinned back. He took a sip of his apple juice and brightened. “You know what would be awesome?”
“A spare key?”
“No, the hot tub!” Ambrose bounced on the edge of the bed excitedly. “Soaking in the almost-outdoors, drinking apple juice like it’s champagne because hot tubs and booze don’t mix, listening to the rain on the roof and pretending we’re rich people!” He wrinkled his nose. “Well, I’ll be pretending I’m a rich person. You just do whatever you normally do.”
“I’m not rich!” Liam protested.
“He says, in the honeymoon cottage at his family’s vineyard, while on holiday from his million-dollar flat in Potts Point,” Ambrose said. “Just your average student.”
Liam flushed. “I don’t think about it like that. This is a working property. Mum and Dad slog their guts out to make it profitable. And the flat’s Grandad’s.”
Ambrose bit his lip. “I was kidding,” he said quietly. “It’s what I do. Your family’s pretty great. And you’re not, like, always talking about what you own or what you want to own, or bragging about how much things cost. I’ve met guys like that before. The ones who like legit don’t understand how you sometimes have to walk places or jump the barriers because you didn’t have any money to put on your Opal card this month, or you’re scrounging for this month’s rent. It just doesn’t compute in their brains, you know?”
“I try not to be one of those guys,” Liam said. “I know how lucky I am.”
“You’re not,” Ambrose said. He wrapped the leftover half of his sandwich up and slid it back into the bag. “You’re not one of those guys at all.”
They were sitting so close that Liam could feel the heat of his body.
Ambrose nudged him and grinned. “Now let’s go get in that hot tub!”
Ambrose was a genius, Liam decided. He leaned his head back against the headrest of the hot tub, listening to the rain falling, and raised his glass in a vague toasting motion. “You were right. This is brilliant.”
“Told you.” Ambrose grinned, returning the toast before pressing the button that fired up the bubbles. “If we’re gonna be locked in together in the honeymoon suite, we might as well use all the bells and whistles.”
Liam thought of the basket with lube and condoms and the slim vibrator and was quietly thankful that he was already pink from the hot water, or else there would have been no hiding his blush. It was bad enough that Ambrose was sitting across from him wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs in place of bathers, hair wet and tousled, cheeks pink, dimples on display. The last thing he needed to be thinking about was vibrators right now. And, specifically, the look on Ambrose’s face as he came with one inside him. No, Jesus, he definitely didn’t need to think about that.
Night had fallen, and it was dark outside. Liam couldn’t see anything through the floor-to-ceiling glass—perfect for hot tubbing in the freezing winter months, probably, but not so great, it turned out, if you needed to escape the cabin and couldn’t use the door—apart from their own hazy reflection. He supposed they could always break the glass, and there was a tiny emergency hammer stuck to the wall that must have been there for that reason, but he couldn’t imagine his parents would be impressed if he’d caused hundreds of dollars’ worth of damage when it wasn’t technically an emergency. And there were worse things than being stuck in a hot tub with Ambrose. Liam couldn’t hear anything over the bubbling of the hot tub and the sound of the rain thrumming on the tin roof. If he wanted to imagine it, the entire world might have stopped existing, except for him and Ambrose.
Ambrose leaned back, spreading his arms out along the side of the hot tub. His skin gleamed with moisture. A drop of water slid down the planes of his torso, between his pecs and the smattering of chest hair there, and Liam’s gaze followed it. Ambrose grinned, that same lazy grin that Liam was becoming addicted to. “This is so nice.”
“Yeah,” Liam said, his voice rasping. He didn’t know if Ambrose was even aware of the picture he was presenting, or if he knew it and was just being a tease. “You…you work out, right?”
Jesus. Could he sound more awkward if he tried?
Ambrose’s grin grew, and he bent his arm and flexed his biceps. “You like these guns?”
Liam liked the entire armoury, actually.
Ambrose wrinkled his nose. “I don’t really work out. Like, I lift weights about once a week because I have a mate who lets me sneak into the gym he works at when he’s on shift. But I run a bit too, and I used to surf.”
“Yeah, I remember thinking you must be a runner, to get away from people trying to punch you in the face,” Liam admitted.
“Ha!” Ambrose’s eyes danced. “I mean, it’s mostly for work. You have to have a look for TV, you know? Nobody cares if the leading guy on stage looks like a regular person, but TV? You’d better have abs if you wanna get a part in Home and Away. It’s bullshit, but that’s the way it is. I was a pretty scrawny kid growing up, so I’ve had to work on it a bit.” He shrugged. “Not that I’m booking any gigs right now, but I figure my chances are better if I look the part.”
Liam cleared his throat. “Well I think you look, um, fine. Muscular.” He glanced down at himself. “Better than I do, anyway.”
“Nah,” Ambrose said. He swiped his tongue quickly along his bottom lip as he dropped his gaze to Liam’s chest. “You’re tall. Little bit lanky. Face like an angel. It’s fucking hot.”
