AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Liam got a slightly anxious, haunted expression on his face the moment it was over. Ambrose scraped up enough energy to get out of bed and toss him a towel for clean up, then went and grabbed the bag of sandwiches from the fridge. He came back and climbed onto the bed beside Liam, tugging the doona up to cover them both. Then he grabbed the TV remote control and waved it in Liam’s face. “Movie marathon?”
Liam showed him a tentative smile. “Okay.”
Ambrose liked Liam too much to spook him now. “You know what the best thing about being my own boss is?”
“What?” Liam asked curiously, unwrapping a sandwich.
“I get to change the rules if I want,” Ambrose said. “Remember that time I said no handies or gobbies? I changed my mind.”
“Well, it wasn’t technically a handy,” Liam said. His gaze dropped to Ambrose’s mouth. “And it definitely wasn’t a gobby.”
“True,” Ambrose agreed. “It was dirty grinding, if anything, with a happy ending thrown in. Totally allowed.”
Liam’s mouth quirked. “If you say so.”
Ambrose’s heart skipped a beat. He’d wondered briefly if Liam wanted this to be more, but maybe it was a case of Liam just having an itch to scratch, a one and done kind of thing. He waited for Liam to say something, anything, to indicate he was interested in a repeat, but the silence was deafening.
Ambrose curled in on himself. He’d hoped they were on the same page, but it seemed that wasn’t the case after all. And now he was left to deal with the fact that some time in the past couple of days he’d started to crush on Liam Connelly. Worse, he’d started to get invested in him. And now Liam didn’t feel the same.
“Have we messed things up?” he asked. “I mean, this”—he waved a hand between them—“wasn’t meant to happen.”
Liam chewed his lip and stared at the TV screen for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze to his lap. “Maybe we could just chalk it up to, um, the heat of the moment, if you want?”
Ambrose’s chest clenched, but he hadn’t run up a HECS debt studying drama without learning at least basic acting skills, so he forced a smile onto his face and said, “Sure thing. What happens in the cabin stays in the cabin, right?”
“Right,” Liam said. But he didn’t look as relieved as Ambrose had thought he would, and Ambrose wondered what he was missing. Liam was the quiet sort, he suddenly remembered. Not the sort to push. Maybe he was interested but didn’t know how to ask. So just maybe, Ambrose was going to have to be the one to offer.
“Listen,” Ambrose said, “I know you paid for a bad boyfriend, and nothing that happens here has to change that. I’m not gonna come over all touchy feely in front of your parents just because we both got off together, okay?”
Liam’s mouth pushed into a thin line, and he nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“But,” Ambrose said, and didn’t miss the way Liam’s expression shifted from being closed off into something that was almost hopeful, which made him slightly more confident that he was reading this right. His stomach clenched with nerves, regardless. “But if you wanted to hang out again once we’re back in Sydney, that would be cool too.”
Liam turned his head to gaze at him, his brown eyes wide. “Okay,” Liam said. “I wouldn’t mind, once we’re back in Sydney, hanging out with you again. Like this.”
“Cool,” Ambrose said. He wasn’t sure where they stood, exactly, but maybe Liam didn’t know either, and maybe that was okay. It seemed like something they could try to figure out together, once this weekend was over with.
Ambrose fell asleep halfway through the movie and awoke some time later in the darkness surrounded by sandwich wrappings and crumbs. At first he wasn’t sure what had woken him, then he became aware that Liam, lying on his side next to him, was watching him in the gloom.
Outside, the rain was still coming down.
“Hey,” Ambrose said softly.
“Hey,” Liam whispered back.
“Come here,” Ambrose said. Liam shifted closer, and Ambrose threaded their fingers together. “This is nice.”
It was dark and cool, and the rain on the roof made him want to sleep for days. And if he could sleep snuggled up with Liam, that would be even better. He rested their clasped hands on the pillow between their faces.
“I don’t do this,” he said. “I’ve been on hundreds of fake dates in the past year, and never a real one. My sister says I’m messed up. She says Mum messed us both up in different ways. She’s probably right. But I don’t feel messed up.”
Liam didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look away either.
“Isadora says I have trust issues,” Ambrose said, “and I don’t let anyone close. She’s an accountant, by the way, not a therapist, but she reads a lot of self-help books. She diagnosed Mum with narcissism after watching one episode of Doctor Oz. So, you know, she’s not qualified at all, but maybe she’s not totally wrong either.”
Liam’s brow creased. “Is there an official diagnosis?”
“There are a few,” Ambrose said. “Borderline personality disorder seems to be the favourite. But Mum also did way too much coke back in the day, and she drinks too much these days, so who knows? She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her. It’s everyone else who’s the problem.”
