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What kind of weirdo preferred mornings?
Still, it meant Liam had been able to arrange to catch up with Kelly before class. He hadn’t been able to get her and her awful date out of his mind, and the more he thought about it, the more worried he was for her. That date had hoisted so many red flags that it had looked like a…well, a convention for something with red flags. Liam wasn’t sure what, but that wasn’t important right now. The important thing was that Kelly was his friend, and he wasn’t going to just stand by and watch as she got taken advantage of by someone who was obviously bad news.
He absently folded and unfolded the pamphlets he was holding, which he’d picked up this morning from student services. He wasn’t sure how involved with the arsehole Kelly was, but obviously involved enough that she’d introduced him to her parents, which, now he thought about it, was weird, because even Greg hadn’t been granted that honour as far as he knew, and Greg was decent. Sure, his band hadn’t exactly made it, and he was currently working at The Reject Shop and couch-surfing, but he was still streets ahead of Mr. “I’ve-done-porn-wanna-see?”
He flicked through the pamphlets again.
Coercive Control—what is it?
Relationship Red Flags
Are you a victim of Emotional Abuse? Know the signs.
He winced at the titles, but he guessed subtlety wasn’t the point of this. He tucked them into his back pocket and headed across the carpark towards the campus coffee shop, praying that Kelly wouldn’t take what he had to say badly.
Kelly stared at the pamphlets spread across the table in front of her, brow furrowed. “What—what are you saying? Don’t you like Ambrose?”
Liam bit his lip. He’d planned to ease into this, but… “Not really, no. Honestly? I don’t know what you see in him. He’s an arsehole. He insulted you, tried to scam your dad and was rude as fuck. He’s a dick.”
“Ambrose just has a big personality,” Kelly said, spine straightening as she squared her shoulders. “He said my friends wouldn’t understand what I saw in him, because their consciousness isn’t evolved enough to appreciate his inherent greatness, but that I should ignore what anyone else says because he knows best.”
“Inherent greatness?” Liam sputtered. “He offered to show your mum porn! In the middle of a restaurant!”
“Ambrose says that social niceties are just artificial constructs to restrict our ability to be our authentic selves,” Kelly said.
“Porn! In a restaurant!” Liam reiterated. “That’s not being his authentic self, unless his authentic self is a giant wanker. And anyway, that’s not what I’m worried about. It’s the way he’s a controlling jerk and a con artist. I mean, he completely overrode your wishes. Water and a salad for dinner, Kell? Since when?”
Kelly’s face fell. “Ambrose says he knows what’s best,” she said quietly, and she dropped her gaze to the pamphlets in front of her. “Do you really think he’s not good for me?” Her voice was small, and Liam felt bad, but he reminded himself that it was better that Kelly faced up to this now, and not in six months’ time when this guy had weaselled his way into her life.
“He’s really not, Kell.”
Kelly’s head remained bowed, and she covered his face with her hands, and her shoulders started to shake, and oh fuck, was she crying? Liam wasn’t good with crying—or any sort of emotional distress, really. He cast a glance about wildly, not sure what he was looking for—the patron saint of crying women, perhaps—and saw Greg walking in the door. “Greg!” he called out, waving his arm and signalling for help as desperately as any swimmer who’d ever gotten caught in a rip at Bondi.
Greg saw him and came bounding over, sliding into the chair next to Kelly and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He leaned in and said quietly, “I think you broke him, Kell.”
Kelly lifted her head, and it was then that Liam saw that she wasn’t crying—she was laughing, body shaking as she finally let out her repressed cackles. He looked between her and Greg, whose arm was now wrapped around her in a distinctly boyfriend-shaped manner. Liam wanted to ask what the fuck was going on, but all that came out was a slightly shell-shocked “What?”
Kelly flapped a hand at him as she cackled for a bit longer, until finally, still giggling, she slapped Greg’s arm and shoved at the pamphlets on the table. “You want to rescue me from the big bad boyfriend!” She started giggling even harder.
Greg rolled his eyes and nudged her. “Breathe, babe.”
Kelly did. Then, wiping her eyes with a napkin and smearing her mascara, she turned a bright smile on Liam. “I knew my parents mightn’t approve of Greg, what with the whole”—she gestured at Greg’s long hair and eyeliner look—“musician thing. But I figured, what if they thought I was dating someone really, really terrible first?”
Liam blinked. “Wait, so you got some rando to pretend to be awful?”
“Not some rando,” Kelly said, grin widening and showing off her slightly crooked eyetooth. “Ambrose is an arsehole for hire. He makes a living off going on dates and being awful.”
“Well, he’s pretty bloody good at it,” Liam said, remembering how long it had taken him to clean up the mess after the tablecloth debacle. “Are you sure he’s not an actual arsehole?”
Greg laughed. “Nah. He’s a good guy. Theatre kid—he was in some of my vocal workshops before I dropped out. I dunno know how he came up with the idea, but he has this side hustle where he goes on dates and is just generally terrible. So now, when Kell’s parents are back in town in a month, and I turn up for dinner instead of him, they’ll fucking love me.”
“Oh yeah, they hate him,” Kelly confirmed. “My dad gave me a long talk last night about the choices I’m making, and I promised to think about it, so they’ll just be relieved I’m not dating an ex-porn star who expects me to support him.”
Liam thought about his own parents and how invested they were in his love life. “That’s actually genius,” he said.
“Right?” Kelly agreed.
“How much does he charge, anyway?” Liam asked, more out of idle curiosity than anything else. Surely the guy couldn’t really make a living out of bad dates…could he?
