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He tried not to think of his mum’s entryway, lined with dusty framed front covers of TV Week and New Idea, and of just how personally he knew how the odds were stacked against him. He’d know, wouldn’t he, when it was time to put the dream to bed? He wasn’t his mum. He’d know.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked softly, his brow creased in concern.
“Yeah, fine,” Ambrose said. His phone rang and gave him a reason to look away. He glanced at the screen. It was a number he didn’t know. “Hello?”
There was silence for a moment and the sound of someone breathing. Just when Ambrose was about to end the call, a voice that was almost familiar said, “Um, is this Bad Boyfriend?”
Chapter Four
Liam
On Wednesday morning, Liam lurked anxiously outside the purple “Institute of Rheumatology and Orthopaedics” sign on Missenden Road. It was right next door to the Alfred Hotel, and across the road from two of Sydney University’s oldest and most prestigious residential colleges. The colleges seemed to come from an entirely different era, complete with spires and church-like arched leadlight windows, and Liam couldn’t shake the idea that they were probably haunted by the ghosts of long-dead university students, wailing and gnashing their teeth as they perpetually crammed for finals.
Next door at the Alfred, there was a line of people waiting for coffee and breakfast at Freddie’s. Liam sat down on the edge of a garden bed and scrolled through the messages on his phone just for something to do, so he didn’t look like a weirdo just standing there. A moment later a shadow fell across him, and he looked up to see the dickhead from the other night at Bayside standing in there, a coffee in one hand, a breakfast roll in the other, and a grin on his face that, even knowing what he now knew, Liam kind of wanted to punch off him.
“Hi, I’m Ambrose,” said Ambrose. His grin ratcheted up a few degrees. “I’d shake your hand, but…” He sat down next to Liam. “Uh, so this is weird, right? How much do you still want to smack me in the head?”
Liam snorted. “God. So much. You were…you were awful.”
“Thanks,” Ambrose said brightly. He bit into his breakfast roll and moaned like it was a religious experience. Or a sexual one. Or one that met uncomfortably in the middle. “This is so good. Do you want to get anything?”
“No, I’m good.”
Ambrose balanced his coffee carefully in the garden bed and tackled his roll with both hands, while Liam tried very hard not to notice the way his tongue darted out to chase the stray spots of sauce as he ate. If Ambrose picked up on him trying hard not to stare, he didn’t comment.
“So,” he said, “you need a date?”
Liam jolted slightly. “Um, yeah. For this Saturday.” He flushed. “My parents are kind of hung up on me being single, and my mum was threatening to set me up with someone unless I can prove to her that I can actually find a date myself.” He wrinkled his nose and looked away. “It’s, um, well, it’s how they are.”
“Mate, overbearing parents are my wheelhouse,” Ambrose said. “No judgement. So how awful do you want me to be?”
“Oh, um…here’s the thing. I might have, um, lied and told Mum I met someone, and now she wants me to bring them to dinner.”
Ambrose raised his eyebrows. “Wait, you don’t want a bad boyfriend, do you? You want a nice boyfriend.”
“Well, yeah,” Liam said. “I think so. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” Ambrose said. “It’ll make a nice change. Hey, maybe I can even eat dessert for once instead of getting asked to leave!”
Liam narrowed his eyes at Ambrose’s grin. “It took me an hour to clean the floor.”
“Sorry,” Ambrose said, biting his bottom lip. His eyes still danced though. “Just so you know, that was supposed to work.”
“It never works!”
Ambrose knocked him with his shoulder. “I practised at home! It worked there!”
Liam laughed, despite himself. “Sure it did.”
“It did! Though I can’t argue that failure on the night didn’t work out better for Kelly.” Ambrose shoved more of the breakfast roll into his mouth. “Anyway,” he said around a mouthful, “just to be clear up front, I will hold your hand and kiss you if you want to give off that kind of PDA-loving couples vibe, but there’s no sex. Okay?”
Liam jolted again. “Sure, of course. I didn’t think there would be!”
“Because if that’s your thing, I can point you towards Craigslist,” Ambrose said frankly, “but I don’t do it myself.”
“No, I get it,” Liam said, swallowing. “No sex.”
“Or handies or gobbies,” Ambrose added.
