Chapter Ten

 

 

“BRO-JAK IS back in town. Did you know, Shane?”

Vinnie’s question was smoothly interjected in our conversation on Sunday. The Hawks had lost the previous night against Aaron’s beloved Eagles, and he was celebrating.

I narrowed my eyes as I surveyed Vinnie across the room. He knew something.

“Yes, I knew,” I said, unwilling to be caught out on that lie. “It means I lost the betting at work. You said ten days. It was twelve.”

Vinnie glared back at me. “You asked me how many days until he came back. If I recall you asked that question on a Monday. He came home on a Friday. That’s eleven days. I was close. I didn’t know you were counting from day of his injury.”

I was waiting for my turn on Mario Kart Wii. Kee was racing John. We were all sitting around, idly chatting and having a few drinks.

“He flew in on Friday night,” Vinnie said to no one in particular, although I knew he was aiming the comment at me. “Got picked up at the airport. Look.”

He strolled over to me and thrust his mobile in my face. There was a photo on it from some guy’s Instagram—a photo of Ambrose at the airport, leaning on his crutches, his head down and a look of pain on his face. You couldn’t see my face, but that was my arm and a glimpse of the back of my head.

“See this here?” Vinnie said pointing to my arm in the photo. “That looks like the jumper you sometimes wear.”

“Huh,” I said with fake disbelief. “It is the jumper I sometimes wear.” The exact one.

Kee roared as he lost against John and threw down his controller. “Bloody hell. Goddamn points. Who’s up?”

I immediately stood and forced Vinnie to get out of my way so I could take Kee’s spot in front of the TV. I wasn’t ready to have that conversation with Vinnie.

During the next week, I hid myself away in a book and ignored the outside world until Mum messaged me and told me we were going to Tracy’s on Thursday night. I considered faking illness, but Tracy’s cooking overcame my dread of facing Ambrose.

Tracy opened the door to me and gave a grateful sigh.

“God. Thank you for coming, Shane. Maybe you can do something with him. He’s in a terrible mood.”

“Oh. What happened?”

Tracy shrugged. “I have no idea. He’s just moody and stays in his room a lot.”

That didn’t sound like Ambrose. I girded my loins and braved the lion in his den. Fine, so I held my breath and knocked on his bedroom door. I’m a Hufflepuff, not a Gryffindor.

“Yeah?” Ambrose called, so I opened the door.

The room was messy—not unexpected. Ambrose was never the neatest person, and he was carrying an injury. I presumed picking up socks off the floor wasn’t the easiest when you had crutches. Ambrose was lying in bed, tapping away on his phone while his leg was propped up on a couple of pillows. It looked like he hadn’t shaved or showered for a week.

“Oh. It’s you.”

I stopped myself from sighing—only because I don’t like confrontation. I could see why his mother said he was in a mood.

“Hey,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “What have you been doing?” I kicked aside some clothes as I made my way into the room. Inside it was even worse. There were empty water bottles on the floor, dirty plates stacked on his bedside table, and I could see the sheet from the bed was balled up in the corner, which meant it wasn’t on the bed.

“As you see,” he said and went back to whatever he was doing on the phone.

“What? Playing Sim City?” I sniped.

He shrugged. “It’s not like I have any friends who came to visit me. And I can’t drive and go and see them.”

Ah. I wondered if he meant me. “I have a job, you know. I bet your other friends do too. I’m sure they’ll be around over the weekend. Have you let them know you’re back in town?”

He didn’t answer, and I reminded myself that Ambrose never took sickness or inactivity well. I bent down and scooped the dirty clothes off the floor and took them to the hamper in the bathroom. Then I picked up the plates and as many empty bottles as I could balance.

“You don’t have to,” he said with a moody look in my direction.

I arched an eyebrow. “I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Tracy.”

It was satisfying to see a modicum of guilt cross his face as I walked out. My mother was putting down her handbag as I entered the kitchen. We greeted each other as Tracy relieved me of the plates and put them in the dishwasher while I screwed the lids off the water bottles to prepare them for the recycle bin.

“Where’s Ambrose?” Mum asked.

“Being a shit,” Tracy answered blithely.

“Let’s rename him Morose,” I said conspiringly.

“Come, now,” Mum said, ever the pacifist.

I gave her a quick hug. “I’ll clean him up and bring him out for you to talk to.”

Tracy gave me look. “Dinner will be ready in thirty.”

Not being ready for dinner was one of the ultimate sins with her. “No probs,” I said affably.

Back in Ambrose’s room, the morose one hadn’t moved. I whizzed around his room and picked up more clothes. Then I leaned over him and gave a huge sniff.

“You stink,” I declared.

“Piss off,” he said without rancor. I remembered all the days he’d tackled me to the bed. Well, he was injured, so little old Shane had the advantage. I made sure my path to the door was clear. Then I ran at him, snatched the phone, and ran out the door.

“Hey!” he roared after me. With the phone safely stashed in the nearby bathroom, I returned to the room to see him sitting up on the edge of the bed with a fierce scowl on his face. “Give it back.”

“No. Mum’s here, and she wants to talk to you, but you need to smell better than you do now.”

“I’m sure she’s smelled worse.”

I approached the wounded beast cautiously. “Give me your shirt.”

“No.”

I held out my hand.

His face got a tight pinch to it. “Oh, sure. Now you want me naked.”

I wasn’t going to go near that inflammatory comment, so I stood with my hand out. He glared ineffectually for nearly ten seconds and then pulled the shirt over his head and passed it to me. I told myself not to look.

Shane the rebel.

I held the shirt to my nose and didn’t even have to breathe deeply for the odor to hit. “Shit, Ambrose. When was the last time you showered?”

Even his shrug was halfhearted. I stepped closer and leaned down. Yep. He definitely stank. It was so bad my arousal at his nakedness shriveled away. I sighed and picked up his crutches from the floor. He ignored me as I held them out.

“You’re showering,” I said firmly. “My mother is here and wants to talk to you. Even if you can treat your own mother with disdain and swear at your oldest friend, you can’t do that to my mother.”

The heat of his glare didn’t lessen, although I’m sure he knew I was right. Where Tracy was a great mum and you felt you could tell her anything, my mother had an air about her. I struggled to put a finger on it. Maybe fifty years ago you would’ve called her ladylike. She wasn’t cold, you just tended to mind your manners and be on your best behavior around her. No one ever wondered why I was such a bookworm and neat freak when they met my mother. In fact they probably wondered why I hadn’t been disinfected to death.

Sometimes I wondered how she ever got pregnant. I couldn’t imagine my mother being kinky with some strange guy.

Ambrose huffed loudly and pushed himself to his feet. He took the offered crutches from me, and I stepped aside as he moved awkwardly into the nearby bathroom. There was a clatter, so I went to make sure he was okay.

“I’m fine. Just dropped the crutch.”

I congratulated myself on not rubbing at my face to show my frustration. Ambrose was dressed in nothing but shorts, holding on to the vanity with one hand and a crutch with another.

“Here. Give them to me,” I muttered as I took them from him and propped them up against the far wall. He tugged at his clothes, and they dropped to the floor. Without attempting to pick them up, Ambrose limped to the shower, opened the door, and reached in to turn on the water.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” I muttered.

“Nothing you haven’t seen before,” he said without looking over his shoulder.

“I mean leaving your clothes on the floor. I don’t have a problem with the nudity. The stink and the bad temper don’t make you attractive.”

I watched as he looked for something to hold on to as he navigated the step into the shower. I winced as the only thing he had was the glass shower door. But the glass held, and Ambrose got in. I scooped up his clothes from the floor—they were a trip hazard to him getting out—and turned to switch on the exhaust fan.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said and left.

In the kitchen Mum and Tracy were chatting. They looked up as I passed.

“Is that the shower?” Tracy asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I wouldn’t go down there for a bit. Navigating doors isn’t working for Ambrose, so we’re doing nudist stuff.”

They both laughed, and I headed outside, snagged a plastic chair from the patio, and took it back to Ambrose.

He looked up with surprise etched on his face as I returned.

“What’s that for?”

“You to hang on to.”

Tracy’s new house was plenty luxurious. The shower was big enough for a party, but I didn’t need thoughts like that, so I snatched open the door, shoved the chair in with its back to Ambrose, and got out of there.

“Thanks.”

Back in his room, I opened the window to let in some air and then stared at myself in the mirror. I was an Ambrose-aholic who was teetering on the edge of falling back into my addiction. I needed to move on. I was near thirty and not even close to having a permanent relationship. I hadn’t lied to Ambrose when I said I was watching my weight. Too many lazy days spent reading and not enough exercise, combined with poor food choices, had given me a few more kilos than I wanted. I’d heard some cruel things about online and app dating that meant my partner choices would be restricted when it came to right-swiping, unless I looked like… well, like Ambrose.

Damn those muscles.

“Shane?”

I jumped guiltily and hurried to find out what Ambrose needed.

“Yeah?” I stuck my head back in the bathroom.

“Can you get me a towel?”

“Can you give me a please?” I sniped back. I was his oldest friend, but that didn’t mean he could get away without me teasing.

“Please…,” he said, and I moved to the cupboard to find a fresh towel. But he couldn’t let it go. He had to follow up. “… don’t be such an arse.”

One part of me was happy. It sounded like the old Ambrose was coming back. The depressed Ambrose was a stranger to me. I pulled out a towel and noticed his phone sitting next to the basin. I picked it up. Would it still have the same passcode? I typed in seven-four-two-six.

“What are you doing?” Ambrose demanded.

It let me in, so I tapped the camera function, held it up, and focused on Ambrose through the shower glass.

“Hey,” he shouted and turned his back. I snapped a pic. It wasn’t very good—it was too steamy to see anything.

“Now, do you have an Instagram?” I pretended to muse aloud.

“Shane,” he implored me.

“Maybe a group email?”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” he said.

I tapped a few more times and put the phone down as he turned off the shower.

“It’s a photo to remind you that you were once clean, because, in your current mood, I’m not sure when it will happen again.” It was a big hint. I moved forward and opened the door to the stall. “Pass me the chair.”

I positioned it slightly outside the glass so he could grip it for balance as he stepped out. Then I placed my knee on it to give it weight so it wouldn’t move.

“What did you do with the photo?” he asked grumpily as he used the chair. From there, he could reach the vanity, and he hopped forward and leaned against it. Then I passed him the towel.

“I set it as your wallpaper,” I told him with a grin.

“Arsehole.”

“Now, now,” I chided.

Once Ambrose was dry and had navigated his way to the bedroom, I pulled out clothes for him to wear and helped him put his underwear and pants on. He thanked me by saying, “You’ll make someone a great wife one day.”

“You’d better believe it,” I said, refusing to be drawn into a fight. “Now all I need is the rich husband who’ll keep me lush with books.”

Ambrose straightened on the bed. He seemed to remember something at my comment. “Oh yeah, that reminds me. I found your present.”

“What present?”

“Your birthday present. You didn’t think I had forgotten it, did you?”

I was shocked. My birthday had been a month before, when we weren’t talking. “You didn’t have to buy me a present.”

“Nevertheless I did. Now go and look in that wardrobe. It’s in a black bag at the bottom.”

I wasn’t mature enough that the thought of a present didn’t excite me. So I dove in, found the bag, and bounced down on the bed beside Ambrose to open it. Ambrose did get me the best presents.

I pulled a package out. It was wrapped professionally in gold paper, which I unceremoniously ripped as I dashed to find what my gift was. And then suddenly I was looking at a Funko Pop figure of Thorin Oakenshield.

“Holy shit, Ambrose. This one’s worth over a hundred dollars.”

A blush graced his cheeks. “I know.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. How did he know? I turned the box over and over in my hand. The last time I went to look for this figure, people were paying around $190 for it.

“Open your other present,” he said gruffly, and I put my hand back in the bag to pull out another package. It was square and flat. I ripped the paper off that one too. Then I stared.

“Is it authentic?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t have any sort of certification, but I checked out the seller. They’re a big Rings fan and were selling some of their stuff.”

It was a framed photo of Legolas, like the poster they give out at movie showings. Only the size of a piece of paper, and through the glass I could see the original poster had a few rips, which would usually turn a collector away. But this poster had something else. In the middle of the paper, written with black marker, there was a large O and some swirls. Was it personally signed by Orlando Bloom?

I threw myself at Ambrose, and we fell on the bed.

“Thank you,” I squeezed out.

He wrapped both arms around me, and we lay on the bed and hugged for long minutes.