Chapter Sixteen

IT WAS impossible for him not to see me, since he was in my house, tripping me up. He made us breakfast and ended up staying at my house all day. I asked him several times if he wanted me to take him somewhere or take him home, but he replied lightly that he was fine and just wanted to hang around.

I did the mundane chores, like washing and vacuuming, and surprisingly, he didn’t complain. He sat nearby and chatted with me or got in my way like when I was trying to clean the bathroom, which caused me to banish him from the room. So he lay down at the doorway and asked me my opinion about the effects of growing up without a father.

Then he asked me what I was reading. By the time I had completed my weekend chores, he was caught up on the book I was halfway through. When I asked him for the fifth time whether he wanted me to drive him somewhere, he told me to disappear and finish the book I had been reading the night before.

“Really?” I asked with a frown.

“Sure. Go on. It’s what you would’ve been doing if I weren’t here, right?”

Duh.

“But what are you going to do?”

“Rest, recover—the things the doctor told me to do. I might watch some TV or make lunch or something.”

Positive he was playing some sort of trick on me, I hesitated. “Might? Or will?”

Ambrose stepped forward and kissed me on the mouth. I was stunned. He’d never kissed me outside the bubble of our sexual actions. “Go. Go to bed and read. I’m fine. Please, Shane?”

I lay on the bed and opened the book, still half listening to movement out in the living area. I heard the fridge door open and the sound of Ambrose pouring himself a drink. Then a drawer opened, and I heard Ambrose rattling around in my cutlery.

“Are you okay?” I called out.

“Fine. Just cutting up an apple. Do you want one?”

“No.”

“Then go back to your reading.”

I muttered some bad stuff under my breath and focused on the words again. In the distance I could hear a plane going over and a dog barking. In the kitchen I heard the sound of Ambrose slicing an apple. But then the words sucked me in, and all the sounds around me muted as I concentrated on the story. The occasional sounds told me Ambrose was still in my house, but I ignored them as I read. I was deep in the story when my name roused me to the real world.

“Shane?”

I blinked a couple of times and turned to see Ambrose standing in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Do you have any superglue?”

My sluggish brain worked hard to switch tracks and work it out. “Umm… third drawer in the kitchen?”

“I looked there. Nothing.”

“Oh.” I thought about it. “The laundry cupboard? Top shelf, right at the back in the white basket.”

He smiled. “Great. Thanks.”

I had nodded my understanding and turned back to the book when a belated thought hit me. “Ambrose?” I called after his retreating back. “What do you need superglue for?”

“I’m gluing all your plates to your kitchen counter as a prank.”

Bastard. I weighed up the options. I could get up and see what he was really doing, or I could finish reading my book and then work out if I needed to panic.

Three chapters later I decided it was time for a break. I needed coffee, so I made for the kitchen and turned on the kettle. Thankfully, there were no plates glued to the kitchen counter.

Ambrose wasn’t in the living area or the kitchen. I peered into the laundry—nothing there either. I turned around and looked at the bathroom. The door was wide open, and I could see the toilet. I’m not sure if it’s a great house design when you can see the toilet from the kitchen, but as I lived alone, it was never an issue. It wasn’t an issue then, because the bathroom was in darkness and no one was using it. I opened the back door and looked up and down the length of the backyard. There had been a shower of rain that I hadn’t heard while I was reading, evidenced by the wet path and grass… but no Ambrose.

Had he left?

There was only one other room in the house. I pushed opened the door of the second bedroom and strained to look over the pile of stuff. Ambrose was sitting on the floor, his leg stretched out to the side, still in its black support while he screwed in the wheels on my misassembled filing cabinet. He had obviously disassembled it and then figured out how to put it together correctly.

“Hey,” I said softly, to not startle him.

He looked up. “Ta-dah.” Proudly he waved a hand over the cabinet that was lying on its side as he worked on the last bit. “What do you think?”

“I think I want to marry you.”

It wasn’t a lie.

“Nope,” he said with a laugh. “First you have to get down on one knee, then you need to present me with a ring, and then I’ll think about it.”

I chuckled like he meant me to. “But thanks, Ambrose. That looks great. I can’t believe you fixed it.”

“Not just a pretty face,” he said with a grin.

“Do you want a coffee?” I offered.

I made it while he finished putting the wheels on, and then I stood the cabinet upright for him and checked it over. It was perfect. I pushed aside some boxes and wiggled it over until it stood against the wall. I would have no more reason for dodging my filing.

“What about the desk?” Ambrose asked.

“What desk?”

“The one that’s still in the box over there.”

I turned and remembered the great idea I’d had to make the room into a proper study. I shrugged. “Obviously I’m pretty crap at flat packs.”

“Can I do it?” he asked with excitement.

“Sure.”

“Great. I can do that tomorrow, then.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Tomorrow?” He was still planning on being there tomorrow?

“Yep. Because now you’ve finished your reading, I need you to take me to the shops. I remembered I need some more pain pills, and I want to look at some new pants.”

I recalled the stack of pain tablets he’d had the day he arrived home. “You had tons of pain pills. You can’t have taken all of them.”

Thankfully he shook his head. “Nah. I only need the mild ones. I’m out. And more magnesium. And I want to look at some other supplements.”

I held my tongue. He was in charge of his own body. We drove to the shop. Ambrose wore a hat and sunglasses to keep from being recognized, but it didn’t always work. I stood nearby and carried the shopping bags, and I don’t think anyone even glanced at me.

Ambrose insisted on cooking that night, to make up for me doing chauffeur and bellboy duty, as he jokingly told me. So we ended up together in the kitchen. He couldn’t move around much due to his knee, and what was I supposed to do—stand and watch him work?

I cleared off the table, and we sat and talked over everything—politics, weather, team forms and chances of making the finals, my lack of career goals, whether Tracy needed a boyfriend, and even Daniel’s new baby.

I told him all about my friends—how Jamie had met Liam on his morning commute and how the romance had played out slowly as Liam made his way out of the closet, and then how Liam’s best friend, Aaron, had fallen in love with Vinnie.

“So now we all go to Aaron and Vinnie’s house every Sunday. First we watch Liam’s brother John play football, and then we all head back for lunch.”

“Every Sunday?” he asked. I nodded. “So, what? Eight of you?”

“Nine guys, including me. The three couples—Jamie and Liam, Vinnie and Aaron, and Kee and Tate. Then there’s Liam’s brother John and me and Hiram. I don’t know if you remember me talking about Hiram? We used to date back, oh—” I stopped and had to count. “—must be five years now.”

Ambrose nodded. “I think I remember.”

I didn’t know what else to say. I kept eating until I finished the meal. Then suddenly Ambrose said, “I want to thank you for today. It was great.”

I was shocked. “It was? We didn’t do anything.”

He stared at his plate. “I know. That’s what I liked. It was just us hanging out. Doing normal stuff, you know?”

“You don’t hang out and do normal stuff in Melbourne?”

His head waggled a little bit, an indication of agreement and disagreement at the same time. “Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes I hang with a couple of mates. But you’re… restful. I don’t have to be someone different with you.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but I kept my mouth shut. Ambrose looked sad and finally said in the quiet, “Daniel’s got a new baby, and it’s always noisy at his house—a toddler, a baby, and his wife. If I’m hanging with Sean, he always wants to discuss the game. If the three of us head to a pub, there’s people around, and they want photos and autographs. Even when I’m training, it’s always noisy.”

I was confused. “But you have tons of friends. I see you on social media, tagged with lots of women and out with people.”

His head came up, and he looked me dead in the eye. “But not simply shopping. Not simply hanging around the house putting together IKEA furniture.”

My expression turned to a knowing look. “Oh, I see. You just want me for my flat packs.”

He laughed and reached out to put a hand on my knee. “No. I want you for so much more than that.”

I leaned forward. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

He leaned forward too, so we were inches apart. My mouth dried as I looked at his firm lips. I could already taste them.

“I also want you for your car.”

It took a few seconds, but then I snorted and leaned the rest of the way forward and kissed him soundly. It was the first time I’d done that. In all our time together, I’d never been the one to kiss him first. “You wanton thing, buttering me up merely for the lifts I can give you.”

I went to pull away and pick up the plates, but he grabbed my head and pulled me in for another kiss. “If I butter you up more, can I persuade you to do other things too?”

Yes.

And he didn’t even need the buttering. I pretended to play along. “Perhaps. Like what?”

He kissed me again, that time longer. I got all sorts of ideas from the kiss, and I hardened in my pants. We were leaning awkwardly across the corner of the table, over the remains of our shared meal, and I felt like shoving all the plates to the side and offering myself up right there on the wooden surface.

The need for sexual intimacy between us had been in the forefront of my mind the night before, but I hadn’t even thought about it all day. I was happy to just be with Ambrose. But it was roaring back, and from the way Ambrose kissed me, he felt the pull too.

“Like perhaps you go and have a shower and get all cleaned up while I do the dishes?”

Oh yes. Cleaned up would be good, because that would mean I could be ready for full sexual penetration. My dick was weeping at the thought.

“I can do that,” I said breathlessly between kisses. “What’s in it for me, though?”

Ambrose scooted to the edge of his chair and reached for my crotch. He found what he was looking for, and I groaned as my dick got even harder.

“If you get all cleaned up for me, I’ll give you an autographed poster of me you can put on your wall.”

It broke the spell, and I threw my head back and laughed. Ambrose grinned. “So I get a poster of the second sexiest guy in the AFL,” I teased. “But what do you get in return?”

“You.”

My smile died. “I dunno if that’s such a good trade.”

He continued to massage my dick. “I think it is. I’d take Shane over anything.”

“Anything?” I asked with a crook of my eyebrow. When a guy has your dick in his hand, you get a little cocky.

“Okay, almost anything.”

“You’d take Shane over the best-cooked T-bone steak?” I asked.

He pretended to think about it. “Yeah. Giving up that T-bone would be hard, but I’d still take Shane.”

“Over Sean and Daniel?” I asked. Surely he wouldn’t give up his best friends for a night in my bed.

“Absolutely.”

“Over Kendra?”

“Definitely over Kendra,” he said, still moving his hand on me.

“Over Hawthorn?”

He drew in a breath. “Yeah. You know what? I think I’d take Shane over Hawthorn.”

I was horrified. “Over the chance to play in the finals for the fifth time?”

Hawthorn had had an unprecedented run for the prior four years, making the finals every year and winning three in a row.

“Yep. Been there, done that.”

“What about winning the Brownlow Medal?” He wouldn’t give up the Brownlow for Shane, would he? Not the medal for the fairest and best in the AFL?

The hand on my dick froze. “Okay, you got me there. Although the Brownlow is only one night. I’d take you the other three hundred and sixty-four days.”

I melted. “Okay then.”