Chapter Eight

THE OFFICER who approached the car was friendly enough. He asked me straight off the bat if I’d been drinking.

“No, sir,” I replied honestly. “I know I ran up that curb, but it wasn’t from being drunk. Ambrose told me something wild and I lost my concentration for a moment.”

The policeman flicked the torchlight on my passenger and stopped. “Bro-Jak?”

Ambrose gave a half wave.

“I’ve just picked him up from the airport. He’s flown home to Perth for recovery,” I told the policeman earnestly. “We’re on our way home now. He’s recently had a knee operation and needs to rest. Can’t injure Hawthorn’s star forward, can we? So definitely no drinking.”

Okay. Fine. I was milking the situation for all it was worth. I didn’t expect it to work. Not really.

The officer laughed. “There would be plenty of people upset if Bro-Jak were broken further.”

He produced a breathalyzer machine and tested me, which of course read zero. Then he took my license from me and said he needed to check my details back in his car.

The moment he walked away, Ambrose burst out, “Bastard. Just throw me under a bus. Trying to use the fame card to get out of a ticket.”

I was unrepentant. “Shut up,” I hissed. “I don’t want to pay a fine. There’s rumors about a special hardback copy of The Lord of the Rings trilogy coming out, with maps decorated with real gold leafing. I’m saving my money.”

Ambrose sat back in the seat and grumbled. “You better not offer him my autograph. That’s too embarrassing.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t worry. I can do a passable imitation. I’ll tell him you’ll sign a football for him, then I’ll do it and send it to the police station. He’ll never know it’s not authentic.”

With Ambrose suitably shocked to silence with my glib lie, the officer returned and handed me back my license… and a warning. No ticket. I stuttered out my thanks as Ambrose did a facsimile of a smile and took the officer’s good wishes for his speedy recovery.

We watched as the police car flipped a neat U-turn, and I waited for the car to disappear onto the main road before I followed suit.

We were five minutes down the road when Ambrose asked, “Can you really imitate my autograph?”

I answered with, “Are you really thinking that you’ll never play footy again?”

It distracted him enough. “I’m old, Shane. Everything hurts these days.”

I didn’t make the mistake of taking my eyes off the road that time. “Oh, come on. The Ambrose I know plays through the pain and relishes the opportunity to do it. Football is his whole life. I used to tell him to do his homework because one day he’d be old and no longer able to play football and would need a real man’s job, but he would tell me that if he weren’t involved in football that would mean he was dead.”

“Things change, Shane.” His voice was almost whispering. “And the more they change, the more I appreciate the things I always thought I had. Priorities change. And sometimes you have to do risky things to get what you want.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but we were nearly at Tracy’s house. I turned off the main road and wound my way through the darkened streets.

“Quitting isn’t an option. Wasn’t that your motto?”

“I’m not quitting. I’m redefining,” Ambrose said, and there was a note of steel in his voice.

I indicated and pulled into the driveway. “Football is your life,” I said. I shut the car off and turned to him in the semidarkness. There was a dim glow from the streetlights.

Suddenly I was struck by his good looks. Yes, I’d always found him attractive, but somewhere in the past year he’d lost that last bit of boyishness and become a hardened man. Perhaps it was the new haircut. His curls had been cut ruthlessly short this season. Gone was the shaggy hair from the previous three seasons. He also had stubble, and not just from the last week since he’d been injured.

Although I didn’t think it was possible, he seemed to have widened too. He had more bulk, more muscle. The extra muscle would hamper his favored running style of football. Was that what Tracy had seen in his playing? A change from the quick forward we were used to seeing, to maybe the back half, where muscle was a requirement? Was Ambrose being slowly integrated into a different position on his team and it upset him?

Ambrose looked solemn. “There are things in my life apart from football.”

“More important than football?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’m prioritizing them for now, since football has to take a bit of a back seat.”

I frowned. “The first thing in your mind needs to be your recovery, and that’s paid for and implemented by football. And for the sake of football.” Ambrose loved footy. I knew that. I couldn’t picture him without it.

When he didn’t answer, I realized we were still sitting in the car. Ambrose needed his bed and to elevate that leg. I dashed around to his side and retrieved the crutches he’d stashed in the rear. Then I got the bags out of the boot while he made his way to the front door.

“Do you have your key?” he asked me. “Mine’s somewhere in my luggage.”

It was a sign of how firmly our lives were intertwined that I had a key to his mother’s house and knew the code for the security alarm. Ambrose’s room was at the back of the house, and the last time I had been in there, it had been occupied by Ambrose and Kendra. But this time, as I opened the door and turned on the light, the room was empty of any feminine frippery.

The décor was a combination of neutral creams and browns. There were a couple of pictures on the wall—two framed photos of Ambrose playing and an enlargement of a photograph of a beach cove that Ambrose had taken himself. I was with him that day.

Ambrose hobbled in behind me and flopped down on the bed with an audible sigh.

“Do you want something to eat?” I offered. “You know your mum will have something in the fridge if you want me to heat it up for you.”

“Nah,” he said without opening his eyes. “I just want to sleep.”

I realized that his body would be on Melbourne time. It was after one in the morning for him, and for a guy who was usually up to train at five each morning, he had to be tired.

“Okay.”

I went to leave the room, but Ambrose stopped me. “Can you stay with me a while?”

His eyes were black, and I could stare at them forever, but I knew I had no right and never would have. “Yeah. Your mum asked me to stay until she got home. Get some sleep. I’ll be out in the living room if you need me. Just yell.”

He didn’t blink. “No. I mean stay here with me.”

My eyes moved to the stretch of bed next to him. “Umm, Ambrose. I don’t think—”

“Just reading. Nothing else,” he quickly assured me. “I don’t want to be alone.”

He took my hesitation for a negative.

“Please? Come on, Shane. You’re only going to sit out there and read your book. How about you sit here and read your book instead? I swear I won’t talk. I’ll probably be asleep in five minutes.”

I gave him a hard stare. “How do you know I’ve brought a book with me to read?”

He chuckled. “You said something earlier to me about the Ambrose you know plays through the pain of injuries. That’s true. And it’s also true that the Shane I know never leaves home without a book to read.”

Damn. He had me there.

“Fine. I’ll be back in five minutes.” I said it in a petulant tone, as though reluctant, but I wasn’t.

Reading a book with Ambrose sleeping in the bed next to me? It was my dream come true.

IN THE time it took me to retrieve my bag from the car, lock the front door, and use the bathroom, Ambrose had changed into a T-shirt and boxers, turned the overhead light off but left on the reading lamp next to the bed, and snuggled under the covers.

I tiptoed into the room and sat gingerly on the bed to take off my shoes.

“Thanks,” Ambrose murmured.

“For what?”

“For picking me up. For staying with me. For caring.”

Ouch. That one stung a little. For the last three months, I’d done my darnedest not to care. I took the book out of my bag, placed it on the bedside table, and was about to climb on the mattress when Ambrose pushed the covers down. He was obviously expecting me to get in the bed. I hesitated again, but then I saw the exhaustion etched on his face. It was winter, and I would be warmer under the covers, so I slipped in and made myself comfortable sitting up by using two of the pillows. I glanced at Ambrose, who had his eyes closed again. He made a sleepy noise and rubbed his face on the pillow.

“Go to sleep,” I whispered. “I’ll watch over you.”

I found my bookmark and opened the page. Immediately I was lost to the words again, only half-aware of the occasional twitches Ambrose made in his sleep. After about forty minutes, my neck began to twinge at the reading position I’d held for so long. I swam back to consciousness and looked at my watch. Tracy would still be another thirty minutes away. Ambrose lay on his side, deep in sleep. I was cold, so slid farther under the covers. Surprisingly Ambrose frowned at my movement. He slid his hand out and touched my side. Then he seemed reassured by the fact I was still there and withdrew.

I went back to reading.

A quiet thump somewhere in the house made me pause and look up, wondering how long had passed since I last looked at the time. I tensed and waited for the sound to come again. Was Tracy home? Was it someone breaking in?

The footsteps in the hallway preceded her, and I smiled in relief as Tracy peeped around the doorway. She smiled at me. Then her gaze went to Ambrose and her features softened. Tracy had only one child and had given her life for him. Everything she’d done had been to provide for him.

“This brings back memories,” she whispered. “I don’t know how many times I’d come home from work and find the two of you together.”

For all those years that Ambrose went to bed at my house, he’d stretch out on a mattress on my floor. The duplex only sported two bedrooms either side, so Ambrose would sleep in my room. Each night Tracy would come into my room, pick up a sleeping Ambrose, and take him home. Later, when he was a little older, Tracy walked him home.

I felt supremely awkward. “He didn’t want to be alone, so he asked me to stay here,” I explained weakly.

She smiled again. “You’re a good friend, Shane.”

I felt like I was being stabbed. I wasn’t a good friend.

I made to move. “I’d better get going, then—”

“No. Stay,” Tracy said firmly. “It’s late. The roads are wet.”

I looked at the window in surprise. Now that she mentioned it, I could hear rain on the roof.

“Stay,” she reiterated. “Ambrose will like it if you’re here in the morning. You look comfy. I’m going to bed now. I’ll see you when I get up.”

She left, and I stared at the empty doorway. Seconds later the light in the kitchen went off and plunged the house and hallway into darkness. Then I heard Tracy’s bedroom door close.

It looked like I was staying the night, and in Ambrose’s bed. I sighed and placed the bookmark in my spot. It took thirty seconds to shimmy out of my trousers, and then I turned off the light and slid back into the warm bed next to Ambrose.

He didn’t even move.