Dean shot his friend a look. “It wasn’t like that.”
“It sure was.” Max turned to Ash. “One of the girls scratched his eyebrow, he had to get stitches.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
Dean’s expression was apologetic. “He’s making it sound worse than it was. I still don’t fully understand what happened, but I think one of the girls went through my phone when I was in the bathroom and—”
Scared he was about to launch into another long, rambling story, Ash jumped in. “So, no more bartending. What do you do now?”
“Roofing,” Dean said cheerfully, completely unperturbed by being cut off. “I did it for a while after I first left uni. I love being outdoors because…”
As he talked, Ash scanned him for further information. The lines around his eyes told her he was around thirty-four or so. Check. Massive shoulders, hands, and feet. Check. Full head of hair. Check. No wedding ring. Check. Ash tried to remember what else Julia had told her about Max’s housemate. A nice guy? Bit messy, maybe? She felt like she was forgetting something. Something important…
The green-haired server girl popped up, this time bearing another motherload of bacon-wrapped prawns. “Please,” she begged. “Please just take one?”
“Seriously?” Red looked like someone had just offered him a free Lamborghini. “Are they…? Can I just…eat them? Or am I meant to start some kind of prawn TAB or something?”
The server beamed at Dean as if he was the messiah. “No, they’re free! Please, take as many as you want!”
“Well, alright then.”
Considering his hands were the size of small dogs, it was no surprise Red put a serious dent in the plate of prawns. Though he had previously claimed to be full, Max also took a handful, as though bound by man code to prove he too could eat an unreasonable amount of prawns.
As they talked and gnawed on pink shellfish, Ash racked her brain for the thing Julia had told her about Dean. She struggled for a few minutes, then it hit her: Dean was the guy who’d gotten arrested in New Zealand. Jules had told her the story ages ago. How Max’s housemate had gone to Queenstown on a snowboarding trip, gotten maggotted on Bacardi 151 and done a run down the slopes, butt naked. Unless she was mistaken, Dean had wound up getting arrested and thrown in the drunk tank for two days. For a while it looked like Max might have had to fly over to New Zealand to straighten everything out. As she told the story Julia had been rolling on the floor, holding her sides.
“I don’t get it,” Ash had said. “How is your narc boyfriend mates with someone so dumb?”
“You don’t know Dean, but trust me, if you did, you’d think this was hilarious, too. And don’t call Max a narc.”
Now that she’d met Dean and felt his energy, Ash got what Julia had meant. Red was a genuine Aussie larrikin. The kind of careless, fun-loving guy who was useless at anything other than stupid dares and drinking forty-two cans of beer without dying. The kind of rogue that could carry off a man’s wife and have the bloke say, ‘oh, go on then, scamp!’ Larrikins were fun at parties and bad at life; they also made terrible, terrible boyfriends. As Max and Dean snarfed prawns, Ash allowed herself a small moment of despair. Red was gorgeous. Why was the universe always making gorgeous men and giving them the brains of iguanas? Or were tall, handsome, white guys just encouraged to atrophy at the age of seventeen by a society that held them up as rulers of the world, regardless of what they actually accomplished? Either way, it was a fucking shame.
“…isn’t that right, Ash?” Max turned toward her with a ‘c’mon, let’s have a nice chat and forget all about fucking my hot dumb friend’ smile.
“Yeah, of course,” Ash said, not missing a beat. She spent the majority of her shifts at the hospital pretending to listen to doctors’ whine about their nannies while she inwardly planned her dinner. She was the David Beckham of feigning interest.
“Oh yeah?” The skin around Dean’s bright brown eyes crinkled. “What was your favorite part?”
“I liked all of it.”
“But if you had to choose?”
“I wouldn’t choose.”
“But if you had to—”
“Dean,” Max said, a warning note in his voice. “Ash doesn’t have to tell you shit about Sergeant Fitzgerald.”
Ash let out an inward sigh of relief. They were talking about movies, specifically the movie she and Julia had seen last week. “My favorite part was when the Sergeant took his shirt off. That, and any and all scenes where his back was exposed.”
Dean chuckled as he helped himself to another large handful of shellfish, the waitress giving him a giddy thumbs up. “You like superhero movies?”
Ash almost reflexively lied. It was her go-to move with men—agree, agree, agree—but eight months of singledom had her catching herself just in time. “I hate them.”
“Why?” Dean looked intrigued.
“They’re all the same. Every movie ends with that countdown clock, sky laser bullcrap.”
“Then why’d you pay to see it?”
Max rubbed a hand over his face. “Mate…”
“It’s fine. Julia picks the movie. That’s how we do it. I just go for the Frozen Raspberry Coke.”
Dean made a face. “Seriously?”
“Yup, I could sit through paint drying if I got to drink that stuff. And Jules knows it, so she always gets to pick the movie.”
Big Red plucked half a dozen chicken skewers from a passing plate and began ripping the meat off with his teeth. “Sounds fair. You look beautiful in that dress, by the way.”
Ash distracted herself from Max’s disapproving glare by collecting another cocktail from a passing waiter. “Thanks. It’s my year eleven formal dress.”
“Wow, you must have been a pretty teenager. Not that you’re not pretty now, ‘cos you’re really pretty now.”
Ash was shocked to see a blush working its way across Red’s cheeks. God, he was something else. A big dumb sweetheart. Ash just wanted to take his hand, tell him everything was going to be okay, gently steer him toward a quiet room, and fuck the shit out of him. She sipped her drink. It tasted of butterscotch and rum, as mellow and appealing as the sexual interest percolating inside her. “Thanks, Red. It’s nice of you to say that.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s nice of you to be so pretty. I’ve wanted to meet you for ages.”
Ash looked up from beneath her lashes, unable to stop herself from giving him The Sex Eyes. “Well you’ve met me now.”
“I uh, guess I have.”
His gaze fell to her mouth and the heat between them was suddenly as tangible as the scent of bacon and warm sugar. Max cleared his throat. “I think I’ll…go see where Julia’s at. Dean, wanna come?”
“No.” Dean’s gaze didn’t move from hers. “Think I’ll stay here.”
“Right.” Max shot them both a nervous look. It was clear he wanted no part of what was brewing between them. “I’m out of here.”
“See ya, Maxwell,” Dean said. “Say hi to Julia, tell her the food is awesome, and that I picked up that model TARDIS from the post office for her. It’s on the kitchen bench.”
“Right, I’ll do that.” Behind Dean’s back Max pointed to Ash and mouthed ‘don’t do it.’
Ash twinkled her fingers at him. “Bye, Senior Constable Max Connor. Try not to get locked in any rooms with my sister.”
Max flushed burgundy, and he glared at her before disappearing into the crowd.
Dean chuckled. “So cool how your sister and my best friend are together. Makes us like… well, I was gonna say in-laws, but that’s not right.”
“I hope not.” Ash licked some sugar from the rim of her martini glass. Dean’s gaze followed her tongue, and his cheeks and ears darkened. Oh, he wanted it, all right.
Ash pictured him stiffening behind his jeans, blood flowing down, getting him ready so that he could do what men did to women. In the
same way, she could feel her thong dampening, her body preparing itself for him even without her full consent. Big Red moved a little closer. “Ashley, are you, um, single?”
She took another small sip of her drink. “I am.”
“How?” Dean asked, a faint note of wonder in his voice.
I want to have a baby and in my experience the men I’m attracted to are all about as useful as a kick in the teeth. “Maybe I haven’t met the right guy?”
Dean grinned and placed his half-gnawed chicken skewers on a side table. “I’m a guy.”
Ash forced herself to stop looking at the way the chicken was coating the fancy table with peanut sauce and concentrate on the hot doofus who had her soaking her underwear. “Yeah, you are.”
Dean stepped forward, and his scent sealed the deal. He had that sweet, musky guy smell. The one you wanted all over your pillows and sheets. That smell that made you steal t-shirts so you could try to hold that scent on nights when he wasn’t there.
Ash made her mind then and there to do this. It couldn’t be serious, and it couldn’t go beyond tonight, but if Red’s mouth had half the enthusiasm for pussy as it did for bacon-wrapped crustaceans, she’d be a happy girl. The problem was how. And where.
No way in hell was she going back to his place, AKA Max’s place. No way could they drive all the way back to Brenthill, even if she wanted him to see her shitty, broken-down house. She didn’t have the cash for a hotel, and she couldn’t just stand around making small talk, eating a dozen more mini-foods until Jules showed up.
She put her cocktail down next to Dean’s discarded chicken. “Are you single, Red?”
His face lit up. “I am.”
“Great, well maybe we should do something about that?”
“Do you want to get a drink and talk?”
“I’ve already had a lot of drinks. And we’re already talking.”
He flushed as red as his beard. “Oh, okay, um…never mind, then. Sorry if that sounded dumb, by the way. I have a habit of saying dumb things, like once I went into a bakery and asked the girl behind the counter if they had any bread and she thought I was joking so…”
Ash stared dreamily at the rambling redhead in front of her. It so wasn’t her style to be turned on by cluelessness, but god, she just wanted to bury her hands in Dean’s hair and tell him what to do. Force him to stop talking and do something useful with his mouth.
So why don’t you, her drunk brain suggested. Have a filthy one-night stand, teach ginger a trick or two, and then move on with your life, baby mama. What do you have to lose?
“Nothing,” Ash whispered. She moved closer to Red, pressing her boobs against his plaid shirt.
Dean froze. “Ash, are you…? Um, is everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said, rubbing her nipples against him slightly. “I was thinking me and you could go somewhere private and explore how single we both are?”
Dean’s mouth fell open. “You’re serious? With me? Like right now? With me?”
“Yes.”
Dean blinked. “Oh, okay, wow. So, uh, do you mean back to mine or…?”
Under the illusion of straightening his collar, Ash ran a light fingertip over his throat, loving the way his eyes closed in what looked like sheer ecstasy. “I was thinking more the bathroom on the bottom floor.”
He swallowed. Hard. “Uh, yeah. That sounds good. Do you wanna go there now or—”
“Yes,” Ash said, grabbing his hand. “God, yes.”
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