‘That arson report came in from the warehouse,’ Hale said softly, turning to look Ashley in the eye, which was hard since Ashley had to look down at him to make that happen. It also meant Ashley was looking through thick black lashes to meet the stormy eyes and he realised they weren’t completely grey or green, a ring of pale green around the iris that flecked out through the stormy colour in small droplets. Pretty eyes. Fuck.
‘I know, I was in the car with you …’ Had Hale forgotten? Was he that easy to forget?
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Hale scowled. ‘I meant the more detailed cop version we do. I took a look at it, and it’s pretty messed up, linked to a few of our other cases including the trafficking ring we’ve been looking into and a whole stream of drug offences. We think there’ll be more fires … It’s likely there will be, anyway. Just … be careful, okay?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s not your problem if I get hurt at work. My brothers can’t blame you for shit.’ Overprotective weasels.
‘I wasn’t saying it for them,’ Hale said, soft but firm, still staring at him with that determined look. His hand came up and the backs of his fingers grazed Ashley’s jaw, shocking him so badly his fingers went numb and he was silently grateful he hadn’t been holding another sandwich. Holy shit, Finn Hale was touching him, and not in a bros kind of way.
‘Watch your back, Ash.’
And then he was gone, rushing over to where Harris was calling them back to the van, leaving Ashley standing in the churchyard, gaping like a fish out of water. Taylor clapped him on the shoulder on his way past, Emma still attached to his hip. Ashley watched him put her down by the curb and kneel down to talk to her before pointing over at him and then she was huffing and storming her way over, obediently grabbing onto his hand even though he still couldn’t feel it. Ashley couldn’t feel anything besides the lightning tickling along his jaw.
Clay smacked him on the back of the head on his way past and they all climbed into the van and drove away. A few people were talking about the random visit, exclaiming how fortunate it was since that nice police officer had saved that poor child. Ashley was still frozen.
‘Oi, dumbarse! Quit staring at nothing, they already left!’ Jay glared up at him and it snapped Ashley out of his stupor enough to glare down at him.
‘You will not use that language on me!’
‘Why, it’s the truth!’
‘Did I eat crayons thinking they would taste like strawberries? No, I didn’t. When you see me eat crayons, you can call me that! Not before!’
Jay pondered this, shrugged as if that were entirely reasonable, and then went to march off. Ashley grabbed him by the back of his hideously orange, spew marked tee-shirt, made sure Emma couldn’t slip out of his other hand’s grasp and hauled them both back to the car, kicking and screaming.
‘What happened to that poor boy’s head? Is he bleeding?’
Ash looked down at Jay’s head and sighed. The tomato sauce from the bread and onions he’d dropped was smeared through Jay’s hair and did indeed look like blood. Added to the red crayon vomit all over the pudding costume and the kids looked like they’d been to a massacre, not Church.
Thankfully, Brayden didn’t look that surprised when he opened his front door to let them in.
‘Red crayons, huh?’
‘Apparently they smell like strawberries,’ Ashley bemoaned.
‘Nah, it’s because he associates the colour with that scent.’ Right, because there needed to be a logical reason for your kid eating crayons. Of course. Ashley grunted and pushed past into the kitchen, amused to see Emma sitting at the table, a knife and fork in each fist, glaring at the fruit bowl and looking like a miniature mass murderer.
Kelly was frozen at the kitchen sink, wide-eyed and staring at her, halfway through the dishes.
‘Pudding? Are you okay?’ Kelly asked, her voice soft, as if afraid of the answer. Ashley couldn’t blame her. One wrong move and … well, he was sure a butter knife could still do some damage.
‘Why didn’t Uncle Tay want to come home with us?’ She looked at Ashley with tear-filled, pleading eyes and he stumbled over his thoughts in search of an appropriate response.
‘He had to go to work?’ Wasn’t that obvious? He was in his uniform, in the squad vehicle, with his colleagues.
‘Pudding,’ Kelly sighed, kneeling beside Emma at the table. ‘Uncle Taylor had to work, you know that. He even left work to come see you at Sunday school because he hadn’t seen you in so long.’
‘He left because Uncle Ash is stupid!’ Emma countered, tossing the knife and fork and fleeing the room, getting stuck in the doorway due to the size of her pudding costume, squeezing through and wailing down the hallway to her bedroom, slamming the door shut.
‘Thank God I’m stupid enough not to have kids.’ Ash shrugged at Kelly and headed for the door, making a getaway before he could be roped into anything else for the day.
‘Thanks, Ash! Sorry, you know she doesn’t mean it. She just really loves Taylor.’
‘Yeah, I got that,’ Ashley chuckled, because really he doubted anyone had ever loved someone more than that child loved her uncle. It would have been weird had the two of them not been the two strangest people in the family, so instead it simply worked. That didn’t mean it didn’t sting a little. Taylor had been his favourite too, so he understood, but Taylor had never cared about him the way he cared about Emma. You’d think she was his kid, not Brayden’s. Hell, Emma probably thought that was true.
That didn’t mean he didn’t feel a little hollow walking out to his car, slipping into the seat and gripping the wheel while he took a few deep breaths. Which was a mistake, the car stank of vomit. He started the engine, got the air con going and opened all the windows before departing, heading home with no intention of going anywhere for the rest of the day. He’d been a Good Samaritan enough for one week; it was time to be greedy with his time. You know, for like … an hour. Maybe. If the phone didn’t ring.
3
Quack and Shank
‘Seriously, it looked like I’d taken them to a massacre,’ Ashley groaned, sinking deeper into the couch cushions and taking a long swig of his beer.
His housemates had offered to cook dinner. A healthy garlic beef stir fry with Hokkien noodles and Ashley had leapt on the chance to sit back and chill. He’d do the dishes and everyone would be happy.
Dave Knight was the most ordinary guy Ashley knew; he worked in a secretarial position at a radio station in the city and the best part of his day was handing out free promotional stuff at a randomly decided location each morning. Ashley usually stalked him in the fire truck for a free coffee if he was on shift. Dave was a good head shorter than Ashley, a bit on the tubby side, but friendly as could be. He liked playing video games on Friday nights and eating salt and vinegar chips.
How he had ever managed to get Freya Maddison to agree to go out with him was beyond Ashley’s comprehension. She was taller than Dave by a few inches, though that could have been the heels he’d rarely seen her out of. She was a dental assistant in a swanky north shore clinic and was always immaculately dressed. Her blonde hair could not get any shinier, and her makeup always matched her outfit, proving she was more organised in the morning than Ashley could manage by the end of a holiday. She was stunningly beautiful, and had perfect teeth.
Visually, they did not match at all. Even their interests had nothing in common, but he watched them move around the kitchen in perfect synch, stealing kisses and talking about whatever movie they’d seen last night on their date between grilling him about his most recent familial disaster.
He loved and hated them in equal measure. They made no sense, which fit his life perfectly, but they were the best friends he had, and when they’d needed a third person to make rent they’d asked him first and he’d leapt at the chance to move out of home.
‘Did the vomit smell like strawberries?’ Dave asked and Freya stepped away from him as if he were suddenly contagious.
&nbs
p; ‘Gross,’ she recoiled.
‘Well, if the crayon’s smell like strawberries, they can’t have had that much time to digest …’
Ashley took another swig of beer and shook his head. No, the vomit had not smelled of strawberries, and it had taken two hours at the carwash to get rid of whatever it did smell like.
‘Why do you always get stuck with that stuff?’ Dave left the stir fry to simmer and came over to join him on the couch with a beer, clinking their bottles together.
‘Honestly, I have no idea! You can’t say no to family, but I don’t even remember getting asked to do this! I’m pretty sure my Mum just said I would do it and next thing you know I’m on babysitting duty. I need to hide my shift timetable better so no one knows when I’m working, like Taylor does.’
‘Your brother gets away with everything,’ Dave pointed out, laughing because they’d known each other since high school and they shared a long string of memories of Taylor getting away with everything and anything to back up his statement.
‘I think it’s actually worse, now he has a boyfriend. Dad thinks Sietta is the second coming and Mum’s half in love with him herself. The two of them could get away with murder, I’m sure of it.’
‘Well, the guy was locked in a wine cellar for half his life,’ Dave reasoned and Ashley could only grunt in response. The hardest part was he was half in love with Sietta himself; the guy was good, plain and simple. Smart as hell, and angry inside, but his intentions were always good. He’d let himself be locked in that wine cellar to ensure the wrong people weren’t left governing their country, and he’d stayed there until he could make sure they all went to prison. It was still all over the news, and new arrests kept taking place. The Governor General had to step in and fire a whole bunch of people; half the people in government now were brand new. Change was happening, and Ashley knew that was Sietta’s legacy. Ashley was proud of him.
That didn’t mean he enjoyed watching Sietta and Taylor get away with lazing on a sun-chair while he cooked the Saturday barbeque and copped a lecture from a six year old about all the ways he was inferior to his older brothers.
Also, Sietta was smoking hot. Especially now he was fattened up a little and enjoying life. It was damned hard watching his brother get to keep that. Worse, Sietta wanted to be friends, because the poor guy had none. It was hard to be friends with your brother’s boyfriend when every now and then you found yourself fantasising about him.
‘Why was she dressed as a pudding, again?’ Freya was poking at the noodles, getting them ready to take out of the hot water they were soaking in and add to the stir fry. ‘No mother should let their child out in a pudding costume.’
‘I don’t think Kelly has much of a choice. The child’s a demon,’ Ashley reasoned. He did genuinely feel for Kelly, it had to be hard coming in second to her brother-in-law for her daughter’s affections. Maybe it was a phase and it would pass. Unlikely, after six years, but they were all still holding out hope.
‘So … Finn Hale was there. He saved this kid that was about to get run over and the mother ranted about him endangering her child because apparently his car dodging tactics were dangerous …’
‘You’re shitting me,’ Freya scowled, tossing in the noodles as if they had offended her. ‘Parents are so screwed in the head. Blame anyone but themselves! I had this stupid mother at the clinic yesterday try to blame the dentist for her child’s cavities, which he’d spent an hour treating, because he dared give the kid a celery stick with peanut butter on it at the end!’
‘Isn’t Hale the one you’ve got a torch for?’ Dave asked shrewdly, ignoring Freya’s rant in favour of digging for details.
‘I don’t have a torch for him! I just …’ How was he supposed to explain how he felt about Finn Hale? The man made his cock enlist in the pride parade.
‘Please, you swing two ways; leggy blonde women and Hale.’
‘Wait, you swing both ways?’ Freya was frozen at the wok. ‘How did I not know this? I’ve never seen you check out a guy. And I’ve been to every bar in the city with you. You’re always macking on my mates!’
‘That’s because your mates are hot as hell, like you,’ Ashley reasoned, watching her smirk and then frown again.
‘Don’t change the subject with me!’
‘I deflected. I didn’t change it,’ Ashley argued, sipping his beer and wondering what had possessed him to bring it up. Except, he sort of wanted advice. Maybe. That was likely a really dumb idea. He had those. A lot of those. Too many.
‘Not so much both ways,’ Dave explained to Freya. ‘The other side of the coin apparently only has one face on it. Ashley’s been obsessed with this guy ever since he rocked up at a family barbeque with Taylor like six years ago? Seven? At first he nearly blew a gasket thinking Taylor was dating him. Turned out they were on duty and Hale only came for free food and a good laugh at Taylor’s expense.’
‘How did I not know this?’ Freya was still gaping at them, holding a large plastic spoon in one hand and a beer in the other. Ashley realised she was wearing a bright pink apron with T-Rex hates pushups printed on it and one of those goofy T-rex pictures. It didn’t suit her at all, which was probably why it was funny.
‘Ignore the apron,’ Dave snapped his fingers in Ashley’s face. ‘Hale was there, and?’
‘Uh … he touched my face.’ Ashley was still distracted by the apron but also now by the memory, his hand coming up to stroke his jaw where Hale’s fingers had been.
Dave sat back and stared at him, harder than was necessary.
‘Are we talking manly face-slap or tender face-grope?’
‘What the Hell is a manly face-slap?’ Ashley looked up so fast he almost spilt his beer. He didn’t move fast enough to avoid Dave slapping him in the face, the sound echoing around the quiet room.
‘Uh … face-grope.’ Ashley rubbed his smarting cheek.
‘Oh my god!’ Freya exclaimed, distractedly spooning dinner into bowls and coming over to hand them out before sinking into the couch across from them and leaning forward as if it might help her hear the conversation any better. ‘Why was he face groping you?’
‘It wasn’t groping …’ Ashley shovelled some food in his mouth to chew and contemplated the vivid memory. ‘More like he stroked my jaw with the back of his fingers?’
‘Swooning!’ Freya exclaimed, sounding like a teenager at a slumber party hearing about kissing for the first time. Dave and Ashley both frowned at her but she smirked, unrepentant. ‘Continue.’
‘Why did he face-stroke you?’ Dave corrected himself.
‘He was telling me about an arson report on this fire we were both at, and warned me there would probably be more and to be careful and then …’
‘Oh. My. God!’ Freya shovelled more food into her mouth when they glared at her.
‘Finn Hale has a boner for you,’ Dave concluded with a sage nod and a large mouthful of stir fry, leaning back into the couch as if that were the end of it.
‘You think so?’ Ashley asked, infuriated by the hint of desperation in his voice. He was so transparent Casper would be harder to read.
‘Dudes don’t face-stroke other dudes faces unless they’re wanting to stroke other things, trust me.’ Dave sounded so sure, Ashley couldn’t help smirking and reaching out to stroke the guy’s face, laughing when he screeched and recoiled to the other end of the couch. ‘Not cool, man!’
‘But you should ask him out,’ Freya said around a mouthful of noodle. ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen?’
‘Uh, he says no, tells Taylor and Clay I asked and I become the joke of every family barbeque until someone does something dumber, which they won’t?’
They were all frozen, contemplating the truth of that statement before they simultaneously sighed and sank deeper into the couch cushions.
‘Yeah, okay, don’t do that,’ Freya quietly amended. ‘Maybe wait and see if he makes another move, first.’
‘That,’ Dave pointed his chopsti
cks at his girlfriend and nodded. ‘Do that.’
Right. Wait and see. Because he was so good at waiting. And nothing ever went wrong in his day to day life. Nothing weird ever happened to him. Of course.
This was going to be terrible, he knew it.
Terrible didn’t really begin to cover it. Ashley stared up at the fire and ran a hand through his hair, wishing he’d cut it before he had to put on the stupid helmet. Keller slapped him on the back and strode past in full gear and Ashley sighed heavily, checked his oxygen was flowing and followed.
The fire was on the fifth story of a large apartment block. Only, it looked like the entire fifth floor was engulfed, the flames roaring out the windows and licking at the windows of the sixth. Without getting inside it was impossible to know if it had caved the fifth floor yet, but Ashley had his suspicions. How a fire had grown this out of control in the few minutes it took to call it in and get the crew there was beyond him. He suspected arson, but that wasn’t his call to make and was irrelevant for the moment anyway.
He took a step toward the building right as the windows blew out, raining molten glass down on the footpath. He stepped back, waiting for the rain to end, and then rushed through the door after Keller, trying to avoid the debris as much as possible.
The bottom floor was eerily untouched, no smoke or sign of fire besides the oppressive heat. They stayed as close to the outer wall as possible, heading for the stairs, silently hoping the floors didn’t start collapsing above them. There was no sign of fire on the ceiling, but looks could be deceiving, especially in old cement and brick monstrosities common to the older parts of Sydney.
Keller held up a hand to halt and Ashley waited as Keller checked two doors, but they weren’t apartments, merely supply closets on the bottom floor, near the lifts. They were devoid of life so they kept moving.
The stairs were empty and quiet, though as he turned on the landing and looked up onto the first floor Ashley spotted a small grey elephant abandoned on the top stair, no doubt dropped as inhabitants fled. He sighed and scrambled past it, forcing himself to focus and keep up with Keller, who ignored the first floor and headed up. Another team would arrive soon and check the lower levels; they were to focus on the fire, and anyone who might be trapped, so they headed up.
Rhino Ash (Saturday Barbies Book 2) Page 4
