‘Well, to be fair, I think they’re both scared of you. I mean, you didn’t have any lifesavers on you, but they didn’t know that. I coulda given you a mint for morning breath. Not that you have morning breath, you don’t, but again … they don’t know that.’
Hale laughing. Fuck yeah.
Riverstone was suburbia, but without the hell. It was cute, almost like a country town ensconced in the city, with little dilapidated houses owned by old people and middle class families trying to save a few dollars. Hale lived in a small brick house with a fenced off yard that made it look like drug dealers might have something cooking in the closed two door garage. Mostly because there were no flowers in the empty flower beds, though it could also have had something to do with the very large black dog sitting impatiently at the gate, howling incessantly as they climbed out of Ashley’s ute and made their way over.
‘Hey, buddy.’ Hale unlocked the gate and the beast immediately launched itself at his face, paws on his shoulders, licking everywhere, tail wagging madly. Ashley quietly watched, amused because that was not a small dog and it looked like Hale was about to die. The dead bunny was right there at his feet.
‘Come on.’ Hale ushered the dog back inside the gate and Ashley closed it behind them, following and trying not to laugh when Anubis picked up his decrepit bunny and followed meekly at his master’s side.
Inside the house looked much like the outside. Old, cracked tiles ran down a corridor with off-beige, dated carpet in the open doorways of the rooms leading off the hall. The walls were eggshell, but yellowed so it looked overcooked and the curtains were plain grey but didn’t match the walls at all. The house was old, and it showed.
‘I don’t own it. I live here because the rent is cheap and living here helps the owner.’
‘A reformed dealer?’ Ashley joked to cover his horror, marvelling at how nothing at all matched. It didn’t look anything like the kind of place he thought Hale would live.
‘My sister,’ Hale laughed at him. ‘She fell pregnant in her second last year of high school and the prick left her as soon as he could, went to Melbourne. But she kept the kid, that’s Drew. And she needed a place to live so our parents helped her buy this place. She went to Uni and got a degree. She’s a teacher at Drew’s school now and they got a nicer place closer to the school, and since I was already living here I asked if I could stay and pay the mortgage while I was here. Win-win.’
‘That’s really … adult of you.’ He couldn’t think of the right word. Kind, familial, good. They all fitted, but the house didn’t fit his idea of Finn Hale at all. Why Hale had been living with his sister, Ashley had no idea and didn’t think it was his place to ask. If Hale wanted to tell him, he would. He was being surprisingly forthcoming with the information, but then Ashley realised he already knew everything about Ashley. The man worked with his brothers. It was impossible not to know everything.
‘Adult of me?’ Hale arched a brow at him and smirked and the dog tilted its head to the side and did the same. It was ridiculously cute.
‘Sure,’ Ashley shrugged, not really caring if he was being laughed at, happy to be in the man’s space, even if said space was horrifying. Happy that Hale wanted to spend time with him.
‘Do you have a shift today?’
‘No, I tend to take as many weekend shifts as I can get. I prefer to have days off during the week.’
‘When you can help out the most,’ Ashley guessed and knew he’d hit the nail on the head when Hale looked quietly surprised but pleased. It wasn’t that strange to Ashley; he did the same thing, since Kelly always had weekends off. It was helpful to have someone available to run errands during the week when they needed it. Brayden worked too hard, in Ashley’s opinion, but it was his experience that no one much cared about his opinion. That was usually the way when there were four siblings older than you, but you still weren’t the baby.
‘When do you go next?’ Hale asked, refilling Anubis’ water and scratching his ears as he drank.
‘Tomorrow morning at six. I don’t mind what shift I get really, they rotate us every week regardless so at some point you’re going to have a shift you don’t like, there’s no point complaining about it. Though, I should check my shifts for the next few weeks since I’ll be fostered off to different senior’s now Keller’s injured.’
‘Keller got hurt?’ Hale sounded surprised, like it was the first time he was hearing about it.
‘Uh … yeah, he broke his ankle. Didn’t I mention that?’
‘In this bad fire you were at where you saved Louisa and her duck?’ Ashley didn’t think it was entirely fair that Hale sounded so suspicious.
‘Yeah.’
Hale was staring at him as if there were something wrong with him, this strange squint like maybe he wasn’t all there. It went on for a while. So long in fact that Ashley found himself rubbing his nose in case there was something on it.
‘There’s nothing on your face.’ Hale rolled his eyes, waving a hand around the room at the various doors. ‘This is a central area, off it comes three bedrooms.’ He pointed them out. ‘A bathroom, laundry and back patio.’ The patio was merely a section where they’d laid bricks by the backdoor. Not so much as a shade sail. There was a lonely Hills hoist in the middle of the backyard, and a cement path to it leading from another back door, likely from the laundry. One sad looking bush that was probably supposed to be a tree struggled to provide shade, half its leaves on the ground and a lonely lemon on its branches.
‘And a lemon tree.’
‘It only ever has one lemon.’ Hale frowned as he stared at it through the window as if this was a problem that constantly vexed him. But then he shrugged and pointed at one of the bedrooms again.
‘That one’s mine. You want to borrow some running shorts and a tee-shirt so you don’t make your clothes sweaty for the rest of the day?’ He wasn’t waiting for an answer, already striding to the other room and rummaging in his tallboy. No built in robes here. Ashley followed and caught the clothes thrown at him, going to the bathroom to change, not sure why he bothered when Hale had already seen him naked. Principle? Habit? Social convention? He had no clue.
The clothes were threadbare and clearly not Hale’s. They were big on Ashley, which meant they would swim on Hale. The tee-shirt was an ancient squad shirt with the emblem on one breast but thankfully didn’t have ‘RIOT’ scrawled in giant letters across the back. It had a tear in the lower left corner and looked suspiciously like it might have been nibbled on by mice. The shorts weren’t much better, a pair of thin black Under Armour cotton mesh that had seen better days but Ashley thought he recognised them. He was pretty sure the clothes belonged to Taylor, or had before he forgot they existed and left them at Hale’s because they clearly needed to be given to Vinnie’s. Or the tip. Actually, definitely to the tip.
Hale had changed by the time he emerged and Ashley almost wished he hadn’t. Not only because the jeans and black shirt had been hot, but because in shorts the full glory of a thick white bandage with a blood stain leaking through was far less hidden, as was the wicked bruise peeking out and down over Hale’s knee.
‘Should you be running on that?’
‘No offence, if you run like your brothers we’re not going running, we’re going jogging and that will be absolutely fine on the leg. Not that I intend to run much, you’re going to do all the work. Also, it’s not as bad as it looks, I just bruise easy.’ He waved at his face to prove his point and Ashley had to admit the bruise on his jaw and collarbone had blossomed into a dark purple overnight, much worse than it had seemed the day before. That didn’t mean Ashley didn’t want to lick it better.
‘Taylor and Clay run like elephants,’ Ashley pointed out. ‘It’s like watching the Orc army try and come down the hill when you’re on a horse. No way are those lumps ever beating me in a race.’
Hale was laughing again, fetching Anubis’ lead from a hook by the door. The dog immediately ran in circles as if chasing his tail, sea
rching hurriedly for his rabbit, finding it and calming immediately as he trotted to the door and let Hale slip his leash on. He looked ridiculous with the scruffy toy hanging out of his mouth, but Ashley didn’t say a word. He closed the door and followed them out of the drive and down the street to a park nearby.
Hale wasn’t kidding. They jogged a little before Hale sat on a bench and let Ash run the dog. It was easy enough but Ashley was still dripping sweat and breathing heavy within minutes and he did have to wonder exactly how fast Hale’s normal running speed was, if the dog was running at the usual pace. The man’s stride was much longer than Ashley’s, despite him being shorter because the man’s legs were so disproportionate to the rest of him. But it wasn’t only that. Even when they were jogging, Hale ran as if fleeing life and death, as if he could sprout wings on the next step if he ran hard enough. He was beautiful and half the reason Ashley survived the jog was because he was too distracted watching Hale to remember he was doing anything at all.
They were heading back through the park and the sun hit Hale in such a way that he seemed to glow and Ashley gasped softly, hurling himself forward while contemplating his actions carefully so he wouldn’t injure the other man. He tackled him to the ground, rolling to take the pressure off Hale’s damaged leg, aware of his initial grunt but then his laughter as they tumbled through the grass and came to a halt with Hale pinned beneath him.
Hale had barely even broken a sweat and didn’t seem at all puffed while Ashley struggled to drag in enough air to grin in amazement. Then he didn’t bother to say anything, busy pushing him into the grass and kissing him, hot and heavy and demanding, still barely able to comprehend he could. That Hale let him, and seemed to want it as badly.
A heavy weight fell on Ashley’s back, squashing him hard against Hale and Ashley cursed when Hale yelled at the sudden weight on his injured thigh, which caused Anubis to howl where he was slowly crushing them.
A scream came from nearby and they looked over to see a woman with her baby in a pram screaming at them, pointing and calling for help. At first Ashley thought she was freaking out because two men were making out in the park. Then he remembered Anubis, who was drooling all over his back, the bunny dumped at his side while he howled.
‘Help! The dog! It’s going to eat them! Please, someone, help!’
Hale, the bastard, was laughing. Anubis dubiously allowed himself to be shoved aside and his master slowly stumbled to his feet, clutching his leg, the bandage now well and truly drenched in blood. He’d torn his stitches. The scent of blood must have reached Anubis because the dog started sniffing Hale’s leg and howling while he danced nervously in circles around him, unsure what to do.
‘Oh, God! He’s bleeding! It’s going to kill him! Someone, help!’
‘It’s fine!’ Hale called out, but the woman was already running away from them, fleeing with her pram, still screaming for help while Hale stood there clutching his thigh, Anubis laving his face with kisses.
Ashley looked the pair up and down, looked back at the woman who’d already almost cleared the park in her desperate need to get them help, and then started laughing.
‘Thanks,’ Hale drolly rolled his eyes.
Ashley laughed harder.
7
Ice screaming, got cake
‘He’s gonna die,’ Emma noted sagely. ‘Can we keep his dog?’
‘Em, he’s not gonna die!’ Ashley grumbled at her, watching her curl up against Anubis where he lay sprawled at Hale’s feet. Hale was sitting at the kitchen table while Brayden re-stitched his wound. Ashley had called and asked about his shift and he’d been at home looking after Emma, his shift not until the afternoon. He’d agreed to drive out and re-stitch the wound but it had been made very clear the man had spoken to his brothers and that Clay and Taylor had mentioned Ashley had been found in bed that morning with a man. Brayden wasn’t stupid, he’d put two and two together. Ashley was still waiting for him to say something about it, but so far … nothing.
‘We can’t have a dog. We don’t have a big enough fence,’ Brayden pointed out, concentrating on his work. Hale barely seemed to notice he was being worked on, watching Anubis carefully to ensure he didn’t startle Emma or do anything that might be construed as hurting her.
It had taken some effort to convince Hale he needed to do anything about his leg. He’d seemed to be of the opinion that it would still magically heal itself fine if it was left alone. Ashley had disagreed, loudly and demandingly, until Hale pointed out that he sounded disturbingly like his brothers and let him call. Brayden, not the twins.
‘We could make the fence bigger. Or we can steal his, when he dies.’
‘You are not stealing his dog, or his fence! He’s not going to die, Emma.’
‘Well, technically, one day …’ Brayden was frowning in concentration as he stitched. You would think it was art the way Brayden treated it, but that was why Ashley had wanted him to come. Brayden was obsessive about doing the best job, every time, and if his stitches meant someone got a smaller scar, he tried even harder, like he was doing now. Not that Hale seemed to care about scars if his back was anything to go by.
‘Shut up.’ Ashley watched how happy Emma was, snuggled up to Anubis and wondered if maybe they shouldn’t build Brayden a fence, because the dog actually seemed to have a calming effect on the monster. She was finally still, outside of Taylor’s lap. That had to be a first.
‘Thanks for doing this,’ Hale said softly, watching Brayden work as if it were only interesting and not painful, which couldn’t be true since the man couldn’t have any painkillers. Maybe he was numb after Ashley had hit it enough times to bust it open.
‘Thank you for being good to my baby brother,’ Brayden countered, suddenly gripping Hale’s knee harder than necessary and staring up into wide, startled eyes. ‘I know you’ll be very, very good to him.’
That was a threat. That was so totally, very definitely a threat. Ashley gaped. He had never heard Brayden threaten anyone like that, certainly not about dating Clay or Taylor, or even Hayley, though maybe he somehow hadn’t been present for the threatening, but it was surreal as hell to witness. Brayden was usually calm and kind and straightforward. This was so left of field, Ashley struggled to realise it was happening.
‘Holy shit, you’re threatening the lifesaver killer for my honour.’ Breathless. He was completely breathless.
‘Excuse me? Is that supposed to be an oxymoron?’ Brayden was squinting at him like he wasn’t sure what to think. That was rarely a good sign when your brother was sort of a genius. Sort of being a real genius, the guy had finished his medical degree in half the time it was supposed to take. He seemed to actually enjoy learning; what was wrong with him?
But Hale was laughing at both of them, leaning his elbows back on the table as his head fell back and he guffawed, loud and raucous. It was amazing, and sexy as hell. Ashley wanted to lean in and lick his exposed throat and the dark shadow of scruff starting to show.
‘Ash?’ Brayden was waiting.
‘No, he … Ask Taylor,’ Ashley started laughing as well and Brayden looked between them before muttering that they deserved each other. It took a while to stop and by that time Brayden had finished a perfectly straight line of stitches on Hale’s thigh and put a new bandage on it.
‘Try not to reopen them this time,’ he scolded, still scowling at his patient, who was grinning at him in recline. ‘Hurt him and I’ll hurt you.’
Hale froze, smile vanishing, expression icy and serious. Ashley felt cold suddenly seeing the change, as if a completely different person sat there. The lifesaver killer, or someone else, he had no idea but this man wasn’t laid-back or easy or warm or kind. The person staring at his brother didn’t like being threatened. Had very clearly been threatened before, and Brayden saw it as well. He stepped back, his frown confused before he glanced over at Ashley and realised he was equally mystified.
‘I’d never hurt your brother,’ Hale finally said, his voice s
oft and calm, body relaxing as he got up and turned away to put the first aid supplies away. Despite appearances, Ashley heard something brittle and broken in the words.
‘Well … okay then.’ Brayden was still looking disturbed and Ashley understood that Brayden knew he’d hurt Hale somehow, and that he had no idea what to do about it or even if he should do something about it. Ashley wasn’t sure either, he’d only hooked up with the man last night, even if he had been pining after him for half a decade and their brothers had to work with him. Making things awkward wouldn’t help anyone, yet here they were.
‘So, do you think you could take Emma for the rest of the day? Kel can pick her up from your place after work.’
‘Excuse me?’ Ashley stared down at the monster, seeming sedate on her dog-couch, but he knew it was a lie. As soon as Brayden walked out the door she would transform and his day would turn into a nightmare.
‘I have to get to the hospital and I won’t have time to drive home from here and then into work, but I’ll make it if I head straight there.’
‘You’re telling me this now?’
‘You wouldn’t have agreed to it if I mentioned it on the phone,’ Brayden smirked at him.
‘I’m not agreeing to it now!’
‘Sure you are.’ And with no further discussion the bastard left, kissing his monster goodbye and admonishing her to be good for her uncle. She waved him out the door and watched it close before turning slowly to look up at him.
‘What are we gonna do today, Uncle Ash?’
He turned to look at Hale, defeated, but the man still looked wary even if he was amused and Ashley had no idea what to do about it. So for the moment, he ignored it.
‘I don’t suppose you’d enjoy going to the ice skating rink?’
The look on Hale’s face was priceless. It had been the last thing he expected, that was obvious. He looked at his freshly bandaged leg, contemplating, and then at the girl on his dog and grinned.
Rhino Ash (Saturday Barbies Book 2) Page 10
