Rhino Ash (Saturday Barbies Book 2)

by Lindsey Black

  ‘Yeah, I’d like to do that.’

  So. Hale was a good skater. Rather, Hale was a great skater. Ashley should have known, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to him that the man would be as good at skating as he was at running. Despite enjoying the rink, mostly because it was freezing cold and so refreshing after fighting fires in the summer heat, and despite the fact he spent a ridiculous amount of time there, Ashley could not claim to be a good skater. He actually enjoyed falling over, and sliding around on the ice, and basically getting so wet and freezing his teeth chattered and his skin came out in uncontrollable goose bumps.

  Thankfully, Emma was as bad as he was. But Hale was good, and glided around the rink like he was floating on air. He helped Emma go around a few times, holding her hands to make sure she didn’t fall down. He even took Ash for a spin a few times. But Ashley liked watching him move, effortless and graceful. Relaxed, as if he had not a care in the world. He stayed on the ice while Ashley took Emma to order ice cream. He chose a table right at the edge so they could watch him spin in lazy circles while they ate.

  ‘Uncle Ash, is Finny your boyfriend?’

  ‘Finny?’ He almost choked on his double choc mango monstrosity.

  ‘It’s his name,’ she frowned at him. And yes, it was, but for some reason he kept thinking of him as Hale. Maybe it was a work thing, he was getting used to calling people by their surname. Hell, sometimes he forgot it even was their surname. And he’d met Finn as Hale when Taylor brought him home that first time. And Taylor and Clay called him Hale. It had stuck. But the brat was right; the man had a name, and it was Finn. Not Finny. Weird child.

  ‘No, he’s not my boyfriend,’ Ashley mumbled, feeling an ache deep in his soul at the admission that startled him. He realised that was what he wanted, now more than ever before. He needed it, and that need left him feeling weak and sick to the stomach. He’d barely spent a day with the man and he wanted to move him into his house and never let him leave. There had to be something wrong with him; what he wanted wasn’t normal. But, if he was honest, he’d spent years getting drunk on the couch with Dave and bemoaning the fact no one came close to the idea he had in his head of what it would be like to own Finn Hale. Dave agreed Ashley was insane, but at least he went along with the whining like a good BFF. What he would have to say about Ashley’s sudden desire to apply his fantasies to the real world was yet to be heard.

  ‘Yet.’ Hale leaned on the barrier, grinning at them both, reaching out to snag the spoon out of the Ashley’s oversized cup of ice cream and popping it in his mouth, moaning happily at the cold sugar on his tongue. ‘I’ll convince him soon, don’t you worry poppet.’

  Emma smiled brightly at him and clapped her hands.

  ‘Uncle Ash is the bestest, I promise!’ Ashley gaped at her, those words never having escaped her lips before. Usually she was scolding him for being too stupid for words, or raving about how mean he was or how she didn’t want to spend the day with him. Never had she put his name and best in the same sentence; that was reserved for Taylor.

  ‘I think so too,’ Hale agreed with her, his smile turning into a full on grin as he returned the spoon he had stolen.

  ‘No really! He always helps Jay with his homework, even though he’s not very smart like Daddy! And he always comes to pick us up, even when he didn’t have a cool car like Aunty Hayley! And he always buys me ice cream, even though Mummy tells him not to. And he gives the second best cuddles in the whole world, sometimes even better than Uncle Tay-Tay!’

  Who was this creature and where had his niece gone? Ashley watched her try and convince Hale he should date him and had to laugh. She was insulting him even as she was singing his praises. She really was a Jameson. And he loved her completely, even if he acted like babysitting her was hard. It wasn’t. She was a monster, sure, but he’d grown up with monsters and he liked them perfectly fine.

  Hale’s lips were on his. He hadn’t even seen the man leave the ice, but he was at his side, leaning over him and pushing cold lips to his. It was still the hottest thing Ashley could think of and only Emma’s giggle drew them apart.

  ‘Me too, poppet. I think Ash is the best, too.’

  Stunned, Ashley could only sit in silence and watch the man go to return their skates.

  ‘He’s your boyfriend,’ Emma noted sagely, licking her vanilla and strawberry mix off her fingers where it had melted down the side of the cup while she was too distracted singing his praises to notice.

  ‘I love you, Emma.’

  ‘I love you too, stupid.’ Emma ignored him, licking at her ice cream until Hale returned and sat heavily in the seat between them, tossing an arm casually across Ashley’s shoulders.

  ‘That was great. I hadn’t been here in ages. I always forget how refreshing it is. I’m guessing you like the cold, after the heat of the fires, yeah?’

  Yeah. How had Hale known? But it didn’t matter, it was nice he did and that he actually seemed to know more about him than Ashley had thought. Ashley had assumed Hale saw him only as Taylor and Clay’s little brother. An acquaintance who pined after the officer like a lovesick puppy. But he was beginning to suspect that wasn’t the case. That maybe Hale had been paying attention the same way Ashley had.

  ‘You’re really good …’

  ‘My step-dad’s really into skating. He grew up in Prague and he likes to bring Drew here sometimes, but I never manage to get here anymore. We used to come once a week, growing up. Got lessons and everything.’

  ‘Your step-dad?’

  ‘Yeah, my real dad left not long after I was born. Turned out he was cheating on my mum and he’d wanted to leave when she fell pregnant. He’d thought he should do the right thing and stay, but changed his mind when reality set in. So a few years later she married Keith and they had my sister.’

  ‘Huh.’ It was crazy how the man told him anything he seemed to want to know. He wanted to ask about the rhinos, but something stopped him. Maybe the fact the man was relaxed and happy and joking with Emma while he kept eating Ashley’s ice cream. Finn was happy, and Ashley refused to do anything that might change that, especially when he’d been told very firmly that Finn Hale did not want to talk about it. Yet.

  ‘Thank you so much for taking her,’ Kelly hurried through the door, reaching down to scoop Emma up as she ran for her Mum, squealing happily as if she’d had a horrible time and was desperate to go home, the traitor.

  ‘No problem, we had fun.’

  ‘We went ice screaming and got ice cake!’

  ‘Uh …’ Kelly looked between them and seemed to decide it was better not to know what the munchkin was talking about. Ashley slung Emma’s backpack over Kelly’s shoulder and watched them leave, sighing heavily when the door clicked shut and flopping back on the couch.

  Immediately, the second bedroom door slammed open and Dave and Freya rushed out, throwing themselves down on either side of him, Dave sitting against the arm rest while Freya flopped her legs over the other end and put her head in Ashley’s lap, the two of them staring at him. Expecting.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘You slept with your wet dream!’ Freya reminded him. Of course they wanted details.

  ‘I didn’t sleep with him, I just slept with him.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Was there nudity?’ Dave demanded.

  ‘Not in the bed …’

  ‘There was nudity,’ Freya confirmed, squealing and squirming in his lap, reaching up to put a hand on each of his cheeks. ‘Our baby’s all grown up and having naked sleepovers!’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ He stared at the ceiling and freed his face from her clutches.

  ‘Are you seeing him again?’ Dave, ever practical.

  ‘Yes. Whenever we’re both off shift again.’

  ‘That man … You have a type,’ Dave observed, clearly entertained by this new revelation.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Oh, sweets,’ her hands were on his face again, stroking his jaw. ‘That man is so pretty it almost hur
ts to look at him. All that dark hair, and those eyes, and that skin … He has longer eyelashes than any woman I’ve ever met, and he doesn’t need guyliner!’

  ‘Cheekbones,’ Dave threw in, nodding to himself, considering whatever mental image he had conjured. ‘Dimples.’

  ‘I have a type? I’m not only Hale-centric anymore?’

  ‘Is Sietta Salisbury hot?’ Freya asked seriously, which confused him because she had met him.

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘You have a type,’ Dave confirmed. ‘Your type being impossibly beautiful men with dark hair and a tan. Which is weird because you go for blondes in women, every time.’

  ‘I do not …’ But he had to admit, all the men he had ever thought were even vaguely attractive were brunettes, and all the women were blondes. And now that he thought about it, he realised Hale was not only sexy as sin he was also incredibly beautiful to look at. Everything about the man pressed every one of Ashley’s buttons.

  ‘Shit, I have a type!’

  ‘But you are going to be Hale-centric, right?’ Freya looked to him for confirmation. ‘I mean, now that the man has made it clear he has as equally huge a man-crush on you as you do on him you’re not going to let him go, right? Because that would be stupid, right?’

  ‘Right, right, right!’ He agreed, waving off her hands where they were still incessantly trying to paw his face. ‘Stop that!’

  ‘No.’ And he gave up trying to stop her, because short of tossing her over his shoulder and locking her in her room there was no stopping Freya when she wanted to do something. He was sure it was part of the reason she and Dave were together; she had decided it would be so and so it was.

  ‘You just agreed to date Hale for the rest of your natural life,’ Dave pointed out to him.

  ‘What?’ But he rewound the conversation in his head and then glared at Freya. ‘I did no such thing.’

  ‘Hale-centric,’ she reminded him.

  ‘And if he dumps me, what? I’m supposed to pine for the rest of my days?’

  ‘We all know that’s exactly what will happen,’ Dave pointed out, getting up and fetching beers from the fridge. ‘But also, the guy is not going to dump you.’

  ‘How would you know, you’re not even gay.’ Ashley wasn’t even, technically.

  ‘I’m not gay, and I still wouldn’t dump you,’ Dave agreed. ‘If I was gay, you’d be stuck with me for life. Fortunately for both of us, I like boobs. Freya’s boobs, mostly.’

  ‘Mostly?’

  ‘Freya’s boobs for all time,’ he corrected himself and Freya snorted inelegantly.

  ‘Ash, I saw the way that man looked at you. He’s not going anywhere. If you want him, you’ve gotta let him know and I’m pretty sure he’s all in. If he saw you last night, he’s definitely all in.’ She whistled low, like an aeroplane crashing. It didn’t sound good.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means I showed my friend Jacki your pic last night and she wanted to come over and sneak into your bed. She was very drunk and very persistent about the whole thing. Why do you dress like such a lazy slob all the time when you could look like last night all the time?’

  ‘Dave?’ He needed help. What did that even mean?

  ‘You know, I think your problem is that the first time you saw Finn Hale you were a seventeen year old brat who fell in instant lust. Unfortunately you’ve never stopped thinking of yourself as a seventeen year old brat, and you seem to think your interest will annoy the man or something so you don’t bother trying. You live in jeans and tee-shirts in winter and board shorts and singlets in summer, and it’s a miracle if you put shoes on outside of work. You cut your hair whenever your boss tells you it’s a health hazard and you never bother to brush it. You put zero effort into your appearance outside of the gym, and you still look like every woman’s wet dream. And apparently, Finn Hale’s. Stop thinking you’re not good enough, put in the time and you’ll get to do the crime.’

  ‘Huh?’ Freya and Ashley both stared at him, unsure what to make of his less than sage advice.

  ‘If you can’t figure that one out there’s no helping you,’ Dave announced, going back to his bedroom and whatever he’d been doing in there, leaving Ashley staring down at his lap.

  ‘What are you still doing here?’

  ‘I’m not his lapdog, I don’t follow him around.’

  ‘Um …’

  ‘You’re comfy.’ As if that explained anything. He sighed and sipped the beer Dave had given him, letting the cool liquid wash away the weariness of the day. Emma was full on, even if she’d been the world’s greatest wingman all day.

  ‘You really like this one, huh?’ Freya was far more serious than usual.

  ‘Yeah. I was hoping there was something wrong with him, you know? Like, if I could just talk to him, have a beer, hang out I’d realise he was a complete dick and the crush would die a fiery death and I’d get to spend the rest of my life hating on the guy or something.’

  ‘No hate?’

  ‘Frey … I’m in so much shit. The guy is fucking perfect. I mean … I definitely don’t like him for his money, since he seems to have none. The guy lives in the most run down shit house I’ve ever seen in fucking Riverstone. I don’t even know if he owns a car, because I haven’t seen one? The only thing he seems to care about is his stupid dog, who’s awesome, by the way. And the way he looks at me … Oh!’

  It was curious that her smile didn’t break her face. Her teeth were huge, and her lips were pulled so tight the red lipstick she had on was trying to bleed into her pores. But she was so genuinely pleased for him, and with him, that he couldn’t bring himself to be snide about anything. Even day-old lipstick.

  ‘He really is quite lovely.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘And he doesn’t have a problem with your bonehead brothers.’

  ‘Oh, don’t remind me! Brayden threatened to hurt him if he hurt me. It was horrible. I think Hale was genuinely hurt by it, and he still didn’t say anything. Just fucking agreed or whatever.’

  ‘Pretty rare for Bray to get his knickers in a twist.’ She stroked his forehead, as if she could smooth out the frown.

  ‘He was an arse. Even dumped Emma on me for the day.’

  ‘If Brayden’s being an arse, it means Clay and Taylor have said something to make him worry.’

  ‘Yeah. That they found me in bed with Finn Hale.’ They chuckled together and he squeezed her tightly, grateful for the friendship. She always knew the right things to say; knew when he needed to talk and when he needed to sit quietly and contemplate.

  She kissed his cheek and got up, staring down at him and then fetching his phone from the kitchen bench and dumping it in his lap.

  ‘Call him. But don’t have phone sex before you have real sex, that’s plain weird.’ She left him there on the couch, disappearing into her bedroom and closing the door. He didn’t want to think about what was going on behind closed doors. Instead, he followed her example and got up to go to his room, closing the door and flopping down on the bed, staring at his phone.

  He wanted to call, but he could smell Hale on the pillows and it reminded him of last night. He remembered waking up, warm and content and he remembered seeing that scar for the first time and the cold dread that had sunk into his bones. He thought of the traipsing rhinos and wondered again what the deal was with Hale having such a pretty tattoo on such a hideous scar. He wondered about the cold expression on his face when Brayden threatened him, and the hurt underneath it, and he prayed Finn Hale didn’t have the dark side he’d been hoping for after all. What if he’d been right, and he really wouldn’t like Hale when he got to know him, but by then it was too late?

  Hell, who was he kidding? It was already too late. He’d already spent five years convincing himself Finn Hale was the greatest thing breathing, and now he thought it might be true.

  ‘I’m half in love with him already,’ he whispered into the dark room. He sighed heavily and rolled
over, wrapping his arms around his pillow and hugging it close, inhaling the scent of him.

  His phone started vibrating, startling him and he fumbled for it and went to answer but it wasn’t Hale’s newly inputted number on the screen. It was Taylor’s.

  ‘Hello?’ He wasn’t sure what to expect, but silence wasn’t it. ‘You rang me. You gonna talk or just breathe scream-style into your phone?’

  ‘I’m sorry about today,’ Taylor admitted softly. ‘I guess I … I wasn’t expecting it. I have no problem with you being gay, obviously.’

  ‘Bi.’

  ‘Whatever, I don’t care. And I don’t mind you and Hale. I wanted you to know that. I’m gonna give him shit about it, but I haven’t got a problem with it, okay?’

  ‘Okay …’ Why was he telling him this? But Ashley felt better immediately, and he realised he’d been hurt, thinking Taylor didn’t approve. He wanted his big brother to approve. He really was a child.

  ‘I’m serious. I called Clay mostly because getting to walk in on you with a guy is the greatest big brother moment ever and he woulda been devastated if he missed out entirely. But I waited a bit as well because it’s Finn and … well. I waited. So I hope you don’t think I don’t approve or some stupid shit like that.’

  ‘Ah …’ He had thought that, but now that he thought about it, it was odd that he’d had time to shower and they had escaped a little too easily, considering.

  ‘Hale … Is it new, you two?’ He sounded uncertain, which wasn’t like Taylor at all.

  ‘Yeah, seriously last night was the first time we’d hooked up.’

  ‘Jesus, Ash, no one says hooked up.’ Could he sound any more irritated?

  ‘I do.’ Everyone did. Taylor was being weird.

  ‘He’s not …’ Taylor took a deep breath, and Ashley could imagine him sitting somewhere, staring at the sky trying to collect his thoughts. He always had a frown line between his brows when he concentrated on something too hard.

  ‘Finn’s a good guy, Ash. Too good, maybe. He’s real easy to hurt, you gotta be careful with him, okay? If it’s just a curiosity thing for you then he’s not the guy to be doing that with.’