Chapter One
The voice was loud and obnoxious, at odds with the restaurant’s muted soundtrack of clinking cutlery, soft jazz and murmured conversation.
“Really appreciate you paying for dinner, Tom. I’m between opportunities right now but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna take just any job and be a corporate drone. Better to take a free meal when I can get one, right?”
It was followed by a braying laugh that made Liam wince and want to drag his nails down a blackboard, because that would have been preferable to listening to this honking, snorting nightmare.
Liam prayed he wouldn’t have to wait on whoever the loud idiot was, but judging by the smirk on his co-worker Judy’s face, he had a sudden sinking certainty that the table was his. Sure enough, when he glanced over to check, there was Braying Man in the middle of his section—elbows on the table, wearing a backwards baseball cap and a flannel shirt, picking at his teeth.
The idiot caught Liam’s eye and snapped his fingers. “Hey, man, can we get a bread basket or something? And booze. Lots of booze. Her old man’s paying, so make it the good stuff.” He winked, then gave Liam honest-to-God finger guns.
The guy was an utter dickhead, Liam decided. Still, part of the job was keeping his opinions to himself, so Liam made his way over to the table, face carefully impassive. His mask slipped for a split second when he recognized the girl who was gazing at Dickhead with something like worship. It was Kelly, who he shared a Marketing Communications class with at the University of Sydney, and the last time Liam had talked to her, she’d been dating someone completely different—a nice, if slightly scruffy, guitarist in a pub band. He wondered what had happened to him.
The other couple at the table had to be Kelly’s parents. They were looking at the guy with a slightly confused expression on their faces, like he was one of those hairless cats, and they couldn’t decide if they were fascinated or horrified by his existence.
Liam had to admit, Dickhead was objectively attractive when he was keeping his mouth shut. He could have been a model, with his well-muscled physique, dark hair and carefully sculpted stubble. He had a strong, straight nose, killer jawline, and even white teeth. He was just Liam’s type—or would have been, if Liam dated.
Liam cleared his throat and did his best to pretend he didn’t know anyone at the table as he said, “Welcome to Bayside. Would you like to order some drinks?”
Dickhead rolled his eyes. “Wow. I guess you weren’t listening, huh? I mean, I literally just asked you to bring us good booze.”
Liam kept his face pleasantly neutral—he’d had plenty of practice, working as a waiter in a high-end Sydney restaurant—and clarified, “What, specifically, would you like to drink, sir?” He made sure to address Kelly’s father, since he was obviously the one footing the bill.
The man smiled gratefully and started to say, “I’d like a gin and tonic, and my wife will have—”
Arsehole interrupted. “Just give me a bottle of that Don Paragraph stuff”—as someone from a family of winemakers, Liam died a tiny death at the mangled pronunciation—“and the quicker the better, yeah?”
“I’ll check if we have any Dom Perignon in stock, sir. How many glasses with that?” Liam asked through clenched teeth. God, he hoped they weren’t celebrating Kelly’s engagement to this douchebag.
Dude wrinkled his nose. “Just one. It’s for me.” He turned to Kelly and winked. “Gotta watch for extra calories in drinks if you wanna stay in shape, am I right, sweet pea?”
Liam waited for Kelly to rip the guy’s balls off—he hoped literally, but he’d settle for metaphorically—because he knew she had a hell of a temper when she was wronged. He’d been on the receiving end of it during one disastrous group assignment. But Kelly just smiled like a Stepford Wife and murmured, “Yes, Ambrose.”
Liam was pretty sure the shock on her father’s face was mirrored on his own, but he schooled his features and nodded. Ambrose tilted a menu at Kelly’s father. “This seafood platter’s meant to be for two, but you’re cool with me ordering it, right, Tom?”
Kelly’s father cleared his throat. “Kelly’s allergic to seafood.”
“That’s cool, I wasn’t planning on sharing anyway,” the dickhead—Ambrose—said with an easy grin that lit up his entire face and really, it wasn’t fair that someone who was such a colossal arsehole could be so attractive. But of course, that was how the world worked, right? Beautiful people got away with murder.
Liam turned back to the older man. “And the rest of your drinks order, sir?” he asked, taking petty satisfaction at the way Ambrose snorted and muttered under his breath.
“A gin and tonic for myself, and a glass of Connelly Cellars’ Perfect Pinot,” Tom said, and Liam suppressed the urge to preen, just like he did every time someone ordered one of his family’s wines.
“Make mine a tonic water,” Kelly said.
Liam blinked. Wow, what happened to the girl who always claimed she’d never drink water because fish fucked in it?
Something weird was going on, and whatever it was, Liam didn’t like it. He especially didn’t like that it was happening here at Bayside. People didn’t come into Bayside wearing backwards caps and being dicks. Bayside had standards—standards that Liam was beginning to worry he might have to attempt to enforce. It had water views! You could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the wide dining room windows! It was both fancy and trendy, and it always made the list of the top ten places to eat in Sydney. Diners weren’t supposed to wear flannel to Bayside, and Liam panicked quietly that he didn’t know if the dress code was actually enforceable or not. Liam had only been working here for eight months, but it had never come up before. People usually treated Bayside like it was a special occasion, not three a.m. at the counter of Macca’s.
“Good choice, babe. You know you’re a sloppy drunk,” Ambrose said, leaning in and patting Kelly’s face. Then he hauled himself out of his chair, scratched his belly and farted. “I gotta go take a dump. I always shit when I’m out. Make someone else deal with that, am I right?” And with that Ambrose sauntered towards the bathrooms, leaving Kelly’s parents staring after him open-mouthed.
Liam couldn’t help himself. “Kelly—”
“Hi, Liam, I guess you’ve met my new boyfriend now!” Kelly cut in, following that with a tinkling laugh that was pitched a little high with nerves. “He’s an entrepreneur.”
Liam opened his mouth to ask what happened to Greg the bassist, but Kelly shot him a glare that said she would hunt him down and personally set his dick on fire if he said another word. Liam knew that look, so he shut his mouth, went to fetch drinks and said a prayer that he wouldn’t have to be the one to clean the toilets at the end of the night. Frankly, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Ambrose had just decided to take a shit on the floor and stolen all the paper.
When Ambrose wandered back out again at last, he didn’t walk straight back to his own table. Instead, he approached another table where a group of shiny and fashionable young women who were probably Instagram influencers or something were eating.