Awfully Ambrose by Lisa Henry & Sarah Honey
Book 1 in the Bad Boyfriends, Inc. series
General Release Date: 7th June 2022
Word Count: 70,329
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 273
Genres:
COMEDY AND HUMOUR,CONTEMPORARY,EROTIC ROMANCE,FAKE RELATIONSHIPS,GAY,GLBTQI
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Book Description
Bad Boyfriend, Inc—When you can’t find a good boyfriend, why not hire a bad one instead?
Liam Connelly is a university student in Sydney. He leads an orderly and predictable life of studying, working as a waiter in an upscale harbour restaurant and spending lots of time with his cat, trying to convince himself that after his last cheating boyfriend, he’s perfectly happy alone. Well, mostly happy.
Ambrose Newman is a Bad Boyfriend. Professionally. Someone’s parents don’t approve of that long-haired unemployed bass player they want to date? Well, that’s where Ambrose comes in. For a few hundred dollars a night, he’ll go to dinner with them and their parents and show them that the grass is definitely not greener on his side of the fence. It’s dead. When Ambrose brings a date to Liam’s restaurant, it’s not sparks that fly—it’s glassware.
When Liam needs a date to prove to his visiting parents that he’s not destined to die sad and alone, he calls Ambrose, desperate. If Ambrose can be a bad boyfriend for money, he can be a tolerable one too, right? Which works out great—right up until Ambrose is too nice, and Liam’s parents invite them up to their winery for the long weekend.
Suddenly Ambrose has to be a Bad Boyfriend again, to give Liam an excuse to ‘break up’ with him before his mum starts planning the wedding. But as Liam gets to know the real Ambrose, real feelings start to sneak into the fake relationship on both sides. Under the watchful eyes of Liam’s protective family, who have no idea what to make of Ambrose, their fake relationship evolves into a chance at something real.
When Ambrose has an ugly run-in with Liam’s sister’s fiancé—who’s an even worse boyfriend than him—it might cost him not only any chance he had of convincing Liam’s family that he’s not the nightmare they think he is, but his fledgling relationship with Liam, too.
Reader advisory: This book contains mention of physical abuse and a racist comment.
On Wednesday morning, Liam lurked anxiously outside the purple “Institute of Rheumatology and Orthopaedics” sign on Missenden Road. It was right next door to the Alfred Hotel, and across the road from two of Sydney University’s oldest and most prestigious residential colleges. The colleges seemed to come from an entirely different era, complete with spires and church-like arched leadlight windows, and Liam couldn’t shake the idea that they were probably haunted by the ghosts of long-dead university students, wailing and gnashing their teeth as they perpetually crammed for finals.
Next door at the Alfred, there was a line of people waiting for coffee and breakfast at Freddie’s. Liam sat down on the edge of a garden bed and scrolled through the messages on his phone just for something to do, so he didn’t look like a weirdo just standing there. A moment later a shadow fell across him, and he looked up to see the dickhead from the other night at Bayside standing there, a coffee in one hand, a breakfast roll in the other, and a grin on his face that, even knowing what he now knew, Liam kind of wanted to punch off him.
“Hi, I’m Ambrose,” said Ambrose. His grin ratcheted up a few degrees. “I’d shake your hand, but…” He sat down next to Liam. “Uh, so this is weird, right? How much do you still want to smack me in the head?”
Liam snorted. “God. So much. You were…you were awful.”
“Thanks,” Ambrose said brightly. He bit into his breakfast roll and moaned like it was a religious experience. Or a sexual one. Or one that met uncomfortably in the middle. “This is so good. Do you want to get anything?”
“No, I’m good.”
Ambrose balanced his coffee carefully in the garden bed and tackled his roll with both hands, while Liam tried very hard not to notice the way his tongue darted out to chase the stray spots of sauce as he ate. If Ambrose picked up on him trying hard not to stare, he didn’t comment.
“So,” he said, “you need a date?”
Liam jolted slightly. “Um, yeah. For this Saturday.” He flushed. “My parents are kind of hung up on me being single, and my mum was threatening to set me up with someone unless I can prove to her that I can actually find a date myself.” He wrinkled his nose and looked away. “It’s, um, well, it’s how they are.”
“Mate, overbearing parents are my wheelhouse,” Ambrose said. “No judgement. So how awful do you want me to be?”
“Oh, um…here’s the thing. I might have, um, lied and told Mum I met someone, and now she wants me to bring them to dinner.”
Ambrose raised his eyebrows. “Wait, you don’t want a bad boyfriend, do you? You want a nice boyfriend.”
“Well, yeah,” Liam said. “I think so. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” Ambrose said. “It’ll make a nice change. Hey, maybe I can even eat dessert for once instead of getting asked to leave!”
Liam narrowed his eyes at Ambrose’s grin. “It took me an hour to clean the floor.”
“Sorry,” Ambrose said, biting his bottom lip. His eyes still danced though. “Just so you know, that was supposed to work.”
“It never works!”
Ambrose knocked him with his shoulder. “I practiced at home! It worked there!”
Liam laughed, despite himself. “Sure it did.”
“It did! Though I can’t argue that failure on the night didn’t work out better for Kelly.” Ambrose shoved more of the breakfast roll into his mouth. “Anyway,” he said around a mouthful, “just to be clear up front, I will hold your hand and kiss you if you want to give off that kind of PDA-loving couples vibe, but there’s no sex. Okay?”
Liam jolted again. “Sure, of course. I didn’t think there would be!”
“Because if that’s your thing, I can point you towards Craigslist,” Ambrose said frankly, “but I don’t do it myself.”
“No, I get it,” Liam said, swallowing. “No sex.”
“Or handies or gobbies,” Ambrose added.
Liam wrinkled his brow. “Do you, like, get any action at all by calling them handies and gobbies?”
“You’d be surprised,” Ambrose said, and winked, and Liam discovered that, no, he wasn’t surprised at all. Ambrose was hot. He was still at least fifty-percent dickhead, but he was hot. Okay, his display of douchebaggery from the other night had been fake, but it was still a hell of a first impression to try to overcome. And, in Liam’s defence, he was pretty sure that being paid money to act like a dickhead was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It wasn’t the sort of job a non-dickhead would take, right? At least some of Ambrose’s douchebag act had to be a case of art imitating life.
He was super-hot though. And his smile was cute, and made Liam want to smile in return.
“So, tell me about you,” Ambrose said, wiping his greasy fingers on his jeans. “And also tell me how we met, and how long we’ve been dating, and anything else I might get third-degreed about over dinner with your parents.”
“Third-degreed isn’t a verb,” Liam said.
“Aha!” Ambrose grinned broadly, the sunlight sparkling in his hazel eyes. “English major, right?”
“No,” Liam said, slightly abashed. “Um, just a pedant?”
Ambrose laughed. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Um,” Liam said. “My name is Liam Connelly. I’m twenty-three. I’m doing a joint degree in Science and Commerce, and I’m hopefully going to do my master’s in Agriculture and Environment.”
Ambrose narrowed his eyes. “I hope our backstory isn’t that we met in class, because there is no way I can fake any knowledge of, or, if I’m honest, interest in any of the words you just said.” He brightened. “Oh! Maybe we met at the Royal Easter Show! You were there checking out cows or something.”
“Why would I be checking out cows?” Liam asked.
“Because agriculture! Cows are a part of agriculture, right? Or am I thinking astronomy?”
“Jesus, I hope not,” Liam said. “No, I’m not interested in cows. I’m interested in grapes.”
“I like the green ones without seeds,” Ambrose said. “Do you have a favourite grape? Maybe we met in the produce section at Woolworths?”
“My family owns a winery,” Liam said. “And no, we didn’t meet over grapes. Can’t we just say we met here one morning, when we were both getting coffee?”
“That’ll work,” Ambrose said. “Wow. A winery. That’s cool. Okay, so you’re doing a double degree, and a master’s, in stuff that’ll help the family business.” He smiled, and a single dimple appeared in his left cheek. “That’s kind of awesome.”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “It’s pretty cool, actually. I’ve always loved the family business, so my parents were really pleased I wanted to go to uni and do something that would lead into that, you know?”
Ambrose nodded. “Connelly, you said? Isn’t there already, like, a famous wine label called Connelly Cellars? Is that awkward for your family? Do you always have to be like, ‘Oh no, we’re the other Connellys who make wine’?”
“No,” said Liam, furrowing his brow. “Because we are those Connellys.”
Ambrose fumbled his coffee. “Shit! Seriously? Holy crap!”
He was even cuter when he was flustered, Liam decided, even if he was a dickhead. Who didn’t know astronomy from agriculture?
“Oh, wow,” Ambrose said. “Wait, so you’re hot, and you’re rich, but you can’t get a date? What’s that about?”
“Um, not that it’s really any of your business, but I’ve been busy.” Now that he was saying the words out loud to a third party, it occurred to Liam that they did sound kind of pathetic. God. Was his mum right? No. Impossible. “I mean, I’m concentrating on uni.” He became aware that Ambrose’s smile was growing as he listened. “I have a really heavy workload right now, and I don’t need the distraction. Not that…not that a relationship is a distraction. I don’t hate relationships, or people. I mean, if the right guy came along, I wouldn’t chuck him out or anything.”
“You could have just said you’re not looking for a relationship right now,” Ambrose said. He bumped their shoulders together. “That’s a valid response.”
“Oh.” Liam blinked. “I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.”
“That’s it,” Ambrose said, his smile digging that dimple back into his left cheek. “So, is there anything you want to know about me? Or anything you think I should be to really get your parents on the hook here? I’m not used to coming up with good qualities.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Liam said dryly.
“Oh, let me think!” Ambrose pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was in a cult, and I was selling some MLM brand, and I also did online porn, right?” His eyes danced. “Yeah, those go down great with parents!”
“You’re a student, right?” Liam asked.
Ambrose nodded. “Theatre.”
“Well, I told my mum we just met, so it’s okay if I don’t know everything about you,” Liam said. He shrugged. “Like, we met here, which is true, and you’re a student too, which is true. You don’t need to do anything extra to get my parents on board.” He felt his face heat up. “They’ll be embarrassingly happy for me that I’m dating anyone at all.”
Ambrose’s smile was softer this time. “That’s really nice.”
“No, it’s really embarrassing,” Liam said.
Ambrose leaned in closer, then, lowering his voice as he was about to impart a great secret, he said, “Liam Connelly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is very little that embarrasses me.”
“I noticed,” Liam said. “Believe me.”
And Ambrose laughed again.
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Lisa Henry
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
Lisa has been published since 2012, and was a LAMBDA finalist for her quirky, awkward coming-of-age romance Adulting 101, and a Rainbow Awards finalist for 2019’s Anhaga.
Find out more at Lisa’s website and blog. You can follow her on Bookbub and sign up to her newsletter.
Sarah Honey
Sarah started life in New Zealand. She came to Australia for a working holiday, loved it, and never left. She lives in Western Australia with her partner, two cats, two dogs and a life-size replica TARDIS.
She spends half her time at a day job and the rest of her time reading and writing about clueless men falling in love.
Her proudest achievements include having adult kids who will still be seen with her in public, the ability to make a decent sourdough loaf, and knowing all the words to Bohemian Rhapsody.
Awfully Ambrose will be her fifth published novel in collaboration with Lisa Henry.
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