Monday hadn’t gone well so far. Connor had to euthanize a puppy with kidney failure, then deal with the family who had only the week before come in excited about their new puppy, talking about walks and food and loving their new fur baby. Then the coffee machine broke. Just like that Connor consigned today to the crappy file.
“I’m going out for coffee,” he announced in reception. Evan nodded in agreement and held up a finger to indicate he was in. He was on the phone and couldn’t really give much more but Liz knew which coffees they all drink. Rachel popped up from behind reception, her arms full of files.
“Hot chocolate, extra cream,” she announced. She’d been impossibly perky this morning, but then she hadn’t been the one putting a tiny puppy to sleep. In fact she’d only just got into work because she was on the late shift today. For a second Connor contemplated spilling the whole sorry story for some support, but decided against it. He didn’t want to be the one to harsh her happy. She moved towards him with intention written on her face, and throwing a smile her way, he left the office.
She hadn’t had the chance to corner him about Friday night yet and he wasn’t about to give her the opportunity when he was under-caffeinated.
Once outside he tilted his head up to the sun, the warmth pleasant on his face. He didn’t want to talk about Friday with Rachel, and certainly not about Ash. Not until he’d made sense of what had happened in his own head. That kiss had been everything Connor wanted in a kiss. Simple. The touch of skin, the taste, the absolute desperation to enjoy each other, it was all too much. They’d talked for so long at the table and Connor spent the entire time looking for deception in Ash, but at the end of things, all he’d wanted was to kiss the man.
“Earth to Connor.” A voice interrupted his musing and he recognised it immediately. Ash. Of all the people…
“Hey,” Connor said lamely. His fingers itched to touch Ash’s skin, to hug him close, to steal another heated kiss. He did none of it. Then he took in the look of the man who’d messed with his mind. Ash looked dishevelled. Old worn jeans, a T-shirt with a logo so faded Connor couldn’t make it out, and was that sawdust in his hair?
“You looking at something?” Ash looked up at the sky, then back to Connor.
“Just getting coffee,” Connor offered, aware of how stupid that sounded given he’d been looking upwards and standing like an idiot outside the surgery.
“I’m working in the place above the café. I’ll walk with you.”
They fell in alongside each other, waiting as cars crossed in front of them, and had even made it halfway across the centre green when it suddenly hit Connor what Ash had said.
“You’re working?” he asked.
Ash nodded. “You know Rachel’s friend who married Ben, Chloe?”
“Yeah.”
“Her dad runs a company that creates bespoke kitchens. I’m working with him.”
“Is this an estate house, then?” Connor opened the door to the café and gestured Ash inside.
“No.” Ash looked confused. “No, it’s Liz’s place. She and Bryan wanted a new kitchen.”
“So you’re working working?”
“Cheap labour,” Ash quipped. They’d made it to the queue by then and were maybe three or four people back, Connor wasn’t counting. “I’m the gopher. I go for the coffee; I go for the nails in the car.” He held up a paper bag that Connor guessed held nails.
Connor worked this all through his head. Tristan and his friends never had jobs past uni as such. Tristan had done a few days here and there at an office in his dad’s company. Played some golf with clients, that kind of thing. But working? Was the Sterling-Haynes estate short of money or something that one of the brothers had to resort to being a gopher on a kitchen project?
“You look kind of confused,” Ash said. He moved a little and Connor felt the brush of Ash’s hand against his. Instinctively Connor stepped to the side and saw a frown appear briefly on Ash’s face. Touching wasn’t good, touching led to kissing, and there was no way Connor was allowing any more kissing.
“I would have thought you’d work for the estate somehow.” He needed to change the subject before the tension between them had him literally running away.
“Oh, I do.” Ash leaned in to talk conspiratorially. “I’m an accountant, well accounts manager, anyway, only don’t go telling anyone. I have street cred to maintain.”
Connor inhaled the scent of the man who was muddling his thoughts. The warmth of the man and the trace of wood. He was already half hard and this was wrong, Ash was playing with his control in a big way. Dark eyes sparkled with teasing, and the man hadn’t been put off by the brick wall Connor was mentally building between them. He wanted to leave but he was in a queue, getting coffee, and to leave would look stupid. Unless of course he had an emergency? But then, Rachel would call him, and his cell sat silent in his pocket. An uneasy silence fell between them and Ash looked at him expectantly. He’d just admitted he was an accountant. That was funny, that was the opening into Connor making a joke back, you know, socialising properly, exchanging laughs. Normal. But that would mean connecting to Ash properly on that social level and Connor couldn’t allow that.
“So you’re an accountant? What is this, then?” Connor gestured above his head to the work Ash had said he was doing to Liz’s kitchen. He expected Ash to explain it as hobby work or a favour or anything but what he actually said.
“Well, look at it this way, accounts is what I have to do to play my part in the estate, working with wood is what I love to do when I can.”
Yet again Ash laid something at Connor’s door which was such a contradiction to what Connor expected. The most Tristan had ever done was play golf, and hobbies? Tristan had one hobby that had become more than it should have been, partying, cocaine, random men, killing himself slowly.
Working with wood wasn’t going to kill Ash. Unless he cut his hand off with a saw.
Silence fell again. Connor could have kicked himself. He wasn’t the type to stand in silence, he always found something to talk about with clients, hell he even talked to the pets in his care.
“So, fitted kitchens, then,” he said lamely.
Ash raised his eyebrows and quirked a smile. “Bespoke cabinets, carpentry, that kind of thing.”
Connor realised he had probably insulted Ash, but didn’t have the wherewithal to actually dig himself out of that one, and thank God it was his turn at the front of the queue.
“The usual?” Liz asked. Connor nodded and Liz set about the order and did her usual talking. “Turns out the Barrow farm isn’t up for sale anymore, their son Jamie, you won’t know Jamie but he moved to the US after university, well he’s back with his American wife and two kids, and he’s converting the barns or something. Ed in council planning came in yesterday and told me all about it, you remember Ed? He has an Alsatian and a poodle, and I know that is the very oddest of partnerships, the poodle being so small, and the Alsatian being so big, even though Herbert is a big puddle of cute, don’t you think?”
Connor opened his mouth to comment on Herbert the Alsatian, because Liz had asked him a question, hadn’t she? But she dived on headlong, something about Ed and planning and barn conversions. Connor wondered how Ed from planning had even managed to get a word in edgeways. Ash let out a low snort of laughter behind him and Connor half turned and somehow he and the man he was trying to avoid were exchanging rueful glances.
Then, with coffees and teas in the carry container, Connor nodded to Ash and left before Ash could say anything else. He’d almost made it to the door when Liz started talking at Ash about the kitchen. How that woman kept going all day was anyone’s guess.
The door opened behind him.
“Two weeks,” Ash said behind him. Holding back a groan, Connor turned to face him. Ash had a grin plastered on his face. “That’s how long I’ll be here.”
Connor waited expectantly for more.
“So we could do lunch,” Ash finished.
Connor shook his head. “Why?”
Ash looked at him with a sad shake of his head. “I like you. We kissed, it was nice, come on… it’s only a few weeks. We could have fun. Maybe some more kissing?” Ash sounded hopeful.
Connor stiffened and his jaw clenched. Just like Tristan, Ash was looking for easy and quick and fun. Didn’t matter that his conscience was telling him that he was tarring Ash with the same brush as Tristan and that Ash was nothing like the other man.
“No.” Then Connor turned on his heel and crossed the green to the practice.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ash called after him.
Connor ignored him. Half-hard, needy and doubting his decision, he went inside the practice and hoped to hell he had five minutes before the next appointment.
Just to get his head straight.
The rest of the morning flew by, and thankfully Connor found he didn’t have that much time left to actually think any more about Ash. So the guy had the summer off, lucky Ash to have money enough to play for the time he was here, didn’t mean he should spend it harassing Connor. Hopefully turning down lunch would send Ash the message that Connor wasn’t interested.
So why did his chest tighten when he went into reception at six to grab a bottled water and Ash was waiting for him on one of the waiting area seats?
“What are you doing here?” he asked. The confrontational tone was there again, and given it was possible Ash was here for some other reason than to mess with Connor, it was probably unnecessary. Although, who the hell else was here? He was the last one in the practice, and Ash must know that from how quiet the place was. Had Rachel let him in?
“Rachel let me in,” Ash said.
Connor decided he needed words with Rachel if she was going to let all and sundry into the practice.
“What do you want?”
“Can I show you something?” Ash asked. If anything he looked even dustier than earlier, his hair now a grey colour, and his skin chalky white in places.
“What?”
“Come with me and you’ll find out.”
“Jesus, I’m too old to play games,” Connor ground out, aware he sounded like some ancient uncle who was way too grumpy for his own good. Only, seeing Ash here was a surprise and being on his own with Ash gave Connor that familiar feeling of fear and Connor didn’t like that one bit.
Ash smiled. “No one is ever too old. Just five minutes, then I’ll never bother you again.”
Connor considered the offer, his gaze flicking from the direction his small flat was in and back to Ash. “Five minutes,” he reluctantly agreed. “Just let me finish what I was doing.”
“I’m in no rush,” Ash said. “I’ll wait right here.”
Connor moved to the door and unlocked it. “Wait outside, please.”
Ash stood, a cloud of dust rising from him. “No worries. It’s lovely out there. I’ll sit on the bench on the green.” Then he left and Connor locked the door behind him. This was getting stupid when he couldn’t stand to have a man in the practice alone with him.
Connor shook his head and turned back to his office. “Fuck’s sake,” he muttered under his breath.
Screwed.