Rule 4 - not proofread, ignore any mistakes, I'll fix any later.

            Dev was leaning against the side of his car when I reached him, giving me a look that suggested he'd been waiting a while.

            "Any luck?" he asked when I reached him. I shrugged, not knowing anything until the shops that I gave my CVs got back to me.

            "I don't know. But let's be honest, I'm a college dropout, it's not the most appealing quality for a new employee," I muttered as I looked up at him. He sighed and scratched the nape of his neck.

            "I suppose not." He unlocked the car and gestured for me to get in, starting the engine with haste.

            In the past two hours, I'd managed to hand out over 10 CVs and enquire about several positions, resulting in annoyed looks from shop assistants and a variety of application forms. I placed them on the seats behind us and rested my head against the window.

            "I asked Matt about a job at the bar we went to," I said and Dev let out a wry laugh.

            "You've got no chance, cuz," he said, smirking. I frowned and twisted in my seat to face him.

            "Why would you say that?"

            "Ash's mum owns the place, the woman is evil. She only hired Sid because she's a friend of the family. That was the last time she took anyone on and that was about a year ago," Dev explained, honking the horn when we came to a stop behind traffic. I groaned and glanced at my cousin, unsure if he knew about what Ash and I had discussed the day before. I say discussed, it was more of a dispute.

            "You could ask Ash," Dev trailed off and I grunted.

            "I'd rather fat fry my face." He let out a bark of laughter at my words and smiled.

            "He's not that bad and I'm sure he won't mind doing you a favour," he continued. I shook my head and scrunched up my nose as I looked out of the window at the queue of traffic.

            "He offered to get me the job," I started and Dev clucked his tongue.

            "He wanted something in return?" I nodded.

            "Me to attend a dinner party to represent Melinda," I spat. Dev just looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

            "Then go?"

            "Why? So people can ask me questions about my brilliant older sister? No thank you," I retorted, folding my arms.

            "If it gets you a job, go for it," Dev reasoned. "I mean, seriously, Alex, two hours or so for some work?" he replied as we started forwards again, the traffic beginning to clear.

            My cousin had a point but my pride was the only thing getting in the way. I didn't like Ash as it was, let alone ask him for a favour. If I could get him to make the offer again, it would probably be easier on my dignity.

            "And because you took so long, I don't have time to pop you home before I go down to the garage," Dev mumbled and I nodded with a shrug.

            "That's fine."

            It was everything but fine. Not only was the quick visit to the garage turning into what seemed like endless hours of waiting and leaning against the car, Ash had coincidently shown up to get his bike checked on.

            "Fancy bumping into you here," he chided. I shot him a glare, staring at his deep brown eyes, which were smirking back at me. Instead of retaliating, I looked meekly at the door that Dev had disappeared through about fifteen minutes ago.

            Ash left me by myself for a few minutes while he went to check out what was happening with the gas tank on his bike. I was thankful for him going away, but standing by yourself in the middle of a garage with a bunch of people you don't know is pretty daunting. They were also ignoring me, for some unknown reason. I'd hoped it was that they were busy, rather than I looked too boring to speak to.

            "You're a Simmons?" A voice asked from behind me. I jumped, shocked that someone other than Ash and Dev was speaking to me.

            "Uh, yeah. Who are you?" I asked, not doing very well at keeping the curious tone out of my voice. When I turned around, a guy, probably about two years older than me, was leaning against the other side of Dev's car.

            "Ry," he responded simply and appeared to be studying my appearance.

            "Okay, Ry, can I help you?" I folded my arms over my chest and he smiled, shaking his head.

            "Just curious. I have an interest in Devon's family," he replied. I frowned at his stocky form.

            "You clearly don't know him very well. All his friends call him Dev, and why the interest?" I questioned. Just as he was about to answer, Dev himself came up behind me and cleared his throat.

            "Bugger off, Ryder." His hand clamped down on my shoulder and steered me back behind him.

            "It was just a casual conversation, Simmons, no need to get your dick in a twist," Ry sneered but Dev ignored him.

            "Get off my car," Dev remarked, unlocking the door without even looking over the roof. I glanced over my shoulder to see that Ash had been watching the scene unfold with a scowl on his face.

            Dev grunted, snapping me into reality as I lowered myself into the car and put on my seatbelt. Ryder was walking back towards the counter where several engines were laid out. He turned and smirked.

            "Come and talk to me when you don't have a guard dog, Babe!" he hollered. I saw Ash's lips move but couldn't make out what he was saying over the sound of Dev's engine and scoff.

            We'd travelled for a few minutes and after my cousin's death grasp on the steering wheel seemed to relax a little bit, I decided to enquire about the tension.

            "He's a dickhead," Dev opened. "He's one of the competitors in Ash's bike championships but we had problems with him before then. Mainly through college," he said with a sigh and then gave me a serious look. "I mean it, Al, stay away from him. He's not good news."

            Instead of answering him, I sucked in a deep breath and looked out of the window. The cool glass pressed against my forehead and I closed my eyes, listening to the gentle music of Jason Mraz on the radio. It was the sound of a horn that jerked me into reality again and when I opened my eyes, a motorbike had just raced past and the guy was giving Dev the finger.

            He just chuckled and shook his head.

            "He's going to kill himself one day if he continues racing around at that speed," he muttered. I assumed that the guy on the bike was our roommate.

            "If he does, I get the bigger room, right?" I asked with a sly grin and Dev smirked.

            "No cutting the brake lines," he warned. I scoffed and smiled as he pulled the car up outside our flats.

            "I wouldn't know what the bloody thing looks like so no worries there."

            Dev ruffled my hair when we got to our flat before departing to go back out and visit a friend. I hoped that Ash hadn't gone back to the flat and also had a friend to visit, which would give me some time alone.

            "Getting your flirt on with Ryder, I see," Ash remarked when I entered the living room. I groaned and dropped onto the arm of the armchair. He was sprawled across the sofa, his hair tousled from the bike helmet and his dark eyes appeared curious but irritated.

            "Of course. 'What's your name?' Yeah, definitely flirt material right there," I muttered and Ash smirked, letting out a wry chuckle.

            "Don't associate with him," he all but ordered. I raised my eyebrows.

            "Did you just command me not to do something?" I asked. He blinked twice and then nodded with a shrug.

            "I guess I did. Only for your own good, though," he justified.

            "Rule number 4, don't tell me what to do," I hissed and he laughed.

            "These are just getting worse and worse."

            "That's because you're being an idiot. If you didn't have these 'stupid' qualities, I wouldn't have to make 'stupid' rules in order to control your.... personality disorder," I responded. Ash's eyes widened and instead of his normal chuckle, he let out a bark of laughter.

            "Personality disorder?! Ouch," he breathed out, grinning at me.

            "Want some aloe vera for that burn?" I offered sarcastically and he nodded.

            "If you're going to throw comments like that at me all day, I'm going to need it."

            "You've been an ass to me, I have every right to say that," I defended. He rolled his eyes and leaned back against the sofa. His long legs took up every cushion, leaving his feet to dangle over the arm of the chair.

            "If you weren't so uptight, you wouldn't see a personality disorder, you'd see a charmer."

            "I didn't realise charming was in your list of qualities," I offered and he grinned.

            "There are a lot of things you don't realise about me, love," he said with a wink.

            "I think I was just sick in my mouth," I retorted. He scoffed and closed his eyes, settling into a more comfortable position.

            In the half an hour that I sat there and scrolled through some job listings on my phone, Asher had fallen asleep and had started to snore. With a small smile, I looked from the kitchen to his sleeping, undisturbed figure. I got up, walking as quietly as possible towards the freezer and grabbed a handful of ice. Before returning into the living room, I checked that my journey hadn't disturbed my victim. It hadn't.

            My trip back into the living room and towards Ash's feet was tense, any sound I made panicked me that I might wake him up. But I needed to go quickly in order to stop the ice from melting in my hands.

            Speed was obviously the only way to go about it, so I reached forward and pulled the denim of his jeans back. As his legs were angled up on the arm, the ice, if put in correctly, should go all the way up his leg. With one quick motion, I shoved the ice down his trousers and made a run for the passage. All I heard before I slammed the door shut was "Son of a bitch!"

            Uptight my ass.

A/N I have a lot of college work to be doing and because of that, updates aren't going to be everyday like my other stories. I hope to get an upload to you once a week so please don't message me asking about updates as I really don't know. It depends on my work load :)