Chapter 6
Chapter Six
I t’s not a date, Jack reminded himself for the fifth time. Just because Harry had said “ it’s a date ” didn’t make it a date, any more than Jack saying, “It’s a Porsche,” made his shitty ute anything other than a shitty ute.
As far as Jack knew, Harry didn’t even like guys. Jack wasn’t sure what his deal was, but Harry was a cutie, so Jack could only assume that if he wanted to go out, he’d have no trouble finding someone. Ergo, Harry didn’t date because he wasn’t interested.
Ergo . Jack rolled his eyes at his own bullshit and dragged his attention back to the menu in front of him. It was the same as it always was, and he knew he’d order the fettuccine just like he did every other time, but it was a good excuse not to stare at Harry’s messy hair and his bright smile, and at least it stopped him blurting out something embarrassing like, “Go out with me?”
He scanned the dessert section, and he frowned. Maybe it was just because he was aware of it, but did everything have strawberries on it now? Did that mean the kitchen was awash with punnets of potentially life-threatening fruit? He signalled their waitress over and she gave him a bright smile. “Ready to order?” She held her pen over her pad expectantly.
“Um. Sorry, no. But I wanted to make sure the kitchen knows that my—” he bit back the word date “ — friend is allergic to strawberries.”
“I’ll make a note.”
“No,” Jack said intently. “I mean deathly allergic. It could legitimately kill him.”
She nodded. “I’ll make certain they know.”
“Thanks. Um. I’ll have the fettucine carbonara and a Coke,” Jack said, because he wasn’t going to be a dick and not order after he’d called her over.
It occurred to him then that he hadn’t asked if Harry was ready but when he glanced across the table, Harry was wearing a pleased smile, like he appreciated Jack thinking of him or something. Which wasn’t why Jack had done it—he’d done it because he never again wanted to see Harry look half-dead like he had that day at the café—but it still gave him a warm feeling inside.
Harry’s gaze skittered away to the menu. “I’ll have the same, thanks.”
The waitress took their menus and left.
“Sometimes I have trouble remembering that I’m meant to be an arsehole on my dates, then I’m polite to the waiter and I have to claw my dickhead status back by calling them serfs or plebs once they’ve walked away,” Harry confessed, and Jack couldn’t help but laugh. He still had trouble picturing Harry—sweet, slightly clueless Harry who spent his Friday nights playing with poster paint and making animal masks—as a professional arsehole, but from the stories he’d heard from his parents about Harry’s date with Mia, he apparently pulled it off.
Still, it was entertaining to imagine Harry being accidentally pleasant. “You can be nice to me and get it out of your system before tonight,” he teased.
Harry gasped dramatically. “I’m always nice to you! Even after you almost?—”
Jack held up a hand. “Just— don’t, okay?” It might have been a month, but Harry’s hospitalization was still too fresh in Jack’s mind to be funny. He wasn’t sure when he’d be able to laugh about it.
Never, maybe.
Harry must have read something of that in his face, because he nodded. “Sorry. I’ll stop winding you up about it.”
“Thanks.” Jack let out a relieved breath and the tight twist of unease in his gut unclenched. “It’s just, I still feel a bit shit about it, you know?” Maybe it was his upbringing, but Jack had a tendency to hold onto guilt with all the determination of a cat hanging from a screen door.
Harry shrugged easily. “We’ve all done dumb things. I mean, I dyed my hair blond once.”
Jack gaped at him, open-mouthed. “You did not! That would have been?—”
Harry grinned. “Yeah, it was fucking awful. And I was too broke to get it fixed, so I ended up wearing a hat for a month and then getting a short back and sides. Ambrose took one look and told me that, as my friend, he forbade me from attempting do-it-yourself haircare ever again.”
They were interrupted by their meals arriving, and Jack, who’d skipped breakfast, attacked his pasta with vigour. He let himself get lost in the creamy goodness of the sauce and was about three bites in when a tiny sound made him look up. Harry was staring at him, mouth slightly open. Jack raised his eyebrows in a silent query and Harry cleared his throat, cheeks going inexplicably pink. “You have—” He pointed wordlessly to the corner of his own plush lips, in the universal signal for ‘you have shit on your face,’ and Jack swiped across his bottom lip with his tongue, catching a glob of creamy sauce.
“Is it gone?” he asked, dabbing at his chin with a paper napkin just to be sure.
“Yeah,” Harry said, ducking his head and starting his own meal. He took a bite and let out a moan that wouldn’t have been amiss in a porn video.
Down boy , Jack mentally scolded his dick, which had perked up at the sound. His dick ignored him and continued to twitch merrily in his jeans as Harry took another forkful and let out an honest-to-God groan that was frankly far too filthy to be wasted on pasta.
“So, you start your prac next week, yeah?” Jack asked, in a desperate effort to remind himself that Harry was his as-far-as-he-knew-straight roommate, and a preschool teacher, and that Jack’s brain space should not be allocating shared billing to Harry’s lush mouth, filthy moaning, and porn.
Harry grinned brightly. “Yeah. This will be my last one before I graduate.” His enthusiasm was palpable, and only served to make him more attractive.
“How long does it last?” Jack asked.
“Two weeks.” Harry scrunched his nose up. “I’m a bit nervous because I haven’t worked at this school before, but I’m also looking forward to it. Pracs are generally fun, as long as you put in the work and have a lesson plan. The kids treat you like some minor deity or superhero, this mysterious figure who swoops in with fun activities for a fortnight, making you immediately cooler than their regular teacher.”
Jack nodded along. “I can see that. Harry Townsend, dispenser of knowledge, paper plate masks and safety scissors. ”
“Except to that one kid who cuts hair,” Harry added, eyes sparkling. “You know the one.”
Jack did his best to look offended, but judging by Harry’s broad grin he wasn’t doing a very convincing job of it, so he stuck out his tongue instead, and if that made Harry laugh, well—he had a nice laugh. Jack was allowed to enjoy Harry’s laugh just as a friend, wasn’t he?
Time flew as they spent the rest of the meal talking and joking, with Harry sharing some of the more bizarre things both he and Ambrose had done in the name of Bad Boyfriending. Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard, and he almost managed to forget it wasn’t a date, right until Harry said, almost apologetically, “We’d better get back. I’ve got an assignment I need to work on before tonight’s date with Tracy.”
Right.
Harry only dated for money, and he hadn’t shown any interest in dating Jack.
“More paper plate craft?” Jack asked, in an effort to distract himself from the inexplicable wave of disappointment that had washed over him.
“Excuse me, it’s paper bag monster puppets. There may even be pipe cleaners involved.” Harry grinned. “Wanna help?”
Normal people , Jack reflected, don’t get this excited at an invitation to do preschool crafts. It didn’t stop him from nodding eagerly.
“So,” Harry said later that afternoon, stretching his arms over his head then twisting his shoulders from side to side, “wanna help me choose something to wear for this date?” He unfolded his long limbs and climbed to his feet from where he’d been sitting on the living room floor cross-legged. “It’s good practice for the classroom,” he’d argued when Jack had pointed out that they had a perfectly good table, “and it keeps me limber.”
And hadn’t that been a mental image for Jack to grapple with?
Jack accepted the helping hand Harry offered, doing his best to ignore the way he liked the warm press of skin against his palm far too much, and eased himself to his feet. “You mean you don’t just grab the most hideous thing in your wardrobe?”
Harry gasped. “Rude! I’ll have you know every date has an individually curated look!”
“What does that even mean?”
Harry wrinkled his nose. “What’s clean, mainly. But in this case, I need your opinion. I want only slightly-left-of-normal for this date, and I’m not even sure I know where normal is anymore. Beryl and her bizarre offerings have skewed my sense of fashion.”
“You did seem far too excited by a suit that would send lesser men screaming,” Jack agreed.
Harry flipped a middle finger in Jack’s direction, and Jack flipped one right back. Then Harry led Jack into his room, opening the battered wardrobe that stood in the corner. Looking at its contents, Jack had a moment of Jekyll and Hyde-type dissonance, because while one side of the wardrobe was filled with what Jack presumed were Harry’s prac placement clothes—sensible, tidy polos and shirts and dark, pressed slacks—the other side was a riot of colour and bad fashion decisions. Shirts with flamingos wearing sunglasses fought for space with hot pink skinny jeans and T-shirts with vaguely offensive slogans. Jack wasn’t sure, but he thought he caught a glimpse of a pair of leather booty shorts in there.
“Hey,” Harry said, interrupting his examination of the wardrobe’s contents, “hand me that green shirt, will you?”
Jack grabbed the shirt in question and turned to hand it to Harry and his breath caught, because Harry was standing there shirtless. Jack was treated to the sight of a lean torso with just enough muscle definition to make it sexy, dusky nipples and a smattering of dark chest hair, and when he glanced down, the beginnings of a happy trail that Jack kind of wanted to run his fingertips over to see where it led. How was it that Harry was still single again?
He took a deep, steadying breath, fought the urge to lean in and touch, and desperately thought of his mother saying, “Now, Jack. What would Jesus do?” the way she always had when he’d been younger and faced with some temptation or other.
He suspected that, in this case, Jesus wouldn’t judge him too hard, by virtue of Jack being only human and Harry being far hotter than Jack was prepared for.
“Jack?” Harry’s hand was still extended, waiting, and Jack realised he’d been clutching the shirt to his chest and staring. He shoved the shirt at Harry without a word.
Harry pulled it over his head. It was at least a size too small and stopped two inches short of his jeans, leaving a bare strip of belly skin. Somehow, that was more alluring than his full torso being on show. It was ridiculous, but Jack couldn’t drag his gaze away.
“It’s uh. A bit small.”
Harry glanced down at himself, and his cheeks pinked, as if he’d just become aware of the way he was on display. He tugged at the hem of the shirt, but it remained stubbornly in crop-top territory, and he wrinkled his nose. “If I was Tris, maybe I’d get away with it. But this place has a jacket policy, so maybe not.”
He yanked the rejected shirt over his head, reached past Jack and grabbed another one so vividly orange it made Jack’s eyeballs burn. It had words emblazoned across the front in Comic Sans, and Harry pulled it on instead. “This’ll do, I think.”
Thankfully this one fitted, and Jack nodded his agreement without looking twice, purely because he was having all sorts of conflicting emotions right now relating to Harry and his happy trail, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive further exposure. “It looks tasteless, but not deliberately terrible. Is that what you’re going for?”
“Yep,” Harry agreed cheerfully. He looked down and hummed. “I’ve got some arse-hugging jeans with a big tear in the thigh that’ll go perfectly with this. Not crappy enough to get me barred, but awful enough that they’ll definitely talk about me in the kitchen.”
“Yeah, they’ll definitely talk about you,” Jack said, inching towards the door. If Harry decided to strip out of his jeans while Jack was still there, he wasn’t sure he’d cope. He retreated to his own room and flopped onto his bed with a sigh. He stared at the ceiling and deliberately didn’t think about Harry's lean torso and wide smile and nice laugh. He didn’t emerge until Harry yelled “Bye!” and the front door slammed behind him.
A tiny, treacherous part of Jack’s brain whispered that he was a fool to miss out on the chance to see Harry in arse-hugging jeans. Jack told it to shut the fuck up.
Once Harry left, Jack found himself restless, bored. He flicked through the channels on the TV, trying and failing to find something to hold his interest. In the end he gave up and fished a cider out of the fridge, flopping onto the sagging couch with a sigh.
Tristan wandered out of his room wearing nothing but a towel and holding two coat hangers. “Home on a Saturday night? That’s just sad, Jack. I hope you know that.”
“You’re home,” Jack pointed out.
“Only because I haven’t decided what to wear yet.” He held up what looked like two identical pairs of black leather pants for Jack’s perusal and gave them a tiny shake. “Well?”
Jack squinted, trying to find any difference between them at all. One pair looked like they’d need to be squeezed into using a pound of butter and a shoehorn, and the other pair looked like they’d easily strangle the life out of a man’s balls—which was fine, he guessed. Some people were into that kind of thing. “Those…ones?” he hazarded, pointing at the first pair.
“That’s what I thought!” Tristan said, visibly pleased. He took three steps back towards his room and stopped, turning and facing Jack thoughtfully. “You know, Jackie-boy, going out and picking up seems like a lot of effort. Maybe we could just fuck instead.”
Jack spat his mouthful of cider all over the couch. “What?”
Tristan shrugged. “You look like you’d be a good shag, and God knows you could probably do with it. You've been here a month and haven’t been out once. What do you say?” He waggled his brows. “I’m very good.”
Jack struggled to breathe, and finally managed to gasp out, “No, I’m good, thanks.”
“Oh well. No harm in asking, you know?” Tris wandered towards his room.
“Do you—do you proposition all your roommates?” Jack asked. He wondered if Tris had ever come onto Harry and what Harry’s answer had been, then he had to shove down a sharp stab of jealousy. It’s not any of your business who Harry sleeps with anyway , Jack reminded himself, yet the question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Did you fuck Harry?”
Tristan laughed dismissively, telling Jack all that he needed to know. “ Harry? God no. Harry doesn’t sleep with just anyone. And definitely not me.” He paused. “Actually, Harry doesn’t sleep with literally anyone. He’s ace or demi, I think. I’m not sure which, though. I’ve never asked him. I’m not sure he knows, you know?”
That made a weird kind of sense when Jack thought about it, and a wave of something that might have been relief washed over him. It was immediately followed by a wave of guilt, because his first thought at discovering that Harry might have been ace or demi shouldn’t have been, At least it’s not about me! Because it was entirely possible that Harry was demi or ace and also specifically didn’t want to date Jack. And who could blame him, when Jack had thought something like that?
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Harry’s definitely something.”
“I think Ambrose propositioned him once,” Tristan said, raising his eyebrows in thought. “Or tried to kiss him, or something. And Harry was so clueless he didn’t even realise. And, trust me, you don’t turn down Ambrose.”
“You don’t, huh?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t,” Tristan said. “And neither does anyone with a pulse.” He sighed. “God, he’s so boring now he has a boyfriend. Turned his nose up at the idea of a threesome and everything. Why does everyone get all coupley and dull ?”
“You mean, in love and committed?”
Tristan flung his leather pants over his shoulder. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
He flounced away, his towel dropping to reveal a pert arse.
It was a nice view, but Jack found he wasn’t even slightly tempted. He was too busy thinking about Harry. Which was ridiculous, because Jack was a grown man with friends and a life, and the high point of his weekend shouldn’t have been a day spent buying ugly clothing, eating pasta, and sitting on the living room floor making paper bag monsters. Yet here he was, wondering how many hours until Harry got home from his bad date, and if they could have a Netflix marathon when he got here. He debated whether it was late enough to text Harry and offer.
He checked his watch and decided that yes, it was.
Then, just to get a second opinion, he checked with the paper bag monster sitting beside him. It agreed, too.