Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
H arry looked himself up and down in the bathroom mirror of the restaurant where he was having dinner with tonight’s date. He was wearing the bright orange tee that said Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you’re a wanker. It was topped with a ratty grey blazer that looked like it had been sewn from an old army blanket, but technically met the restaurant’s dress code. He’d teamed it up with the arse-hugging jeans—the ones so indecently tight that strangers could take an educated guess as to whether or not he was circumcised—along with lime green sneakers.
The date was off to a great start. Harry was pretty sure Tracy’s dad already wanted to take him out back and strangle him, and they’d only had their starter. But his mind wasn’t on the revolted expression Tracy’s mum had made when Harry had chewed his sea scallops with an open mouth and made gross slurping noises.
It was fixed firmly on Jack.
They’d had Italian for lunch, and it wasn’t anything special, just lunch with his flatmate, but somewhere along the line it had become something else entirely—for Harry, at least. He wasn’t sure when, exactly, things had changed for him, but he suspected it was when Jack had explained to the waitress that Harry was deathly allergic to strawberries, face earnest and concerned and caring. It hadn’t been necessary—Harry was perfectly capable of speaking for himself—but Jack’s insistence on watching out for him had something unfamiliar welling up in him, an unnamed emotion that sat halfway between pride and possessiveness, engulfing him from head to toe.
Harry had friends, and they’d done nice things for him before, but it had never made Harry feel like this . And he’d certainly never been distracted from his meal by the way someone ate, yet out of nowhere, he’d found the sight of Jack’s tongue lapping creamy carbonara sauce from his bottom lip positively indecent. He’d struggled to concentrate as Jack laughed and joked like always, seemingly oblivious to Harry’s turmoil.
Harry liked Jack. He liked him as a roommate and as a friend, but this was something more than that. The thing was, Harry wasn’t sure what, exactly, ‘more’ meant where Jack was concerned. Harry didn’t date, and he’d never understood it when people talked about seeing someone and imagining them naked—except he sort of did , where Jack was concerned. Seeing him shirtless at the op shop had made Harry’s pulse race and his blood thrum in a way it hadn’t ever done before, and he couldn’t seem to shake the vision from his treacherous brain.
It was all very confusing.
He dragged his thoughts back to the present and tried to focus on his date. He’d used Ambrose’s trick and announced loudly he was going to drop a log to make room for mains, and he was pretty sure he’d been gone long enough for Tracy’s parents to slag him off, so it was probably time to get back.
He stared at himself in the mirror one last time. Jack had said he was attractive , and he’d sounded like he meant it. Harry sighed and pushed it to the back of his mind for now, along with everything else to do with Jack. Tracy wasn’t paying him two hundred bucks to daydream about his roommate. She was paying him to be an arsehole. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it well.
He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and strode out back to the restaurant, making sure to pull his jeans out of the crack of his arse as he walked. He ruffled Tracy’s carefully styled hair like she was a kid on his way past her chair and plopped himself down. “Mains here yet?” he asked, even though they obviously weren’t.
“Not yet, sweetness,” Tracy said, fluttering her eyelashes.
Harry let out a groan. “But I’m soooo hungry,” he whined.
“You just ate a scallop starter,” Tracy’s dad—Geoff—pointed out sourly. “And half of Tracy’s.”
Harry shrugged. “I’m always hungry. Maybe I picked up worms somewhere.” He turned to Tracy, plastering a look of innocent concern on his face. “You’re a vet student, babe. Do you think I’ve got worms? My bum does get itchy sometimes.”
Tracy’s eyes sparkled with amusement, but she managed to keep a straight face as she stroked his arm. “I mean, it depends. You wash your hands, right?” Harry made a seesawing motion with one hand.
“Don’t touch him, Tracy!” her mother snapped, a look of alarm on her face as she leaned instinctively back in her chair, away from Harry and his potential infestation.
“Too late!” Harry said. “Any wigglers I’ve got she’s got by now, right, babe? Actually”—he paused, looking thoughtful—“I’m likely to have caught them off her. She’s the one with her fingers up dogs’ bums all day.”
Tracy’s mother gasped.
Harry grinned, leaned over and laid an obnoxious wet kiss on Tracy’s cheek. “I’ll call you my wormy girl.”
“My daughter does not have worms ,” Geoff gritted out through clenched teeth.
“Well, I’ll be sure to check her bum tonight, just to be certain!” Harry said cheerfully and noted with satisfaction that Geoff’s knuckles had turned white around the stem of his wine glass.
“Harry!” Tracy giggled. “Not here!”
“Sorry, baby.” Harry said, and flashed Geoff a bright smile. “I forget I’m meant to have manners. I don’t go to nice places like this much. My dole doesn’t stretch that far, not by the time I pay rent and buy a couple of cartons.”
Geoff muttered something that sounded suspiciously like bludger under his breath.
“Mains are here!” Tracy’s mum chirped in a desperately cheerful tone that Harry had come to know well since starting the Bad Boyfriend gig. It was the one that meant he’d sufficiently horrified the parents, and they were desperate to steer the conversation back into safer waters. It was a sign that Harry was well on the way to having done his job.
They made it through dinner, with Harry blowing his nose into the linen napkin and picking his teeth with his fork. He could feel the disapproval coming off Tracy’s parents in waves, but they were at least nominally polite. Harry got the feeling they were giving him the benefit of the doubt, which was the last thing he wanted, so while they were waiting for dessert, he excused himself again, claiming a case of farty bum, and texted Tracy from the bathroom.
Have they told you to dump me yet?
Not yet. Mum’s saying maybe you’ve had an unfortunate upbringing.
Okay. I’ll give them an extra push, and then you can publicly dump me.
Legend.
Harry tucked his phone back in his pocket—a feat that, in these jeans, almost required contortionist skills—and headed back over to the table. He rested his head on one hand, turned wide eyes to his date, and said, “Hey, babe?” in what he hoped was a wheedling tone.
“Uh huh?”
Harry ran a finger down her bare arm. “I just got a text from Gazza. Since you work at a vet, do you think you could get some ketamine for us? I've always wanted to try it, but that shit’s hard to get hold of.” He waited a beat, watching her parents’ expressions carefully, then added, “You’ve used it, right?”
Tracy’s mum’s face twisted in righteous indignation— bingo —then there was the screech of chair legs on tile and she was towering over him, quivering with barely suppressed rage. “How dare you! My daughter is not a thief —or a drug user!”
Harry closed his eyes against the all-too-familiar sensation of cold liquid hitting his face and running into his ears and down his front as she threw her beer over him.
Tracy squealed and stood as well. “Harry! How could you be so—so— awful!” She might be a vet student, but she obviously nursed a dramatic streak as well, because her breath hitched and her face twisted, and even though he knew she was faking, Harry would have sworn she was about to cry. “Get out!” she shouted, and shoved at him where he still sat dripping beer onto the restaurant floor.
Harry stumbled to his feet. “But babe,” he said plaintively, extending his hands palms-up. “I’ve ordered dessert!”
“Out.” Geoff’s voice was little more than a snarl, and Harry didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled for the exit.
Once outside, he allowed himself a satisfied smile. He was cold and wet, and his shirt clung unpleasantly, but at least whoever Tracy brought home next—in this case, her older brother’s school friend—would be welcomed with open arms, which was the entire point of the evening
He walked around the corner from the restaurant before ordering an Uber—because fuck catching the train in a wet shirt—and his phone pinged while he waited. He opened it, expecting it to be from Tracy checking in, but it was from Jack, and Harry’s heart beat a little faster when he read it.
You back soon? New season of Lucifer just dropped on Netflix.
Harry texted back Hell yes! then wondered why the invitation felt more like a date than the one he’d just been on.
Harry stank like a brewery, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t getting five stars from his Uber driver, but frankly he thought he’d been lucky that Tracy’s mum had only flung her beer in his face and not actually glassed him. Wearing the occasional beverage was an occupational hazard.
“What happened?” Jack asked, flinging the front door open before Harry could even get his key out of his pocket.
“My date’s mum beered me,” Harry said. “And not in that fun way where you go ‘Beer me!’ and someone hands you a beer.” He tugged his soaked shirt away from his chest, grimacing at the wet sound it made. “This way was a lot less nice. But hey, that’s the price of success, I guess.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “You call this a success?”
Harry pushed his damp hair back off his face and shuddered when the movement caused cold, wet fabric to drag against his stomach. “I mean, yeah. Tracy dumped me and her parents hate me. That’s the entire gig.”
“I guess.” Jack sounded dubious, but Harry ignored it. As far as he was concerned, he was doing a public service and he was getting paid for it. Win-win.
Jack stepped aside so that Harry could get in the door and he sighed, grateful to be out of the cool evening breeze. “I’m gonna shower,” he said, heading straight for the bathroom. He peeled out of his wet clothes and showered until the tiny hot water tank was empty, the lack of bathroom mildew still a novelty. Then he threw on an old pair of boardies and a singlet and wandered out to the living room.
Jack was waiting on the couch wearing the singlet and boxers he usually slept in, and he held out a beer. “Figured you’d sooner drink one than wear one,” he said with a grin.
Harry laughed and took it gratefully, settling in next to Jack on the couch. Jack flicked the TV on, the screen filling with images of impossibly pretty people who took part in far-fetched plotlines.
Jack sighed audibly every time Tom Ellis appeared shirtless, then blushed and threw a bottlecap at Harry’s head when he caught him rolling his eyes. “Shut up,” he grumbled. “He’s hot.”
Harry shrugged. He couldn’t see the appeal. Except, no. That wasn’t quite right. He could objectively appreciate that he was looking at a well-proportioned physique. It just didn’t do anything for him personally.
What was doing things to him personally was the way Jack’s boxers had hiked up one thigh where Jack was resting one foot on the couch in an unintentionally obscene sprawl. As much as he tried to concentrate on the screen, Harry found his gaze drawn again and again to the stretch of lean muscle and pale skin with a dusting of fine golden hair. Harry had the weirdest urge to run a finger over the skin, just to see if it felt as good as it looked, and to see what Jack would do—whether he’d pull away or move closer.
And once he’d started looking at Jack’s exposed skin, he couldn’t seem to stop . Jack’s hands, with their permanent grease smudges on the knuckles, were endlessly fascinating, as was that tempting little dip above his collarbone, and the ink that snaked down over his shoulder. Harry wasn’t sure what was going on, but he was torn between a desire to run his hands over Jack’s skin and the urge to throw a blanket over him and remove temptation.
Not that Jack was temptation . Jack was his roommate. Harry was just overtired, and mistaking friendship for attraction or something like it. Right?
Finally, Harry couldn’t take the jumble of emotions anymore. “I’m gonna head to bed,” he said, and it was amazing how normal his voice sounded. “See you tomorrow.”
“Night,” Jack said, and flapped a hand casually at Harry. A broad, slightly grimy hand, with thick fingers and short buffed nails, that would feel so good against his skin?—
Harry felt his cheeks heat at the idea of it and bolted up the stairs before Jack noticed.
It wasn’t unusual for Harry to feel a little bit wired after a date. It was stressful, putting on an act, and that wasn’t even including the added adrenaline rush of constantly being aware he might get punched in the face. So sometimes it took him a while to wind down afterwards. Except tonight, as he lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling, it wasn’t his date and her horrified family his thoughts kept skipping back to—it was Jack, with his tan arms, his pale back and the lines of ink that traced his skin.
He liked Jack. He liked him a lot, but that didn’t mean he should suddenly be thinking of his tats, or the way the tendons in his wrist corded when he handed Harry a cup of tea in the mornings, or how sometimes the track pants he slept in were loose enough that they looked like the only thing stopping them from slipping right off his trim hips was the power of positive thinking. He liked Jack, but he liked lots of people. He liked Tris, most of the time, and Ambrose, and Liam, and Muriel, who he shared a few classes with, and whose name wasn’t really Muriel, but Mireille. He’d been calling her Muriel since their first year at uni because of a running joke he couldn’t even remember now. The point was, Harry liked a lot of people and a lot of people liked him, but that didn’t usually lead to him thinking about their bodies, and what they looked like naked, and what they might feel like if he touched them.
He stared up at his bedroom ceiling, listening to the creak of footsteps on the stairs and imagining what might happen if they continued on and?—
But Jack went into his room instead. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?
Harry chewed the inside of his mouth for a moment. He felt weird, like there were Pop Rocks in his bloodstream, fizzing and crackling away. He wasn’t even aware that he was tracing his fingers along his abdomen until they slipped under the elastic of his sleep pants and grazed through his pubes.
He jolted, then froze .
His dick was getting hard and that was…weird.
Okay, so that was a thing dicks generally did. Just…just not his . Not often, anyway. He’d always thought that there was something wrong with him, because other guys he went to high school with had been crippled by anxiety about hoisting the flag at the wrong time—or, as he understood it, whenever the breeze changed—but Harry hadn’t been like that. He’d had a few wet dreams that necessitated washing his own sheets in the morning, but they hadn’t been regular. He’d wanked on occasion too, but it had felt sort of… messy , and, on a purely cost-to-benefit ratio, not really worth the hassle.
It wasn’t until his first O Week at uni that he’d figured it out, and that was only because a girl with rainbow-coloured hair had shoved a plastic bag of stuff at him that had turned out to be condoms and lube and dental dams and a shitload of brochures on sexual health.
Oh , Harry had thought later as he’d read through the pamphlets. Asexual .
And it had fitted, right up until now, when he had his hand down his pants and was thinking about sucking Jack’s nipples.
Wait—he was thinking what?
Apparently both his brain and his dick were getting ahead of him.
Harry drew a deep breath and pulled his hand back out of his pyjama pants. His dick didn’t like that much at all. Harry licked his hand and shoved it back down there, curling his fingers around his dick and just holding it. Getting to know it again, like an acquaintance he hadn’t met in a while. Which was dumb, because he’d been holding this very same dick in his hand not thirty minutes ago when he’d taken a piss, but it sure as hell hadn’t felt like this then. It was hard, or at least well on its way. Harry gripped it, bit his lower lip, and went with it.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to get into a rhythm, unsure if he wanted to draw this out or get it over with as quickly as possible. He was aware he was breathing heavily already, that the springs in his mattress squeaked on every upstroke, and that this would be a hell of a lot less mortifying somewhere quieter, and a hell of a lot smoother with actual lube. But at the same time, he felt way too good to even think about stopping. Those Pop Rocks that had been in his bloodstream a little while ago had definitely migrated to his balls.
He tilted his head back as he worked his dick. The elastic of his sleep pants was digging into his wrist, and for a second his dick was too dry and he wondered if he needed more spit. But then it was suddenly leaking, and it felt nice, so he let his eyes fall closed as he imagined Jack. Imagined touching him, maybe even kissing him. Then he imagined Jack reaching out to touch him and?—
Oh God. It was all over in an explosion of wetness.
Harry slumped back down onto his mattress, tingling all over, his limbs heavy. He was sated, but at the same time, he felt slightly cheated. He hadn’t even got to the part of the fantasy where Jack touched him, and he’d gone off like a frog in a sock. Also, he thought as he wiped his hand on his sheet with a grimace, if this was going to be a thing he did now, he really needed to invest in some wet wipes or something.
But that, he thought as he drifted off to sleep—along with a crisis over his sexuality—sounded like a problem for Future Harry.