Chapter 13 #2
“Aren’t you a big strong rugby player?” I take the pan from him, and gently guide him to the stools next to the breakfast bar. “Sit. So, fried or poached?”
“Ooh, poached, if that’s not too much trouble.”
“It’s not. I prefer poached too.” In fact, I already had my water heating on the stove. “Do you like avocado? I was thinking about doing some kind of smashed avocado and eggs on toast.”
“Yes, love it.” Harry picks up his knife and inspects the stamping on the blade. “Is it true what they say about avocados and dicks?”
I drop an egg. It hits the edge of the counter, cracks, and spills its goop down the front of the cupboard. “What?”
“You’ve heard that before, right? Apparently, clean dick tastes like avocado.”
I straighten up from cleaning the mess to stare right into his eyes.
“Just wondered if it was true. I don’t know because I’ve never sucked a dick, and also I can’t taste that much.”
“Um . . .” I scoop the shell into my palm using a wet cloth. “I mean . . . I guess so. Yeah, kinda. I think it depends on which angle you’re attacking it from, though.”
Harry cocks his head to the side and hums.
“Like, okay, if you’re approaching it from an upside down angle, it doesn’t really matter how clean the dick is, you’re still gonna get two nostrils full of anus.”
And now Harry’s choking on his saliva. I slap him hard between the shoulder blades, which seems to do the trick.
“Good thing I wasn’t drinking right then.”
I have to turn my back to him to cook the eggs and mash the avocado, but when I spare him an over-the-shoulder glance, he’s reading my May edition of Vogue.
Billie Ellish is on the cover, simultaneously looking like a grandmother from the sixties and a toddler playing dress-up.
Also featured on the cover is a giant red-pump-wearing leg. It’s arty, I guess . . .
For a while, the bubbling of the egg water and the soft crinkling of paper are the only sounds to be heard.
“Is this your stepmum’s magazine?” he asks.
I have to check with a backwards glance that he hadn’t shoved aside Vogue in favour of one of Juliette’s horse magazines. “No, that one’s mine.”
I feel his eyes on me, working out whether the magazine does in fact belong to me or if I’m messing around. Today I’m wearing a black Vivienne Westwood kilt and black shirt. Harry must conclude I’m telling the truth. Either that or he just doesn’t comment further on it.
“Do you like her?” he says.
“Juliette?” I place a mug of coffee in front of him. “I only have oat milk. Is that okay?”
Harry nods, pours oat milk into the cup, and stares into the swirling depths with a curious curve to his lips. “Yeah. Do you get on okay with her?”
“Well . . . her favourite drink is a strawberry daiquiri.” I shrug, knowing full well that I didn’t answer Harry’s question, and turn my back to him once again to attend to the eggs. “Juliette only really cares about three things: horses, riding, and her riding trainer. His name is Gabriel.”
“Oh. Does your dad know?” he asks, then sips his coffee. I hear his tongue smacking the roof of his mouth as he gets the full measure of oat milk.
“Honestly, fuck knows. I kind of hope not. She’s figured out this life for her, and yeah .
. . good on her, I suppose. She works for my dad’s company.
Executive of sustainability or some shit like that.
She didn’t have the job before she met him.
They actually met at a big art-buying festival type thing, and then he created that job for her.
That’s kind of what he does with his wives—well, except for my mum—but when he gets bored, he’ll find some way to oust them from his company and it’s on to the next one.
To be honest, I’m waiting for him to create an entirely pointless position for me.
He’ll say it’s because he loves me and wants to see me do well, but we all know it’s about . . . not that.”
Control. That’s the word I couldn’t quite get out.
I’m concentrating on swirling the water for the eggs, so I can’t look at Harry to determine if he’s read the subtext in my words.
I kind of want to tell him more. I want to tell him all about my dad.
About how little I see of the man who created me, how little interest he’s shown in me over the nineteen years of my life.
How, since Mum died, I’ve felt so achingly alone.
But I’ve known Harry for exactly eighteen hours, so I keep my mouth closed.
“Do you wanna hang out today?” Harry asks, and the sheer gratitude I feel at the change of subject brings a welt to my throat.
“Sure, what do you want to do?” I plate up his eggs and drop the dish in front of him.
He drags his knife over the yolk, tearing it and spilling its creamy yellow guts over the china. “These eggs are huge.”
“They’re duck eggs,” I say, plating mine up and sitting opposite him at the breakfast bar. “Do you want to go to the pub for Sunday roast later?”
“The pub we went to last night?” Harry’s speaking with his mouth full, and I’m not even annoyed by it.
“Yeah. Owen Bosley owns it,” I reply.
Harry pulls a face like he found a hair in his food. “Will Mathias Jones be there again?”
“Probably. They’re pretty much an item.”
“No thanks, then,” Harry says matter-of-factly and scoops more egg into his mouth.
“Oh my god, you hate Mathias Jones.” I don’t know why this brings me as much joy as it does. “I need to know everything.”
“I don’t hate Mathias Jones, okay?” He rolls his eyes, but at the same time he’s biting his lip to stop his smile from forming all the way. “He’s just . . . you know, Mathias fucking Jones.”
“I don’t know.” I place my elbows on the table, and rest my chin on my interwoven fingers, presenting Harry with my innocent face. “Please tell me more.” Even though I’m already fairly certain I can make an accurate stab at Harry’s reasoning.
“Shut up!” He kicks me under the breakfast bar. “I don’t hate him . . . that much. It’s just . . . he’s just . . . shit, okay, I’m going to need a few more drinks before I open up.”
“Okay, deal,” I say. “Do you want to go out out or hang around here?”
Harry side-eyes me. “If we go out out, it wouldn’t be a date, would it?”
“Of course not. I don’t do dates. Only hookups.”
A smile creeps over his face. “Sure, let’s go out.”
Harry stares at the last forkful of his food. It’s mostly avocado with a tiny bit of toast left. “You know with my no-smell superpower, I think I’d be great at sucking cock and eating ass.”
Now it’s my turn to choke on my saliva. Oh no, wait, there’s some egg in there too.
Harry runs around the table to slap me on the back, shoving all his rugby-honed muscles into it. I’m shunted forwards off my chair.
“Not content with cutting off my oxygen, now you’re trying to yeet me across my kitchen,” I say, but we’re both laughing.
He sits down again and sips his coffee. “I’d really like another shot at last night, if you’re up for it?
I mean, not up for it because . . . you know .
. . does it even . . .” He shakes his head.
“Anyway, that’s not what I’m trying to ask.
Uh . . . fuck . . . I’d still like to be friends, so if those two things are mutually exclusive, then . . .”
“You can practise on me,” I say before Harry’s face can turn any redder.
“If that’s what you’re getting at? You can practise things with me, though some of them might be a little more difficult.
” There are always plastic dicks if my inability to become sexually aroused presents too much of a problem.
“We’ll move at your pace. You don’t have to start off by railing me into the mattress. We can work up to that if you like.”
He frowns. His face is still beetroot red. “And you’d be okay with that? Even though you’re not like . . . into it?”
“I don’t hate sex, if that’s what you’re thinking is going through my head. I actually kinda like it most of the time, just . . . in a different way to you.”
“What does that mean?” he asks, his expression blank.
“I’ll tell you after you tell me why you hate Mathias Jones.”
“Fine, deal.” Harry smiles. “Will you teach me? How to do gay things?”
I’m grinning now too, I can’t help it. Harry’s so unsettlingly cute. “Finally, all my hard work and study will pay off.”