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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.
Chapter Seven
Harry 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.
