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Chapter Ten
Jack nursed his coffee, tried to keep the smile off his face, and failed utterly. They’d fallen asleep on the couch together last night, and despite the crick in his neck when he woke around midnight, it had still been pretty great. He’d roused Harry with a kiss and helped him shuffle up the stairs to his bedroom, and there had been more kisses before they went to their separate rooms. When Jack had woken up this morning, his first thought had been Harry’s agreed to go out with me—and he hadn’t stopped grinning since. He checked his watch as he moved about the kitchen. Harry was starting his prac today and Jack was giving him a ride, since the school Harry had his placement at, St Robert’s, was only a ten-minute drive from the garage Jack worked at, but they had a few minutes. He fished out a travel mug from a gym none of them had ever been to, filled it, turned around at the sound of footsteps and nearly dropped it at the sight of Harry standing there dressed for prac.
“Oh my God, you’re hot teacher!”
Harry’s cheeks went pink, and he gave Jack a shy smile. “You really think it looks okay? This school’s fancier than my last one. Are you sure I don’t need a tie?”
Jack let his gaze rove over Harry, drinking in the sight of him—and it was a hell of a sight. He’d only ever seen Harry in T-shirts and jeans or hideous date clothes, so Harry’s teacher look was something of a shock to his system. Harry was wearing well-fitting black dress pants and a soft grey short-sleeved shirt—he’d tucked it in and everything—and between his casually styled hair, the way the fabric of his sleeves hugged his biceps enticingly, and the way his glasses were ever so slightly askew, he looked—well. It probably wasn’t appropriate to tell someone who was going on kindy teaching prac that they looked fuckable, but Jack definitely wanted to take Harry out behind the bike sheds and fool around after class.
He cleared his throat. “You look good. Really good. And you’ll kill it. The placement, I mean, not the kids.” Harry snorted at that, and Jack set the mug down, stepped closer, and just because he could, settled his hands on Harry’s waist, giving him a soft kiss. “For luck,” he said quietly, and Harry beamed at him.
Jack would have liked to slide his hands round further, cup Harry’s arse and kiss him properly, but they were already close to running late, so he shoved the travel mug at Harry instead and shooed him out the door and into the ute.
Traffic was light so they made good time, but Harry’s knee jiggled all the way to the school. “What if they don’t like me?”
“Who? The kids?”
“I was talking about the teachers.” He chewed his bottom lip. “Oh, shit. What if the kids don’t like me either?”
“You’re amazing,” Jack told him. “Everyone’s going to love you.”
“I should never have quit law.”
Jack laughed. “I’m sorry. God, just…I can’t imagine you as a lawyer.” He really couldn’t. Harry belonged sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by paper plates, colourful pipe cleaners, glue and stickers. “You’re a great teacher.”
Jack pulled up in the street outside the school and gave Harry one more kiss for good luck. If he waited in the ute until Harry was out of sight, swallowed up by the school buildings, that was his business.
Work was good. He joked around with a few of the other guys as they went through their job sheets for the day, and thought a few times about Harry as a lawyer, and how it didn’t compute. He couldn’t imagine Harry in a courtroom any more than he could imagine himself in an office staring at spreadsheets. He hadn’t hated accountancy, but it hadn’t been for him. Maybe one day he’d go back and finish his degree, but the offer of an apprenticeship at Barnes’ Motors had come with an expiry date attached, and Jack had had to make a choice. He didn’t regret it at all, even though he knew his parents were still disappointed. Mum had asked him why he’d gone to uni at all, when he could have started an apprenticeship straight after school if he’d wanted.
Except he hadn’t known what he’d wanted then. He did now.
“The fuck are you smiling about?” Bryan, one of his fellow apprentices, asked. Everything that came out of Bryan’s mouth sounded vaguely hostile, like he was looking for a fight. Jack had spent weeks thinking he’d somehow offended him, until he’d realised that was just the way Bryan was.
“It’s a beautiful morning,” Jack told him with a smile.
Bryan squinted at the gloomy day outside. “No, it’s fucking not.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re getting laid, aren’t you? You sly dog! Hey, you guys! Jack’s got a boyfriend!”
Jack waved his hand to acknowledge the claps and wolf whistles from the rest of the guys.
He thought a bit about Bryan’s assumptions as he worked that day. That he had a boyfriend, and he was getting laid. And that was probably the assumption everyone would make, because that’s how it worked in most relationships. But Harry wasn’t most relationships, and Jack had wanted to date him even when he’d thought he was ace. Maybe Bryan would think that was crazy. Maybe Jack would have thought so too, once upon a time. Because sex was great. Sex was incredible—but it wasn’t everything. And if every time with Harry was like last night—clothes on, grinding like teenagers and finishing himself off in the bathroom—then Jack was still on board for that, because he liked Harry for more than whether or not he’d ever get the chance to be naked and sweaty with him at the same time. He liked spending time with him. He liked kissing, and it didn’t have to go anywhere. He liked cuddling too, and he liked the way that Harry got dimples when he smiled. Be pretty fucking stupid to throw all that away just because there was no guarantee they’d ever get their dicks inside one another.
Mia texted him at lunch, asking for his opinions on empire-line wedding dresses. Jack had none. She also told him that Tate’s cousin was organising a buck’s night, and Tate would be inviting him. Apparently, Tate’s cousin wanted to hire a bus and do a pub crawl, ending somewhere with strippers in the Cross. Tate wanted to go to the Powerhouse Museum’s collection of mid-twentieth century electric keyboards. While neither of those options really appealed to Jack, he hoped Tate won the argument.
Their parents had taken the news of the wedding with enthusiasm—and at least one suspicious glance at her waistline—but Mia had resisted the urge to cave and tell them she was pregnant. It meant their mum had what Mia called plausible deniability and got to enjoy being in full mother-of-the-bride mode without the associated side-eye from her CWA friends. She kept sending Mia pictures of hats.
Jack made appropriate sympathetic sounds as he picked at his lunch and was secretly glad Mia wasn’t trying to rope him into all the wedding planning. He was happy to be a sounding board when she needed one, but he had fewer opinions on table decorations than he did on wedding dresses. His plans didn’t extend any further than turning up in a nice suit, saying nice things, having a nice time then going home again.
He thought briefly about bringing Harry as his plus one, and his heart sank when he realised that was impossible, for so many reasons. Partly because it was Dad’s church, and however open to his sexuality Dad was, there were still a bunch of parishioners who possibly weren’t, blah blah blah, and because their relationship still felt too new to be dragging Harry into meeting the entire extended family at once. But mostly, it was because of the night Harry had upended a glass of water into Dad’s lap at a fancy restaurant. Dad might have been pro-LGBTQ+, but Jack was pretty sure he was violently anti-Harry.
He bit back a sigh. Maybe, if this turned into something, they could tell his parents the truth further down the track. But not yet. It wouldn’t be fair to his parents, or to Mia, to add extra stress right now. Harry would understand—Jack hoped so, anyway.
He flicked between the dress pictures Mia had sent him, trying to spot any discernible difference and failing, and wondering why it even mattered. He was quietly thankful that if he ever got married, it was pretty hard to go wrong picking a suit. He thought briefly of Harry’s peacock-feather embossed nightmare and grinned. God help whoever he decided to inflict that monstrosity on.
His phone pinged just then, and his heart beat faster when he saw it was from Harry.
You were right. They don’t hate me.
Jack felt a rush of affection for his slightly insecure and completely adorable boyfriend. Yeah, they might not be hot and heavy in the bedroom, but in the scheme of things, it didn’t really matter.
