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Jack put his knife and fork down and sighed. “You’re an actor, Harry. You turn up and play a part. It’s not real, so it doesn’t matter to me if you go on fifty fake dates.”
Harry took a moment to parse that. Jack certainly didn’t seem upset, but still. “Then why did Ambrose quit when he and Liam got together?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only met Ambrose once. But didn’t you say he got that stranger danger van gig instead, and he wanted his evenings free for acting jobs?”
Harry thought about that for a moment. “So it’s weird I thought maybe I should quit too? Or that you wouldn’t like me doing it?”
Jack’s eyebrows tugged together. “I… Ambrose is Ambrose, and you’re you. If you want to quit, then quit. But it shouldn’t be because of what I think. Or what you think I think. I’m not jealous that you go on bad dates, Harry.” The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “As long as you save the good ones for me.”
Harry’s skin suddenly felt two sizes too small. He swallowed and blinked his stinging eyes. “Oh, fuck you,” he said, when he tried to say something romantic instead, “how are you so good at this?”
Jack’s smile grew. “At what?”
“At saying the right stuff. At being a boyfriend.”
A faint flush rose on Jack’s cheeks. “Um, I don’t know? I just like you a lot, and I think I’m lucky to have you.”
No. Jack was wrong. He was so fucking wrong. He wasn’t lucky to have Harry—Harry was lucky to have him. Jack made his skin tingle. Jack made him come and didn’t even ask for anything in return. Jack didn’t make fun of him for not knowing what he was doing, either with the dick stuff or the feelings stuff, and Harry was…Harry was falling for him, and it should have felt terrifying, except it just felt right. Like falling was the best feeling in the world.
Why did they call it falling, when really, it was like flying?
“I just…” Harry wrinkled his nose. “Okay, this is super weird, but I promise it’s relevant. I just have to send a text real quick.”
Jack watched him quizzically. “Right now?”
“Right now,” Harry said, before he lost his nerve. He opened up his chat with Mum and Dad. Well, it was mostly Mum, but Dad chimed in occasionally with terrible jokes and things he thought were memes but really weren’t.
Just letting you know. Please don’t be weird. Jack isn’t just my roommate. He’s my boyfriend too.
He hit Send, then turned his phone off.
“What was that?” Jack asked.
“Um, just setting the record straight with my parents,” he said. “About having a boyfriend.”
“Harry, did you just come out over text message?”
Harry’s face heated up. “Maybe. Yes. Is that wrong? I mean, I think they’ll be cool with it. They’re pretty cool about everything. But also, I don’t want to answer any questions like why didn’t I tell them before? How am I supposed to tell them that I didn’t tell them because I didn’t know yet?”
Jack shrugged. “You could just say it like that.”
“Don’t you think…don’t you think it’s stupid to not know?”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “I think you’ve been at uni too long and you think everything’s a test. But really, life’s a learning curve. At the risk of sounding like one of my Dad’s sermons, or one of Mia’s rants, it’s a journey, and sometimes it brings us to places we weren’t expecting, and that’s fine. That’s life. Besides, you’re not stupid. I didn’t know until last year that Beijing and Peking were the same place.”
“I don’t think that’s the same.”
“I’m just saying, if I’d still been at uni, I would have been laughed out of my geopolitics lecture for that. Look! I can tell by your face that you’re judging me for it even now.”
“I’m not!” Harry exclaimed, but he laughed, which he thought was probably Jack’s point.
Jack laughed with him, and looking at his bright smile and the way his eyes sparkled, Harry found himself wanting. And not just physically, although that was entangled through his feelings in a way it would be impossible to unknot, but in an even deeper way. He wanted all of Jack. And he wanted to make Jack happy, just like Jack did so effortlessly for him. Not with any expectation of being repaid in kind, but just because he wanted to keep that smile on his face for as long as possible
He stood and grabbed their plates and dumped them in the sink, then he reached out and tugged at the front of Jack’s shirt, pulling him to his feet. With a bravery fuelled by more than simple lust, he backed Jack up so his arse was perched on the edge of the table, pressed himself close, and kissed him—not soft and sweet, but deep and hungry and needy. Jack took all of three seconds to respond, wrapping his hands around Harry’s back and opening his mouth at the press of Harry’s tongue.
Harry let out a moan as he slipped his tongue inside, and he pushed Jack’s legs apart so he could slot himself into the vee there. He tangled one hand in Jack’s hair the way he knew he liked, tilted his head so their mouths lined up better and slid the other hand between them to cup the front of Jack’s jeans, quietly relieved to find a solid bulge there that reassured him that he couldn’t be fucking this up too badly.
Jack rocked forward into his hand before pulling back from the kiss and letting out a soft groan. “Harry, you don’t have to?—”
