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“No, usually by now I would have told the whole restaurant that if they heard any beeping not to worry, it’s just the battery on my ankle bracelet running low.”
Jack laughed, throwing his head back, and the warmth of his laugh chased Harry’s nerves away. Harry was struck once again by how attractive Jack was and how lucky he was that he got to date him. So what if he couldn’t go to the wedding? It was just a one-off thing. It wasn’t like Jack was hiding the fact they were dating from anyone, apart from his parents, and there were extenuating circumstances when it came to his parents. Harry turned his hand under Jack’s so they were palm to palm and gave a squeeze, and Jack squeezed back.
It was relaxing, being on a date where Harry got to be himself and where he didn’t have to invent new and interesting ways of offending people for a change. He hoped they got to do it a lot more. Not fancy French places all the time, because he was a broke student and Jack’s apprentice wage wasn’t anything flash, but just. Going out. Being together. Kissing at the bus stop. Not that they’d ever done that, but it seemed like the sort of thing couples did—at least, they did in music videos and home and contents insurance ads.
“What are you thinking about?” Jack asked. “You’re wearing this dumb smile.”
“Kissing at bus stops,” Harry said. “More specifically, kissing you at a bus stop.”
The corner of Jack’s mouth quirked up. “You’re weird, did you know that?”
Harry shrugged. “I’m embracing it.”
Jack’s smile widened. “I’m planning on embracing it too, after dinner. I’ll even kiss you at the bus stop.” His eyes sparkled. “But how about…?”
Harry’s breath caught as Jack leaned over the table. Then, realising Jack couldn’t reach, Harry leaned forward too. The tablecloth skewed. Cutlery rattled. Harry might have almost set fire to his elbow with the candle. But there was a kiss. A first-date kiss in a French restaurant.
When he leaned back again, Harry was blushing. So was Jack.
And there was a middle-aged woman knocking on the window. “Yoo-hoo!”
Harry blinked.
The woman knocked again, pointing and smiling. She was pointing at Jack, then further down the street to where the entrance to the restaurant was, then back at Jack again.
“Oh shit,” Jack said.
Then the woman vanished, only to reappear moments later inside the restaurant.
“Jack!” she exclaimed, bustling between the tables. She was mostly round, with curly grey hair, several different shopping bags, and bright red-rimmed glasses. “Darling, how are you? It’s been ages! I’m just down to do some shopping for the wedding, and you are the last person I thought I’d run into!” She turned the full force of her beam to Harry. “And who is this handsome young man? You know, your mother was saying you weren’t seeing anyone, but I said to Gavin, ‘Oh, Jack’s a good-looking young bloke. There’s no way he’s still single!’ And here you are! On a date! It is a date, isn’t it? Unless you make a habit of kissing all your dinner companions like that!” She laughed.
The fact it was a date obviously hadn’t deterred her from crashing it.
“Um.” Jack cleared his throat. “Auntie Cassie. What—what are you—no, wait, you already said. I… Hello?”
Harry swallowed nervously and wondered if there was protocol for this, if having your date interrupted by a random relative happened often enough to warrant it. For the sake of couples everywhere he hoped not, because frankly it felt awful. Especially the part where Jack looked absolutely horrified, like he’d eaten the snails after all and was fighting the urge to throw up.
“It’s great to see you,” Jack continued, “but don’t let me keep you from your evening.”
Auntie Cassie looked at Harry expectantly, then back at Jack.
Jack stood up. “Let me walk you out.” Then, he said to Harry, “I’ll be five minutes.”
He led his bemused aunt out the door, and Harry sagged back in his seat.
Yeah, the part where Jack looked like he wanted to vomit was bad. But the truly craptacular part? Was where he hadn’t introduced Harry at all.
All of a sudden, he didn’t feel like kissing Jack at the bus stop after dinner.
He didn’t feel like kissing Jack at all.
Chapter Fourteen
Jack had told Harry five minutes, but it probably took twice that before Auntie Cassie went striding off towards her hotel. It took some doing to fob her off, because she was what his dad called ‘an interested soul’—which Jack had always felt was a euphemism for ‘nosy cow’. Dad was way too polite to call anyone that, though, even his own sister. One of the drawbacks of the ingrained pleasantness that went with his job.
Still, Jack eventually got Auntie Cassie on her way, and he even managed to dodge all her questions about Harry by asking about Uncle Gavin’s recent hip surgery, which meant then he had to stand there and listen to her reply, as well as look at all the photos she had of the surgical scars.
Once he’d waved her off he hurried back to the table, hoping like hell Harry was still talking to him, and found him doggedly eating his duck, gaze fixed on his plate. Jack’s own plate sat there cooling, like an accusation.
