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It wasn’t Jack’s finest hour—he was the first to admit that.
“I’m sorry,” he said, slipping into his chair. “I couldn’t introduce you. If I did, she would have joined us until we were finished eating, and the next thing we would have ended up back at the hotel with Uncle Gavin and gotten stuck there all night while she grilled you. She’s relentless like that.” It wasn’t the whole truth—which was that Jack had panicked—but it wasn’t entirely a lie either.
Harry showed him a faint smile.
“And the whole wedding thing too.” Jack waved his hand. “She would have asked why I wasn’t bringing you, and…well, that’d be a whole mess.”
“Yeah.” Harry dug his fork into his duck. “I know. It’s fine, honestly.”
It definitely wasn’t fine, but Harry was at least willing to pretend it was, and Jack was profoundly grateful for that. Jack wasn’t sure he would have been as forgiving, which just showed, once again, that Harry was a better boyfriend than Jack deserved. Maybe they could still rescue the evening, and this could turn into one of those cute first-date disaster stories people told.
Except Jack had no idea what to say next.
He was saved by their waiter approaching. “Is everything all right with your meal?” he asked, eyeing Jack’s plate.
“Oh no, it’s fine,” Jack assured him, “but could we, um get some drinks to celebrate? It’s our first official date.”
Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Harry straighten in his chair.
“Oh, lovely!” the waiter said warmly. “How about a cocktail? Today’s special is a delicious strawberry?—”
“No!” Jack and Harry exclaimed in unison.
At the waiter’s startled look, Jack said firmly, “My boyfriend is allergic.” When he glanced across the table, Harry’s mouth was pulled up in a smile that looked much more genuine than his earlier one.
Okay, so maybe this was salvageable. Jack wanted it to be salvageable. They’d had a good time at the museum—well, as good a time as anyone could have while looking at old synthesizers—and their meal had started off so well with the kiss. That was the date Jack wanted to get back to, not this one where Harry was clearly uncomfortable.
The waiter brought them two sidecars, and Harry sipped at his carefully. Jack liked the way his expression went from dubiously wrinkle-nosed to pleasantly surprised. He sipped his own drink and raised his eyebrows at Harry. “Good?”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “The orange goes with the duck. That’s a thing, right, duck and orange?”
“It is a thing,” Jack said. “My mum tried to make it once for a Sunday roast. Total disaster. I don’t know where she got the recipe from or if she was winging it, but it involved orange Aeroplane jelly.” He shuddered at the memory. “After that, she stuck to roast lamb.”
“You’re a good cook,” Harry said. “Did your mum teach you?”
Jack breathed easier at the question. This was good. This was what dates were meant to be like. And Harry seemed genuinely interested. Jack guessed he wanted to move past the whole debacle too.
“Actually, a mate of mine convinced me to take Home Ec in high school with him. He said it would be a great way to meet girls. He was right, too.” He let out a soft laugh. “It was about then that I realised that I didn’t want to date them. I did enjoy the cooking, though.”
Harry chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “When I was in high school, I kept wondering if I’d wake up one morning and get it. You know, boys, girls, both, that whole thing. I never did though.” A flush stained his cheeks. “Until you rocked up.”
Jesus. And just like that Jack had to adjust the linen napkin on his lap. He’d been told before that he was hot—he’d also been told that guys loved him, but it was usually in the middle of sex, so he didn’t put too much stock in it—but with Harry it meant so much more. Harry hadn’t even said he was hot, just that, whatever Jack was, he was the one who’d…and Jack didn’t know where to go from there.
Flipped a switch? Something like that.
And he didn’t ever want to be arrogant about that, because it wasn’t some special power or something he had over Harry. It was a gift. It was something Harry was sharing with him, and Jack didn’t know exactly how it worked, but that didn’t matter. Harry was precious, and somehow the universe had decided that they worked together. He didn’t want to fuck it up, but for every time Harry opened up to him and showed him a part of himself that he’d never showed anyone else, there was a night like tonight, when Jack was afraid they were taking too many missteps.
He wanted to do right by Harry in a way that he hadn’t with his past boyfriends. They were only new, but it already felt like they could be more. Jack wanted to introduce Harry to his parents, to take him on dates without having to pretend they weren’t together if family saw them, to tell everyone about the Bad Boyfriend bullshit and get it over with. And once this stupid wedding was done, he could. But right now, he had the awful suspicion that Harry, who hadn’t even had a boyfriend before and had nothing to compare him to, was starting to realise he deserved better. And he was right.
“You know what we should do?” he asked. “After the wedding, we should go away for a weekend. Like, to Byron or something.”
Harry gave him a puzzled smile. “I’m pretty sure neither of us can afford that.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “We should pack a picnic and go to Bondi. We can play spot the tourist.”
Harry grinned. “They’re all tourists at Bondi.”
“It’ll be easy, then.”
