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“Hi, Tristan!” the girl on the counter exclaimed, waving. She had multicoloured hair, lots of piercings, and was wearing a leather bustier.
“Hi, Wei!”
Jack followed him over to the counter, trying not to be intimidated by how large the store was. He also tried not to think about the fact that there was a rack of vibrators right next to Wei. If the vibrators were kept on the front counter, what the hell was out the back?
Wei looked Jack up and down and gave a nod of approval. “You do pick the prettiest boys, Tris.”
“Excuse you, I’m the pretty one. He’s a tradie,” Tristan said. “And anyway, we’re not here for anything sexy.”
Wei blinked slowly, as though she was having trouble processing that sentence. “You’re not?” she asked finally, looking as off-kilter as Jack felt.
“Nope!” Tristan said cheerfully. “We need a giant apology bear because Jack fucked up.”
Jack wished Tristan wasn’t quite so eager to point that out to everyone. Wei though, just nodded. “One dickhead boyfriend special coming up. Follow me out the back.”
She headed towards a mysterious curtained doorway that was tucked between a display of fleshlights and a wall of butt plugs, and Jack followed her. Tristan trailed behind, making admiring noises at the displays. Jack wanted to tell him that he could shop later, but he realised that if he did, Tris would definitely take him up on it, and Jack didn’t really fancy spending the evening listening to Tris extol the virtues of different brands of lube. Not that he had anything against lube—he was one of its biggest fans—but all he really wanted to do right now was buy a bear and go and make up with Harry. He still hadn’t heard anything back, but Tris had assured him that Harry was prone to turtling when he was upset, and not to take it personally.
Jack reminded himself that Harry was new to all this, and he was allowed some time to turtle, especially when Jack was mostly to blame. Mia was right—he could have lied and given Harry a fake name for Mum’s benefit. Hell, he could have told Mum it was new and none of her business, even though if he’d done that he’d be hearing about it until at least Christmas. But mainly, he should have realised that Harry would be hurt by Jack pretending he was nobody at all, and been prepared to suffer Mum’s nagging and guilt trips. Because Harry was worth it.
So it wasn’t fair to blame this whole mess on Harry overreacting. Not when Jack was the one who’d overreacted to his mum’s questions to start with and pretended Harry didn’t matter, when he very much did. He should have done a lot better and put Harry’s feelings above his own.
He only wished he’d figured all that out before he ended up trailing through a sex shop at eleven p.m. with Tristan, and staring at a picture on a box of a blow-up sex doll and thinking of his sister’s rockmelon boobs and wondering if they looked as ridiculous. Okay, so he was taking that one to his grave.
“Okay,” Wei announced as they stepped through into a back room. “Here’s everything!”
Jack blinked around the room in surprise. It looked like Valentine’s Day had crawled back here to die, or possibly spawn. So many hearts. Battalions of stuffed animals. Garish pink bows. Horrible figurines of kittens that said ‘You’re purrfect.’ It was the antithesis of a sex shop.
Wei grinned at the look on his face. “Makes your eyes burn, doesn’t it? I’ll leave you to it. I’m going back out the front to the leather.”
Jack couldn’t blame her.
“Okay,” Tris said, clapping his hands together. “I was here the other week—one of the queens needed a pink babydoll nightie—and I saw the best bear.” He strode towards the end of the room. “Here he is!”
The bear was at least half Tristan’s height. It was brown and soft, and it was wearing glasses and a tie. Holy shit. He was right—it was perfect. It was possibly even Harry in teddy bear form. His glasses were a little bit askew, and Jack resisted the urge to straighten them like he sometimes did with Harry’s. He bit his lip instead, his chest tightening, and nodded.
“Yeah, okay, this was a great idea.”
“I told you. I’m brilliant at relationship stuff. Are you getting anything to go with the bear?”
“Like what?”
Tristan rolled his eyes. “We’re in a sex shop, Jack. Pick something. Harry’s such an innocent puppy that literally anything will rock his little world.”
It was probably stupid, but Jack felt a flare of possessiveness. He wanted to be the only one rocking Harry’s anything. “No,” he said firmly. “We’re sticking with the bear.”
Tris grinned. “Maybe later then. Tell you what, I’ll get you two a gift basket for Christmas.”
“Please don’t.”
Tristan flashed him a smile he didn’t trust for a second, then clapped his hands again. “Okay! Let’s go and pay for this, and then take it to Ambrose’s place. Traffic should be light at this hour, at least!”
Jack took the bear off him, and they headed for the front counter to pay.
Chapter Seventeen
“Harry?”
The knock on the door jolted Harry awake. He blinked for a moment at the unfamiliar ceiling of Ambrose and Liam’s spare room, then croaked out, “Yeah?”
